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?