Make Bloggers WANT To Visit Your Site

I get about 30 requests per day from other bloggers for me to come visit their site and I’m always amazed at how absolutely awful a lot of these requests are!

Simply reading “I just started a blog. Come visit it.” from a person that I’ve never heard of does not exactly inspire me to fire up my browser and check out what they’ve got on offer!

My initial reaction is pretty much “you forgot the ‘please’ in that” which is shortly followed by a “how rude!” and a click on the *delete* button.

If you want to get another blogger to come visit your blog, you must supercharge your marketing techniques and make the blogger want to visit your site. How can this be done? Follow this simple strategy:

Introduce - If you’re approaching a blogger that doesn’t know you, you need to provide a short introduction to your site and let them know what it’s about. By adding this to your e-mail, they instantly know what your site is about and can make the decision to visit or not based on their interests rather than just hitting ‘delete’ immediately!

Incentive - Give the blogger a reason to visit your site. Imagine your blogger is an incredibly selfish person (like me!) who is only interested in their own site. You need to play on their desires and wants for their own site in order to get them to visit yours!

Intrigue - Write something unexpected in your email in order to entice the blogger over to your site to see how your creative juices flow. This could be an excerpt from one of your posts or simply offering to do a nice act for the blogger.

Check out this great use of the strategy that I received in an e-mail. It got me visiting and commenting on the site in a flash and really stood out from the usual requests:

I recently started a blog about small business, working from home and blogging and YES, we have the nofollow plugin installed. In fact, if you comment, you get a nofollow link in the comments. We have recent comments displayed in the sidebar, so there is another link while it is displayed. If you are one of the top 5 commenters, you get a month long link in the top comments section of the sidebar. One comment, 3 links, one of them permanent.

We would love to have you over there, just adding your 2 cents in the comments.

To show you I am serious, I will link to your comments post, then I will Stumble the same post and add it to my various social bookmarks. I will do this regardless of if you come by, but I do hope you will.

Some would call it sucking up or kissing ass, but I call it successfully getting my attention and getting me on the site!

The e-mail introduced me to the site, gave me an incentive to visit it and then intrigued me as to who was this person Stumbling my content! And it worked!

So next time you’re inviting someone to visit your site, remember to give them an invitation and not just a one-line piece of spam! You’ll be amazed at the results!

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45 Comments »

I never really thought of emailing any of the bloggers I’ve read directly. Interesting post. I figure once I get some pagerank I will have a better chance luring people to my blog with links. Nice post.

by Erik Karey

Pagerank helps but it’s not the only consideration. This site doesn’t have any pagerank at all!

by Princess Kumiko

and we just love you not the pagerank miss

by Jack Book

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I emailed kumiko before. I think I used all the methods she suggested, but no, no response. Good strategy though. Since you posted this entry, I am certain there are a lot of other people begging you, sucking up to you, kissing your ass.

Whats your next post? “People who follow your suggestions are loosers because they didn’t get it the first time?”

I also followed your other suggestion of contacting readers quickly. Well, I contacted you, but no, no response. Maybe you don’t use your own suggestions? OO. no.

love you

by Andy Dang

I’m sorry, I’ll take back the “love you” because I don’t even know if your a girl or guy.

One of your other suggestion is to put a face on the site, but no, no pictures, no face, no nothing. Just an anime picture. maybe I will start an article, “What makes your readers run quick is if you give suggestions and they don’t use it themselves.” boo hoo

by Andy Dang

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Different sites need different marketing strategies. I also wrote a post discussing why I just use my name and bold colors instead of a photo.

by Princess Kumiko

I clicked the link and read everything. Your marketing strategy is certainly working. Even though it’s a working strategy, I still feel uncomfortable leaving comments, reading your entries, and visiting your site everyday not knowing a bit about you, especially how you look like. You definitely do not have to post up anything you don’t want to because after all, it’s your blog and you do what you want.

Let’s just put it this way: If I was speaking to someone who has a mask on, or even just sunglasses, I’d feel uncomfortable. Leave it at that, you don’t have to change a thing because you’re obviously doing a great job. Take care Kumiko.

by Andy Dang

Ahhh….someone is bitter

by Cody

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Confused, not bitter. I started my entire blog because of Kumiko. If anything, I’m thankful. I was also disspointed that she never responded to my email especially when I put a lot of effort into it. Now I know, It was probably spammed.

by Andy Dang

Hmmm…I don’t remember getting that e-mail. Maybe it got incorrectly marked as spam.

by Princess Kumiko

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As always, great post Kumiko. I like how you use actual messages you’ve gotten as examples.

by Tay

I understand what you mean, really. As member of Spicepage I too receive lots of offers to look on newly started blogs or sites and only few of them are really nice (requests, not sites, as I don’t visit them all, for ex. I never visit sites with adult related domain lol, even more now, when school time is over and my daughter is at home all day)… But I also never send requests to visit my site for others…

by Inga Oz

Sound advice… but you did contradict yourself a bit by not linking out to the person who “really stood out from the usual requests”.

by Matt Jones

I asked for the author’s permission to use the email in a post but I didn’t get a reply. As I’m not sure whether they would mind if I publish it or not, I don’t want to say where it was from. If the author contacts me, I’ll add a link immediately.

by Princess Kumiko

whats the site? it even interested me

by More Web Site Traffic

Lolz, well said, and yeah I get the same reaction when I get those short worthless messages.

by Blogging with Desi Baba

I think most people initially follow them and respond but after you get over 300 in a week…..it’s just more spam.

by Princess Kumiko

haha.. you’re right.
just make it 5 or less a week please
btw miss kumiko, don’t you have a plan to install dofollow comments ?

by Jack Book

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I’ve installed it. Isn’t it working?

by Princess Kumiko

Maybe I’ll copy and paste that for my
About Me page.

Reminder: You have no favicon.

by Shypy

Thanks. the favicon is on my list of things to do.

by Princess Kumiko

Why cant i get through comments with the hyperlinking tag today?
Do hyperlinked comments need to be moderated, coz when I repost it , it says, “Duplicate Comment Detected”

by Shypy

More than two hyperlinks gets moderated. I haven’t received any though….

by Princess Kumiko

I never would have thought to email another blogger to ask them to visit my site either. Seems odd to me. I guess I just figured that if I contributed enough in the way of discussions on their site that they may take notice of me and pop by my site out of curiosity. After all, if I find a poster who’s comments I like I will visit their site to see what they’re up to.

BTW - The smiley’s are distracting me. I just keep staring up at them. STOP LOOKING AT ME!

by Jonathan Franzone

It can be hard to get noticed on a site 100 commentators. You need to do more.

by Princess Kumiko

Fantastic suggestions here, sad that many who want visits the most won’t stop to read them.

A month or so ago I guest blogged on a friend’s site wuth the theme, “Magic Words, Please And Thank you”. _Boy_ did I get some rude comments. It’s OK, I’m sure most of the ones who made the nastiest comments are still living in mom and dad’s basement trying to figure out what to do with themselves when the allowance stops (I know 30 year-olds who still get an allowance, BTW, nothing like being dependent all your life).

But for those of us who _do_ move out and become self-supporting and self-actualized individuals in this world, please and thank you still have a _lot_ of benefits … and unlike so many other consumer costs, they are still free … hard to beat. I can not recall ever refusing to visit a site, leave a comment or perform some little help-out for a fellow blogger who had the simple manners that should have been learned before kindergarten. I have, though, hit the delete key on thousands of rude, unasked for messages that wanted me to give up my time … by far my most valuable asset … for something or other.

Two quick and proven hints:

People have names. Use them. If writing to another blogger, one would assume you know their name … use it instead of starting your message with “Hey”.

Many people in the community are using English as their second language. Do NOT apologize for your language skills or lack of same. It gets old, boring and detracts from your message … makes people unconsciously sarch for your errors instead of focusing on your message. English is my first (only) language and I make errors … so do most “English first” bloggers I know. Do your best to avoid them but don’t put yourself in second place by calling attention to them … you have a right to be here as does everyone else.

by Dave Starr --- ROI Guy

You’re absolutely right Dave! I think the key point from it all is to still use offline manners and language despite being online. If you think it would sound rude when it saying it someone’s face, it probably sounds rude online! Perhaps a good trick would be to imagine your e-mail as a conversation with the person - what would you say if you were in the room with them?

Politeness goes a LONG way!!

by Princess Kumiko

When did you become a Princess? Or have you always been one?

by Martha

I get so many email from other Sailor Moon site owners asking me to visit their site’s it’s annoying and you’re right! Most of them are “Come visit my site!”

Honestly, I’d say the best way to do it is indirectly. Send a webmaster an email about something they’ve written or about their site in general and include your site’s link in your email signature. I’ve gotten a lot of people who have said they checked out my sites that way and because I have several sites a lot of people visit them all through my signature just to see what I do online!

by Brad

I actually did an evil approach, kinda like a spam for some. However, instead of spreading my message like a spam, I did it intentionally by turning it into a contest. I posted “so you think I need a better theme?” People who came to my site left a comment, and entered the contest for a free shirt and review.

by Andy Dang

Great Article!! I really like your way of typing and expressing keep up the good work

by Kitarist

damn kumiko, u sound like a lot of work and high maintenance. reminds me of miss always have to be entertained. on the other hand, u always seem to make me laugh, so i’ll see u tomorrow. haha

by johnny card

Yeah….when did you move from Kumiko to “Princess Kumiko”? And why not Queen?

by Cody

Well hope this works..here it goes….

“I recently started a blog about small business, working from home and blogging and YES, we have the nofollow plugin installed. In fact, if you comment, you get a nofollow link in the comments. We have recent comments displayed in the sidebar, so there is another link while it is displayed. If you are one of the top 5 commenters, you get a month long link in the top comments section of the sidebar. One comment, 3 links, one of them permanent.

We would love to have you over there, just adding your 2 cents in the comments.

To show you I am serious, I will link to your comments post, then I will Stumble the same post and add it to my various social bookmarks. I will do this regardless of if you come by, but I do hope you will.”

Cheers. =)

by Eugene

Hey Kumiko! I see you’re using Wordpress now.. Nice choice! Not that I think Blogger isn’t nice, I’m just pro-Wordpress. lol.

Looking forward to more of your posts.. I’m actually inspired to build another site focused on making money online because of your website.. (I’ll credit you for sure! ) I’m still thinking about how I can start one. Hey, maybe you can write something about that!

by Joni

hey kumiko..you might not care but dont like the fact that you’re blogging anonymously. it would be nice if you can show some pic or something. if not, thats cool too!

by Eugene

I thought I was the only one who felt uncomfortable about anonymous bloggers.

by Andy Dang