When I first began my blog, I didn’t know much at all.  I began my blog as a way to promote my business and to keep family updated on our goings on.  I didn’t ever really begin reading blogs belonging to other people…and it showed.  I didn’t have many visitors to my blog…at all.  If and when I did get visitors, they only stayed for a few seconds, according to my statistics.  I felt that if I did get a visitor, it was by mistake because they left so quickly!

One day, someone found my blog and left me a comment.  Yeah!  You’ve got to love comments, right?  So, I was naturally curious about her and checked out her blog, New Mommy Rant.  I loved it and was immediately hooked.  I enjoyed reading about her experiences as a new mom with a daughter and comparing them with my own.  I began reading her blog daily and leaving her comments as well.  Other people that read her blog began to see my comments and I guess curiosity got the best of them as well and some of them made their way over to my blog as well.

As time passed, I began subscribing and reading more and more blogs daily and I always made sure to leave comments.  If you don’t leave a comment, how can someone reciprocate the visit.

When you leave comments on other bloggers blogs, you are not only “inviting” them to your blog, you’re inviting all their readers to visit your blog as well.  This number grows exponentially, each time you leave a comment.  You gain an immeasurable amount of exposure simply by leaving comments on other people’s blogs.

When leaving comments on blog posts, do not leave comments like, “Wow!” or “Fun!”  These comments are not thought provoking and do not add value to the blog.  Put some thought into the comments you are leaving and leave comments that will get readers thinking, “I thought I was the only person who felt like a kill joy when disciplining my kids.  Now, I don’t feel so alone!” “I tried this recipe once before and it seemed a little too salty to me.”  Follow these guidelines and you may just gain subscribers or steady readers.  When leaving comments remember that not only the author will be reading them.  Readers of the blog will also have access to them as well.

Next in the series: Becoming a Guest Blogger- Marketing Your Blog Part 3

I will be authoring a series of 5 articles on the topic of marketing your blog.  I’ll be discussing various and diverse ways to do this.  These five marketing methods will be online marketing methods.

One of the ways that I use to market Babywearing Buzz, is to participate in online forums.  I was introduced to online forums when I was pregnant with my daughter.  I learned that there were “birth club” where moms who’s children had the same due date as yours could chat with each other.  Moms discussed a full range of topics baby related and non baby related.

I quickly found forums where you could attach a “signature” to any post you made.  That signature could be a link to your blog, company, or any other statement you wanted to make.  There are many forums which do not allow you to advertise in a signature.  It is considered “spam.”  But there are many others that do allow this.  Before beginning to participate in a forum, you must read the rules attached to that particular forum regarding this topic.

When making posts in an online forum, you usually aren’t allowed to make a post like:

“Please check out my blog.  The link is below!”  You will probably be warned by an administrator that this is not allowed and your post will be deleted.  What you have to do is gain the confidence and friendship of the forum participators by becoming a regular in the forum.  As you gain their confidence, they will gradually begin to naturally be more curious about who you are and click on your signature that way.

Once you start participating in a forum, it can become addicting!  You form friendships with these people and want to “chat” with them.  Once you’re grounded in one forum, you’ll want to choose another forum to participate in.  Choose a forum where there will be readers who will be interested in your blog’s topic.  For instance, if the topic of your blog is shopping, you don’t want to participate in a forum on fishing.  You probably won’t get too many clicks, and it might be difficult to reply to threads (unless you’re an avid fisherwoman!).  Choose a forum related to shopping, or a forum that has a particular “room” devoted to shopping.