5 Ways to Find Blog Readers and Build Community

A blogger’s heaven is to have a constant stream of traffic and readers who come back for more, right? We’ve all heard of Digg, Reddit, MySpace, and all these Web 2.0 social networking sites to market and bring traffic to our blog, but somehow we’ve forgotten the old school ways of marketing a website. At least I have forgotten…until recently when I started reflecting back to when I first started my online business years ago…

It’s back to the basics, my friends, and I’m here to tell you some old school ways to get more traffic to your blog:

1. Yahoo! Groups - you can find just about any kind of group over at Yahoo! Groups. Are you a blogger who blogs about gardening? How about an artist in L.A. looking for other artists in the area? There’s a group for you to share your expertise and of course, the link to your blog ;)

2. Google Groups - pretty similar to Yahoo! Groups in that you can find a wide variety of groups related to your blog topic

3. Ryze.com - This is a business networking forum where you can build your own profile page and join various business groups. You can also do searches for people within a specific geographical location or industry

4. Your local community - Who says you have to stay online to find readers for your blog? Why not venture out into your local community and find groups who would love to have the information that you provide? If you blog about fitness, drop by a gym and ask if you could leave your business cards at the front desk. Oh, and speaking of business cards…

5. Pass out business cards to people you meet and who show an interest in your blog. For many of you, your blog is your business, so business cards are a must!

When all is said and done, it’s about establishing relationships with people and making meaningful connections. What better way to do that than to connect with them throughold school ways - via groups - and establishing yourself as an authority by sharing your thoughts and experiences within these groups.

People will remember you and your blog because you helped them!