Reward your fellow bloggers

I spend a great deal of my blogging time reading other blogs. In fact I probably spend less than 10% working on my own blog and the rest I spend reading other blogs. A post such as this takes me about 15-30 minutes to conceive, write, edit, and publish and I give myself about 2.5 hours a day for blogging. Obviously this leaves me with some extra time on my hands. Today at work I got to thinking about how I reward other bloggers for a job well done. Rather I began to think of blogs I’ve enjoyed and how I could as a reader, and not as a competitive blogger reward them for their efforts. I’ve come up with a few things, some I do already, and some I’m going to try out.

Linking to a specific article someone has written

The impact of this really speaks for itself. Every blogger will appreciate a link to their blog, but it is especially nice when that link is pointed at a particular article. You don’t need to link to every good article that you find, but the occassional link is always a nice jesture. Just be certain that the article you link to relates to what you are writing about when you link. For example if I had something to say about the New England Patriots scandal with video taping other teams signals I would link to someone like Boston Brat who has her own opinions on the matter. In keeping the link relevant I accomplish two things. Give more depth to my article and reward the other blogger with more traffic to their article.

Clicking on a few ads

Stupid as it sounds I get a little excited when I see that someone has clicked on one of my PPC ads like Adsense or Bidvertiser. I’m not making millions from it by any means, but it’s nice to see that someone clicks on them from time to time. I do the same for others. Not every blog and not every time I go to a blog, but maybe 3 or 4 times a day I’ll click on an ad. To be honest I’ve never ended up buying anything based on one of those ads, though I have given it some serious consideration. I believe it was www.blogcatalog.com where I saw someone mention that they did this as well and consider it like a “tip”.

If this is something you decide to do please keep in mind that someone actually has to pay for those ads, and don’t overdo it on any one blog. It will start to look like click fraud.

Permanent Link

Some blogs are interesting enough to have their own permanent link. Most blogs use a blogroll. I don’t I just have a dedicated link page where I put all of the links. Occassionaly I do add to or take away from the links, but for the most part they are a permanent fixture on my blog.

Affiliate programs

Last but not least are affiliate programs. There are great rewards as they often pay a nice lump sum for a signup. For example if you were to signup for by clicking on the link I would get $25.00. Obviously I’m already a member so I can’t signup again, but if you’re not you can, and I would recommend it as is a great way to montetize your blog.

Stumble, Digg, Reddit, and all the rest

Finally I will often do one of the above (and others) to an article if I think it is halfway decent. It’ll give the blogger just a little extra exposure which never hurt anyone.

Everyone appreciate being recognized and bloggers are no different. So the next time you come across a good article (or blog) take a minute or two and reward that blogger. Go above and beyond the normal “nice post man!” comment, and show your appreciation of the time, dedication and hard work that went into writing the article.

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