Why should you find other South African blogs and South African bloggers? If you’re a South African blogger trying to get traffic to your own blog, finding other South African blogs makes a lot of sense!
Why you should find other South African blogs:
1 )
You are proud to be South African. You want to find some other South African blogs to see what those South African bloggers are blogging about – perhaps they are blogging about how they’re proud to be South Africans too, or perhaps they are blogging about South African topics that interest you too – you can feel “part of the crowd” reading their blog posts or commenting on their blog posts – you’re a South African blogger too!
South African blogs and bloggers proudly South African
2 )
You are trying to draw attention to the products you are trying to sell to South Africans, or to the services you are offering to South Africans. Commenting on other South African blogs gives you a little exposure.
3 )
Even if you are a South African who is not planning on making money from your South African blog, it can get lonely just typing away with nobody visiting your site or leaving comments on your blog posts. “Encourage” other South African bloggers to visit your blog by visiting their South African blogs, reading their blog posts, and leaving nice friendly comments.
There may be a lot of other South African bloggers out there who also started a blog in the hope that they would get visitors or make money from their blog. Go visit other South African blogs, read some blog posts, leave comments, be friendly, make friends. Many other South African bloggers may not bother to visit your blog in return, but there is a much greater chance that other South African bloggers will visit your blog if you first visited theirs, than if you just sit and wait for visitors that may never come.
4 )
If trying to make money from your South African blog, you will need lots of visitors to it. Commenting on other South African blogs not only gets you a bit of exposure due to that blog owner seeing your comment, but also gets you a bit of exposure due to any visitors to that blog post noticing your comment too.
5 )
Developing relationships with other South African bloggers (being friendly, and commenting on their blogs often) may get you a good word from the blog owner related to products you sell or services you offer.
How to find other South African blogs
1 )
If you have a free Blogger blog, simply go to your dashboard, near the top left click “view profile” then where you see the blue link “South Africa” where you filled in your location when filling in your profile, click it and you will get a list of over 100 000 South African bloggers (with a link to their Blogger profile) who use Blogger as their blogging platform. If you visit their Blogger profile, you will find a link to their Blogger blog or blogs. Even though those blogs end in blogspot.com instead of .co.za, they are still South African blogs in the sense that South African bloggers blog on them!
2 )
Browse through the Facebook profiles of your South African facebook friends that you do not know all that well – you may be surprised to find that they have a blog (and that they are displaying a link to it) that you didn’t even know they had!
3 )
Browse through South African Facebook pages to see who has a blog.
4 )
Visit or join Twitter and use the search function with words like South Africa, South African, Cape Town, Gauteng, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, Durban, Port Elizabeth, and East London to search for Twitter members who link to their South African blogs on their Twitter profiles or in their tweets.
5 )
Use Google to search for South African blogs or for lists of South African blogs – use search words like South African blogs, list of South African blogs, or South African blogger. Also type in any phrase on a topic that interests you followed by a space and .co.za
6)
Visit Alexa’s list of top 500 sites that South Africans visit, and if you can’t find many South African blogs in that list (and find mostly business or social sites etc) you can still visit some of the sites that allow comments. Look for South Africans that have left comments, and see if their name links to their own South African blog. Don’t just look for South Africans who have left comments – also consider leaving your own comment on those sites.
General blog commenting tips
Do not just comment on one or two South African blogs – comment on a lot of different blogs.
Do not comment on only South African blogs that look busy or popular – is your South African blog busy or popular yet? – help other South African bloggers who do not yet have busy or popular blogs get their blogs looking busier or being more popular if you expect the same treatment for your own blog.
Comment on South African blogs that have content that really interests you so that it is easier for you to write an honest and friendly comment.
Comment on South African blogs that have similar content to your own blog. The blog owner may be more interested in visiting your blog if you have similar interests. Others reading that blog post and the comments may also be more interested in visiting your blog if they have similar interests to you.
Take note of the date of the latest post on the South African blogs you visit – you don’t really want to take the time and trouble to comment on a blog post that’s on a blog site that is hardly ever updated – a blog that is rarely updated with new content sometimes also means it’s hardly visited. You want lots of people to see your blog post comment, not just the blog owner – but at the same time do not simply assume that because a blog has not been updated with fresh posts in a while that it is not getting much traffic – it may be getting a ton of traffic – if you have the time , check on Alexa or on another site-analyzing website – you may find out that it may be worth your while to leave a comment on a blog that at first didn’t look like it was getting a lot of traffic.
If a blog does not have much content or comments it does not necessarily also mean that the blog is not getting lots of visitors. TanT (this site) currently (March 2015) doesn’t have many comments, but it’s currently getting over 12 000 page views a month. People may be thinking they don’t want to bother to leave a comment on a site that may not be getting many visitors, but it might be a mistake to think that. Many people are reading the blog posts on this blog site, but they can’t currently read many comments too (and maybe click through to your blog site), because you haven’t yet left a comment!
Consider commenting on a few blogs that are not South African too.
Tips for
1) when South Africans (or anyone) leaves a comment on your blog,
and tips for 2) when you leave a comment on other South African blogs (or on any blog):
1) When people leave a comment on your blog:
A )
You want them to come back again, and not leave only one comment ever, so be appreciative of their comment by replying to their comment on your blog, and also visit their blog and leave a comment on their blog.
B )
Make it easier for people to want to comment, by asking a question in your blog post that is easy for bloggers to answer when they leave a comment, or that entices them to leave a comment. If using a WordPress blog like I am here, add plugins to your blog that help make people return to your blog to comment more, like a “subscribe to comments” plugin (if they subscribe to comments it means they will be alerted by email if you reply to their comment or if anybody else leaves a comment on the same blog post) (this may make them return to your blog to leave another comment).
C )
Learn to recognize spam comments and do not allow them to appear on your blog – one of the first plugins that you should activate, is the Akismet spam comment filter plugin – Akismet recognizes a lot of the spam comments your blog receives and puts them nicely in a separate list all ready for you to delete from taking up space on your host server, from time to time, or whenever you log into your WordPress dashboard – it may be tempting to let a lot of the spam comments appear on your blog, but don’t do it! Whereas Google likes lots of links coming in to your site (your blog’s backlinks), and doesn’t mind some links going out from your site, Google does not like too many links going out from your site, especially if those sites do not have content that relates to your own site, or if they are sites that do not have family friendly content.
2) When you leave a comment on other blogs:
A )
Do not spam! Spamming is when you don’t even bother to read the blog post and just leave a comment that makes no sense or that just has your blog link in it. Read the blog post, and leave a comment that adds to the discussion; that relates to what was written in the blog post. Blog owners do not have to allow every last comment they receive to actually appear on their blog, so do not waste your effort of commenting by spamming!
B )
Stand a better chance at having your comment accepted by writing more than just 10 words or so – try write 2 or 3 lines or more. Watch your grammar and spelling, and use only family-friendly language.
C )
Subscribe to the comments if the option is available so that you can come back when you are alerted by email, to see if the blog owner replied to your comment, or if anybody else commenting on the blog said something about your comment or if they left a comment that may interest you. (Subscribe instead of having to remember to come back to the blog from time time to check new comments – life gets in the way and you may never go back, or you may get tired of going back to check if the blog post is not getting many comments or the comments are a few days or weeks apart – rather simply be alerted via email when there are new comments.)
D )
Be nice – the blog owner or any other person visiting that blog post is less likely to visit your own blog if you’re not nice.
Are you a South African blogger hoping more people would come comment on your blog? Well, I’m a South African blogger so leave a comment below this blog post, saying hi, letting me know what you think of this blog post, or even what you think of this blog site in general, and letting me and whoever else reads this blog post know that you’re a South African blogger too – fill in your blog address in the space for it when you write a comment, and you may just start getting some or more comments on your own South African blog – from me or from other South African bloggers that also read this blog post and any comments below it. That’s how it works.
© copyright Teresa Schultz 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015
– last updated March 2015
