This is Day 4 of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog, a group project 60+ of us bloggers are doing together in an effort to help each other become better bloggers. You can read an overview here.
Today’s assignment is to look over the comments on your blog, find a commenter you don’t recognize, and send them an email. Taylor the email to their comment and include a link to your blog.
It’s an easy assignment. In fact, it’s so easy, that some of you may be tempted to blow it off and not do it. But this assignment points to a larger principle concerning blogs, one I think it’s important to address…
Blog Growth is Slow and Steady
Many of us bloggers have this dream… that we’ll start a blog and our posts will be so amazing that even though we start with a handful of readers, those readers will tell all their friends, who will all love our blog become regular readers and tell all their friends, who will all love our blog become regular readers and tell their friends, and so on, and within weeks we’ll have hundreds or even thousands of regular readers.
But the reality is growth for most blogs comes slow and steady. It comes one reader at a time.
On Day 3 we talked about promoting a blog post and how it’s important to reach out to people who have never heard of us or our blog and invite them to read a post. But it’s even more important to try to convert a one-time visitor into a regular reader. That conversion often comes by building relationships, and as we all know relationships can be hard work.
7 Little Things You Can Do to Build Relationships with Your Readers
Good relationships don’t happen overnight or with one big “event.” Relationships are developed over time with small things that demonstrate genuine interest. Here are 7 little things you can do. Some are taken from today’s lesson, others are things I do for my readers.
- Email a someone who has commented on your blog (today’s assignment)
- When someone comments on your blog, post a comment in reply.
- Go to commenter’s blogs and comment on their posts.
- Allow people who comment on your blog to include a link in their comments to their own blog. If your commenters find they are getting visitors from your blog, it’s one more incentive to become a regular reader and commenter.
- Remove the “nofollow” attribute from comment links. By default many blogging platforms add the “nofollow” attribute to links in comments. This attribute tells search engines not to “count” the link. Including the nofollow tag eliminates the incentive for spammers to post spammy comments to your blog, but it also takes away the search engine value of the links your legitimate commenters post. I think it’s worth it to remove the nofollow tag if your blogging platform allows you to do so.
- Periodically do things to thank your readers. Be creative. Give away a book or a CD. Do something for them.
- Thank people who retweet your posts on Twitter.
Discussion
- What other little things can bloggers do to build relationships with their readers?
- What little things did you ACTUALLY do today?
- Did you see any immediate results? (You may not. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t)
The Extra Mile
A few other things you can do to take your blog, other bloggers, and this project even further today…
- Reply & give other bloggers feedback on the little things they do.
- When other bloggers include a link to a new article they’ve posted today, click, read, and comment on it.
- Check previous posts in the series for new comments.
- Tweet, share, & bookmark this post. (You could win a $25 gift card!)
98 Comments
Pingback: 31DBBB Day 5: Email a Blog Reader « Christian Web Trends Blog « Cynthia C. Cutright
First, I've got a new post up that I would like people to check out:http://trainingcrucible.blogspot.com/2010/05/race…
As far as emailing readers goes. I haven't done much of this, simply because I haven't had a lot of readers. I always try to comment back when some one makes a comment on my blog, however, i could see the benefit of writing as email, maybe asking how they found the blog, what they would like to read about on the blog, etc.
I also found that when you get a new follower on twitter, that is the perfect time to send them a DM (direct message) and ask them to check out your blog. The reason is, they have already made an investment in you, saying you were worth my time to follow, chances are they will also check out your blog in order to find out more about you.
That is a good idea to send a DM with it to a new Twitter follower. Great idea!
I think a lot of us are over analyzing the concept behind the e-mail a reader thing. at it's most basic level we really are thanking people for reading our blogs because let's face it, without an audience we're meaningless. Our audience might enjoy getting something from our posts, they might like the stories and get a laugh out of it, but at the end of the day, we need them more than they need us. i mean, what good is a servant with no one to serve?
Given that, is it really so weird or out there to send a little personal note that says "thanks for stopping by"?
I think a lot of us are over analyzing the concept behind the e-mail a reader thing. at it's most basic level we really are thanking people for reading our blogs because let's face it, without an audience we're meaningless. Our audience might enjoy getting something from our posts, they might like the stories and get a laugh out of it, but at the end of the day, we need them more than they need us. i mean, what good is a servant with no one to serve?
Given that, is it really so weird or out there to send a little personal note that says "thanks for stopping by"?
The rebellion is not against email or saying hi to your readers. It's the self-serving marketing behind the lesson itself.
I hear you, Erica. I liked the idea because I saw it as a way to bless my readers by letting them know I appreciate them (which I do), and because I hadn't thought of a personal e-mail as a way to do that. I usually link their blogs and comment, read, etc. Which I know they also appreciate. I'm not much of a note sender, so I saw this as a great suggestion I hadn't thought of.
But yeah, the e-book is a business venture, written for business venturers, and the author's reasons for thanking readers are going to be different from our reasons. It's still a good idea, though.
I allow any commenter to link to their latest post automatically on my blog using the IntenseDebate system and a plugin.
Of course, the requirement that the user links their blog into the ID is necessary, but the option is there and their choice.
I wholeheartedly agree.
Like the rest of you, I'm not sure how effective the e-mail thing will be. I do see your point of thanking people for their comments. Erica M has a good way of doing this imme diately after you post a comment. I liked it. Maybe others will like to be thanked also.
Here's today's post:http://junctionforjesus.blogspot.com/2010/05/how-…
–Richard
I wasn't very kind to today's lesson. It's like I gave it a bad movie review. I just didn't think email a blog reader deserved its own chapter. For example, yesterday could have been divided into two or more. I'm not completely on board with the author's approach to the lesson plans.
http://j.mp/apWTqO
I linked to the blogs of those who left a comment on my blog after following me from 31DBBB. It's part of a regular Friday feature on my blog.
Happy Friday, everybody!
I really like your regular Friday feature! Good luck with your Little League games this weekend. I'll be standing on the soccer sidelines. 🙂
We love soccer! Trying youth football this fall. Wish us luck!
Erica,
I love that message that comes up after I posted a comment. That is really cool. How'd you do that?
I sent you an email. The irony, haha. Anyway, if you use wordpress, you can install a plug-in that will redirect first-time commenters to a thank you page of your choosing.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comment-redir…
~Erica
great idea, love your blog: "I’ve got two kids and a baby, a full-time job, weekend kid activities, household chores" wow – I need to direct my wife to you blog 🙂
We have a son; Stephen 2.7 years, and just had a daughter; Jennifer. == little sleep.
When you send your wife to me, she'll love discovering I am the world's worst housecleaner. When I have extra money, I hire housekeeping crews. So take your chances on letting her read my blog! 🙂
Amen to house cleaners – we have a lady in for 2hrs a week and her task is simple. Clean up the major mess, the tidying is our responsibility.
Then we have to try and organise 3 children to do as we'd like ….!
Hey Erica, I think throughout these 31 days we're all going to find some of the lessons/assignments resonate with us and others don't. Some will seem too easy and some will seem too hard. Some will seem brilliant and others will be like, "Well, duh!"
Some bloggers will probably decide to push through the lessons/assignments they don't particularly care for and do them anyway, because who knows maybe the results will surprise them. That's the direction I lean towards. Others may decide to skip a lesson/assignment they don't like and spend an extra day on one they find particularly useful. If that's your approach, I think that's cool too. It's very possible you'll find that approach works better for you.
Your way sounds much more reasonable than my approach of moral outrage! Dunno: guess I could have skipped it, but it struck a chord deeply enough that I couldn't ignore it. I pushed through, yes, and decided to say what I thought about it. ProBlogger doesn't care what I think, but some readers might like to know. One of those fine lines, I guess…
I agree.. Seems like an odd thing to do seeing as you can simply reply to their comment and they'll probably get an email anyway..
So I emailed a blogger that I periodically follow who has commented on my blog in the past (got that?!). We'll see if she responds.
I try to always reply to comments and then click on my visitor's website. But to be honest, I have three young kids so I don't have a lot of extra "reading" time. I try to comment on one or two other blogs a day. All the while remembering, it isn't ultimately about numbers, it's about me being faithful with my moments.
Boy! Is that true! It's about being faithful with our moments. I think I'd better go do some of that!
I just sent out an email to those signed up for our e-news through our website. I hope to have time later today to email new readers and visit more blogs. I am glad to have Saturday to catch up on reading others comments and blogs. So much great information is coming in and I haven't had enough time to go over it all. I am glad that I have kept up with my blogging and assignments.
Thank you for this great opportunity to grow and learn.
http://www.ronniespoon.blogspot.com
I think sending a thank you or brief, yet personal comment to a reader is great idea. My problem is that I don't have any active comments on my blog. Let's face it the blog had been on life support for awhile and it was semi-directionless. Doing this project is a form of resuscitation for the blog. When I get commentators I plan on being more interactive with them.
Having said that, jde22's idea to send a DM on twitter to new followers to promote your blog is genius in its simplicity and something I intend to do now.
Hi, Matt
I tried to comment on your blog, but it said only team members could comment, so that may be why you haven't had any activity. Hope this helps . . .
Blessings, Cindy
Hmm, looks as though Blogger made some changes along the way. Thank you for the info, I have fixed the issue so commenting should be open to all now.
I already so many of these things. I try to reply to every comment left on my blog, and especially since starting the 31days, I've been visiting lots of the blogs represented here and commenting, but I still have many to visit.
I cheated and started last night with the emails, but I tried to email only people who I haven't interacted with in a while. Most of the comments I've received have been from people doing the 31 days, and I'm already interacting with them. Later today, I'll be subscribing to the RSS feeds from the email that went out earlier, so that I can visit some of the blogs I haven't visited yet.
I think another good relationship building thing I need to do is add some blogs to my blogroll (I have none at this point).
That all sounds good to me, with the possible exception of the blog roll. I still don't see much value in them. I mean it's good for the blog you link to, and I can see it being good if the person you add to your blog roll returns the favor and links back to you, but that doesn't seem to happen very often. Although, if you're planning to add Christian Web Trends or Live Intentionally to your blog roll, then don't let me discourage you. 😉