In the last few weeks, I’ve had several fellow bloggers email me regarding not being able get much activity on their blogs. I know, it’s not like I have 200 comments per post like Problogger or ShoeMoney but considering that this blog still has that new car smell and it’s not my sole project right now, I think I’m doing OK. In some ways, I wish blogging was feasible when I was in high school or college. I definitely had way too much time on my hands back then.
Anyway, it’s pretty easy to get noticed if you can afford pay for advertising but what’s the easiest way to gain traction for free? As the post title states, simply figure out what you want out of your blog and do it for others first. Below is an easy step-by-step approach.
- Find other blogs in your niche. Aim for blogs that are slightly more mature than yours. For example, if you have a Google PR1, look for PR2 blogs; or if you have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000, find 500k-800k ranked blogs. These sites will you give you a great chance of partnering because those bloggers are in a similar situation as you.
- Leave constructive comments on their posts. If possible, do it daily. Just add the blogs to a folder and Open All in Tab once a day. I actually don’t have much time to do step 1 so guess what, many of the blogs I visit daily are the ones who made a comment on my site first! Some of these bloggers left a single comment and actually got ten comments in return from me.
- Tweet their posts. This takes less time than commenting and this actually helps both of you anyway. Many tweeters have a good idea of who’s tweeting their posts and will return the favor.
- After a few weeks of commenting, add the reciprocating bloggers’ site to your blogroll. Then email them to see if they’d do the same for you.
Pretty easy right? I also suggest you sign up for their RSS feeds and click on the updates on comments check box if you want to keep up with what’s happening on their blogs.
Those of you who want to take it a step further, go ahead and perform a plug site review or offer to write guest post. Those take a little more time but if you’ve built a relationship with these bloggers, they’re a great way to take it to the next level.
Of course, all this hinges on that fact that you are not a whack-job. I can’t put folks on my blogroll who write like they’ve never finished first grade, are totally uninteresting, or act like people I wouldn’t care for. I’m not a blog snob but just like in real life, the company you keep says a lot about you (and Google PageRank agrees).
At the end of the day, don’t worry about keeping score. Often times, you’ll do more than you’ll get in return and that’s perfectly fine. Your blog will eventually surpass half of these blogs and will need new “partners” in a month or so anyway. Just rinse and repeat.