31 Days to Building a Better Blog—Day 8

Time for Day 8 of my Building a Better Blog series. Today’s tip is a classic that you’ll see just about everywhere in the blogosphere—Comment on a blog you’ve never commented on before. I’m a big believer in this one because you let your writing do the talking and based on that alone people will or won’t click on you and check out your site. If you’re just commenting to get the link, then it won’t do much for you. But if you really have something worthwhile to say, then it can drive a new reader or two in your direction.

In case you haven’t heard of her, there is a PF Blogger our there called Mrs. Micah and there is only one reason I know about her: she is the hardest working blogger out there. Every single blog I went to I would see a comment from her. She was everywhere! So I figured I should check out her blog to see what she was all about. I still check it out on a regular basis but I never would’ve found it if not for her tremendous comment output. It got other bloggers talking too.

The title of Problogger’s article makes you think that today’s homework is to just find one new blog to comment on. But read the article and you’ll see he wants you to find as many as possible. This tip, along with most of the ones in this series, is one of those that you should try to execute on a regular basis. It’s not easy to do unless you’re writing about it in a really exciting series of posts and you’re conscientious about it. I have 4–5 blogs I read every day and other than that I can go for weeks without reading a new blog. This is a crucial mistake. How am I going to discover new things, new ideas, new everything? By actively seeking out new blogs, that’s how.

One way to do this is by going to the blogs you already know and love and scanning their blogroll. If you like them and they like these other blogs, the odds are good you’ll find something entertaining in them too. It’s harder than it sounds because so many people out there don’t have anything interesting/new to say (sorry, it’s true). But keep at it and remember to only comment if you have something to say, even if it’s just “This was great, thanks!”

And as for linking back to an article on your blog, I don’t see a problem with it. Just make sure it’s correctly formatted so you don’t create a code problem for the other person’s site. I’ve done that twice already and it really makes you feel like a jerk. But only do it if it’s appropriate. I just found a post on how great libraries are so it was natural for me to link to this post. If you do it just to get a linkback, people will not care for it.

Happy commenting!