Who Is Reading Your Blog?
Blogging is all about building relationships, isn’t it? We’ve heard this again and again that one of the crucial techniques to building relationships online, in the blogging world is to participate in discussions on other blogs via commenting. After all we can only read the words written on the screens, no one will know who is reading who, unless you write on other people’s blogs or they write on yours, right? So, as an ongoing effort to make it a habit to learn about other blogs, and the people behind them, I mentioned in one of my previous articles that I am going to find new blogs and try to contribute to the on-going discussions. It is difficult sometimes because it almost feels like you are crossing into someone else’s territory but it is not impossible. I am also finding that its a bit easier this month because I know a number of people are participating in Problogger’s month long project so I have a feeling this time around people are going to be a bit more accepting of newcomers and if we persistently do this for the length of the project, by the end of the month we will have discovered some cool blogs and gotten to know some creative bloggers.
So, you might be wondering why this second post on the importance of comments… AGAIN? Well, there’s a story I want to share with you all. While commenting, a most unusual thing happened to me this morning that every new blogger can only dreams of! And I am in the seventh heaven right now :-)
I was at Kevin’s site Blogging Tips a few days ago where Mani, another site author there, had written a post on things you shouldn’t assume about your blog which I found to be pretty interesting and insightful and commented on, asked for their opinion on what I could do to make my blog better so more people can subscribe to it. Mani replied very honestly telling me that I needed to work on my content and titles. I was a bit heartbroken but politely thanked him ….. I was glad for Mani’s sincerity but sad because isn’t that what’s at the core of blogging? Nice catchy titles, creative and compelling content? And those are the very aspects of my blog I needed to improve on.
Not being able to bring myself to write anything good, I spent a couple of days reading many blogs and thinking all the while how these people are so damn creative?!! How am I going to make my blog better so people keep coming back to read it? How do you make them stick? The only oddity I noticed during my blog hopping was that every blog I read during this time, Darren had commented on. I say I found it odd because I never saw his comments on any blogs before, have you?
Well, yesterday I came back to blogging tips again and lo and behold there is this humongous screen shot of Darren’s new site!!! As I started to write my comment on that article, I noticed Darren had already commented there! You can see my instant reaction on that post here and follow the conversation as Darren stopped by to reply to my message.
Needless to say, I am overjoyed :-) Problogger telling me he will be reading my blog is a tremendous honor as well as flattering. My Aussie stars must have been shining on me this week …first me winning that beautiful portrait and today Darren subscribing to my RSS feed…………
Moral of the story? :-) well – this reminds me of Steve Pavlina and his take on Responsibility and the Law of Attraction, in which he says,
It all begins with accepting 100% responsibility for your reality. You’re the one who’s creating it right now. Are you creating what you want or what you don’t want? Change your dominant thoughts, and you’ll see reality change as well.
So, in the concept of blogging, if you really want to get your blog noticed, your audience doesn’t know about you, you have to go find them!
What do you think of Law of Attraction? Does it really work?
Holla Pearl!
I am always excited to get comments from my blog readers, no matter who they are ;)
I amen that :) “I am always excited to get comments from my blog readers, no matter who they are.”
Well said Pearl.
@Peter – welcome back Peter :)
@Jamy.. :) thanks
@CK.. yeah of course… comments are where real discussion happens… thanks for stopping by
I 100% believe in law of attraction. :)
I believe that law exist in this world before anybody stand their first step in earth. :)
You think what you want, you put enough thought on it, and you shall get what you want! :)
Congratulation and Wish to witness more interesting post from you. ;)
Hey pearl! congrats!!!!!! I’ll take that gift at any given day!! Believe me, take it as your best achievement in your blogging carrier :)
Soooooo proud of you! You did the right (write) things and got the right result! Of course you know what I’m going to say next…your blog was always worth the RSS love from Darren.
Keep raising the bar on me Pearl…you give me something to work towards!!
Congratulations on getting some attention from Darren. It doesn’t get much bigger than that when it comes to winning friends in the blog community!
Like the site too, by the way. I think you can make it if you are determined, so hang in there.
Haha it is pretty cool when the more known guys on the net stop by your site
hehe – thanks guys …:)
@ReviewSaurus- yeah ..you are so right… :) I actually read that comment by him again and again yesterday…. I couldn’t believe he really said that there…… :)
Tom…thanks :) thank you for always being there with kind words and encouragement :)
Chuck…welcome to the site…..
you are right, this is very big for me…almost like a dream come true….. :) thanks for the encouraging words and I love your site too, very funny …. ill be reading it, joined your community on MyBlogLog
…..You stumbled the post :) thanks
tc and kit
hey Glen.. yes it was very good feeling :) Now all I’ve got to do is to learn from you how to write posts that hit the digg home page in the first week of blogging :)
good to have you here again…thanks…tc and kit
hey Ken…you are soo right…. I believe it exists too, our thoughts (conscious and unconscious ) do create our circumstances… its been a surprisingly happy week for me :)
thanks :)
That’s pretty cool Pearl, I know I would be pretty excited. I remember I had Wendy Piersall from emoms at home comment on my (old) blog, and it was really exciting.
I also did a couple of posts about Scott Sigler’s podcast novel “Earthcore”, and he commented a couple of times, it was really cool.
As for the law of attraction, I’m not entirely sure. I think that a positive attitude and knowing what you want is a really great place to start. As Samuel Goldwyn said, “The harder I work, the luckier I get”.
yes Scott it IS a very big deal for me … now I better start writing some good stuff or he will unsubscribe LOL
well, I haven’t read a whole lot of the law of attraction but that may just be a fancy name to what a I believe and that is…that we are what we think we are… our thoughts do dictate much of how we carry ourselves in different situations and what we do all day long…..
how we think will also have an impact on our decision to work hard for something or not…. of course just thinking about achieving something and then wait for it to happen will not get results….
That Is why I provided the link to that article Darren wrote about going out to seek the audience and not keep thinking they will come to you…. but the decision to GET NOTICED has to start with your thoughts :) consciously or sub-consciously …..
I have been very uptight about not being able to do lot of the ‘assignments’ with Darren’s project and I envy people who are always submitting such useful articles… I have wished I can do that … so its been the dominant thought this month… and I believe universe sometimes creates circumstances for you based on your thoughts and actions…. :-) IMHO
but yes like you said, it is way beyond exciting to get that from Darren….:) tc and kit
The law of attraction rocks! I think that your title was very catchy, it caught my attention, and your article is great too! :) Have a great weekend!
hey pearl i am still in the hospital(on my laptop) and will be for awhile but i wanted to let you know that the surgery went well and that i am recovering fine now. :)
I love to have comments on my blog, as long as they are not for any of those spamming sites, they really get on my nerves.
Kudos to the Pearl girl!
That’s high praise indeed to have Darren following your blog! You’ve got it going on girl! I’d be ecstatic to have him reading my blog.
Just as Christy said, your title is catchy and that’s exactly what you need to catch the attention of RSS subscribers. I don’t use RSS but that’s just due to unfamiliarity (which I need to change). But the princple always applies to Digg, Reddit etc, title is key. And then you have to back it up with the meat, which you obviously have working for you :-)
Christy and Karen… welcome to you both!
Im glad you stopped by…..tc and kit
Deb.. thank you :) yes I was ecstatic… I’ve been telling this story to just about everyone I meet – and some of my family said I had repeated it to them LOL that is nuts!!
Glad you stopped by Deb… tc…i’ll be talking to you soon..
Great post Pearl,
I go around many blogs and leave comments and often they will come and visit mine. My initial blog I renamed and soon found that I was getting more traffic through search engines, but good communication with readers is an essential ingredient as well as good headlines.
At the end of it all, you sure have got what it takes and have a great blog, which I respect and take my hat off to you :o)
Take care and have a good week.
Oh Colin…thank you so much :) I am just learning from all of you nice people :)
You’re welcome Pearl,
Like you, I’m still learning too……so many blogs and so little time, and so much to learn too lol, but it sure is fun :o)
I had to look a lot for my readers too, but now I am proud to say that I have a strong community, with people who think alike, people of great moral integrity, like yourself. And this is the greatest aspect about blogging. :)
I am sure that, in time, I’ll discover more exceptional people. As the Web 2.0 evolves we all have to understand that the Internet is no longer about technology, but about the people behind this technology.
Pearl,
You’ve hit the nail on the head again.
I’d love your input to a conversation I’ve started on Open Messaging (http://www.nakedyak.com/?cat=15) – your mindset is right where I am and this is how I see things going in communications and social networking.
~biff~
Hey Mig.. you are right – quality interaction with people has become my motivation to continue to blog too… its awesome really…
biff… thanks again… I sure will check it out soon… tc
[...] bloggers like Darren Rowse (You can imagine the popularity of Darren by checking this post, where Pearl couldn’t believe her luck when Darren said that he has subscribed to her blog) and John chow hold them regularly. [...]
Congrats pearl on your achievement. Keep up the good work.
Hi Pearl – I’m glad that you took my comment seriously. It was not at all intended to dis-hearten you sweet.
Hey just look at this post – see the number of comments. Isn’t that your achievement? Indeed yes. It’s because you wrote a compelling copy and gave a good title(well i had to say it:) )
So that’s a lesson learned already.
My fees – Us $24310. Pls pay to my paypal account.
;) Cheers!
Mani
Hi Mani.. thanks for stopping by here :)
I am really glad that you pointed out the importance of good titles though because the post I wrote after this one became a guinea pig for that .:) The title is communicating with people we don’t know and then I talk about writing so the readers will find it interesting …:) Then read the comments I got from that and its obvious the direction of conversation completely changes based on the title, not really the content! :)
I know the title of this article should have been different, but can’t think of what though… you wanna take a shot at what it would have worked better? :)
@Nirmal… thanks….. Its been quite an excitement :)
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