Getting Connected through Blogs
What have blogs done for people over the past decade or so? To fire off a quick list, I would have to say that they have given people opportunities, helped create and define a separation between mainstream media and user-created content, and have made it that much easier to express your interests with others through personal blogging. Applying the final idea to your blog, what other ways could you become personal?
When you started your blog, you probably didn’t think much about search engine ranking (unless it isn’t your first blog) or how search engines would (nearly) automatically find your site should other sites link to it. In a sense, you might be wishing for people to visit your blog, although you don’t realize the potential of starting your first one.
Let’s Look at the Potential through Connectivity
For the most part, blogs are already person. The main reason that people start a blog is not to make money, but it is a long-term goal to monetize their sites. Not only are you placing your name on the Internet when you do this, but you may attract people who might not have seen you in years – renewing a relationship through blogs.
Before you get to asking, “How will people find my blog if I don’t place my name anywhere on my site?” Well, there is a much lesser chance, so you don’t necessarily have to worry about this occurring if you don’t have your name attached to every post. On the other hand, any minor details could give your identity away.
Blogs have become a hub for sharing thoughts, so creating a friendship with other readers can dramatically help you improve the site and how you share thoughts in upcoming posts, inspiring you to create posts tailored to others’ interests.
Benefits of Being More Personal
While some believe that blogs have continued down a path of being less personal than they once were, more websites have converted to a format allowing open discussion. Not only are you able to communicate with others through email, comments, and elsewhere, it may rekindle friendships with other people you once had.
In addition:
- Giving your blog a more personal touch has been proven to increase the readership and comment rates of your blog.
- Providing your readers an outlet to share their thoughts can eliminate the need to read hundreds, if not thousands of daily emails, which would be sent without the comment functionality.
- Websites aren’t really blogs without the comment and interactivity functionality that blogs present.
Conclusion
The best advice that you should take form this is that even though you might think only a few people read your blog, they could bring ideas to the table that change the way you carry out your blog from that point forward – not in any negative way, either. You have to expect that this won’t happen on every blog, but it definitely possible as your blog grows in size.
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I enjoy blogging and I’m sure many others do as well. Blogs will always be changing with the times. You are correct that most blogs start off not worrying about search engines, I never worried about it until I started to post more frequently.
I think a blog evolves like us humans do, they start with baby steps and then progress in time.
The evolution process is helped along by visiting and commenting on many blogs. That is the way to build connections.
Agreed. For me, one of the best things about blogging is being able to connect with other people via their blogs, making different relationships to help us both, as well as meeting some people along the way
very true.. commenting is the best way to get connected with other bloggers…
It really is sad how sometimes people are over looked in the internet business. With out every cog in a clock it won’t work. People are so used to getting things for free, that when someone tries to monetize their site, they get shut down.
Everyone in the business needs to look to help people out in these hard times.
People have a million different reason for starting a blog for themselves. One of the most popular reasons is to make money of them either through direct or indirect means.
yea,for most bloggers monetizing is their number one priority to start a blog….and free blog hosters like blogger.com helps them to try their hand on blogging without spending anything…
Yes, but blogger is also nowhere near as good as spending $10 on setting up your own blog. If you can’t afford $10, you should REALLY get a better paying job
if you can’t spend you can’t earn… thats how it goes…
You need to spend money to make money, it how the world goes around!
if you start a blog for making money this mean that you will build this blog only for making money from your visitors , so you maybe fail if you fail in promoting your blog well , but if you make a blog for blogging and then you think about make a good revenue from it , you will succeed .
I agree….and its on of the main reason for many blogs to fail…
i myself failed because of this hunger for money from my first blog.. but it taught me mnay things.. from that day onwards i have blogged about things that interests me… i don’t blog for money anymore… n its paying off… i have 2 websites now… with gud pageranks…
Personally I’ve found that a lot of bloggers that set their blog up purely to make money end up earning less than those who just set their blogs up to network with other people and other means.
I entirely agree with you. The gradual growth of the number of people who regularly visit your blog and comment or not regularly builds a mini community as it were. This is all the good for the long term health of the blog.
Bloggers should not be afraid to receive comments that disagree with their own views. Everybody has their opinion and should be able to express them freely.
Entirely agree with you. What is the point of blogging if you block off people who disagree with you?
The great advantage of blogs is to share one’s opinion with others.A good conversation between two opinions adds beauty to the blog.
When i started my first blog i knew lots about seo and online marketing so that gave me a distinct advantage over other new bloggers. I try to be as personal as possible on my blog while still being professional. I try to reply to every comment and answer every email – which sometimes isn’t easy.
That is what a professional blogger should do
Maintaining a personal touch to a professional blog has its advantages…I am thinking of making my site a bit more personal by adding ‘About Me’ section in addition to the already existing ‘Contact Me’
a blogger should be very active… keep visiting other blogs.. participate in discussions..spark debates.. leave genuine comments and build relations….
Agreed. A lot of my traffic (and more importantly comments) come from people who’s blog I’ve commented on. I find that most bloggers are more than happy to return the favour and leave a comment back. Obviously on big blogs like this one it isn’t very practical though
I have found other bloggers unresponsive to my comments and i rarely get a comment back from them.
I try to share all my failures and mistakes about blogging so that somehow it may be useful for people.
Great! Can i have the link to where you share your experiences?
Yes, such tactics can really prove to be very beneficial. Thank you for putting this forward.
Experience is the best teacher. Either you learn from other people’s experience or from your own. It’s good to share these learnings to those who want to listen to you…
yea,the majority of people who start a blog is with an aim to make money,but don’t understand that its a long term goal…and yea,most first time bloggers wouldn’t have cared about PR and SERPs initially…
Well i didn’t care about PR but i did care about SERPS and traffic when i first started that has been my goal all along.
I think blogs have revolutionized the way we get information on the internet. It’s not just facts, but opinion. Regular television network news have seen huge declines in viewers. Newspapers are running out of money. Bloggers have created a revolution.
i start my first blog since long time and i was not know much about SEO because all i was know is ” how i make money using this blog ” sure it was hosted in blogspot ,but after i read much and learned how to blog , i feel that i can reach all of my goals in short time .
I need to setup an “About Me” section so people can see the person behind the blog.
That is a very good idea. It is also a good idea to include a contact me page so that people who do not wish to comment can contact you about any clarifications that they may need about your posts.
Contact and About pages are important to better reach out to your readers. Good luck in making them effective.
Also you can add a contact form like wufoo,which makes them more effective
Unfortunately, blogs have done some bad things to the Internet too, such as making people into false authorities on certain subjects. I’ve been misled by many a blog in the past… but I guess that’s true of anything. The problem with blogs are that they’re so easy to start…
They’ve also been turned into a marketing tool lately, which makes them even more unreliable for me. Although there are plenty of good ones too, don’t get me wrong.
I welcome some of my readers to add me on Facebook. I don’t use Facebook to market my site, but talk to friends. I am treating my readers like friends.
Very good philosophy. I find that if you treat your readers as friends, they’ll do the same to you, creating a friendly atmosphere on your blog that is welcoming to new users.
IF you start telling of people who comment on your blog no one will comment on your blog. You want to be friendly and engaging to get more people commenting.
Awesome post, very enjoyable read.
Erica… you’ve made some good points there, but I think on the general scale of things, blogging has helped develop the internet so positively compared to the negatives…
I definitely agree that blogging, despite any negatives, has been a great improvement to the internet. I love the ability to connect and interact with other people. Blogging makes it all more human and personal. I always have get a wonderful feeling when I receive a comment on my blog and I value what others have to say. Also, I appreciate the opportunity to be able to comment on articles I read.
I love blogging. I never thought I would be doing it 5 or so months ago but it is very rewarding. The connectivity with others is very exciting and so interesting. I use the SEOs and any other means to get my message out. Thanks for your good advice and I will continue to learn for it as well. Hopefully I will learn how to implement much of this learning too.
Friends 4 Life!
Eddie
Great Post. I also like to blog and love to hear feedback on my blog posts. I also like to hear from my users/readers on my other website as well.
Surely one of the best ways to do so.
I started blogging with absolutely no clue that it could earn me money. Although my blog is still a Blogger blog, I still do quite well. I have been wanting to get a custom domain, but am unsure about messing up my page rank.
It’s funny that my blog has grown into an income source. At first it was just a way for an isolated housewife to connect with others in similar situations. I am so glad that I can help support my family while doing something I really enjoy.
I am really glad people don’t get too stressed out with their earnings from blogging. I am happy for those who started blogging as a hobby but earned money later on…
There’s people out there that distributes some informative information. Some of this stuff I never even knew existed that I have discovered from them. These people deserve to get paid. Of course its all business, but the news, or information is great.