How to Get Bloggers to See and Follow Your Blog
As a kid I remember watching Entertainment Tonight and wondering, “What are the odds that two celebrities would marry each other?!”
As I grew older I realized that people become friends with people like themselves. Hence, celebrities marry celebrities. The same applies for bloggers. They all know each other and they all help each other out.
As a beginner blogger I realized this and thought, “If I want to be a big-time blogger, other big-time bloggers need to know about me. But how can I do that?”
Well, I’ve been at it for a few years now and I’ve started to make a little headway. This is how you can get bloggers to see and follow your blog.
Create a Follow-Worthy Blog
This is the first, most critical step. It also happens to be the most challenging because it’s the only one that’s not a matter of working through a to-do list.
Out of all the blogs I follow, here are five things they have in common:
- Clearly defined niche. They all focus on a very specific problem for a very specific audience.
- Distinctive voice. People know who wrote the post without seeing their name attached to it.
- Unique blog design. They have custom built blog designs.
- Creating from authority. They write based on what they know.
- Consistent content. They create regularly and reliably.
As you’re working towards this, move forward with the rest of this list.
Find Other Bloggers in Your Niche
Before you can have other bloggers follow your site, you need to find them. Here are a few ways I find bloggers:
- Search relevant keywords. You’ll find all of the top bloggers in your niche if you search the keywords that you want to rank for.
- See who your favorite bloggers interview. Bloggers interview the people they admire.
- Find top lists. If you’re able to find a few of the top ranking, top blogger lists, there’s a good chance that the top bloggers are actually featured.
As you work on your blog, follow people on Twitter, and subscribe to other sites, you’re naturally going to find other bloggers in your niche.
Comment on Their Blogs Regularly
Once you know who the top bloggers are, start reaching out to them by commenting on their blogs. Bloggers like comments because, to them, it shows that you’re engaged and that what they’re writing is important.
If you become a regular commenter, the blogger is more likely to recognize your name when you email or meet them.
If you comb through the comments section on bigger blogs, you’ll notice that even the A-listers comment on each others’ blogs. Here’s an insightful comment Yanik Silver left on one of Michael’s posts a few months back:
Link to Their Posts in Your Posts
One thing bloggers appreciate even more than comments are links.
Make an effort to consistently link to your favorite bloggers, both as a value-added resource for your readers and as a favor to the blogger. When you link to one of their posts, it shows up as a trackback in the comments. They notice.
Here’s a post that David Risley wrote where he mentioned an article I wrote for Income Diary.
Big-time bloggers like David Risley create “Round Up” posts because they understand the importance of building relationships with other bloggers while giving their readers new perspectives.
Include Them in a Flattering Top List
Remember how you can find top bloggers by looking through top lists? Well, one of the ways that bloggers climb to the top is by being included in these sorts of lists.
Michael has always told you how top lists rank well in search engines and get lots of social traffic (partly because the people included in the list share it).
So, if you really want to leave an impression on a blogger, feature them in a “20 Most Influential [your niche] Bloggers” list.
Michael Stelzner, from Social Media Examiner, even stopped by one of Income Diary’s top lists to leave his appreciation for being included. That’s one of the most shared posts on Income Diary.
Guest Post for Them
This one’s tricky.
Your guest post is going to be received as a blessing or a burden. Tommy Walker wrote a fantastic post on How to Write a Viral Guest Post for an A-List Blog. I encourage you to follow his process as closely as possible.
In that post, Tommy explains how he landed an once-in-a-lifetime spot on Chris Brogan’s blog with a guest post that took two years to create.
The gist of Tommy’s article is:
- Know everything about the blog and the blogger.
- Write something epic specifically for them.
Chris later told Tommy:
I don’t do guest posts on [chrisbrogan.com] for a bunch of reasons.
- Most people used to complain that they came to read me and that they didn’t want other people’s posts.
- People offering guest posts didn’t write anything of value (my opinion).
- People offering guest posts sent them horribly formatted and I’d spend 20 minutes fixing syntax errors.
Of these, #3 was probably the most annoying, and so I stopped bothering.
By the way, if you don’t know what a syntax error is, then you’re probably making them.
Interview Them for Your Blog
Along with getting included on a top list, bloggers like to do interviews. It gives them a chance to reach your audience as an authority of something that your audience is interested in.
For interviewing them you have two options:
- Email. Easier to conduct but more work for the blogger.
- Phone/Skype. Difficult to schedule but a higher quality interview.
As you’ll soon find out, I’ve conducted a lot of interviews. Bloggers need to be sold on why they should give you their time for an interview. Even for a site like Income Diary.
If you want help with this process, read How to Land A-List Interviewees for Your Blog.
Purchase Their Products
Bloggers and business owners always give preferential treatment to their customers. If you want to get noticed by them:
- Buy something from them.
- Implement what you purchased.
- Contact them and mention the results of using their product.
Readers contact bloggers every single day expecting them to answer tons of questions without ever having purchased something from their site. Then the reader gets frustrated when the blogger doesn’t respond immediately.
If you’re not a customer, how can you expect customer service?
Meet Them at a Conference
Outside of creating a follow-worthy blog, this is the most important thing you can do.
The reason I’m writing for Income Diary today is because I commented, interviewed, and met Michael at Yanik Silver’s Underground conference two years ago. At that conference, I also met Yanik Silver, David Risley, and Neil Patel. I rode in an elevator with Shoemoney and became good friends with David Aston.
If you’re serious about getting other bloggers to see and follow your blog, find out what conferences they attend and, in the abbreviated words of Tina Fey’s daughter, “go to there.”
The Final Word
I wrote most of this article from the perspective of getting big-time bloggers to see and follow your blog. But don’t underestimate the importance of reaching out to the bloggers on your level as well. These bloggers are a lot like you, and as such, their influence is growing. If you help each other early on, your blogs will grow together.
On a corporate level, sites like Mashable, Yahoo!, and CNN have syndication deals. Meaning, they’re constantly re-sharing each others’ content because they understand the importance of banding together.
On a final note, bloggers are masters at researching. If your blog is relevant to their audience and deserves to be found, they will find it.
If they haven’t found it, get crackin’.
Image by: Andrew R. Whalley
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Thanks for the article! I’m a relatively new blogger, so these tips are very helpful.
I’m glad, Melissa. In what ways did they help you?
As a new blogger, it can be easy to hesitate in linking to other posts/blogs with a similar niche because you think it may drive people away from your site.
But like you mentioned, it adds to your credibility and even your integrity. You’re being honest with your readers that there are other helpful blogs and article for them. And you’re also building good karma with your peers!
YOU write the best blogs!! You are like my blog coach. Thanks so much for this info!! I hope I can return the favour in my niche one day Cheers Sam
I really like this Nicholas! I agree creating a follow worthy blog does take time and in my opinion the audience is what determines whether you’re follow worthy. The blogger has to build trust which takes 2 years I’ve heard and put in much effort. I look forward to posts like this on Incomediary. It helps me build my blogging strategy. #Find other bloggers in your niche. It isn’t easy to find other bloggers in my (natural remedies depression) niche. I type it in Google and I mainly find informational websites like Wikipedia or product sites with online counseling. Do you know of any resources that help newbie bloggers find other top bloggers in their niche?
When somebody tells you that it takes two years to build trust, psychologically, it gives you an excuse to not create a thriving site in less than two years. Maybe they took two years, but I know plenty of sites that were wildly successful in much less than two years. IncomeDiary made $5,000 in its first month. Also, check out the Google Blog Search function. Haven’t used it with much success, but maybe it’s designed for smaller niches like “natural remedies depression”.
Thank you for your reply. True never thought of it that way. It can be less time! I will look into using the Google Blog Search function.
Wow there’s some really great tips here! Thanks for sharing that post, some of them are so simple yet they sound so effective.
I especially like the ‘Interview them for your Blog’ idea, really interesting.
Look forward to more good tips
Paul
I’m glad you liked it, Paul. Bloggers like interviews, especially if all they have to do is show up on Skype for 10-15 minutes.
As a new blogger trying to start up and hopefully, eventually getting my blog to a “popular” and engrossing state, it’s information like this that gives me hope!
Thank you for your hard work and dedication it means a ton to us “newbies”
Great post Nicholas. The celebrity analogy was on point.
As an up and coming blogger still cutting my teeth, linking to the “big dogs” has gotten me some recognition. I guess I should do it more often, huh?
Yep, I linked to Neil Patel’s blog 3-4 times before he linked back to a post I wrote here.
Hey Nicholas… an awesome post my friend… you nailed it once again!
When you said, “Meet Them at a Conference
Outside of creating a follow-worthy blog, this is the most important thing you can do.”
I believe this is the one “secret” in the industry that nobody does.
In the end it’s all about relationships and the easiest way to bond and develop a relationship is to be with someone IN PERSON. And especially when it’s outside both of your normal work environment, the bonding is so much stronger than just emailing/skyping with someone.
Thanks for driving this point home… time for me to book my next conference!
Where are you heading next?
– Ken Hammond
I’m going to be stuck in beautiful Colorado for a few months ;). I was thinking about going to Blog World later this year. No plans yet. How about yourself? Any you recommend?
Hey Nic,
Thank you so much for the info. As humans we tend to forget important points sometimes. I’m glad that I subscribed to your site…keep up the good work:-)
You’re welcome, Steven. I just write for Income Diary. Michael Dunlop is the owner here. See you around.
Thank you for this post. I have so much to learn still. And I write guest posts every single day for myself and many other blogs (it’s part of my freelance business)
That’s good that you’re writing so many guest posts, Jessica. Are you getting them on larger sites in your niche?
Hi Nick,
Once again really enjoyed your content filled post !!!!
Considering the topic of this post I have been busy Googling you . You may be wondering why ?
The reason being is that I would like to contact you directly rather than here in the comments box.
I was led to believe that a site / blog should have a bloggers contact details jumping off the homepage. Alas I couldn`t find / see yours.
Incidentally, why don`t you have a Facebook page Nick ?
I have another request for you please Nick. You have already posted about ways to generate ideas & how to promote your blog. Can you now go to the very beginning please.
Day 1 of the next most read blog. How would you start it off? Do other peoples blogs give you the writing ideas? Do you start immediately looking for other bloggers? What are your favourite places to look?
Why, in your opinion, did Michael make $5000 in the first month with Income Diary? How is a newbie expected to know any of these reasons?
Nick, I`m looking forward to your answer(s) to this one!
Nick
Hey Nick, you can reach me everywhere from this page: http://14clicks.com/contact/ I think that would be a good blog post, Nick. In fact, that would be a good series of blog posts. As you know, I’ll consider it and you’ll see my answers here in the next couple of blog posts.
Great question Nick Messenger. I didn’t think to ask How did Michael make $5000 in the first month with Income Diary? He doesn’t seem to have many ads and I think he didn’t start selling software until a year after the blog was online. That’s a lot of money for a new blog, and I didn’t know Michael made that much money in only one month. I have seen the videos about how to set up your blog, but I don’t think it was really specific on how he monetized the site. Looking forward to reading those series of posts!
Hi Abigail,
Just thought I`d say thank you for your comment on my question about Michael`s first month.
It`s good to know that other people are reading each others comments.
I look forward to interacting with you more in the future.
Nick
How did you create the opt in box in the header and the floating sidebar opt in box? Those are sweet!
Hey David, those were custom built. I agree they’re sweet. Michael has a talented developer.
Thanks so much Nick, as a new blogger I learn a lot from your great post. Thanks again!
I’m glad, Leo. What specifically did you learn?
This was a fantastic article Nicholas, well written and very informative.Thanks.
Nice one here Nick. Getting the attention of big blogger to comment on your blog is a good thing it makes you happy and also gives your blog some social value.
Sheyi
It’s really easy to forget to comment and thank bloggers for their awesome information. Thanks for the great insight.
thanks for these useful tips.. really needed for my new blog..
That is a great thought on getting bloggers to see and follow your own blog. Excellent ideas!