Are You Missing Out The Most Important Piece In Blogging?

This is a guest post from Melvin Dichoso who’s currently running an insane contest.

Let me start this post with a question. What is common with successful bloggers? Yes, they get a lot of traffic. Yes, they all make good money with their blog and again you’re right, they are web celebrities. All those things and many more are the things that you can easily find out common with them. But probably you missed this one.

They all have built great relationships with each other and many other bloggers.

It never ceases to surprise that people don’t put this as one of their goals in successful blogging. Bloggers are mostly just like “Oh, I’m going to build traffic, increase my rss readers” or “I’m going to put ads on this and that”. They just never give building relationships a thought in each day.

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One of the reasons for the growth of my blog is actually when I started interacting more with bloggers, when I started networking with them, and began establishing relationships.

I don’t know but I think most bloggers are still stucked in that old blog marketing practice of going to each and every social site, signing up and then posting a mass message saying “hey check out my blog, its the coolest thing ever and blah blah” or commenting on 100 blogs a day and just saying “great post, I learned a lot” kind of thing.

Not that it doesn’t work anymore but there’s just so much return for actually exerting effort by connecting with bloggers genuinely and building something into that. It builds trust, it builds reputation and overall it increases your overall brand as a blogger.

I have quite done some guest posts on big blogs and people always kinda approach me and say “how did you get that accepted? How come he doesn’t even reply to me?” The short answer is “because I built relationship with him”.

Look at the big blog Problogger.net. The blog receives myriads of guest posts every day and people wonder how come Darren let all these people just write on his blog? Do you think Darren know these guest posters personally?

It’s surprising but the answer is yes. Put yourself in the big bloggers position. Someone you just heard for the first time emailed you and asked you some favor, are you going to give some time to that favor?

Obviously no is the answer. But compare that to let’s say a blogger who’s been actively commenting on your blog (not annoyingly) and interacting with you through twitter or other sites. What do you think?

The things that I mentioned above aren’t really old and obsolete marketing practices. What makes them look obsolete though is on how bloggers use them. Like in blog commenting, by posting those short generic comments do you think you’re adding value? Definitely no and you don’t expect to make relationships when you’re not giving any value.

Bloggers are smart people. They know if you are on the same level as them, they understand the things that they can get in return and they generalize it based on how good you are. It can be really tough but it’s all worth it because on the other side of the fence, bloggers are friendly animals. They don’t treat you like a competitor, they accommodate you well and the best thing is, they share you their pre-eminence. That’s why I always believe that blogging is the best industry.

In the end it’s all about making connections and trying to justify that ‘hey I’m here to talk with you’. Sure it doesn’t happen overnight and it takes time to build but that’s how every successful blogger was able to do it anyway.

They didn’t just spring out in one place and all of a sudden made friends, they didn’t just write content, they didn’t just go to those high traffic sites to throw their links. They built relationships genuinely with people, worked on increasing their credibility and started stamping their expertise. I’d repeat it all happens over time.

The end result? They benefit altogether from that shared connections established through relationships. What do you think?

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27 thoughts on “Are You Missing Out The Most Important Piece In Blogging?”

  1. Well, Building relationships is important in ANY business, not just in blogging.

    If you take any OFFline business, you will see that relationships with customers, suppliers etc are of the utmost importance.

    It’s the same with a Web Business. You have to build relationships with your customers/visitors and as you mentioned, in the blogging scene, with fellow bloggers.

    Cheers
    Nabeel

    1. Yep its true. The problem with online business, blogging for instance is that a lot of bloggers seem to forget that building that relationship is first and foremost the most important aspect.

  2. Yes, relationship is really necessary in blogging, especially in the beginning of your career as a blogger. But when your blog and you will became popular, you will save only necessary contacts and really good online friends,

    1. True but you really don’t need to keep in touch with all people that you know. Just like with real world friends, when you started that initial conversation, it would go on and last for a long time.. 😉

  3. Fully agree with what you said. I love to comment, read and participate in famous blogs. This gives me a lot of learning and other benefits. The guest posting and commenting really helps in establishing the good relationships with other bloggers.

  4. I agree Melvin.

    Not to be arrogant but I wouldn’t accept a guest post on my blog if I didn’t know the blogger in the first place. This is because if they haven’t taken the time to say hello or commented once or twice before, it seems to me like they just want to build traffic – not give to the community.

    You have to realize that your reputation is on the line as well. If you accepted a guest post that gave false information, linked to spammy sites or had nothing to do with the blogging niche – your actual readers will then have a different image of you, they’ll think “why did he/she allow this on the blog?”

    Guest posts are great for both parties but you should definitely/always have a relationship with the other blogger first.

    1. Thats another good takeaway Murlu. I guess most bloggers dont realize this when they accept a guest post.

      And besides the main reason why i was able to do a guest post on blogs like Chow, DBT, is that I’ve built relationships with them. I was a commenter, a retweeter and I just interact with those guys genuinely. And that helps!

  5. Yeah you are right.Interacting with other bloggers do help.You don’t only get more exposure but also you learn from them.

  6. I agree. I have noticed that many top ranking blogs in the search engines because they ad each other to their blog rolls. I guess you could clall it a feed exchange.

  7. I like and appreciate what you have to say Melvin. We tend to read and comment on the same 20ish blogs and as result have enjoyed the relationships that have developed, as well as the relationships that are developing. When blogging becomes and team effort, then great things happen! 🙂

  8. I had never tried much in building relationships with other bloggers. I am a personal calling level with Harsh from Shoutmeloud. Except him, I do not have any more contacts online.

    I am planning to join in some blogging discussions and make my voice heard. Thanks for the post to gently remind me of it.

    1. yep, i like your post about that. the good thing again with blogging is that competition is almost like non-existing..

  10. I too agree with you. We should interact with the other bloggers. We can learn new things from them and can also get many other helps.

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