Connor Wilson » Blog Archive » Better Your Blog in a Week: #3

Better Your Blog in a Week: #3

Posted on August 17th in Improve Your Blog — One Comment so far. Got something to say?

Today marks episode #3 in the week long improve your blog series. The last two days have been more about you, and doing things elsewhere, as opposed to what you can write to improve. Today is much the same. It is my belief that no matter what I can tell you to write, your blog will not do any better compared to normal posting. Your writing evolves, and I’m not one to get in the way of that.

#3: Email an Unknown Blogger

Alright, I know this seems cliché, but this is serious business. Every other site on the internet tells you to do this, but that always leaves something to be desired. Why? How? When? Fear of rejection? Timid?

First, you have to know why you want to email them. Maybe you’re looking for blogroll exchange links or something? Once you know why you’re getting in touch, you have to actually do it. Before you get excited and shoot off an email from their contact form, slow down. Deep breaths. We’re going to do this right.

The first step is to always email directly, if possible. Most contact forms send them an email with a subject like “Comment from Site Visitor” or something totally anonymous. If you have searched their site over and not found their email address (doubtful), then you can use the contact form.
Subject line- leave something to be desired. Not all bloggers are too hot on linking out to everyone that emails them. Your subject should be in between “Hey” and “blogroll link exchange”. I admit that I open every email I get, spam or not, but most people don’t.
A little about your self, your site and what you do. Bonus if you have a PR5 or higher, this means you have something desirable to offer. PR4 and under, don’t even mention it.
Cut to the chase, after a couple sentences about yourself, very directly and quickly. The perfect email opens, introduces, tells me what is desired, concludes and then it is either deleted or replied.

Making the blogger seem much bigger and better then they are is always good, especially if their site is much more popular than yours. Some real life examples:

Heya connor, I recently started my blog www.sambreadstone.com and was wondering if you’d like to blogroll exchange? I just need a boost of traffic. Thanks!

I got this email from Sam the day her blog launched. Quick, simple and to the point. Motive is clear and there’s a link. Of course I’m going to go to the site. There’s your first goal achieved! You have gotten me out of Thunderbird and into Firefox. At this time of day, her site was empty, so my answer was no. If I had gotten this email later, when several posts had gone up that day, it probably would’ve been a “yes”.

I’ll admit, I’m guilty over emailing other bloggers, in fact there’s only one time I actually remember. When I was starting out I sent tons of emails trying to get link backs. It was surprisingly hard considering I’ve had a PR5 since January. My content obviously was not up to par, but I obviously didn’t know.

I sent Adnan of Blogtrepreneur a long, babbling email from his contact form asking for a link exchange. He might’ve had about 200 readers to my 30. I broke every rule I’ve made just now, but here’s what happened:

We exchanged links.
I made a great contact and friend.
I redesigned his site and coded it for WordPress.

Each one of those are a significant part of where I am right now, as a blogger, freelance designer and in terms of traffic. This is also not to mention Adnan’s readership is very loyal and open minded. I’ve had quite a bit of emails and comments saying they came from Blogtrepreneur and were here to stay.

All that for an email? Go send one now!