Networking within your Blog Niche: 7 Essential Tips for Bloggers

Networking with your fellow niche bloggers is by far one of the most important factors when you are trying to grow your site audience. The main reason is this: Established blogs in the same niche have exactly the type of readers you need.

These readers are very likely to follow your blog because the content you offer is relevant to their interests.

Another explicit benefit of networking with other niche bloggers is that you’re likely to receive consistent referral traffic and links from them as well.

A core audience base and a strong overall link profile gradually leads to increased traffic to your blog, thereby allowing a lot more monetization options in the long run. This is particular important if you are using niche blogs to make money online.

Seven Strategies to Network within your Blog Niche

A new blog often suffers from a small to non-existent audience base and has a rather weak link profile. Instead of heading to forums and requesting for link exchanges, I think it would be far more beneficial to do some effective niche networking.

Networking for your niche blogs is actually a fairly simple process. Here are the seven networking strategies I employ after carefully choosing my blog niche, setting up the niche blogs and creating at least a week’s worth of content.

1. Comment voraciously. Make a list of the high traffic blogs in your niche and be sure to comment on them everyday, preferably as soon as they publish any new articles. These blogs should be kept in your bookmarks and made very easily accessible from your browser. Don’t leave signature links in the comments and try to actually contribute to the discussion.




2. Follow the news. To interact within the niche, you’ll need to know what’s buzzing and what’s going on. Subscribe to the feed of every notable blog within your blog niche and keep track of them. I usually set up a separate online feed reader account so its mentally easier to spend some time daily to go through the feeds.




3. Link generously. The best way to make friends with another blogger is to link to them very often and reference their blog posts. Bloggers love links and this is a surefire way of getting yourself noticed. Try to send out three to five links to different blogs within each article. This adds value to your readers while inserting your blog into the overall discussion on any specific topic. To avoid possible bitterness, I suggest practicing unconditional linking, or linking without the desire to get a link in return.




4. Focus on the Small. Do not focus too much on getting links and attention from A-List bloggers because the chance of receiving a reciprocal mention will be quite minimal. Focus instead at the other spectrum: blogs of a similar or even smaller size. These are people who need exposure as much as you do and referencing them is a great way to get some exposure in return. Remember that small blogs can grow to become big blogs. Ignoring their potential is short term thinking.




5. Socialize within communities. Almost every possible niche has a forum or social network which is relevant to it. Find these communities, join them and start participating in discussions. Communities allow you to gain new readers quickly and also allows you get some backlinks from forum signatures and other community pages.




6. Send out Email Tips. Getting into direct contact with fellow bloggers via email is a good idea but you don’t want to pester them with link requests or excessive questions. Sending them tips on topics related to their niches is good for several reasons: You contribute to material on their blog, get into a regular email flow and will most likely get credit via a link if they decide to use the suggested tip. You can then proceed from this stage to deeper email conversations.




7. Offer assistance. Do you have any specific skills like programming, web design or copywriting? Volunteer your assistance to other bloggers for their online projects. You’ll find that doing favors for others is a remarkably easy way to establish long-term relationships. Remember that its always important to check your personal/professional schedule in order to avoid over-commitment.

The blogosphere and online universe is interdependent. Networking with other bloggers benefits not just yourself but the other blogger in question as well.

No successful blog exists in a vacuum: they are all sustained through editorial links and recommendations from others.

Understanding this from the onset will greatly improve your chances of gaining monetary profit from whatever online niche projects you pursue.

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