Before I continue on following the steps in How to Launch a Blog Network and 46 Things To Do Before Launching a Blog Network - I still need to work on this step: Work hard at building a blog with a good profile and traffic base on a single focused topic.

Now, I’m continuing to work on getting more subscribers and more people commenting, and I’ll post on how that’s going later in the week. But - how do I get people to find the blog to start with so they can subscribe and comment?

Chris Garrett had a post over a year ago titled: Where To Find Fresh Blogs and How To Get Your Blog Discovered. In in he suggests:

1. Get linked, any way you can - The more blogs that link you the more bloggers will find you. Obvious point but overlooked.

But how do you do that? I’ve so far avoided doing link exchanges with other blogs - but maybe I should reconsider that.

2. Link out, link well, link often ….

I’ve been trying to do this, and pretty often I think - but maybe not ‘well’. Maybe I’m not linking to the right people.

3. Comment well - Same advice as above, comment intelligently and a lot. …

I wonder what people consider to be a lot? Its time consuming, but I try to comment as much as I can. I think maybe I need to expand the number of blogs I comment at. I’ll work on that.

4. Play tag - I need to tag more.

I’ll admit, I haven’t been doing this. The new wordpress even has something built in for it, but I still haven’t. Way back when I did and it didn’t seem to help much, if at all. So I wonder, does it really help that much?

5. Email good stuff …

I’ve been trying to email more people lately - those who comment, etc. But maybe I need to do this more.

So, what have I learned? I’ll reconsider link exchanges with blogs, work on my linking out, start commenting on more blogs, tag my posts (I’ll even start with this one!), and think about using email more.

Really, what most of this comes down to though, is networking. Liz Strauss has a new post: Hunters, Gatherers, and Stars of Networking. And I’m not real good at networking. She divides people into three groups:

The Hunters
The Gatherers
The Stars of Networking

Oh, and the nonparticipants. That’s what I’ve always been. I don’t fit the descriptions of the other three at all.

I need to work on that.