Frank Turk is a bookstore owner in the US who is looking at the quarterly report from Technorati.

You thought I forgot about this, but I didn’t. We’re in the middle of my personal GodBlogCon with everything you need to know about blogging, and the deal is this: we’re only going to talk once about the medium of blogging, and the rest of the time we are going to talk about the method and objective of blogging.

He looks at some of the other data of State of the Blogosphere and recommends some technical solutions for people struggling to get some attention. As an aside, all the profesionals at this year’s GodBlogCon were not able to draw in the numbers they had hoped for. It wasn’t because they aren’t qualified, a lot of things factor into visibility.

First off, with 57 million blogs being tracked, I can guarantee you 56.5 million  bloggers are not coders, technicians or interested in the technical aspects of a blog.  
A lot pretend to know, but they don’t.
That’s why companies in the business of blogging provide platforms the average person can use.

There is no shame in acknowledging code doesn’t get you waxing rhapsodic. There is no shame in acknowledging technical things do make your eyes glaze over. Find someone you can trust technically and ask questions. Take time to read a few tech blogs occasionally. Lot’s of people can talk about technology in English and follow what’s happening. I like Ian’s Messy Desk, he gives me information very clearly. Ian is one of many I’ve found over time. That’s part of the fun I think.

Now, I have said all of that to say this: the key to having an influential blog is shameless self-promotion. If you cannot do that, you will never be an “influential” blogger. And for some people, I think that’s fine. What we do not need in the world today is more “Aklahomboys” who make one-line posts and belong to 6 aggregators and somehow turn up on the radar but have nothing to offer.

You are the owner of your blog, and you are the expert of your blog. And all the ‘how to’ in the world isn’t going to push up your rankings. They will just fall again, it’s a constant hamster wheel, and rankings and hits are a small part of the whole unless you are trying to make money. It can be heady stuff for awhile, but most of us have lives, and most bloggers that stick with this medium find the honeymoon period of ranks and hit pursuit wanes after time.

Frank does recommends aggregators, and started one in his post. Be very careful about aggregators.
Lots of people can start them, but they don’t maintain them, and you are going to get walloped with some serious spam.  If you don’t believe me type aggregator into the search engine. Most understandably die a natural death and you get stuck with the spammers.

You are the owner and expert of your blog,  I encourage every new blogger to let yourself off the hook of the pressure to perform. The longer you blog, the more your posts get indexed by search engines. And the more your posts are indexed the more people find your blog. 
Many long time bloggers know that a lot of the traffic they get from day to day is because people are looking for specific information about a specific topic. Most don’t stick around, they look at what they came for and move on. Whether that is a positive or negative has a lot to do with whether you are trying to make money with your blog.

Frank has some good points about technology and self promotion, it’s worth a read. 

Those of us that have been blogging for four or five years have pretty much found our niche and  lucked out early on being seen or heard. I think we have a responsibility to others, but as many people have found out, the trickle down theory doesn’t work.  Dr. Adrian Warnock has a major aggregator going, and it’s a lot of work for him, but he can’t make people visit or link each other. 

It’s 56 million times more difficult for people beginning blogging now than it was four or five years ago, and while each of us has our own learning curve, I think some things will always holds true. I  suggest a form of self promotion that isn’t going to stress you out.

Go visit other blogs.
Move past your initial circle a bit and visit places you’d not normally go.
This medium really is an endless adventure.  
And when you visit,  think about dropping in a comment.
While an email may get my attention about a post, I get so much spam, it’s likely to get dumped into the filter and a blogger trying to promote themself gets left wondering why I’m so snobby and high and mighty.
While this platform helps me see who is linking, I’m not sitting on it 24/7 and I may miss someone. It’s not on purpose, and it’s not personal. In less than a year the spam filters have caught 31 thousand pieces of spam. Unfortunately a new blogger or two may have wound up lost in the dump.

Many bloggers and blog visitors use RSS feeds now, I use Bloglines and many bloggers haven’t got a clue BDBO has stopped by.  Every once in awhile it doesn’t hurt me to let a blogger know I’m still wandering through, or I’ve just found them. And the best way to do that is to click out the RSS feed, spend a bit of time on the blog you’ve worked so hard on, and take the time to engage in conversation.

While a lot of blog studies have come out, one of the ones I think faith blogs have bought into a bit too easily is Clay Shirkey’s Power Laws.  I have always found Skirkey’s law far too linear. It may suit technical and business minded thinkers and be beneficial to professional bloggersm but it isn’t the be all to end all.
Blogs are more like neighbourhoods and some blogs are community centres, the corner store, the church, the next door neighbour.

Here is another way of looking at where you are and where you are going with your blogging - as you can see by Matthew Hurst’s work, what we write about  helps determine more than we realize. 

Here is another way of looking at where you are and where you are going with your blogging -

the human element of blogging wins out over the technical whiz bang every time.
Instead of trusting just technology, professionals, experts, or the latest big blog idea, participate in the human part of this wonderful medium. You are the owner and expert of your blog, pick and chose ideas that work best for you. It’s understandable when we start out to stress out over medium, method and objective, the neighbours get lost in the numbers and the stress to perform.
Over 57 million of us like this medium enough to try it.
That is really something isn’t it?

So go enjoy us, wander though and leap blog through this amazing blogosphere. Be both a tourist, adventurer and a member of your community. All the advice in the world about blog methodology often boils down to the golden rule.
And that’s a great objective.