My name is Tim and I'm a traffic maniac. I have a personal blog and a challenge to grow it to enormous traffic numbers as fast as I can. So one day a nice idea came to me, or at least I wanted to think it was nice…
The Idea.
So I need traffic right? Well why don't my fellow bloggers share some of their traffic with me? And I can share some of my traffic with them in return. Sounds easy.
Banner Exchange – that was my idea basically.
I decided to reach out to bloggers that have nearly the same traffic as I do (or even bigger) and suggest them to exchange banners. This way we could send each other a few extra visitors and increase our traffic numbers. It was a win-win situation and if you look at it from my perspective – I was getting a bit of traffic from each banner exchange, so the more of them the better.
At that time my Alexa was somewhere near 200k and I knew it will grow, so I decided to contact blogs with Alexa in 50k-200k range.
Reaching out to build relationships.
I needed relevant traffic so I had to reach out only to the bloggers in my niche, which is “blogging” or maybe even “online marketing“. But where do I find them?
Blog Communities & Blog Directories – that is how I was going to find relevant blogs.
I registered at places like Bloggers.com, theblogfrog and blogcatalog. Then I've searched for some blog directories like blogdir.co.uk and allforblog.com. By the end of my research I had more tabs opened in my Google Chrome than it could possibly handle 🙂
And so I started digging deep into those resources to find blogs in my niche with required Alexa ranking. Must say I was quite disappointed by the quality of listings, as most of the blogs were either dead or abandoned. Still, a few hours later I had a list of about 40 blogs which met my requirements. Actually I had to include blogs with better Alexa (up to 15k), or otherwise I could have ended up with only 20 or so.
I created an email template to be sent to blog owners, which looked like this:
Hey -=NAME GOES HERE=-,
Dare I to ask you to become a friend of mine and exchange traffic with my blog? 🙂
My name is Tim and I run BloggerJET.com, which is my challenge to grow a blog from nothing to 100k monthly visits in only 6 months.
Sounds tough, right? 🙂At this time I'm desperately seeking for some like-minded bloggers to exchange traffic. I've found your -=BLOG URL GOES HERE=- blog quite easily as we're in the same niche (blogging, online marketing), so here I am contacting you!
What I am suggesting is to place little banners (nofollowed of course) on our blogs and see if we can send some visitors towards each other! No contracts, deals or anything. Once you see that this banner exchange is not working for you – you are free to remove your banner anytime!
I know my traffic stats are quite lower than yours (you can actually see my monthly traffic report posted at BloggerJET.com) but still I thought my blog might get you interested and you might help me out a lil' bit with my challenge 🙂
…& besides, if 10 bloggers will exchange banners with me, my traffic should double and I should be able to send more visits to all of you!
If you don't have the banner I can create one for you no problem! Just send me your text or logo, or whatever you want there. The spots at BloggerJET.com are 80*80 pixels (…for now, I might make them bigger in future).
What banner size would you allow me to place at -=BLOG URL GOES HERE=-?
PS: really hope this will work out!
Best wishes,
Tim Soulo
The result.
Want to guess how many responses I got after sending 40 emails? Three! Two of them suggested me to buy their banner spots via BuySellAdds and the third one was Justin Germino from DragonBlogger, a technology and entertainment portal. He didn't exchange banners with me either, but actually spent some of his time to give me a brief coaching session on blogging, based on his personal experience!
So that is basically how I failed! Something makes me think that blog communities and blog directories are not the best places to search for “relationships”. If you take directories – they are either outdated or the blog submissions are not being moderated the way they should, so you end up skimming though thousands of low quality blogs. In their turn blog communities tend to contain somewhat better listings, but still they are mostly used by SEOs that just need another link and don't care about any sort of relationships.
What Alternatives can we use to build relationships?
I have pointed out an issue, but is there a solution? Well, there are a few more ways to find new blogs to get in touch with. Let's see:
- Blog Comments: go to any popular blog in your niche and check who's commenting the posts. In most cases the name of the commenter is being linked to his “homepage”, which is quite often nothing else but a personal blog. I already used this tactic when trying to build a tribe of my own on Triberr and must say that the response rate was way better.
- “Related:” Google search: the mighty search engine has an ability to search for websites related to the one you input. How about a search like this – related:basicblogtips.com.
- Similar sites search: have you heard about these websites – similarsites.com, siteslike.com, similarsitesearch.com, similarsites.net. They pretty much do what their domain names say 🙂
- FollowerWonk: awesome online service that lets you perform searches among bios of people on Twitter. See who has “blogger” in their Twitter bio and check their blogs.
Those are the methods I've used in the past and they are proven to deliver way better results than skimming through blog communities and directories. However I'm sure many of you know a lot more ways to finding new friends and build relationships in blogosphere, so do not hesitate to share them in comments! 🙂
Hey Ileane, thanks for inviting me to guestpost at BasicBlogTips 🙂
Very very interesting sum up Sir Tim. Everyone will surely learn a lot from these
Hi Tim,
You do write about your experiment with a bit of humor. 🙂 At least you did not come away embittered by the experience.
Allow me to say if Justin Germino took out time to share some personal experiences in an informal one-on-one coaching session, you came out a winner, after all!
Yeah, and I think there’s no such thing as “negative experience” after all 🙂
The best way for sure is to build relations. I think we can develop relations using the social networks like Facebook or Twitter. If you share your blog with the other people properly, then you will succeed and set up good relations and thus improve your traffic a lot
that is true! but building relationships before asking for a favour takes too much time 🙂 I don’t have it.. so I had to ask for a favour and build relationships simultaneously 🙂
Nice try, though I can see many people backing away with these as they might be earning something out of that place, though you have a stiff target but who knows you might get some like-minded people via this post.
Hey Sanjeev 🙂 honestly I didn’t think about finding like-minded people via this post 🙂 but you got a fair point here!
So here’s the message to everyone reading this – I’m pretty much willing to exchange banners with you 🙂 feel free to contact me! 🙂
Haha, Your story is very interesting! But i think it’s better if you exchange banner with some small blogs first to get more traffic and then exchange with big blogs :D. But this method is not good for long term relationship :D.
that is true, but I’ve noticed a quite interesting thing 🙂
there are almost no “small blogs” out there 🙂
When person launches a blog, he either works his ass out to grow it to decent traffic and start selling those banners….
OR
..when he sees that the blogs stands still and he’s unable to attract any attention to it – he gives up!
what I’m trying to say is that the number of “live” blogs of my calibre is too low 🙂
Not sure how much traffic banners would send you. But then you have already taken the right step by writing a guest blog here… All the best for your endeavor. Maybe at the end of six months, you can list down all the techniques you used and recommend the ones that worked.
Thanks! That’s EXACTLY what I was going to do.. create some free ebook with my experience or smth 🙂
Tim,
Sounds you learned a great lesson. Those personal little “oops” are worth their weight in gold since they are undoubtedly the very best teachers.
Starting and building lasting re;ationships…that is the way to go.
-Steve
Thanks a lot, Steve! 🙂
Hi Tim,
I only use blog commenting to create relationships as you can see how helpful and skilled that person is with his/her comments. Later I ask them to join on twitter and FB as well. 🙂
ohh my god. something so similar to this happened to me. i didnt put as much effort maybe to screen out/ identify the appropriate blogs but i did spend a lot of time (3-4 hours) to get my list. I sent/posted to them all a similar email and received ZERO replies. NICE. Thanks for being honest about your experience.
like they say… happens only to the best of us 🙂
Hey Tim, I have seen your blog and it is looking good, although a bit overly optimistic. Its not that your goal is out of reach, exactly. its more that you will make mistakes, which will hamper your progress, and this clearly shows one of the biggest ones you can make.
Relationship marketing is about what you can give. your approach was more of a problem than the tactic itself. your first contact is to try to get their traffic. you go into a great explanation of how YOU will benefit from the exchange, but not in how They will benefit.
I get those type of Requests daily, and they just go in the trash.
I only exchange links and banners with people who have already networked with. You want to get people to do something for you? Do something for them FIRST, then get to know them. help them and they will want to help you.
For example, I promote peoples blogs, comment on their blogs, and share their stuff with others, for at least 2-3 weeks before ever contacting them personally. I will even recommend people to their products and services, often without an affiliate link, at least a few times.
THEN, I will approach them. Break the ice talking about one of their posts, flatter their ego a litttl,e and communicate. After a couple of times like this, I will ask them for something. But, the focus is on the Relationship not marketing my site at first.
Quit trying to market, and start focusing on those relationships. The marketing will naturally come from that. Play it right, and they will be asking YOU to exchange links or content.
Also, banner ads arent worth your time anyway. I have done them. got little traffic for the effort, and they were on some high traffic blogs. most people ignore banner ads,
In fact, I did a post a few months ago on banner blindness. Sidebar banners are the worst. most people expect them to be an ad for a product, so they ignore them.
This right here is the key. Guest posting. Get YOUR content on Their blogs. that is how to get the traffic, and a great way to build that relationship with other bloggers.
give their community value, and be an active member of that community. Comment regularly, not only on your own guest posts but on other posts as well.
Hey James, Ileane should buy you a cup of coffee or smth like that for contributing a comment that huge 🙂
Man, I totally agree to your points and honestly I did know most of the things you’re talking about. I’ve read all the books by Dale Carnegie and lots of related things, and I do know that the email should contain 80% of benefits for the guy you’re sending it to if you want to get a positive answe. But unfortunately I only have 6 month at my disposal so I have nothing special to offer those bloggers. That is why I had to do it my way.
…yet, an email came today (what a coincidence lol) where a nice guy from bloggingpark.com accepted my banner exchange! 🙂 I already published his banner and sent him mine.. so I guess my approach was at least a bit successful.. and besides I think that if i’ll repeat that practice with more “healthy” blogs – I can get some better results (I already listed the tips to find those “healthy” blogs).
at the end of it all… I met a great guy Justin from DragonBlogger, who wrote a post about me… and there in comments I met Ileane, who kindly offered me to guestpost here. Plz take a look – http://www.dragonblogger.com/showcasing-bloggerjet-great-guide-blog-comments/
So I guess this very guestpost is the result of me reaching out to bloggers. If this is not a “result” than what is? 🙂
Thank you, James, for making me think about all those things. And thanks again to Justin and Ileane for helping me each in their own way! I’m not that self confident to say that “I’m gonna reach my goal no matter what”, but I think with the help of such great people like Justin and Ileane I can pretty much get very close! 🙂
… the number of mistakes in the reply makes me feel embarrassed 🙂 sorry guys, it’s 00:30 here and I’m dead tired 🙂
LOL thats great. just keep going. Honestly, if you do a few guest posts every week, and get some engagement with some of the bigger blogs, you could do it. The networking doesn’t have to take long. I have done it with less than 2 weeks of actual work in the networking. its just a matter of that first contact not being a pitch to grab their traffic. If you put it in a way that benefits them, you can do it. Also, The more exposure you get on bigger blogs, the more people will notice you.
I would also go over to FAmousBloggers, and do a few guest posts there. Also do some more here. Every time I guest post here, I get MORE visitors than the time before. Also head over to Comluv. you could do 2-3 guest posts a week, and probably get enough exposure within a couple of weeks to go to the A list blogs and get noticed (ones like PROBlogger.) I am negotiating a guest post with them right now. A few months ago, they didn’t even acknowledge my request. the only difference in my pitch was inn how I told them I could benefit them and including some links to My other guest posts including the ones I have done here. all you need is one to get your foot in the door. do a really great job on one of those, and the rest is easier.
Leverage the authority of those big names in the industry is the way to reach your goal, you can do it, if you approach them the right way Before pitching your post idea.
I wonder how this experiment might have worked if you had already set up solid reciprocal relationships with the bloggers via commenting. I would bet you would get a lot more responses at least.
Annie, I totally agree with you 🙂 But I didn’t have an aim of building any relationships… I wanted to test this particular thing 🙂 and one of the benefits for me was to share my experience, as that is what I do in terms of my challenge 🙂
I gotta tell you – this is one of the best articles I have read in a long time! So refreshing to hear someone tell a story where they don’t supposedly add 100,000 new visitors in 48 hours.
I’ve tried so many things that ended up the same way… sounds great in theory, but just doesn’t work. I guess misery loves company!! 🙂
The good news is… you are getting at least ONE new visitor!
Thanks a lot, Larry 🙂 I guess if you don’t fail you won’t succeed 🙂
Failure is valuable if you learn from it. Hey it said I would get a choice among 10 posts if I Tweeted. I only got 3. Wah. I failed. I mean hooray I failed!
Hi Tim… Nice Articles… This Backlink problem always give us a headache …
Almost all biggest blogger user using “Money talk” for banner exchange.
Thanks for the google tip and find related websites – I didn’t know you could do that!
I like to comment on blogs that are similar to my own, that’s a big help,
thanks!
btw Google has lots of “advanced search operators”… I do suggest you to learn them all! 🙂
I wouldn’t consider your experience a failure at all. You just succeeded in a different way than you expected.
First off, you gained some insight and experience about how to market your blog. You did make some brief connection with other bloggers and have narrowed down the methods to use most effectively to market yourself.
Most importantly, you were able to make a connection with Justin and get some personal coaching about blogging. That’s an experience you never would have gained if you didn’t take the time to put together your email and contact bloggers. That’s a big time success for you!
I would guess that the advice and coaching that Justin gave you is much more valuable in the long run than simply having your banner on a few sites. Remember that old saying: “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”
pretty much! you’ve listed almost all the benefits except for 2 that I’ve mentioned earlier in comments 🙂
1) Justin eventually wrote a post about my blog;
2) Ileane read that post and invited me to guestpost here.
now your list is complete 🙂
Hey Tim,
Thanks for sharing your story. Relationship building is critical. The best way to build relationship is to provide value, be it guest post, comment (add value to the post), help them to either tweet their posts, like, stumble, etc…Once you both know each other, maybe it is time to see if 2 of you can work on something together to gain mutual benefit.
Cheers,
Ming
Ming, that is very true and you’re kinda the 10th guy that tells me that 🙂 I never wrote in my post that building relationships step by step does not work. Actually it’s the best way to do this… but I had 40 blogs and I have only 6 month for my challenge 🙂
so I eventually came up with another experiment, which was described in the post 🙂
your strategy to get Banner ads might have worked about 10 years ago when Banners were more popular and thought to be the thing to get. However in Today’s net you really need to build relationships.
Listen to what my brother James is telling you. I’ve only been working on it for a couple weeks, but it’s really helped me out.
Thanks for your post and good luck!
heeeeeeeyyyyyy….. Totally don’t agree!!!!!!!!!
Did you check BySellAds for banner prices lately? I think they still quite popular actually 🙂
Pingback: BizSugar.com
Interesting experience Tim. But to me the results are not surprising at all.
I hope you don’t take it personal, but it kinds of sounds spammy and I think that’s why most blogggers didn’t respond. I think the best way to go about it is to build the relationship first, whether its through commenting on their blogs, following them on twitter and getting involved with them in social media or what have you. After they get to know you a bit more, they are more likely to want to work on a project like this with you.
Non the less, I admire your spirit for publicly sharing your experience. And lets not forget, no matter what, at the end of it, you come out a winner. You learned way more than if you wound have never done this.
Hey Satrap, by the time of me answering your comment here I think I’ve learned another lesson 🙂
you’re so far kinda 10th or maybe even 15th guy who gives me the same exact advice 🙂 This can only mean that people aren’t reading the comments by other guys.. which leds to another logic conclusion:
CommenLuv IS a great plugin and it DOES increase the amount of comments you get, but the quality of those comments goes lower as people don’t generally care about what others posted, but are interested in the first place to leave a comment that’ll get them a link to their own blog.
please don’t take this conclusion personally, as I’m not addressing it to you.. but that’s the thing I’ve noticed in comments here 🙂
Hi Tim,
That’s kind of an interesting response to someone who has read your article and written a thoughtful comment in order to share his advice, opinion, etc. (Recognizing you are not only aiming your comment at Satrap, but others, as well.)
Ouch!
Have you considered …. people don’t always have time to read all the comments left on a blog post? The usual requirement is that they read the article before posting a comment, not that they read the article and every comment left before they make a comment.
Vernessa, I’m not trying to hurt someones feelings.. I’m trying to roughly analyze the “data” that I get…
I don’t know why, but I don’t see this kind of regularity at my own blog, where commentluv is not enabled.
I’m sorry if I hurt Satrap, or any other person that gave me the same exact advice… but this is kinda new to me 🙂 that’s the first time I read so many comments that are pretty much alike, and since it’s polite to answer comments it seems that I am posting the same replies to everyone 🙂 not that I’m not thankful for the comments and the advice I was given.. but when I do this for the 10th time.. it’s just gets weird and I start thinking what’s the possible reason this is happening here 🙂
however… maybe you’re right and I’m wrong… people are really not obliged to read the comments by others and whey they reply you with sincere advice – it’s more than you can possibly ask for..
.. that said, I’m saying sorry to everyone who got offended by my comment.. I made the wrong conclusion out of the situation, sorry guys
still thinking about the situation 🙂 actually I am a bit right at some point too 🙂 CommentLuv is quite a weighty reason for people to comment 🙂 and you cannot deny it, as this is basically their business model 🙂
however I do agree that I don’t have a right of accusing anyone for commenting just because of CommentLuv.. my bad..
Tim, I’m glad you’re thinking about it. I’m not sure anyone was offended (well, they could have been and what good would that do you with your experiment?) …
In its highest form, you could call it engagement.
You don’t really have to answer all of the comments; you could just write “see my comment to so-and-so.” (That’s not really considered impolite, just efficient.) Of course, if you write enough comments like the one to Satrap, you won’t have to worry about the traffic you get from BBT being sticky or about developing relationships, will you?
Tim,
You dont have to apologize to me, you didn’t hurt me or my felling at all. I don’t take these things personally. These back and forth comments are actually a great avenue for all of us to learn a lot of things.
I can see your point and where you coming from. But, I don’t necessarily agree with it. You are forgetting that each and every one of us have our own opinion and feedback after reading a post and we each want to voice our opinion. And I guess we all think that our comment is going to add something extra and/or unique even if it follows the same theme of the previous comments.
Ad then there is what Vernessa pointed out. I sometimes read all the comments, but on this particular one, I skimmed through quickly and actually didn’t read the comments you are talking about.
The most important thing here that I think we are forgetting is the helpful spirit in all of us. I think we are forgetting that since your artcile was about a field experiment, we all want to help by offering advice, even though other people have given the same advice, we still want to be helpful. Of course, you may not even need those advices, but not all of us know you and your work personally.
One last thing, of course we all want to comment on CLUV enabled blogs because of the backlink other wise CLUV wouldn’t even exist, but that’s not the only reason, especially for me and on this blog.
If I wanted only a link back from commentluv, I wouldn’t take the time to write a 2 full paragraph of comment. I have a few approved comments here, so I could have just written a one liner and get my backlink!
Hey Satrap! thanks for your comment and thanks for not being offended 🙂
Yeah, I totally agree with you on the point that “ppl in comments trying to be helpful”. As I’ve mentioned earlier that’s awesome, cause most of the time you will get “thanks” sort of comments.
About CLUV… (again, I’m not talking about you personally)… I think that bigger and more valuable comments increase the CTR of your link.. don’t you agree to that? 🙂
To be completely honest, I did this myself actually… commented on other blogs not because I wanted to participate in conversation or add to the post, but my primary goal was to get noticed. I don’t want to lie to myself and I can confess that some of the best comments I’ve ever posted were purely for self promotion. However I’ve posted lots of comments just to talk to people and deliver some new opinion to the conversation.
So basically this is why I think (again, no one should get offended plz) that CLUV can sometimes shift commenter’s intentions. From a desire to help and participate in the conversation to a desire to promote your link and get noticed. But I think a rare person can confess of his real intentions 🙂
ps: this discussion in comments here is just GREAT! thanks to all the participants!
You shouldn’t think negative about commentluv or just comment, and I’m not protecting commentluv or anyone, is just that we as blogger we need to always be positive about tools we use, it doesn’t matter whether it is commentluv or just another comment plugin, if you think of it in a negative way of what you see, you will eventually drop into the negative pit where whatever you see is negative.
Just look at this blog, you will notice there are lots of great comment that really are helping one another, though I had seen a few comment that sucks, but after all nothing is perfect and only us positive blogger could make that happen.
nice share, Tim. Yes, when it comes to make contact with fellow bloggers, everyone just look for business… nothing else. Its the hard truth, but we will have to accept it.
want me to share the “results” of my guestposting experience at BasicBlogTips? 🙂 I have the numbers of visits to this post (Ileane kindly sent them to me) and I have the number of referring visits to my blog 🙂
so now I can do another “case study”, analyzing what it takes to publish a guestpost somewhere and what you get in return 🙂 does that sound like a nice article? 🙂
Hey Tim!
Interesting account of how you failed.
Though, I’d like to add a few ways to connect with bloggers. Definitely commenting on others blogs and being as engaged with is really important. But also retweeting and sharing their content on social networks is also important. Send them a personal @ message on Twitter and genuinely make a connection with them.
It’s really not difficult to build relationships, you just have to be visible in the community that you’re trying to reach. The system you used failed because they had never heard of your or seen you around. 🙂
Thanks for your sharing your experience. 🙂
Hey Morgan 🙂 I’ve already mentioned in comments that eventually one guy agreed to exchange banners with me 🙂 and you can see those banners live on our blogs 🙂
Seriously, if any blogger ask me to exchange banner, I will do so if I know that blogger or else I won’t for the reason “no relationship”, I do not know Justin Germino taught you because you didn’t write them in the post. Well… I kind of like to know because his a blogger that have a good reputation for what I know, and it’s great to learn from someone like him.
But if you ask me, I will recommend “guest posting” for the reason, it is proven to work. Just imagine writing just one guest post a week and submit to different blog that accepted your guest post in 6 months you will have 24 guest post spread on different blog, and guess how much traffic you get?
I will let you answer that 🙂
And not to forget you should also read this guest post “https://basicblogtips.com/social-networking-influence.html” by James Pruitt which will show you how a simple plan get’s him a good relationship with many bloggers.
Hey Wong 🙂 I’m glad you’ve mentioned guestposts and traffic they bring 🙂 want to know how much traffic I got from this one? 🙂 Here is the “case study”: http://bloggerjet.com/ruthless-numbers-behind-a-single-guestpost/
Great ways to build relationships Tim! I’ve actually been trying to remember the related: Google search for a week. Now I can get back to my personal research project! 🙂
Kristi Hines? 🙂 OMG 🙂 I read your blog! 🙂 thanks a lot for the comment! 🙂
Tim, I love your humor… and I think, you can use it to connect with fellow bloggers using Twitter. I participate in 1-2 twitter chats (that runs for hour) each week, on the niche I’m in, and it gave me tremendous responses from tweeple. Not only will you get to discuss important topics in your industry, but you also get an opportunity to build a connection with people who matter. Cheers!
Hey Aaron, can you pleeeease instruct me what should I do to join this twitter chat? 🙂 I’m new to this stuff 🙂
Hi Tim – I’m sending you this link to the mega list of twitter chats you can participate: https://docs.google.com/a/garious.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AhisaMy5TGiwcnVhejNHWnZlT3NvWFVPT3Q4NkIzQVE#gid=0
You can choose from the list. As for participating, I use platforms like tweetchat.com where you simply add the hashtag of the chat. Then, you get to see a real-time update on the conversation that’s happening. It’s like how you use twitter to reply, retweet..only that you will use the chat’s hashtag whenever you do so that everyone participating can see it and interact with you. Hope this helps 😉
oh sh*t! that list is reeeealy huge! thanks so much for sharing it with me! I’ll try it for sure!
Never heard of similar sites or other such sites. Thanks so much for sharing these with me. And two of the best ways to develop relationships, I think, are to guest blog and leave comments. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Hey Marcie, there are many more cool sites for bloggers, but somehow people don’t talk about them too often 🙂 I invite you to visit my personal blog BloggerJET.com – I share everything I know there 🙂
I’m going to check it out. Thanks for the info.
Hi Tim, it’s always a tough way to learn by tripping a little but I appreciate the fact you are sharing it. I’m not surprised Justin took the time to help out, he’s like that.
Thanks, Brian 🙂 I’m actually sharing literally everything I do.. and I hope this will be my unique thing to attract readers 🙂
Hey Tim,
First let me say that I love your post because there is so much that everyone can learn from it. That is an awesome thing that you gave this website’s visitors when you could have just posted a typical run-f-the-mill post instead. Very cool of you.
I wonder how receptive your approach would have been if you had gotten to know each of those bloggers before you made the request. I don’t know if it would have improved your results, but it probably would have earned you more responses at least. Everyone is skeptical when approached by someone they have no previous knowledge of. It is human nature.
Someone did mention in the comments earlier that you were too focused on your own gain and not focused enough on what the other bloggers stood to gain. That is spot on. You always have to think about how you can provide a perceived benefit to the other people. You probably didn’t offer them enough benefit or else they just perceived you as a semi-spammer looking to trick them into an unfair bargain. (Something like that.)
I read in one of your previous comments that you were a little disheartened that not every blogger was reading every comment. As far as commenting goes (and this Commentluv plugin) you have to realize that people are generally acting in their own slightly selfish best interest. This is especially true when you are dealing with comments on a blog. Most people would not comment on a blog if there was nothing (they perceived) to be gained by doing so. People do it because they want exposure for their own names, brands and websites. They want traffic and they want search engine bots to come to their site. This is the benefit they seek.
That is why people (so many people) love Commentluv. It is because of the extra benefits – You get deep links to your posts. People are more likely to click on your link after reading the page title.
But there is a tradeoff. Few people are willing to spend the time to read every comment on a post that has thirty some comments on it. In fact, the cutoff is probably after the first few comments. They are going to read a few and then move on to go get their benefit. There will be a few exceptions, but not many. That is the nature of how this blogging thing works.
My advice to you would be to focus on building one good relationship at a time. Get to know people who seem like they would be good people to be friends with. Do nice things for them and they will reciprocate. Once you have a couple dozen people saying nice things about you, then the whole thing starts to snowball.
thanks fot this huuuuuge comment, Ted 🙂
however after reading it I feel like I somewhat failed to deliver my own take in this post 🙂 What I was trying to say… is that I got poor results NOT because I wasn’t building relationships or smth.. but because I was looking in the poor places 🙂
as I’ve mentioned in my post I got far better results when reaching out to bloggers that I’ve found in comments on big blogs 🙂 Most of the blogs in directories are dead.. that is what I was trying to say in the first place 🙂
I agree with you without a favor you can,t create relationship easily and with less time.
Hi Ileane, not to worry. I will find a way to work with you and I hope we can achieve greater heights once I figure out a suitable for both of us. Cool?
Ricardus, thanks for keeping me in mind. But I don’t think you noticed that Tim Soulo is the author of this post…
What you got was my attention as well, not only did I feature your site in an article but you turned me into a fan and now I regularly visit your blog and share your articles. Your articles have meat and substance and you speak your mind as well as telling the truth from your experience. This is how I started out blogging and core to my own blog. I said from day 1 my blog will feature articles about blogging and my own experiences with what I tried, I can’t say what I do works for everyone and many experiments fail but I share what I tried and why I think it failed for me.
Prime example was when I paid $50 into MyLikes to promote an affiliate program and got 1,000+ clicks but not a single sale, 0 return on investment for me but it made for a good and truthful blog post to share my experience with readers.
It takes a lot to grab my interest, I get no less than 10-20 request for guest posting per day and about 5-10 ad or link exchange requests across my 3 blogs. I try to give each person direct attention but most are people who are just trying to sell a link inside your blog for a company or service they are hired to get links for. In some cases it is their own sites or affiliate efforts.
Relationships are key, and also on another note: I did the BlogCatalog, YouSayToo, Bloggers, everything you can think of. It doesn’t add enough visits per month to be worth much other than having a profile.
StumbleUpon is worth vesting some time in, make sure you stumble others stuff and build up your network (remember you can only follow 500 people max, but unlimited can follow you).
Google+ is another that shows good interaction and socializing. Another thing is to start building something right away, something of value and something you can give away to readers for joining your mailing list. This is something I never leveraged and wish I had put more time into over the last 3 years.
I know you were waiting to reach the 100k in six months, but have something sooner and smaller just to add incentive.
Hey Justin! Thanks for AWESOME feedback 🙂
Honestly I’ve noticed that lots of blogs these days are “pale” and so I decided to launch something myself to see if I can do better and give other people an idea of putting more work in their blogs…
And you… You’re my guardian angel actually 🙂 from each little conversation with you I learn about new stuff that I haven’t heard before! Thank you very much for support! 🙂 I hope you’ll stick with me till the end of my journey and probably even further 🙂
When I first started blogging back in August 2008 it was Damien Riley who I met on SocialSpark originally who kind of became my blogging mentor. I decided I would do the same for anybody starting blogging or whomever had questions. I answer probably 10-20 emails per week just from bloggers asking questions ,wanting me to review their sites, make suggestions…etc. I just do it to Pay It Forward.
I think we all have those “oops” moments, and especially when you want to see your business succeed! I think that most serious bloggers (those that care about their reputation) see their blog as an extension of themselves, much like a parent sees their child. Because of the large amount of scammers and spammers, we tend to be skeptical of people that contact us or reach out, which is a shame because I believe that most people are honestly just trying to learn from and connect with their peers. You made a bold move and thought outside the box, and though it didn’t turn out the way you anticipated, I think you’ve gained so much more, as evidenced by the comments on your post. Plus, now I don’t feel as bad about my own attempts to reach out, because I’ve made mistakes too! Good luck with your project.
Yeah! I’m actually quite happy with the results 🙂 at least they’ve let me to publish this guestpost here 🙂 And yes! we all make mistakes! there’s no reason to be afraid 🙂
Hey Tim,
I am not really surprised that your first method did not work. It is like the cold calling or pushy sales man. They knock on your door and try and sell you something. Ok you weren’t really selling something but you were basically cold calling people you did not know.
Blog commenting and starting a good relationship with well know bloggers and highly trafficked blogs is the best way to go. When you do comment on anyone’s blog always share the content and the blog owner will not appreciate you are making their content go viral.
Then the next stage is to slowly introduce your self and exchange a few emails or even skype calls. Then start guest posting for that particular blog. It’s all about building those relationships, not jumping in feet first.
From your first stab at getting more traffic, you can learn from your mistakes and move on. I find it is ok to screw things up every now and then.
1. It shows we a re humans
2. You can learn from them and not do it again!
Craig
What you’ve described here is exactly what my experiment was all about 🙂 This is bloody obvious that building relationships will give much better results, but I really wanted to try “cold calling”… and again.. I consider the places I used to seek for blogs to be quite lame.. so this played it’s role too 🙂
Hi Tim,
You got more from those email you sent out, like the advice and coaching from Justin, and now this guest post for Ileane! Things are working out, as you can see from the comments on your article. Hope more success comes your way, in the not too distant future 🙂 Good luck!
Building relationship with other people or bloggers is a long process and it takes a lot of time and effort to get their trust and earn credibility in your niche but in the end it’s all worth it.
Building relationship with other people or bloggers is a long process and it takes a lot of time and effort to get their trust and earn credibility in your niche but in the end it’s all worth it.
+1
WOW! I really appreciate the information you provided hear. I’m looking forward to applying it to great uses. I’ll be sure to pass this post on to others. Thanks you so much, I enjoyed this so much.. 😉
Nice! I really enjoyed the information you provided hear. I’m looking forward to applying it to great uses. I’ll be sure to pass this post on to my friends. Thanks you so much, I love your writing& 😀
though I am a late bloomer in life and learning about how the online marketing game and internet relationships work, I’m thankful to be here at blogger basic tips, while contributing meaningful comments and striving for excellence in building lifetime online positive relationships with everyone on this wonderful site. Thank you so much for having me here. I’m very appreciative 🙂
Been doing that kind of strategy. And I also need to re-adjust my strategy which also failed. Well, I think I’ll use your tips here. Thank for posting.
just starting my own blog. this tips will help me build relationship with other bloggers
thanks
with any success experienced on the World Wide Web, building meaningful online relationships is everything, as it built a solid foundation for success on all levels 🙂
Very informative Tim. I can’t wait to see your new site. Relationships in general are hard to come by if no effort from 2 parties are willing, kinda like a marriage. I love the way you have kept your composure, I think most would’ve wrote a badgering type of article regarding this experience. Much success to you young man! Thanks again for the insights. Bookmarked(your site)
on the Internet, I’ve learned that building relationships is everything. Just because you failed one time as a blogger in building relationships doesn’t mean that you are a failure. just keep reaching out to other bloggers and other people online, and never give up 🙂
Dear Tim, I will only add that having your blog’s rss feed automatically submitted to rss feed directories and search engines is also great way to promote your blog.
as to talk about RSS submitters, I used to use a free one by all scoop, before transitioning into writing articles and submitting to article directories. Article marketing is a wonderful way to gain passive web traffic to your site for years to come, while building back links and improving your search engine optimization. Are you writing and submitting articles also ? 🙂
Blog commenting is the most way I’ve been using to build relationships with other blogger, it’s not better than guest blogging but it’s easier and faster way to do what we want to do.
Yea it’s amazing how many people only think of themselves, even when, as you mentioned, it’s beneficial for both parties. You’re either a giver or a taker, sadly most fit into the latter.
Relationships are a very crucial factor in the blogging world. Failing any single attempt to firstly, build a relation and then maintain it can cost bloggers a lot. Blogging world is about being yourself, hence good relations are a must.
I liked the way you wrote this post
Hey Tim, I took a slightly different approach to this problem with exchanging traffic, basically I wrote emails offering services, I speed up websites and so I emailed blogs that I like and follow, some got back to me some didn’t but those that did such as pat flynn, kim roach, were/are really happy with the work I did and still do. As a result I got backlinks and recommendations.
Sometimes a simple email is all it takes, btw I have checked out your blog and see you have some good content and would like to invite you to guest blog on diywpblog. My alexa is 173k at the time of writing with rising weekly traffic stats. I can’t promise you the world but I would be happy to help you out.
Regards
Matthew
You’re post is actually very refreshing 🙂 I have to admit I’ve read thousands of success recipes online but zero of failures to learn from :)) So you look like having a sense for switching to a different approach. Maybe the first one was less inspired, but you have all the odds to do better. Good luck with that!
Awesome post!tweeter and facebook is also helfull in connecting with many people and we can increase traffic to our site at much amount.
Thanks.