There are lots of ways to drive traffic to your small business ecommerce site: SEO, social networking through Twitter and Facebook and using Google Adwords -- to name a few. Another method to add to your ecommerce marketing arsenal includes courting influential bloggers who write about your industry or products. But you can’t just barge in and say, "Hey, write good things about me and my ecommerce site." That would be rude and counterproductive. Instead, try these 5 steps to cultivate a good relationship with a blogger. Small Business Computing has the details.

For the launch of his latest book Linchpin, best-selling author and marketing wiz Seth Godin completely bypassed traditional media outlets. Instead, he focused his marketing strategy on bloggers and other "online denizens," who are "increasing in influence daily."

Godin's marketing strategy might not be for everyone, but it would be hard to argue his point about the blogosphere's growing importance. So when you're in small business marketing mode, don't forget blogger outreach -- a concerted effort to cultivate relationships with bloggers who write about your specific industry or area of expertise.

Here are five steps small businesses can take to get started with blogger outreach.

Read the complete how to cultivate bloggers article

Do you have a comment or question about this article or other e-commerce topics in general? Speak out in the SmallBusinessComputing.com E-Commerce Forum. Join the discussion today!