Bloggers are consistently told that they should blog daily. Most of us do not have the time to do that, even if they cross post articles between their different blogs.
What the articles do not tell new bloggers is why they should blog daily. There is a lot of competition out there. Each blogger wants readers and wants hits. Most of this traffic will come through 'pings.' Unfortunately, very few blogs rank high enough to receive hits from search engines. The only way to attract a new audience is to ping blog search engines and remain active in the blog directories.
Another way is to join blogging communities, but be careful. There are several solid blog communities that are owned by serious companies - mypace, www.squidoo.com, www.bebo.com, www.authorsconnection.com, www.communati.com, www.bloggerparty.com
Blog communities receive hundreds of thousands of hits. They usually have a higher PR than a personal blog, meaning that links from there are good for your blog's ranking.
The problem arises when new bloggers do nothing but promote 'off site' products. People in the communities want to make friends and communicate. If you don't participate, you won't benefit.
This is the same with blog communities - you'll only benefit if you remain active.
Does this take a lot of time? Maybe at first, but after a while, you can network with 20 or 30 bloggers in less than an hour.
12.8.07
Why Post Often
18.7.07
The Pros and Cons of Blogging Communities
There are advantages of blog communities. They receive lots of hits, and have an inherent promotion aspect. The trick is to find a good one. No professional blogger needs to be reminded of the lesson learned from writingup, or should I say the now defunct writingup.
Out of the ashes, and managed by a different host, came www.communati.com. This blog, and www.bloggerparty.com are two relatively good posts. The webmaster at www.communati.com lets people use their blog for building links. Bloggerparty will instantly delete any blog with more than two links.
In the end, belonging to a blogging community has good emotional benefits, and poor financial/promo ones.
Good, because you will make friends and socialize. Bad, because you can spend hours a day on these sites, without ever creating your own blog network.
