If you’re short on followers or don’t have many interesting blog posts appearing in your feed, a simple way to search for others who are writing about your interests is to explore via the bloggers that you already follow.
By commenting on your (I’m assuming here) small circle of bloggers posts, others will see those comments and perhaps be intrigued enough to search for you – especially if your comments are witty and / or informative. The more often you comment, the better your chances.
The flip side of this is that when you see a useful comment on a blog site, you can visit that blogger in one of two ways;
Click on the blogger’s name (beside their gravatar)
and that should route you directly to their site. You can then browse to see if their content is of interest to you. If it is, ‘follow’ them, ‘like’ their posts (if applicable – if not, why would you follow?) or even leave a nice comment…which might intrigue other visitors to seek you out. See how it works? Caution – if you leave a comment without following too, your comment will most likely be held in a moderation queue pending approval by that blogger. This will not only delay the posting of your comment, but a busy blogger may miss it altogether. I know because I’ve discovered pending comments days after they were posted. 😀
Another (sometimes less effective way) to find bloggers is to click on their gravatar.
This will route you to the bloggers gravatar page where you can read all about them – assuming they have posted anything. Not everyone does and you can be left staring at nothing more than a larger version of their gravatar.
Note to other bloggers – please put some details on your gravatar! Other bloggers are interested in you.
Here’s mine;
.
I’ve tried to include as much relevant information on my own gravatar page so that I can be located on WordPress, Twitter, Goodreads, Twitter and LinkedIn. To find my WordPress site, you’d only need to click on the site name, andrewtoynbee.wordpress.com.
However, even if a blogger that you are desperately keen to follow hasn’t posted any details (and one has to wonder why), the mighty Google can come to the rescue. Simply copy (or memorise it if you’re good) their blogging name, open the mighty Google (other search engines are available if you prefer) and type ‘WordPress’ followed by their name;
.
.
Voila!
You can then click to find the site and ‘follow’, comment or ‘like’ as before. The blogger may be kind enough to follow you in return and hey presto! you have increased your feed and your following in one simple move!
For blog sites that are not hosted by WordPress, you may have to be a little more creative, omitting ‘WordPress’ from the search and perhaps adding spaces in their gravatar name. If you know which host they are using, add that into the search box instead. Then, if you wish to follow their feeds, copy their web address, go to your ‘Blogs I Follow’ page and paste their URL into the box at the top of the page. I’ve covered this in slightly more detail on my How to follow non-Wordpress blogs post.
.
Happy blogging!
.
Ghostly WordPress goings-on
August 11, 2013
Andrew Toynbee Uncategorized coffee, comment, deux ex machina, fix, ghost in the machine, like, rease, spooky, weird, Wordpress, writer 7 Comments
Am I the only one who is being haunted by the Ghostly ‘like’?
…
This little orange ‘tease’ hangs in the corner of my toolbar like a candle, drawing my eye away from whatever I was writing and…
…
Eh…
Sorry, I lost my thread there for a moment. What was I saying? Right, so I click on the ‘like’ only to find that there is nothing new there.
Worse, if I change pages in WordPress, it reappears! I click on it
As if that wasn’t bad enough, it has been joined by a ghostly ‘comment’ that does exactly the same.
There’s nothing there.
I know it’s not my computer because I’ve seen this whilst using four different units (not all at the same time, obviously. This isn’t ‘Swordfish’).
Please tell me that I’m not the only one who is being teased and mocked by technology.
WordPress, if you are reading this, please come up with a ‘fix’ for this.
If you don’t, I may need to seek out a ‘fix’ of my own…
S’okay, I’m only talking about caffeine.
Without the sugar.
And the milk.
And water.
*crunch*
Share this:
Like this: