Why Blogging Will Never Give You the Results You Want

by Guest Blogger, Lena West 

The most common complaint we hear from new clients is "I'm writing blog posts three times a week and no one visits or comments. What's the deal?"

Well, there you've got your answer.

Let me put it another way:

Let's say you decide that you don't have enough friends. Maybe you've been busy with your life and  you haven't taken the time to really connect with other people. But, now you could use a good friend or two. Someone to share potluck dinners...a movie...emotional support...yada, yada. So, you set the intention to expose yourself to as many people as you can (not in THAT way!). Night after night, you sit at home hoping, wishing and waiting for a friend to knock on your door so you can start sharing, planning and gossiping. Not one person calls. Not one person knocks. What's wrong here?

If you're bright enough to read this blog, you can see immediately what's wrong. I bet many of you were thinking, "To make friends, you have to first be a friend." Or maybe you were thinking, "Just because you build it, doesn't mean they'll come." True indeed.

It's a very similar situation for bloggers.

To be a successful blogger, you have to take the initiative to actively connect with other successful bloggers -- the operative word being ACTIVELY. That means not JUST sitting behind your keyboard and creating blog posts about interesting topics. Oddly enough, that's the easy part.

• It means subscribing to and REGULARLY READING other people's blogs.
• It means commenting intelligently and regularly if and only if it makes sense to do so. In other words, most times a one word comment will get you no where.
• It means using trackbacks regularly and effectively.
• It means talking about and linking to other people on your blog - and not just via your blogroll - give people and resources that deserve it some 'air time' in your posts.

Bottomline: If you want people to read your blog, you can't just blog. You might consider the novel idea of reading and being active on other blogs. *Gasp!*

Of course, there's the whole 'do unto others' thing but you also might learn a thing or two.

Comments

[Katie Konrath]

Very true! I've noticed that the more I participate in other people's blogs, the more who come to my blog and leave comments.

And the best part about it is that by reading other blogs, I learn more about my subject, am alerted to information that interests me, and get ideas to write about. No more staring at my computer wracking my brain to find a completely new subject!