From the time I started my blog to now; I belief that things have gone very well – almost at 10,000 hits – considering the fact my blog is very specific to an area that cuts out 90% of blog readers, but hey I am wanting the 10% – they are way cooler – well , so are a few of the 90% (probably you *grin*)

Most of the time I have not followed practical guidelines to blogging, but when I had a demotivating readership in December I decider to up my game and being research. Although it might be pretty cool to have my blog go viral, it is not really the intent – but I do want to engage like minded people (video, vfx, editing, church people). So I happened across the most practical site to help me attain my goal and was Christian to boot: http://churchcrunch.com/ things like:

• A few Benefits of Blogging
• Blogging 101
• Valuable Lessons Learned from Blogging
• 10 Commandments of Blogging

I have tried a few Blog channel surfing mechanisms:

• AlphaInventions
• Condron
• BlogCatalog

Two things are obvious:

1. Following the guidelines set out by ChurchChrunch’s posts increases my reach and readership – in fact tripled my monthly page hits
2. Using the  Blog channel surfing mechanisms is a form of Blog Cheating and inflates your page hits without keeping readers.

And this is the result on a month to month basis:

And my daily graph shows the peak from using AlphaInventions and the dip because AlphaInventions  provides no stickiness – in fact it is debatable if anyone actually pauses and reads a blog from these types of services. Most page hits are not full page loads and are probably only triggered by the people you go there to add their post entry.

Conclusion

So where to now?

• Patience – first off. No way I will be a blog rock start straight off the bat.
• Keep focused – remember that it is not able the hits; it’s about engaging with like minded people through the blog
• Don’t loose heart

What are some of the ways that you have tried to propagate your blog?