As of December 2007, Technorati was following over 112 million blogs.  112 million!!  There’s no question that blogs are quickly dwarfing the rest of the internet and the search engines are consistently ranking them higher because of (1) their volume of relevant content, (2) their ongoing flow of new and fresh content and (3) the incredible link structure characteristic of the blogosphere.  But the fact remains that most people who blog don’t really do it “correctly” or at a minimum, could be blogging more effectively.  If you’re a blogger, here’s a process you can follow that will massively expand the reach of your posts.

First things first.  I highly recommend you find the top bloggers in your field and subscribe to their feed.  Select a reader (like Google Reader) and add all your subscriptions.  Technorati is a great place to find the top bloggers in any particular field.  Google is another.  Do some research and find about a dozen bloggers you like and respect.  Okay; having done that, let’s get to the process.

Obviously, it begins with your idea.  You’ve decided what you’d like to blog about.  That’s step number one.

Before you write your blog …

  • Check your reader to see if the other bloggers you follow are talking about the same thing.
  • Put a few keywords into Google to find other resources you can link to in your post.
  • Put the same keywords into Technorati to see if anyone else is discussing the same topic.

Writing your post …

  • In the blogosphere, outbound links = currency.
  • Constantly link to other bloggers and valuable resources in your post.
  • You want your blog to be a single portal to ALL the resources that exist on your topic.

After you publish your new post …

  • Write an email to the bloggers you linked to, letting them know and giving them a link.
  • Bookmark your new post on Delicious, DIGG and StumbleUpon (among others).
  • Submit your blog post to any relevant carnival on Blog Carnival (do this once each month).

Taking these simple steps will ensure your blog post gets nicely integrated into the ongoing conversation that defines today’s blogosphere.  You want to engage in the conversation.  Conversations are markets.  If you want to access a market, participate in a conversation.  Blogging is one of the best ways to do that but you have to let the world know you exist.  The steps above will dramatically accelerate that process.

The last thing to keep in mind is that you can get far more traffic from referral websites (other blogs) than you can from search engines.  Once you’ve linked out to a lot of popular blogs and some of them have linked back to you, you can quickly grow your traffic as part of their audiences become aware of you.  That’s the game.  Find the bloggers in your field and engage in their conversation.  You might be surprised how quickly it can all take shape.

Edith Yeung is a good example of this.  She grew her blog from zero to over 1000 visitors per day in under 10 months by using some of the steps I’ve outlined above and the vast majority of her traffic comes from referral websites (other blogs) and social bookmarking platforms like StumbleUpon.  Give it a try.  Done properly, it can completely change your business in less than a year!

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