Stats, comments, relationships? What floats your boat?

[butterflyexperience]

So what means the most to you stats, comments or online relationships?

When I started off I would be hurt by no comments which then grew to obsessing over stats.

I have now realised what it is about blogging I love. It's building online relationships and having an insight into lives that I normally wouldn't such as how families cope with sn.

So what floats your boat about blogging?

butterfly, yes I think filling in the tag box helps bring people to your blog.

Filling in the tags definitely helps, as does having a link box - WP have several "Recent Post" plug-ins. If the reader is interested in what she has just read, and sees a post that has a similar content, the chance is high that she will click and read on.

MmeG
How did you build up such a big readership? How long have you been blogging? I suppose it helps that you are in a blog niche - I guess for a typical "mummyblogger" it would be much more difficult. I showed DH your blog yesterday and he commented that it looks very professional. That likely makes a difference too.

I bought it because:
1 - I talk to you on Twitter (more than on MN generally)
2 - It was cheap (and I am all giddy with love for my Kindle still)
3 - It sounded like the sort of thing I'd like to read

Trillian

TAMPONS

What's up MmeL?

This thread gets a GUSSETS actually :)

Ah, I see now. You were answering MmeG. Sorry.

GUSSETS galore!

I was joining in with the To be honest I bought the book as I wanted to help a fellow MNer but as I love historical fiction it really wasn't a hardship from a few posts back.

Maybe I should go back and do tags.

I have a few blogs that I visit regularly as a result of a bloggers thread a few months back on mn. Before the bloggers network was set up. We all seemed to be starting out on our blogs and were keen to become followers of each other.

Here you are: Tips to increase blog traffic

Merci, Trillian! I hope it was worth it! :)

Mme L - I've had my blog for just over two years now. I'm not sure how I have managed to build up a big readership and also large array of view worthy posts but being a bit niche (writing and history) definitely helps.

I don't blog about personal stuff very often, but instead concentrate on writing articles that people who are interested in the same sorts of things as me will enjoy and link to and stuff. I also try to be fairly topical - my post on the Royal Wedding dress went out while the wedding was actually still going on and, unsurprisingly, got several thousand views within a couple of hours.

I comment a bit, but not excessively but I do try and get along with bloggers who write similar content to me about Marie Antoinette etc. I also try to always bear in mind that the vast majority of my readership is in the US and so try and deliver things that are unique and that they might not otherwise see - I'm lucky in that my old university tutor is now the Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures and has got me into private bits of Kensington Palace and Windsor Palace and also told me to consider myself the Royal Collection's unofficial pet blogger. I also go and feel up eighteenth century dresses at the Bath Fashion Museum and stuff like that, which readers in the US can only experience vicariously.

I think my advice then would be:

1. Make your blog look as scrumptious as possible.
2. Be unique.
3. Exploit the things that are unique to you and that your readers might not otherwise experience.
4. Make friends with other bloggers.
5. Think of your blog posts as articles.
6. Have a lot of pictures.
7. At least try to reply to comments.
8. Join forums for things that you post to your blog about (I'm in Kindle, historical fiction, history, writing, Jack the Ripper and Marie Antoinette forums and societies) and wait for the opportunity to smack people with your links.
9. Go outside with your camera.

That's all I've got. It seems to be working for me anyway. :)

(I'll post this on the other similar thread as well, just in case it is useful!)

That is interesting, MmeG.