I have been incredibly slow to build out my community connections and social bookmarking here on my blog. If you are going to have a successful blog, you must actively participate in a relevant, engaged community. So I’ve been joining everyone of the many social networking sites and social bookmarking services. Soon I will be updating the Marketing page with a complete list of these sites. For now, I am making several posts reviewing my favorites. First up are two popular communities for bloggers: MyBlogLog and BUMPzee.
Know what your visitors want with MyBlogLog
Yahoo’s recently acquired MyBlogLog is one of the most widely used community for bloggers. I have simply added their widget into the sidebar here and have done the basics within the account setup. The community participation is huge. I instantly had 5 truly relevant groups where I knew I would be a daily participant. However, MyBlogLog offers a lot more than just community. The biggest benefit is that I know what my visitors are interested in and where they went after leaving my site. Armed with that information, I can focus on making more posts on what you want to read. Great concept, huh?
My traffic numbers are getting a BUMP
BUMPzee takes a lot of what MyBlogLog does well in building communities and then adds the powerful element of social bookmarking. I’ve not only added the sidebar widget that shows who has visited bobangus.com recently, but I’ve added their “BUMP it” bookmarking widget for all of my posts. Plus, this bookmarking is perfectly integrated in with the sidebar widget by promoting the top bumped articles in addition to who has recently visited. BUMPzee is a the perfect blend of networking and relevant bookmarking.
Of course, my personal desire for the added traffic and the stickiness of participating in an active community (especially in affiliate marketing groups) is my biggest benefit. I just had my highest traffic day yesterday thanks to direct traffic from BUMPzee and getting 3 Bumps for my CJ Product User Group Post.
Join these communities and add me as a friend
I’ve already seen an instant boost in traffic coming from both Bumpzee and MyBlogLog, even though my number of connections is still pretty low. I really am looking forward to see what happens as I build out my friend lists. If you haven’t already, I highly recommend that you setup an account and take the extra steps of adding a ton of related tags, joining some related communities, and reaching out to make contacts. In fact, make sure to let me know who you are and I’ll add you to my connections.
