1 Comment

1. 

   classicalgeek on 14th November 2008 at 3:28 pm

   I find that the best way to bait bloggers is to contact my real-life blogging friends, ask them to comment on a post that I know they will find interesting, and then to post about and link to their comment on their blog, and invite their readers to give their own opinions. I always have a huge increase in traffic and a few comments, and usually one or two new subscribers. Although I can’t directly return the favour in the form of a blog post about their comment, I do reward people with deep links (and links to their comments/blogs), as an aside to my regular posts. (It also gives my blog a bit more of a personal touch as I tend mostly to post research summaries.)

   I have a few readers from social networking sites but I think the majority comes from my long-term, real-life relationships I’ve built with friends and colleagues over the last twenty years. Some of these people are minor celebrities in their fields and they’ve even occasionally posted my blog link to high-traffic email lists, and that also generally produces a long-term spike as people tend to discuss things in email lists ad infinitum!