Targeting Small Blogs to Increase Your Readership
Every new blogger on the block wants to be noticed by the bigger, more popular blogs around. They want John Chow, Darren Rowse, and Rajaie AlKorani Jeremy Schoemaker to link to their posts and recommend their blog to their readers. Yet the new bloggers publish article after article, continuously linking out to the bigger blogs and commenting on all their posts hoping to be noticed, and all they end up with is an echo of their own voice.
It isn’t that the popular bloggers are arrogant or think that your posts are no good, it’s just that it would be technically impossible for them to read hundreds of posts daily let alone link out to them and comment on them. I’m sure that they appreciate the fact that you link to them and regularly comment on every single one of their posts, but it just isn’t possible for them to return the favor.
If you were to link to a small blog - 5,000 subscribers or less - I guarantee that they would immediately visit your blog and comment on the post linking to them. Even if they don’t, they will most probably link to one or more of your posts in the future.
The same applies to comments, most of the times I comment on a small blog for the first time, its owner will usually visit my blog and comment on one if not several of my posts. A good idea to implement when leaving a comment on a small blog for the first time is to tell the blogger that you really like his blog and have subscribed to it (don’t lie, subscribe). The other blogger will most probably definitely end up subscribing to your blog and regularly commenting on your posts.
Try to comment on ten to twenty new blogs with less than 5,000 subscribers everyday for an entire month and you will see a nice boost in your subscriber count. It’s not how you target potential readers, it’s who you target that will ultimately make the difference.
Every time I comment on a new blog, its owner will drop by my blog and leave a comment or two. After that I will visit his blog and comment on a few more of his posts, the result? I end up gaining one new reader that links out to me regularly and comments on most of my posts.
It really doesn’t take too much to be noticed, just a bit of common sense and planning.
Homework (Yes, I will be giving you guys homework from now on 
)
1. Comment on ten to twenty new blogs everyday for the next month
2. Visit and comment on the latest post of all your commenters
3. Link out to at least ten to twenty new blogs next month (four link love posts, five links each)
4. Watch your readership and comment count steadily increase 
What are some of the things you have done that have increased the amount of readers and interactivity your blog gets?
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
27 Responses to “Targeting Small Blogs to Increase Your Readership”
to be honest this is how i found out about your blog… you found me first. i would like to add that as a small blog blogger i can track my visitors and my commenters and i feel that if they get into the trouble to comment on my post i should definitely visit theirs and most probably comment and bookmark. this totally proves your point… nice post man…
Great post.
Lately blog commenting has brought me some traffic, and that too some decent one.
I’d do your homework
- Swastik -
Hi Rajaie,
This is fabulous advice. The authors of smaller blogs value new commenters and those in their community may check you out as well.
Haha man… I like this homework thing
I am afraid I have not been following this.. I better do or else teacher (Google) will penalize me 
Great post, Rajaie. This technique can really help!
@stratosg, a perfect example
That is what I also like about having a small blog, you can have your own community and keep track of all its members.
@Swastik, since I’m on vacation and am on dial-up, it’s been pretty hard for me to keep commenting like I used to, but when I get back…. By the way, good boy
(for doing the homework)
@Barbara Swafford, that’s very true, I believe that my third largest referrer is The University Kid, a blog I regularly comment on and visit.
@Rockstar Sid, hehehe, I have some contacts at Google who will keep me updated with your progress, so take care
@Lucas, glad you enjoyed it and found it helpful
Commenting on 10 to 20 blogs is a great idea. At the same time you should somehow make sure that those 20 are not arbitraty blogs but at least quite few of them are your regular blogs (in terms of reading/following). Along with commenting, regular readership also matter!
Cheers,
Ajith
He He.. Good one ..
you too start your home work by commenting on Big blogs like mine..
Basically I never liked home work but this home work sounds interesting..
I held an experiment. I think it increased my readership from like 1 to 2 people.
I definitely think commenting and linking out more will get you noticed.
@Ajith Edassery, it depends whether I will only comment on a blog once or if I will subscribe to it as well, but in the case of commenting on 20 new blogs a day, then I don’t subscribing to all of them would be an option
@PC, heheh, nobody loves homework, but we all know that it’s good for you
@Corey Freeman, experimenting is always the best way to find out things you didn’t know before, that’s why I prefer trying things out for myself rather than just reading about them
Its funny because I actually want to say that I just found your blog and I really like it and I subscribed to it. I do “Link Love” on sundays and I am most certainly going to link to your blog in the future (when you do a killer post).
Haha now is the test to see whether or not you will visit my blog….hehe
Nice post, I agree with what your saying, we all want to be acknowledged by the big guns, and I am no different, you expect them to give you a comment back, but it is just impossible, so I have realised this myself and started commenting the littler blogs.
Do you know of any good little blogs that you can recommend?
Hey Ryan,
I will definitely be checking your blog and maybe subscribing, looks like I passed the test
Hey Craig,
I’ll be posting an article very soon on where to find new readers for your blog, but for the mean time, you can check out the websites of the commenters on other blogs, usually they will be of average size. I know it’s hard to be noticed by all the famous bloggers, but like you I stopped trying and started focusing on other newer bloggers
@Craig
You can try my blog!
(Sorry Rajaie, I couldn’t help myself - it’s shameless promotion, obviously.)
Hey Lucas,
No problem mate, we all tend to shamelessly promote ourselves every once in a while
I think this is a really great post. I find it very true that the only way you can gain traffic is to discover it yourself. I know that a lot of the blogs that I have found through the “Weekly Link Roundups” on several of the blogs, have come back to check out my blog. Its a good feeling to find new readers and commentators and thats actually how I found your blog so good job with this post man.
Hey Enkay,
That’s what blogging is all about, linking to each other and creating a friendly community!
I’m glad that my efforts payed off
Well, I completely agree and I am now subscribed to this blog! Commenting on other blogs, the smaller ones, I think is one of the best strategies, I get lots of traffic from them, often these are overlooked because we are so obsessed with the BIG guns!
Thanks
JR
Hey Keyword…….,
Thanks for subscribing to my blog! The comments I make on other blogs are the second largest referral of traffic to my blog, and it’s mostly the small blogs that send me most of it.
Thanks for the advice. Blog commenting is a great way to promote your website - so are link exchanges.
Anyway, I like your site - it has really great tips. I’ve subscribed via RSS, and look forward to your next post.
Hey Wong Kean Wah,
Thanks for subscribing to my site, I hope that you will enjoy my future posts as you enjoyed this one
Great tips!
I get to know your blog from a link list. Guess I’m going to try out the “homework” given.
i ve got some traffic from commenting , but it takes up a lot of time
HI Rajaie,
I stumbled across your blog today for the first time and I can’t believe you have given me homework! Seriously, I like the tips. I’ve just started my business so I have a lot of work on my blog to do!
Cheers
Kristi
What's Your Take?