internet

It's been a few years since blogging began and over this time blogs have lost their original purpose and become what can only be described as 'competitive'.  So, here's a reminder of what blogs and blogging are all about and how, used properly, they can work to attract far more traffic than you would get otherwise.

First, blogs are a way of personal expression - you can say what you like from the sort of day you had to praising the product you make in your factory, it doesn't matter, it's all blogging.  But, and this is the important thing, you're not writing in isolation the way you write an article for a magazine.  Rather you are part of the blogging community and, understanding this, makes your blogging better and increases traffic.

Interaction
People who write blogs are not 'competition' in the sense that a local shop selling similar goods to you is in competition for the same customers. 

The purpose of blogs is that they link together by interaction and form one large block of ideas that forge their way forward into the mass of readers.  Readers then pick from many of the blogs, darting from one to another to appreciate and understand different aspects and diverse ideas and opinions on the same theme.

Thus, blogging is a communal activity performed by the community for the benefit of the community.

So how does blogging like this attract more traffic
The mechanics of it work like this.  You find blogs similar to your own and link to them and often, in return, they link to you.  This happens many times over and this is how a 'block' of blogs can develop dealing with a particular theme or idea. 

Interested readers find one blog and from that blog they have access to all the others that are linked to it and this encourages them to read more.  Think of the way you read blogs - you read one person's take on an idea and often move to a similar blog to see how the idea is developed elsewhere.  This is, of course, what the World Wide Web was designed to be good at doing.

So, instead of finding your blog, reading it and going on their way, blog readers read your neighbour's blog and then follow the link to your blog and read that, subsequently moving on to another.  It's a fun and convenient way of blogging and this encourages readers to read more.

You can see from this that you will get more readers and thus more traffic while the blog reader gets variety and a deeper perspective on the subject.  It's a win-win situation!

So don't look upon bloggers writing similar blogs to your own as 'competition', look upon them as useful friends you can join and, united, go forward together to harvest a greater group of readers for the mutual benefit of all.
 

Tags: blogs, internet