Where is everybody? It can be a bit discouraging, when you are writing post after post on your blog, but don’t see anyone commenting on your prolific witty and knowledgeable writings. I think there are many blogs out there that got off to an enthusiastic start, but slowly fizzled because the writer wasn’t sure if anyone was reading and gives up. The best course is to just to keep plugging away. Write and write and write. It’s good discipline and you will grow as a writer, even if no one, but your best friends or parents, are reading you. If you feel you are starting to find a voice, and you are writing regularly, you might want to think about getting your blog “out there” a bit more. There are a few ways to plug in to the blogosphere. One is to link to other blogs on your site and then read them on a regular basis. When you click on the link from your blog into theirs, they may notice you if they are following their referrer links (some blogging programs allow bloggers to see how much traffic they have and where it is coming from). Some of these blogs, may in turn, put up a link back to you, driving their readers over to your site for a visit. To be more involved, start commenting on these other blogs to join the conversation. To find other blogs in your topic area, see below **
Another option is Google. Share your url address with Google and they may add it to their vast index. This means when people type in certain words during a search, your blog may turn up as one of the links. Go to this page to learn more about this: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl. You can also submit your blog address to Blogwise – here is their page on how do to it.
** Finding other blogs. There are a few blog directory/search engines out there. Google has one, there is Blogwise, and Tecnhnorati
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3 comments:
It also helps if blogwriters, if they're not just fulfilling a classroom requirement (but actually care whether anyone's reading their work), would regularly review their past posts, and acknowledge comments that may have been left on their blogsites. Not to do so signals to a reader/reviewer that the blogwriter's not interested in what he/she writes--it's a sure fire way to drive away readers.
Good point - I'm going to remind students to follow up on comments. Although I sometimes don't respond to anonymous comments - even an identifier like "Sue from Boston" or "Student at Central High" is better than nothing at all. When people write something critical, but don't have the guts to indentify themselves in some way, then many times they're not worth acknowledging. It's not fun debating with someone when you have no context on who they are or what they're about.
True enough. But one usually can tell whether a post, critical or otherwise, is worthy and/or genuine by its content. It's not always "guts" at issue.
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