Reciprocal Blogging: Its About Stroking Each Other’s Back

You can’t be a recluse in the world of blogging. You won’t survive for very long.

Trust me when I say I know this from personal experience. Its not just about writing great content, having the prettiest or cleanest looking blog, or how many cool widgets you have in your sidebar.

Its about attracting readers and more importantly — keeping those readers.

The gurus will tell you its all about the content, i.e. they are more popular because they write better compelling content than the rest of us mortals. Yeah right.

But the real truth of it is they manipulated their way to the top by working the system. That is the conclusion my friend Rory has come to and he is bang on. Here is my comment:

“These self-proclaimed gurus schmoozed, manipulated and tricked their way to the top which is what I have been proclaiming for years. Now maybe you will understand my disdain for them.Just one more piece of advice. Stop giving them your link love and ignore them. They don’t deserve your attention or the pagerank hit.”

They suck up to a-listers to join the fraternity and stuff their posts with popular keywords that attract readers like flies on poop. Then they flaunt their Feedburner stats in our noses like a badge of honour so they can wallpaper their blogs with advertisements and pave the road to riches and glory. Just ask John Chow

But for the rest of us mortals who can’t break into the a-list the honest way, relationship building (otherwise known as reciprocal blogging) is the way to go. After all, that’s what they do and the only difference between them and us is the name on the guest list.

That is why I go out of my way to comment on everyone’s blog who has ever commented on mine (and if I’ve missed you please forgive the Bloke because it was not intentional).

My advice is:

• Create your own network of friends by leaving comments on other blogs you find interesting or are within your niche;
• You can start by joining Blog Bloke’s Network of Friends;
• Take turns being a guest writer on your friends blogs;
• Link and blogroll one another;
• Make even more friends by going through your blog archives and visit anyone who has ever left a comment, trackback or linked back to you;
• Return the favour and leave a comment thanking them for their thoughtfulness.

They will love you for it.

You stroke mine and I’ll stroke yours. Works for me. It’s the stuff that relationships are made out of.More reading:

• The Blogosphere is Rigged
• So You are a Successful Blogger — Really?”
• Surefire Recipe for Blogging Success: Guaranteed
• Linking Etiquette/Ethics for Blogs: The Last Word
• Relationship Blogging: Still the Best Way to Promote and Grow Your Blog