Make Friends at BlogCatalog!

The Monetizer found a great tip on the very cool blog dayjobnuker.com which is helpful to those rookie and startup bloggers looking to get some instant traffic, new readers and subscribers. Monetizer mentioned joining mybloglog.com and blogcatalog.com in an earlier post, and dayjobnuker has also recommended it. The cool thing is you can add friends on both of these nice little blog sites daily. MyBlogLog allows a max of 15 friends to be added each day. However, BlogCatalog allows UNLIMITED friend adds on a daily basis. So basically you can head over and join BlogCatalog if you haven't yet. Submit your blog(s) and await their approval because you want them visible when people stop by your profile. While you wait on that, make sure to fill out the profile, including relevant details about you or what your blog's about, as well as the other social sites that you belong to (Digg, BlogLog, etc).

Once you've had your blog(s) approved and they show on your profile, it's time to go click crazy and get a bunch of new friends. Add as many peeps as you can on a daily basis. If you want to make it targeted traffic (relative to your blog topic), look up groups which relate to your topic or keywords and add the people you find in those communities. Many of them should swing by your profile and perhaps your blog, giving you new traffic and possible fans! It makes sense to use this free little tool, which takes a bit of your time. You can also join groups, neighborhoods and communities on the site. Try looking up those that are relevant to your blog topic(s) and join as many as you can. The idea here is the become visible on community pages and to new blogcatalog readers/friends.

Another subject came up while Monetizer was over there at BlogCatalog. On your blogs that you submit, BlogCatalog will display your blog's latest entries or posts based on your RSS feed. This only works if you have the autodiscovery tags in your blog's template code. Make sure you have this code in your blog's template now!

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title=”Blog Title RSS” href=”http://your_rssfeed_here">

You'll need to change 2 things for the above, the "Blog Title" and "http://your_rssfeed_here". Add your unique blog title and RSS feed URL in those spots and put that line of code in the < head > section of your blog's template. You can also consult Feedburner on how to add the code in for your feed to be autodiscovered. (Note: you may already have it setup if you're using Blogger). The idea here is that someone might click on one of your blogs on BlogCatalog and see a headline or blog entry they want to go read on your blog. Autodiscovery will also help other services, directories and readers find your RSS feed easier as well, so it pays to have that piece of code in your blog template.

So head over to BlogCatalog today, sign up, follow the instructions to add your blog(s), and start making friends!