Why you should not join blogging networks

If you are new to blogging or have been blogging for a few years, you would have probably heard of blogging networks. They are blogging communities that allow you to put a link to your blog, discuss your blog and even pay to advertise your blog......all to other bloggers. That is the problem, you are singing to the choir. Most avid blog readers are not bloggers themselves.

One well known blogging network that is now gone was EntreCard. I was a member for several years until Google started to down grade websites and blogs for high bounce rates. EntreCard was well known for encouraging high bounce rates among their users. In order to curb high bounce rates on my blogs I removed all the EntreCard code.

So what do you do to encourage new visitors or engage your readers? Simple, use social networking sites  like Twitter, Facebook or Google+.  Google the search engine really loves social networks and if it finds links to your blog on them it will boost your blog pages in searches. To Google the more people talking on social networks about your blog means your blog has value.

So forget the blogging gimmicks and engage your readers naturally and socially.