The readership of this blog has steadily grown since I started it in September of 2008. While I'd love to see it explode, I know that it takes awhile for people to find you and it takes a steady stream of regular and frequent posting to help ensure that Google will send interested parties your way.
That being said, I owe a great deal to two other bloggers who through their linking to my blog have helped build my readership. One of those bloggers is Bryan at Cheap Eats and Cheaplander. The other is the great and powerful Marvo at The Impulsive Buy. Every time I get a little link love from these fellows, my readership jumps and I really, really appreciate it.
Both of these fellows are "big guns" in the blogging review world. They're the sort who could easily choose to ignore the likes of a little start-up like me, but they were generous early and often. Some people with established blogs and a lot of readers will not link to smaller blogs because they don't like to direct their readers to blogs that may fade away quickly. They also don't want to add links on their main pages only to find that they edited their site to add a blogger who started strong, but dropped down to once a month posting or removed their blog entirely after a short stint. I can understand the reservations some people may have in this regard, and I don't blame them. However, it makes me appreciate the support other bloggers, both big and small, give me by linking to me all the more.
Because I'm still a small fry relatively speaking (about 400 readers per day, unless Marvo links to one of my posts then I get a big, happy surprise when I check my numbers), I know how others feel about trying to draw readers to their blogs. Because of this, I'm more than happy to link to other reviewers. If you'd like to be linked to, please e-mail me by following the information in the FYI section.
Additionally, if you have reviewed a product that I have reviewed in the past, I will go back to my archived review and link to your review at the end of mine if you leave a comment on the relevant review. I try to catch and add in reviews of the same products as I find them, but I don't always manage to add the other reviews because I have to add them when I have time to edit my archived post. Most of my blog writing is in the afternoon or early evening. The lion's share of my blog reading occurs in the bleary-eyed morning hours. The struggle to focus my eyes on the page helps wake me up. Since the reading and writing occur at different times, it's easy for me to intend to add the link, but to forget by the time I start work on the blog.
If you're not already reading Marvo's blog and Bryan's blogs, please do yourself a favor and subscribe to them. They deserve your love. And they already have mine.
6 comments:
Thanks for the links to Marvo's and Bryan's blogs, I'll check them out :) You are so humble, I actually stumbled across your page through Google (months ago actually, I just recently created a Blogger account), not from anybody else's blog hehe I like how you write your reviews, they're organized and descriptive, instead of jumping everywhere and confusing me, I appreciate that. Have a nice weekend n_n
Thanks, innerchild, I really appreciate your encouragement and graciousness. I try my best to be organized, and sometimes succeed less than I'd hoped for. ;-)
I'm sure you'll enjoy Marvo and Bryan's work!
I hope you have a nice weekend, too.
You're welcome!
I think you're a great writer and you're the best Japanese snack review blogger who writes in English.
Yeah, you heard me -- the best.
I had no problem linking to you because I feel the topic of JSR (yeah, I called it JSR) and the quality of your writing is something that more people should read.
Thanks, Marvo. I so much appreciate your support and your kind words! I'll do the best I can to continue to live up to your confidence in my writing.
May I return the compliment to say that you are the funniest, wittiest, and have the dirtiest mind of any reviewer out there. And yes, that is a compliment! We need more witty, dirty-minded people.
I love your blog and I hope there are many more reviews to come!
I also highly recommend signing up for Twitter- it opens up a whole new group of readers
Hi, Gigi, and many thanks for taking the time to read and to comment. I appreciate your kind words. There will certainly be more to come!
I do have a Twitter account, but I'm very poor at posting a message when I review. I need to be better about that! I should probably also list my Twitter information on the web site, but I'm also relatively weak at editing the site. It takes all of my energy to process the pictures and write the reviews. ;-)
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