visitBuild up a Network of Bloggers
- December 18th, 2008
When I first started out blogging, I was ever consumed with posting new and interesting articles on my sites. I used to check my website every other second to see if I had a visitor, or even better, a commenter! I had heard about developing relationships with others, but was naive to the significant role this actually plays in the success and readership of my blog.
Now that I’m a more seasoned (lol, or just a little less green) blogger, I can reflect back on that experience and understand what was happening. I was visiting other sites all day, but never leaving comments or adding to the value of others blogs. No wonder no one wanted to visit my site! There was nothing attracting them to my site or enticing them to learn more about me and my blog.
You know what they say, “hindsight is 20/20″. This is so true in relation to building up my blog. Luckily, all it took was experiencing a person who had come to my blog, left a thought-provoking comment, and it clicked! The key to my quest of directing traffic to my blog… commenting on others sites! I was interested in my commenters site because they had added content and value-add to mine. I wanted to learn more about them. What do they blog about? How long have they been blogging? Do we have similar interests?
Now, with a few months under my belt as a blogger, I can confidently say that I’m well on my way to building up my network of bloggers. This by no means implies that I am done networking with my peers; it is an ongoing process, and will never really be a task that I can completely “check off” my to do list.
How have I built up this network might you ask? I’ve been able to network with others through visiting their sites regularly, commenting to add value to their site and readership, and assisting them in their daily endeavors.
Looking back, I’m very appreciative that this mistake didn’t take me long to realize and I was easily able to correct it before I lost hope in my blog or my skills as a writer.
Think back to your first month or 2 blogging… how did you attempt to drive traffic to your blog? what would you have done differently? Would you agree that having a network of “like-minded” bloggers is key?
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This is definitely true!! I have about 20 blogs on my RSS list that I will always do my best to comment on daily. All of them have value, and I can even offer some of their insight to my own readers in the form of link love. As John Chow says, you have to give before you can recieve! Wise words from a veteran blogger
I made the mistake of not adding value to posts when I commented at first. I used to just think the comments section was for saying thank you, but I’ve finally learned you can add something of value in here, don’t get me wrong, on topics that I have no knowledge in , I will just say thanks, purley because I’ve learned something new, but I try to leave something of value
Hi.
To be honest my first month or two of blogging, I did not look at what other blogs were writing about. All I cared about was my own content and deciding what direction I wanted to take my blog in as far as what I really wanted to talk about, and a year later, I do not talk about as many subjects as I used to but I need to whittle it down further.
More than a year later,I’m up to four blogs now and I try to comment when I’m able, but I mostly focus on my one blog which is Political and I try to comment on other Political blogs and message boards.
For my first 2 months, I did not comment on other blogs. Instead I wasted time on Traffic Exchanges which braught traffic to my blog but no visitors.
Then I realised the value of relationships and started building my network. Now, after 8 months, these Contacts paid off and now, I am a part of team blog where my team-mates are those friends!
Hey Rachel… Yes! I totally agree about the importance of building a network of bloggers. How else can you have success, both as a writer and a valued contributor to the blogging community? My mistake earlier on was believing my own hype… in a very innocent way. I just thought, I’ll write it and they’ll come and that, by no means, was the reality. The reality was that I wrote, in my opinion, good content, without a reader in sight. Now, I’ve learned that with most everything, you can’t do it by yourself… You need others to make you better. Thanks for your thought-provoking post.
Looking back I laugh. To get traffic I spent some good dollars on adwords. For a greenhorn, that was a waste of money. Still don’t think it is a good idea just for generic blog traffic, the adwords mindset is all wrong. People are conditioned that an adwords click will solve a single issue in an immediate manner (buy Acai Berry and lose weight). They are not conditioned to come in, browse, and BTW- keep coming back.
Would I agree that a group of like-minded bloggers is key? No. The MMO community is unique in that we all are trying to do the same thing with a blog. We are more like a car club and our blogs are our cars. We get together to show off our cars, trade tips, and admire each other. So, in MMO like-minded bloggers are necessary, but any other field- no. In any other arena, having fellow bloggers would be competition stealing viewers. If I had a macrame blog, would I want to blogroll ten other macrame blogs? Probably not, I want to keep people at my blog.
This is so true, I recenly just started blogging, and my interest stymed from becoming an avid blog reader so I quickly realized the importance of networking and community. Blogging is more than writing, it’s social networking on larger scale.
Well said. I am going to add you at facebook……lol.
I definitely agree on the importance of networking; however like BusinessX I’m wondering whether there is more value in networking with bloggers of exactly the same niche or within the same category, but slightly different niches. I see the full merit behind liasing with same topic bloggers to learn off from each other, but in terms of visitors it seems like we are trying to bite off the same pie if we are just linking up with the same circle.