When I started writing blogs for websites during my graduation, I was totally unaware of the fact that writing too can make you a good amount of money. I wasn’t offered anything in return of the time I spent writing blogs for websites and the only reason I used to do it is to hone my writing skills. The pressure of studies picked up soon forcing me to give up writing for a while. But as soon as I was done with my MBA, I got back to scribbling my thoughts making the best use of all the available time. In May alone, I read at least a hundred blogs to know how this blogging thing works in the long run. But I could never get my head around the most frequently offered advice that you have to be blogging daily to experience some noticeable success. The thought of having to write daily scared me to death as I found the idea to be impractical for someone who is the sole writer for her blog.

Since it was the most frequently given advice, I took it seriously and started working like a machine. Posting every third day became my ultimate goal and I stopped paying heed to the content quality. After a month long writing spree, when I sat down to have a look at my stats, I couldn’t help noticing one thing. No matter how much I blog, Monday used to be the only day of the week observing a huge spike in traffic (80-100 visitors), the rest of the week falling flat with anything from 10 to 20 visitors a day. And the reason was pretty clear – Mondays were spared out for interacting with the fellow bloggers. So I slowed down writing for a week and started spending more time networking in the blogging community. The results were exactly as I expected and I understood where I was going wrong. Networking is inevitable when it comes to blogging because it’s not you but other people who would form the reason for your success:

1. You need to discover in order to be discovered – There’s no point of writing blogs if people aren’t reading them. You might be working really hard but let me tell you the fact that would help you stand out in your blogging journey. You need to discover others in order to be discovered. Blogging is not a one-way traffic that can bring you instant success just because you have been putting up content on a regular basis. There are millions of blogs out there and yours is not an easy one to be found. People won’t come finding your blog to read them. You have to get them to your website and you have to give them a good reason to keep coming back. This requires effective promotion of your blog by posting comments on other people’s blogs. And don’t just drop comments for the sake of it. Comments like ‘Nice post’ and ‘Amazing blog’ would hardly bring any traffic. Your thoughts need to be insightful and should represent your blog in general.

2. They can be your support system and can be your source of learning – I remember writing something short and precise on my blog way back in June 2018. I wasn’t personally satisfied with what I wrote but I posted it anyway because I hadn’t posted something for weeks and I thought it would be better to post something than leaving the site look unattended. Shortly after the blog came up, a fellow blogger was kind enough to drop in a mail that the post looks incomplete and that she was left wanting for more. I thanked her for her valuable insights and realized how important it is to get people’s feedback to improve your work. I removed that post immediately as it looked more like a liability to me than to be of any use to my readers. Also, as a blogger, you should never post something that doesn’t satisfy you in the first place. Networking with bloggers can help solve the biggest of your problems but you should be open to comments and criticisms and use them to add value to your work.

3. Learning from their successes and getting inspiration – Your blogging network is your biggest resource when it comes to bringing up new content for your blog. Every time I feel short of the ideas, I go through some of the best blogs in the industry to see what’s working for them. Their blogs can be a great source of ideas for your own blogs and their posts can help you learn a lot as a reader. Heading over to other blogs for ideas isn’t a bad thing unless you copy their work and serve nothing from your own perspective. There are hundreds of bloggers to be inspired from and networking with them can help you learn a lot from their successes.

4. Collaborative projects with fellow bloggers – When I started interacting actively in the blogging community, I learned that it’s your only way to gain exposure while you are trying to establish yourself. There are bloggers who need guest posts for their blogs and there are others who have amazing content to offer to the former. Interaction alone can help you gain a lot of opportunities in an otherwise saturated blogging industry. And opportunities are not limited to writing guest posts, but also sponsored posts, affiliate marketing and access to interactive communities having thousands of followers. So if you plan to ditch the isolation, interaction with bloggers can land you some amazing collaborative projects with some of the best in the industry which is a win-win situation for both the parties.

5. Blogging can sometimes be lonely – Okey, so here comes the sad part. Blogging sometimes can get lonely which is what separates it from the corporate work environment where you are surrounded by people all the time. So there’s no harm in making friends who can make this otherwise lonely journey interesting for you. Even if you are a self-sufficient human being who is happy with herself, you will definitely want to seek a varied set of opinions on your work. That’s when your blogging network comes handy.

When I initially started interacting with fellow bloggers, I used to find it time-consuming and contrary to my personality as I’m not so much into online interactions. But I realized that it’s impractical to survive in the blogging world without interacting with the ones in the blogging industry. If you want to be read, you have to interact regularly. Yes, it’s not an easy task to keep doing that but it gets easier if you manage your time properly. If an hour of your day goes in to writing, be ready to spare another one hour to market that content. To write once a day and being able to market it to 500 people is any day better than writing 5 days a week hoping that someone will come finding you. All you need to remember is that quality matters over quantity, and it’s completely alright to serve just one quality article every week that is at least worth your readers’ time.