Letter to a fellow blogger

I wrote this the other day to a relatively new blogger and thought others might get something out of it.






Dear fellow blogger,

I can tell you are interested in driving up traffic to your blog, which is great. You're a good writer and your traffic will increase as you keep blogging (daily, if possible). The other things you can do are:

Leave comments all over the place. Find a nice long blogroll (mine is over there but there are others) start going down it and leave a comment everywhere you see something you like. My blog went from zero to 70 hits a day from just doing that and then I was on my way.

And don't leave a "visit my blog" comment. They'll visit anyway.

Only leave on-topic comments or sincere compliments. Nobody likes trolls or self-pimping***. Make the compliment TRUE, and specific where possible. Only praise posts you really do like. And link to them where possible, too.

We're all human, and we bloggers are more narcissistic than even the average American. And most of us work very hard on our blogs with little thanks. Every comment matters.

I have personal likes and dislikes but if I follow the rule of "only say something if it's nice" I really like Shakespeare's Sister and Crooks and Liars. The other big blogs I can take or leave, and I leave'em. Those two have nice people attached to them: people who care about small blogs, the blogosphere, and are not puffed up with their own importance. We all need to emulate those qualities. Don't forget it.

Do you have comment moderation at your site? Get rid of it, for the time being, until somebody bothers you. As a Blogger user, I've found word verification works very well to keep out the spam. Better at the beginning not to put too many barriers between you and commenters. You can always hand-delete those comments you don't like, if you're lucky enough to have that many comments.

Also check out this post from Enigmatic Paradox, as well as Brainshrub's excellent series on tips for political bloggers.

Keep blogging and keep the faith.

***Big exception: DO pimp your blog when Shakespeare's Sister has a blogwhoring day. She does it about once a week and again, you just leave a comment there. Update: Oops, she did it today.