Blog exchanges, why they don’t always work
Posted by Chris in Rants, blogging, tags: bloggingIt seems that the whole idea of blog traffic exchange is really not that useful. I say this even though I’ve been using blogmad, however my credits ran out for my blog on Friday evening and on Saturday I received no traffic at all.
The conclusion then is that all the traffic I had was for one reason only, because someone was “forced” to look at my blog to gain themselves credits and move on to the next one as quickly as they could so they in turn could earn credits so that others are forced to read their blog. Its a vicious circle it seems and almost pointless, I say almost, because I reckon eventually I’ll gain some followers through this method.
I’ve been reading about exchanges, and there are a lot of comments about them, but to sum up the majority of comments, for a new blog they can be a good thing, they bring in traffic, introduce readers to a fledgling blog and maybe it will gain a small following. Then as the search engines find it, and other sites link to it, the popularity will increase, at this point the exchange is no longer needed because the blog was out grown it and its now growing by itself through good content and constant updates.
For my blog I figured I’d keep trying with the exchanges to drive up traffic, keep posting interesting content and see what happens, right now I’m doing this for a little fun, and see if I can honestly get someone to read my blog. I think the most important part is making constant updates, if your content is fresh and you maintain consistency in your content, then eventually you’ll bring traffic in. If not well then its pretty obvious you’ll end up with no traffic and you’ll be talking to yourself, and that just means you need some sort of help.
Technorati Tags: blogging, exchanges, links, blogmad, blogexplosion
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I agree, blog exchanges don’t work at all. The traffic isn’t targeted. I still use Blog Explosion though, because it’s an easy way for me to peruse new blogs, and occasionally I’ll leave a comment on sites that really catch my interest.
That in turn will usually bring me readers I actually LIKE to read myself. Hate to sound like a cliche, but the days I comment most, are the days my traffic spike. A word of advice, Chris
I’ve been trying to get my site on Blog Explosion, but its been stuck in awaiting moderation for a week now.
Interesting about the commenting, I’ll have to do more of it as I surf around, I do notice that there is quite a few individuals reading my feeds though, so thats a good sign at least.
Like Yvonne (that’s my mom’s name), I use BTEs mainly to find blogs. Though I get an occasional comment to posts that may be readable in 20 seconds, I neither rely on them, nor expect them to bring me any sort of significant traffic. I have to say that, using strict category filtering, I have found some very good reads trough Blogmad. For the record, this will probably go on that list.
I’ve found a couple of interesting blogs through exchanges, but not many, it seems a lot of the blogs are political type blogs, and honestly I couldn’t care less about it, I see it enough on the news, I sure as hell don’t want to read a blog about it either.