Increase your traffic! Free viagra!

John Scalzi provides some pointers on how to ask other bloggers for links to one's own blog. It's all good advice, so anyone just starting out should go see what he has to say.

I typically don't do this. I've actually done it twice, and both times I felt mildly uncomfortable about it. Neither instance resulted in a link, and after the second one I pretty much decided I wouldn't bother trying again. But occasionally it's tempting. I have left links to posts of mine in other bloggers' comment threads, if I wrote something here on the topic of the thread in question that was too long-winded to actually post in the thread. But actually e-mailing someone to say, "I comment on this on my blog today" just doesn't appeal to me. (Plus, with services like the Ecosystem and Sitemeter and Technorati and all the rest, e-mails like that can actually be redundant, if the blogger's paying attention to such things.)

Part of my problem with it is that it seems to me like begging, which in some ways it probably is. Sometimes, when I write something that seems to me fairly coherent if not downright insightful (shut up, you!) and no one notices it outside of my regular readers, it can feel somewhat like those times in junior high when the popular kids were talking about something you personally knew a lot about, but they wouldn't let you in on the conversation. Of course, that's not really the case (mostly), but with blogging being as isolated a hobby as it is, that's rather how it feels.

And then there's the disconnected feeling one gets when a "throwaway" post, in which one just tosses off a snarky rant about something that's not generally what one writes about, actually does get noticed and linked by others. "Harumph!" one thinks. "I bleed intellectual stuff every day and nobody cares, but when I let loose with some random anger, that gets noticed!" Well…yeah, in way, that's what happens. What to do there is just accept it and hope that some of the new visitors following the unexpected links stick around for all the good stuff. That's how readerships get developed.

Just a couple of other thoughts on this: If you decide that you do want to e-mail other bloggers for links, don't shoot for the big boys immediately. Try for some of the second-tier ones out there - - again, the Ecosystem is a good guide - - because those bloggers probably don't get as many "Hey, I commented!" e-mails as the Instapundits and Atrios's and SDBs out there. And a good trick that I've employed from time-to-time is the "HTML Tutor" role. Now, I am no genius when it comes to page design, but if you happen across a blogger who writes something like "I'd like my blog to look like _____" or "I wish I could figure out how to display _____" or something similar, and you know how to do it, e-mail them with the instructions on how to do so, and make sure you give them your URL. If they're classy - - and by far, most bloggers are - - they will thank you publicly with a link, and if they are classy and they like your content, they'll put you in their blogroll. Bloggers like being helped along, and they will remember who did the helping.