I was just reading / watching a video post on ProBlogger.net about choosing your blogging niche and Darren pretty much summed up how I felt. I think when I first came across all the “Make Money Online” blogs, I got it in my head that if I want to make money online, I have to write about about making money online. This really isn’t the case, and the fact is that I have never made a measurable amount of money from a website, so why would anyone want to listen to me anyways?
As I’ve been working on my even newer blog, I’ve been trying some different ideas for getting readers and building a following. I’ve read a lot a different theories, but most of them revolve around a few central ideas:
- Create good content
- When start, you build it 1 reader at a time
- Building individual relationships can be very helpful
Since my new blog is in the self improvement / personal development world, I started poking around MyBlogLog and found some people that are writing blogs that are related to mine. I read some of their blogs, picked ones that I really liked and posted some comments. I would comment on their MyBlogLog page if they had been recently active, or I would leave a comment on their blog if I had something specific to add. Some of these people visited my blog, a few of them commented, added my RSS feed, or added me to their blog rolls.
Really it’s pretty exciting. I’ve got 6 people on my RSS feed right now, which is more than anything else I’ve ever done. I’m spending some time each day reaching out to new people and reading the other blogs in my niche. It’s a learning process and it’s been pretty fun so far.