After blogging for over three years, a key takeaway is the importance of building relationships with fellow bloggers for a successful blog. Savvy link builders have always emphasized that “link building is relationship building,” as fostering connections yields more links than cold outreach. This principle applies to “blog building” too. Nurturing relationships with peers should be integral to any blogger’s approach. Networking within your niche offers benefits such as:

• Establishing mutually advantageous partnerships
• Boosting your blog’s visibility
• Gaining credibility and recognition through endorsements from influential bloggers in your field
• Expanding your blog’s readership and community
• Strengthening your brand Now that we understand the advantages of connecting with other bloggers in your niche, let’s explore where to find them.

Finding Bloggers to Connect With

Before establishing connections, you must locate these bloggers. Look for individuals who are:

• Relevant to your niche
• Influential or moderately influential (connecting with those outside the “top tier” might be easier due to approachability)
• Leaders of large, active, and engaged audiences Excellent resources for discovering influential blogs and bloggers include:
• Google Blog Search: Use relevant keywords or topics you cover to unearth fellow niche bloggers.
• Technorati: Leverage Technorati to pinpoint the “Top X Blogs,” ranked by Technorati Authority, a measure of a site’s “influence within the blogosphere.”
• Google Alerts: A more passive method involves setting up real-time alerts via Google Alerts to track specific keywords used by websites and bloggers closely aligned with your niche.
• “Best of” Lists: The internet abounds with “Best X Blogs” compilations, providing insights into respected blogs and bloggers in your area of interest. For instance, while assisting a client with a cycling blog, I discovered a “Top 50 Cycling Blogs” list ranked by traffic and social media presence. Such lists are invaluable for identifying and researching potential blogger connections. Once you have a list of potential influencers, create a spreadsheet to manage the information. I use columns for “contact info,” “twitter handle,” “outreach efforts,” “blog name and URL,” “outcome,” etc. Incorporate columns for “influence metrics” for more in-depth analysis. Metrics I use when evaluating blogs include:
• Inbound Links: Assuming “good content attracts links,” a high link count suggests engaging and popular content. Utilize resources like Yahoo Site Explorer, Open Site Explorer, Majestic SEO, Influence Finder, or SEO Spyglass (review available). Analyzing SERPs can also reveal popular and highly linked blog posts within a niche.
• Social Engagement: Analyze the blog’s Twitter activity, Facebook likes, Digg and Reddit engagement, etc. Tools like PostRank, a paid service, offer comprehensive social engagement data across various platforms.
• Alexa Rank: Alexa utilizes page views and reach to rank websites. While not a standalone precise measure, it’s valuable for relative comparisons between blogs.
• Community Engagement: Blogs with active audiences that frequently comment are noteworthy. Include these metrics in your spreadsheet to gather comprehensive data points for evaluating potential blogger connections.

Connecting with Influential Bloggers

With a list of target bloggers, the question arises: how do you connect and persuade them to promote your blog or share your content? Initiating blogger relationships involves:

• Prioritizing their needs: Approach the relationship from their perspective, focusing on what you can offer them first.
• Giving before receiving: Embrace a “selfless” approach by promoting them before seeking reciprocal actions. Directly asking bloggers to share your content without establishing a connection is ineffective. Begin your relationship-building campaign by referencing and sharing their content. Here’s how:
• Promote their blogs and content on social networks: Share their content on platforms like Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, and Twitter. For Twitter, I automate the process with Twaitter (a tweet scheduling tool). Spend 15-20 minutes weekly scheduling tweets featuring your favorite bloggers’ posts or delegate this to an intern or virtual assistant. NOTE: @ them in your tweets to acknowledge them as a fan This serves as an icebreaker, opening doors for connection and conversation on shared interests. Additional ways to connect with bloggers:
• Engage with their blogs: Participate in discussions and leave comments. Bloggers value community building and often reciprocate engagement. Include a link to your blog in your comment (using your real name, not a spammy keyword string). Thoughtful comments often attract visitors to the commenter’s site.
• Create blog posts featuring them: Dedicate posts to specific bloggers, highlighting their blog and favorite entries. They might share these posts, exposing your blog to their audience.
• Conduct interviews: While seemingly demanding, interviews yield significant rewards. Conduct individual or group interviews, posing the same niche-relevant questions to each participant. Requesting an interview provides an excellent excuse to connect.
• Link to their posts: This benefits you in two ways: they see referral traffic from your site in their analytics, and trackbacks/pingbacks (commonly used) display your blog link in their comment stream.
• Offer guest posts: Everyone appreciates free content! Uncover guest posting opportunities using advanced search operators (e.g., “intitle:[my topic] + “guest post” or a number of other phrases you can find here.”) or tools like Ontolo’s Link Building Toolset for quick discovery.

Final Thoughts on Blogger Friendships

Building relationships with fellow bloggers has been my most effective strategy, and many prominent bloggers agree. Connecting with peers offers numerous benefits: content promotion reciprocity, audience recommendations, blog linking, social media promotion, and ultimately, increased blog visibility and growth. Moreover, these connections can enrich your life through invaluable personal and professional relationships.