I decided about a week ago to start a politics blog (which I won’t shill here) and a brief scan made it seem like Blogger/Blogspot seemed to be the standard, so I started it up there.
In that brief time since, though, I’ve discovered that there’s no way to know how many visits you’ve gotten, and people can’t sign up to get email notifications of new posts. Perhaps this is the standard, but it seems bizarre. Is one of the competitors better for this, or does it not matter because that’s the standard and email is passé?
Also, having started a blog, I’d rather not be uncool and hire a spambot to go around announcing it, but at the same time I’m not sure I should just wait for people doing random searches to eventually find it. How does one kick off a non-partisan politics blog?
Blogger isn’t a bad place to start, especially because it is free. Wordpress is also a good alternative place to start. The best way I know to get information about your viewers is to sign up for Google Analytics, which if I remember right, is also free.
To be honest, I think the best way to promote is organically. Writing about politics is something that many people would be interested in, maybe suggest checking out the blog to a few friends and let it spread through word-of-mouth. Blogging is a community thing, so check out some other blogs and comment, then link back to yours. Word of mouth can also spread from this, but it is important that your comments be relevant, as the readers of blogs you comment on also read your comments.
Yeah blogger.comblogspot.com is a good bet. If you want to own your brand then make your own wordpress site. You can have your own domain relay to your blogspot account. blogger and blogspot are the same entity.
The way you promote is by linking to arguments you’ve made in other message forums. Make sure people know you have a presence. Follow other people’s blogs and they will follow yours. Use specific keywords that people will pickup on their RSS feeds.
Mainly the best way to drive traffic is by talking to people on their blogs and engaging in a dialogue.