Get the Blog Rolling
When I was a little girl, there were few things that could make my pigtails bounce with joy more than getting a letter in the mail addressed to me. It made me feel so important and valuable. It didn’t even really matter what it was, or what it said – - it just mattered that someone had thought of me enough to write. (Although I’ll admit there was an extra little pigtail bounce when I saw the letter was from my grandmother, because that usually meant there was a crisp new dollar bill inside.) Years of junk mail have dampened my excitement over heading to the mailbox, but I still get a little thrill when I open the mailbox door and find an honest-to-goodness letter with my name on it.
Come to think of it, bloggers have a lot in common with little pigtailed girls. The biggest part of the excitement of writing a blog, is knowing that others are going to read it. And the only way to know what other people think of your 
writing is when they take the time to leave a comment. Do you remember on Andy Griffith when Barney would finally do something right, like remember to lock the jail door, or remember to put his bullet in his pocket? Andy would get this proud look on his face and tell Barney he was doing “fine” work. Barney would hike up his pants grin and nearly knock his ear out of joint with that sideways grin of delight. That is pretty much the sum total of how a blogger feels when a reader leaves a comment on his blog. He or she is not only proud that what they wrote mattered to someone, but is inspired to continue writing.
Commenting on a blog can be sort of like rolling a snowball down a hill. It motivates the writer to interact with his readers and write more blogs, which in turn, brings about more comments. Even more importantly, when a blogger knows she has readers, she is apt to raise the bar in terms of her content. Posts get better, and more readers are drawn in.
For new bloggers, commenting on someone else’s blog has an additional benefit. It gets you noticed. Let’s say you are starting a blog about 80′s music, and you are also a regular reader of the Bangles Buff blog, the Duran Duran Devotee blog, and the Aerosmith Aficianado blog. By commenting on these blogs often, and using your blog url in your comment, you are making the writers aware of your similar interests, and hopefully they will stop by your blog to check it out, and maybe, if your blog hits the right 80′s “chord” with them, they will even add you to their blogroll! And so on, and so on, and so on….the snowball keeps rolling.
Commenting is just one of the many things you can do to grow your blog readership. To find out more information on starting a new blog or building a better blog, sign up for one of our blog courses today. There is no better time to get the blog rolling!
Until Next Time,
