Jul
30
The following guest post has been submitted by Steven Snell from Vandelay Website Design.
What does every successful blogger have in common? They are all part of strong networks with other successful bloggers. Blogging is very community and network based and because of this you should make it a priority to grow your network. As your network grows, so will the level of your success.
How Do Bloggers Benefit From Their Network?
- Links – Bloggers link to other bloggers that they know and like. The more contacts you have, the more links your are likely to receive. Links will bring click-through traffic and improved search engine rankings.
- Opportunities for promotion – Getting some attention for your blog or for a new venture is much easier when you know influential people who can give you a hand. (And you can help others in the same situation).
- Learning opportunities – If you are networked with bloggers who have experience and knowledge, you may be able to learn something from them.
- Content for your blog – Interviews with experts are a common and popular type of blog post. If you have the connections and interview with the right blogger can give you great exposure.
How Can I Grow My Network?
- Leave intelligent comments on other blogs – Most bloggers read the comments left on their blog posts, and many times they’ll click-through to the site of the person leaving the comment. Provide thought-provoking or informative feedback and you’ll stand out. Try to focus on a few specific blogs and leave comments regularly. They’ll start to get used to seeing your name and they’ll become more familiar with you.
- Respond to comments left on your site – Many of the comments left on your blog are submitted by other bloggers. Respond to their questions and reply to their comments.
- Forums – There are several forums for bloggers, including Authority Blogger. Forums are a good place to meet other bloggers and get to know a little bit about each other. Focus on answering people’s questions and providing help to others. This way you’ll be seen as someone that others would like to have in their network.
- Communities – Blog community sites like MyBlogLog and Bumpzee are also great places to meet other bloggers. You can join a community that has a number of other members that blog on a similar subject as your blog. You can even start a community if you want.
- Guest post – Providing other bloggers with quality content for their blog is always a great way to build blogging relationships. You certainly will quickly become part of the blogger’s network if you are providing content that helps their blog.
- Encourage interaction on your blog – Networking involves a lot of interaction. Pose questions in your posts or ask for your readers’ feedback. Make an effort to get involved with those who are already reading your posts.
- Focus on positives not negatives – You will be much more likely to attract others to your network if you are generally positive rather than negative. Negativity will turn people away and make it harder to grow your network or community.
- Thank others when they link to you – You might be surprised at how much a simple thank you is appreciated. When I receive a thank you from another blogger I always keep them in mind for the future, and I’m much more likely to link to them again.
- Link to others – One of the best ways to get others to notice you is to link to their blog. When they see an incoming link or when they see statistics on the traffic they’re getting from your site, they are likely to check you out.
- Be willing to help others – In general, be willing to help other bloggers when you have the opportunity. If you do, they will repay the favor and you’ll both benefit.
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This is a guest post by Steven Snell. Mr. Snell designs websites and maintains a blog for Vandelay Website Design. You can read more of his writing and see his portfolio at www.vandelaydesign.com.
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Thanks, this information is very good for promote my blog.Regards
Good Read. Will come in handy in the next few weeks here!
Darin
Great tips and I agree with them 100%. This should be especially useful to beginners, I know it would’ve helped me a lot in the beginning.
Very good advice. Not your run of the mill “how to get more traffic” post.
One thing I would add to your list is to remind your readers to subscribe to your RSS feed.
BeachBum
Very good suggestion… thanks BeachBum!
This post is one that beginning bloggers should read twice and implement as much as possible. I have notice a significant increase in traffic and communication from bloggers by just being active in 5-6 specific communities.
Hey Tyson, love the pic! I’m a native!
I do a lot of this already and hope it’s working to build my blog as well as I feel like it is. But I think I might be a little biased in my opinion of my own site, so time will tell of course, lol….
I have found that Stumble Upon is a great tool for bringing traffic, the content is what keeps it.
Oh, and don’t forget if you participate in Stumble, to Stumble other bloggers, if it’s good stuff, share it! At least that’s my philosophy.
Thats a good philosophy, if only everyone thought like that…
As evidence that this article speaks truth – here is a real like example.
Since sabrina said hello to me and that she is a native Texan, here comment caught my eye. So, I went to her sight to see what it was about and I found something that I am about to do a post on, actually I am going another way with my thoughts regarding something and I hope Sabrina is kind enough to do some Q&A with me for my post.
Funny how commenting and participating on other blogs gets you connected.
Sabrina – are you up for a few questions? If so I will send you the details.
Bring it on! I’m game
Its even funnier because with this comment you sparked my interest in checking out your’s and sabrina’s blogs
great points, some I knew already and some are all new…..thank you
Thanks for all of the feedback on this post. It’s great to see some of the points being proven already by Tyson and Sabrina. And just by leaving good comments you got at least one new visitor – I think I visited everyone’s site, subscribed to one feed and left one comment.
[...] has a nice article on how to expand your blogging network. I agree with the fact that we need to “Leave intelligent comments on other blogs”. [...]
A very nice article indeed. A lot to learn from here. I especially liked the fact that to build a network one needs to look at adding comments on other blogs. A true fact but something that is not looked into so much by all bloggers.
Nice Article
I would just like to highlight one point for newbies
“Link to others – One of the best ways to get others to notice you is to link to their blog. When they see an incoming link or when they see statistics on the traffic they’re getting from your site, they are likely to check you out.”
In some cases if you link to “big” blogs they might not thank or reply
You can try linking to few growing blogs and some of them I assure will thank or add as their blog roll
I agree. I linkbaited a few big blogs and even the medium blogs and got a few non-replies.
However, it just does depend on the person though. I know a few small bloggers who even after a trackback and I send tons of traffic their way, they don’t appreciate it.
That happened to me a few times before. They actually didn’t appreciate it and told me to “buzz off”. I don’t get some people.
Some people just consider a link or thank from their blog invaluable as if their blog is a major but it isn’t so for everyone.
Ironically David has got decent traffic and RSS readers still he links to active members of this blog
Wow, really? Are you sure they weren’t newbies? I don’t know any webmaster who would say no to receiving a free legitimate non linkfarm link.
That is a good point, sometimes linking to others will help you not only get their attention but you may even become friends with them and they may even link to you back sometime
I’d love to know how Steve Snell’s stats do after posting here. Being on the “top commenters list” for a while has made some of the people here come to my blog and comment. It certainly all helps
I’d love to see Steve Sneel’s stats too.
I’ve been off and on the Top Commentators for a few weeks. 
Same here, but the last two fridays I was off the list just by 1 post which didn’t get me on the friday linklove, that sucked. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll be on it though.
As for people clicking those links, I know that they do. I have received traffic from here before too (not the biggest number, but traffic is traffic). I also occasionally click on some of the top commentators links on sites.
Ashwini,
That’s a great point that I should have mentioned in the article. I try to make sure I send some links to smaller blogs as well as just the most popular ones. I think the results from linking out will be much stronger that way. Plus, it’s nice to be able to helps someone out a little bit. Larger blogs probably won’t even notice most links.
Rhys and Grace,
What stats are you interested in? Accoring to Google Analytics I’ve had 5 visitors from PureBlogging and yesterday (the day this was posted) 659 total. That’s down a little bit from previous days, not a lot though.
Steven
Sorry to hear that Steven… this post got a lot of StumbleUpon traffic yesterday so that seems a little odd but traffic and click-throughs have been down across the board here the last week. I’m hoping it gets better.
David,
I’m really happy with the response from this post, so contributing here has been a good experience from my opinion. The link to my site is valuable and traffic will come with time.
Nice ideas, I wrote a post on a similar topic over at the URL I entered.
Thanks for the link Matt… here it is just anyone missed it.
http://bloggingfingers.com/blogging-ideas/7-top-ways-to-make-online-contacts/
Responding to comments is so key and I am eager to find a threaded comments plugin I can actually get to run on my blog. I have tried out a couple and have had no luck,.
Awesome post! I’ve read many others talking about methods of growing blog audience, but I really think yours captures a robust variety of ideas. I’m going to do a post and link over to yours!
[...] Source of Traffic on BloggingExpertise Turning a Failed Post into a Success on Daily Blog Tips Expanding Your Blogging Network on PureBlogging 9 Ways to Reach New Audiences with Your Articles on [...]
Being active in actual communities is something I still need to work on. Bet it would make a difference. Thanks for writing a good article on traffic building!
That is a good one, I try and reply to everyone that leaves a comment on my site. I’ve left many comments on sites that I never received any reply to. However, when I do receive a reply, I almost always visit the site again, just because of the reply. Great article, by the way!
[...] week I wrote a post here at PureBlogging about how expanding your network can benefit your blog. We looked at some of the ways you can get to know other bloggers and build [...]
I truly believe that the best way of networking is to leave insightful comments on blogs of interest.
It is also important, as you mention, to thank others who link to you as well as recognising those who comment – nothing turns me off a blog more than an author who doesn’t respond to comments!
- Martin Reed
These are great tips! Most of them I’ve heard of before, but some of them I do need to try out..