Monday, September 14, 2009

How Do I Make My Blog Big?

Here's the question:

"...I'm not all that sure about proper netiquette in advertising a blog. Would it just cheap and lazy of me to go on other people's blogs and give a plug for my own blog? Is it better to email bloggers like yourself and see who's interested in sharing my blog with others? Or is the more etiquettely [sic] correct thing to do just to let it grow by word-of-mouth alone?"


Blogging is a time-consuming endeavor where you are either getting post ideas everywhere you go or you hit a literary wall where nothing is coming out and the blog becomes a burden. This happens to everyone. I think Brian said it best on a facebook comment on one of my notes/posts:

The thing about getting big----or getting medium, in my case---is that with a larger readership comes greater pressure to keep it up. Three posts a week becomes a post a day becomes a post for breakfast, lunch, dinner, becomes . . . and so on.

Luckily, the style of my blog doesn't require that much creativity. People ask questions and I answer them. Sometimes, there's a huge blitz of unique and interesting emails and other times, I get a handful of questions that I can answer easily or refer them to a previous post.

A couple weeks ago, GI Korea laid out what it takes to be a successful blogger and I think it's the best advice I've seen on the topic. He really nailed it on the head. Read it because I can't add much to it.

The questioner provided his blog address to me and it looks like he found a niche for himself, so hopefully he'll keep it going and stick to that theme. Although he hasn't posted more than a couple times and it's been about three weeks since his last one, check it out for yourself: Smelly Billa.

2 comments:

  1. I mean if you're talking about getting higher place on google searches, the trick is to get your link on as many site as possible. When people email me requesting to post their link on my site, I generally will post it, and they generally post my link on their site. It works out for everyone. When you find sites that you like, you should email or leave a comment asking for a link exchange. It's the most polite way of going about it, and both parties benefit.

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  2. One site I would suggest as a resource in making one's blog "bigger and better" is skelliewag. It hasn't been updated in a bit, but it's well worth checking out some of the categories marked on the sidebar -- "blogging", "content", "personal branding", and "usability and design".

    James Turnbull from The Grand Narrative has mentioned using that site in at least one of his comments ...

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