blogging tips – how to boost your readership
Now that I’ve been blogging for over a year, I feel like I should pass on some hot tips I’ve observed from other bloggers to boost readership.
1. Spam liking
Spam liking is the easiest and most obvious way to boost your readership – flattering lonely bloggers is a sure-fire way to get attention. Do some tag surfing in relevant themes, and click down all the like buttons without even reading a post! Quick and effective. My favourite spam liker is Humanity 777, who SHOUTS IN CAPS, makes holy numbers from the Bible, and boasts over 10,000 followers. If you say hello to him, he might give you a reply like this:
“RUB-A-DUB-DUB” = 932-1-432-432 = “33″ = LAST ENTRY! THE LIFE OF “CHRIST”, WAS 33YEARS ON EARTH = “6″ = YOU, THE “222″ WITHIN IT!
Other illustrations of this successful spam liker strategy who you may be familiar with at the bottom of your Christian tagged posts are culturemonk with 65,000 followers and BJ with 9,710 followers. Remember, spam liking is a targeting exercise, so choose your tags carefully.
2. Spam followers
If you think spam liking is too conspicuous, you can always try spam following. Again, this is a tag dependent exercise that flatters other bloggers into paying you some attention. The difference here is that following is bigger flattery than liking and I expect there’s a bigger reciprocal success rate. I don’t know much about spam followers, other than the highlighted posts that reach my email when they follow me tend to reference something along the lines of ‘make money from blogging’. Example spam followers are Nate Smith, who’s gravatar tells you he’ll help you learn about ‘Viral Blogging’ and ‘ skyrocket your monthly income’; and Bryce Gorman who can give you information to turn ‘your own blog into an ATM’.
3. Bogus comments
This final suggestion is quite contraversial. There is a suggestion that some motivated bloggers create bogus commenters to liven up the conversation and traffic on their lonely posts. If you do take this desperate route, be careful to travel about to different IP addresses for each comment, or you may be found out and publicly humiliated.
4. call for suggestions
These are the main routes to making your blog bigger that I’ve viewed in my short time here in WordPress. What other strategies have you seen in play? Feel free to name and shame. Have you tried and would you recommend doing any of the above?
Commenting with nothing really to say so that someone will come back and comment on my blog. Mea Culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa…
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Oooh, what an admission! 😀 Say three Hail Mary’s and have a cup of hot tea.
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Haven’t tried any of the above, but have noticed the same trend as you. I don’t reciprocate any of those spam-likes or spam-follows. I wondered how on earth they even found my posts/blog in the first place and quickly realized they certainly hadn’t read the material (Christian-spammers) or they wouldn’t have “liked” it. At.all.
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It’s a tag surf and click exercise, and I’m so sure it’s what Jesus would have done, or that it ranks high on the god God’s scale of absolute morality. Humanity 777 makes me laugh the most. I’ve signed up to comments on his About page and it’s hilarious reading all the ‘thank you so much for stopping by my blog’ comments. I need to do more posts on him, but the last person who poked at him got cursed and disappeared. Remember Chris – the guy with the eye? 😉
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No, I don’t remember Chris. You must direct me.
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This is where it all went wrong for Chris …
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Oh, my. I shall have to remember this and avoid my demise when dealing with Christian spambots from the blogosphere. I’m not ready to meet my demise.
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I am wary of 3 ever since Aunty Jane warned me. And 4 is a big no, no as the most likely suggestion would be Stop Blogging!
My fragile ego, gentle disposition and general all round sunny good guy demeanor would be devastated.
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What did Aunty Jane warn you about? Is Aunty Jane Askthebigot? Because it is she who stands accused of bogus commenters. It just doesn’t seem very Christian, does it?
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I’m at work. It’s lunch time. But I still don’t want to click on links with people licking bananas and millions of dildos. I forgot about your other ‘friend’. Is she still posting?
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She’s very quiet. I think her batteries are flat.
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Yeah, I can well imagine you have problems getting in touch with your feminine side. 😉
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Shall we quit while we are ahead? Just in case the neighbours start to gossip again? 😉
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Was that too cheeky? *respectful silence*
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For me? Lol….what do you think…
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You mean we’re actually supposed to *read* other people’s articles?
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You don’t need to if you don’t want to. But Jesus did say, ‘Woe to those who falsely flatter in order to gain notoriety’ – so spam liking is clearly a SIN. And I’m sick of seeing BJ, culturemonk and Humanity 777 on my posts. Well, not so much 777, he makes me laugh …
“SPAM LIKING = 4847243598237 = 42 = SIN!!!” You can’t make that shit up, must be divinely inspired. 😀
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LOL
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CultureMonk is a big time reader from what he has described within his blog. It wouldn’t surprise me if everything he ‘likes’ is something he’s read.
My biggest bunch of hits came from me referencing a couple of my posts on the blog of what turned out to be an extremely popular Christian blogger. I got a lot of hits for a week or so, but not much interaction on my blog. Of course, his readership seems to be of the more heavily indoctrinated variety.
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That’s nice of you to think the best of CultureMonk but I’m fairly sure even with his liberal-ish views he wouldn’t have actually liked many of my posts his little gravatar appears on. And he’s on everyone else’s Christian posts too. It’s a blogging strategy that violates the Golden Rule – if we were all spam liking, it would completely invalidate liking as a way to show your appreciation of other people’s writing and find writers with mutual appeal. It’s immoral and I expect it would be a sin in an updated Bible book from the god God. 😉
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You may underestimate CultureMonk’s diversity in perspective. I actually read his stuff on a daily basis and he is quite open to exploring all sides of a situation. He grew up more in the realm of fundamentalism, still identifies with Christianity now after realizing the troubles of fundamentalism, but does not allow Christianity to define him. His whole deal is listening to other perspectives and sharing them.
I can totally see where you’re coming from with that thought though. There is probably some truth to it in that he isn’t afraid to go exploring WordPress for some random reads. I may be wrong, but I am of the impression that he does read what he ‘likes’. Maybe I’ll have to quiz him on that when I catch him on his coffee shop tour!
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Haha, okay, you let me know! I’ll retract all my accusation if next time he ‘likes’ one of my cheeky posts I can’t find a relevant tag full of his little pictures. BJ has just popped up on another of my posts pretending he reads things he ‘likes’, but not very convincingly.
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Yeah, it seemed strange some of the posts BJ liked of mine, especially after seeing the content on his blog. I’m more of the impression that he may be evangelically liking. Either that or he’s playing up his religiosity on his blog despite what he really believes.
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I’ve just caught him. My latest post tagged ‘Christianity’ has been liked, along with every other post in the Christianity tag surfer. 🙂
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Trouble is, that’s a like-able post and a quick read!
If only you had a post that started out coherent while not necessarily relevant and allowed it to trail off into gibberish and random words that might seem to make sense at a glance, but if they were read, there would be no way to decipher them! But you definitely have discovered his target tag by the sounds of it!
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Oh my, you’re beyond redemption! 🙂 I hope you do an update when you meet him on his coffee shop tour. (go have a quick read down the Christian posts and see how many deserve to be liked)
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None that I found seemed unworthy of a like. He did hit a good section of them, between 20 and 30 possibly. I can totally see your suspicion, but I’d say the evidence is inconclusive at this point. For a skilled speed-reader, as I recall him actually talking about in his blog at one point, I can’t imagine that would be too difficult to get through.
If you catch him liking something of a clear hateful nature, that would definitely swing things in favour of your theory.
Though it does seem like a smart idea, to try and wing through a bunch of blogs regularly and liking them upon reading them as long as the content isn’t questionable. A great way to build connections!
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I hate to keep coming back to this. But I just did a post unrelated to Christianity, and got a Culturemonk ‘like’ after 10 minutes. So I went to the ‘blogging’ tag surf … and every post has been liked by Culturemonk.
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I’ll definitely have to quiz him on it if I get the chance! Ah well, whatever works, right? With his content, I can see how he could get away with such a thing.
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I don’t do any of the above but once in a while, I check out the blogs of new followers or random people who have liked a post on my blog.
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Exactly, but if everyone spam followed and spam liked, it would ruin this as a way of finding new bloggers with common interests.
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Agreed, spammers take the fun out of blogging
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So are both you and Pink so delusional that you think I am really someone else commenting under a fictitious name, created solely for the purpose of doing so? That’s amazing. So to be clear, who exactly am I in your mind?
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So kind of you to drop by. I’m merely reporting what Pink discovered. Was he mistaken?
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Wikipedia editors try to root out sock puppets and meat puppets. They are less of a problem in blogging, but not unheard of: I know of one other.
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Really? Tell all. I know people have a few different identities I suppose, but they’re quite open about it. I’ve never heard of sock and meat puppets. Which is the Bigot allegedly using?
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Well as Pink never actually made any accusation as to the “sham” he “discovered” I can’t say for sure but as to the question am I some other person hiding under this name, no. I am all me and all my comments are and have been genuine, singularly mine and unique to this name.
By the way great detective work alluding to, and linking to, the evidence of the false claim that Pink was too much of a coward to even put into print, I assume for fear he would be proven wrong and loose the assumed validity of his reason to walk away without feeling like he had just had his lunch eaten, which he had.
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Yes, he did, I linked to your conversation with him on the comments section where he announces that more than one of the commenters are coming from the same IP address. I always thought there was something a bit fishy about all the people without blogs jumping in to back up the Bigot on her site. You’ll note that apart from you, everyone who comments on this and my other posts has a blog with a body of writing that demonstrates they are real people with real opinions and interests. Are you the Bigot’s husband?
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VW he made no accusation, he simply alluded to some sort of sham, his evidence, my IP address. That is not an accusation, that is simply innuendo.
If you actually read the interaction to which you provided a link, you would know who I am in relation to Askme. Clearly you just linked to it blindly assuming it contained what fit your “Mock the Christians” paradigm, our you would not ask the ridiculous question, “are you the Bigot’s husband?” Clearly the integrity one can expect from someone with a vast and storied one year blog hobby. What’s that? The Wall Street Journal calling you about an investigative journalist position? Umm..no.
Do I have a blog? No. Am I so narcissistic that I need to create a blog to wax on about my deep and hateful bigoted opinions? No. That is your bag. For the record, vomiting forth the thoughts from your mind onto the pages of a blog does not grant said thoughts, or person, any validity. Any idiot can have a blog.
As to the “something fishy” about all the people without a blog and your cabal’s “body of work” (tangential but none of you are Tolstoy, or even l’Amour caliber, you should right-size your vision of your literary prowess). I’m sorry, were there rules or points of etiquette drafted somewhere that I have missed in regard to blogs? One which stated only others with blogs can comment on blogs? So I have no blog and others that comment on her site don’t have blogs, woppidy do! Maybe they just read blogs and share the same opinion. Do you also believe the world trade center attack was a vast right wing conspiracy?
As to jumping in to defend her. Are you people that blinded by your hate? You and your sycophant little cabal troll her blog, and any blog like it you can find, rudely bashing the host and any others who comment in opposition to you. You all utterly define troll, and you have the audacity to accuse others of wrong blog doing’s?
Have you read your own posts and associated comments from your cabal? You are a hate filled individual, and your blog seems to have no other purpose than to attack things you don’t like. At least The Bigot has some sort of purpose for her blog. You just seem to like to run around and crap on people and then return to the home base of your blogs and pat each other on the back about how well you bashed them that time. So when I, or anyone else that knows her or agrees with her goes to her site and sees a bunch of rude trolls being rude trolls, you find it fishy that they might attack the the troll? Aren’t you supposed to be intelligent and enlightened? Yet you can’t see this for what it is?
P.S. An accurate analogy would have been if Mitt Romney had been asked to PAY for the coffee. Ever the paragon of the philosophy of rights you are.
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Thank you for pointing to the admission that you are the editor’s partner. My guess was very close then.
” Am I so narcissistic that I need to create a blog to wax on about my deep and hateful bigoted opinions? No. That is your bag.”
That’s an interesting opinion. My blog is an open forum to discuss issues that I believe are important in society. I hope it’s not narcissistic, I do try and encourage participation from everyone and have never seen the need to censor anyone’s opinion. Bigot’s narcissistic blog, full of deep and lovingly prejudiced opinions that promote cruel and harmful attitudes towards a traditionally victimised and marginalised group in society, does censor opinions now, on the pretext that a similar discussion took place on other posts. That’s called desperation in losing an argument.
So, where exactly are my opinions hateful? Some of my best friends and my close family are Christians. I respect their right to religious freedom and all that entails – they will never be forced into a homosexual marriage or forced to have an abortion if they feel it would be against their religion. However, they don’t campaign to remove these rights from people whose lives they are not living, and whose circumstances they could never understand. They don’t publicly campaign to shame and marginalise other groups of people.
“You are a hate filled individual, and your blog seems to have no other purpose than to attack things you don’t like.” My blog covers a lot of topics (see recent posts on giant flying machines, iq, I’m so glad I’m not female, sanitary pads etc) but you’re right that I tend to focus on pointing out the absurdities in Christianity. I will continue to do so until Christians realise that their holy book is open to such a vast range of interpretations, that they should err on the side of loving caution and never use it cause other people harm. You are welcome to read more about my reasoning here:
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Again, you wouldn’t have had to guess if you had just read the exchange before linking to it. evidence of your bias, and frankly lazyness.
And did you just dodge the accusation of your aforementioned lack of integrity and laziness and instead attack The Bigot while responding to me? No obsession there.
Yes the majority of your “body of work” is filled with hate, so you throw in a benign post now and again, good for you, Hitler loved to paint, not the work for which he is remembered.
Where are you hateful? read your blog. Or better yet, I suggest an open post asking the same question, and let all who find your site tell you. Also a great way to build traffic, remember I’m a paid professional.
Clarification for Christian readers, great I am not a Christian I have noted this on several occasions, must I draw you a picture to try and communicate this fact?
Err on the side of loving caution but you support abortion? Please explain the loving caution in that thinking. Yes I am totally changing direction, just following your lead.
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Thank you for your comment. That’s a lovely idea. I’m always looking for ideas for posts, and there’s a nice narcissistic trip to a whole post encouraging people to talk about me. 😀
“Clarification for Christian readers, great I am not a Christian I have noted this on several occasions, must I draw you a picture to try and communicate this fact?”
You don’t have to be a Christian to read that post. You asked me why I feel need to present my opinions on the Bigot’s blog – that post explains why.
“Err on the side of loving caution but you support abortion? Please explain the loving caution in that thinking.”
I’ve never said I support abortion, that would be absurd. I support greater education for both sexes and open access to contraception to avoid the need for abortion. I support women’s rights to have access to safe and legal abortion, so they are not forced to put their lives at risk by going to an unregulated and unsafe illegal butcher, which happens in all countries where abortion is illegal.
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