By Michele Scism
The Results Lady

Question=> Are you a blog participant or are you a blog voyeur? Do you lurk around in the blog shadows reading great posts, one after another but never leaving a comment or hitting the re-tweet button?

Worse yet, do you plan on reading several blogs a day and just never get around to it?  Are you constantly focused on the traffic that your blog is or is not creating?

Although you may not have guessed it, this is not a post of 20 questions (hmmm, that's a good idea – I might try that).  This is a post to make you think about how you are interacting with other blogs and how you expect people to interact with yours.

More Traffic

So the question I get asked most by bloggers is how do I get more traffic and I think there are only a few things that usually need to be focused on.

1.  Post on a regular basis

2. Great titles can be blog changing

3. Make your blog super easy to share

4. Get out there and visit other blogs – this is where we are going to focus this post!

Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You

Michelle Shaeffer and I co-host the Ultimate Blog Challenge each quarter and we have both found that it is an amazing way to drive traffic to our blogs.  Why?  Because not only do Michelle and I both market our blog posts by sharing them on social media sites, like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and through RSS feeds, we also take the time to visit other blogs and leave comments, re-tweet their posts or share their posts with our audience on social media, etc.

What does this do.  First of all, the Golden Rule, or the Rule of Reciprocity, usually kicks in.   The majority of those bloggers you support will support you in return. The second benefit is that you will start to build a relationship with those bloggers – they could potential clients for your services or they might be a potential joint venture partner.  Relationships are the back bone of using the internet to promote your business.

So get out there and start reading other blog posts and here's the catch – You Have to Interact with them.  You can not just visit and hope they will then find you.  No, you must hit the “like” button or comment.  The first step would be to commit to the number of blogs you will read and interact with daily. My daily goal is 10 – 5 early in the day and 5 late in the day.

Leave a comment below to tell us how many you will interact with!