MOLI VIEW™

If a blog isn't read, is it like the tree falling in the wilderness that no one hears?

Yes! So if you're putting effort into writing and posting great stuff on your blog, don't rely on it being found by accident. People have to know that it's there.

There's no one right way to do it, but here are a few suggestions:

You can't be a writer if you're not a reader. Same deal with blogs. Reading blogs covering similar ground as yours should be second nature. If it's not, get started.

Be sure to leave comments! Bloggers appreciate it and it can set the stage for asking them for a link to your blog. Different blogs have different rules, but some allow links within comments and enable html so that you can do it with a bit of panache.

If you don't already know rudimentary html, look here. Or here. Or here.

It's all good!

The point is, the more links you have, the easier it is for web surfers to find you. And search engines usually favor web pages that link to other sites — and vice versa.

Now, if you want to get really hardcore, web professionals do SEO (search engine optimization) to maximize web pages so they rank highly in Google searches. There's a number of sources of advice for doing this, and how deeply you want to get into it depends on how much time and attention you want to expend. (Some blogs are commercial ventures and building traffic generates income.) Here's a good site with resources to get started down this path.

Oh, and be sure that your e-mail sig has a link to your blog, too.

Next week: Taking link exchange to the next level

Richard Pachter is the MOLI View's contributing editor for Business.

» Read Richard's blog