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Take advantage of MamaBlogga

What I’d really like for you to be able to take away from MamaBlogga is a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment in motherhood. But on a more superficial level, I can also help to improve your blogging skills—and give you some links, too.

What does it take to get link love from MamaBlogga? Not a lot, actually—and you don’t even have to e-mail me begging for a link. Once you’ve made 10 (approved) comments on MamaBlogga, the “nofollow” tag is removed from your name (and, I think, any links you put in your comments).

Naturally, we wouldn’t want that to be abused, but I do want you to be able to take full advantage of (“leverage,” if you like buzz words) this.

Make the most of your comments
Once you’ve made your 10 comments, every comment you make on MamaBlogga is a real link back to your post. And as long as you use the same e-mail address, you can change the URL you’re linking to—which is handy if you have a post on the same topic that you’d like to share. Some guidelines for doing this:

  1. Add value to the conversation. No, I’m not asking for you to link only to PhD level posts, but if this is an opportunity to get visitors to your site, do pick a good post that’s on the same or similar topic as the post you’re commenting on. And say something in your comment other than just dropping a link.
  2. Brand yourself. Put the name of your blog in the “name” box. You can put it along with your real name (I usually comment as “Jordan (MamaBlogga)”) if you want. This builds up recognition for your site.
  3. Please don’t stuff the “name” box with keywords. Thanks.

Make the most of other opportunities
Of course, the easier way to get a link from MamaBlogga would be to enter the Group Writing Project next week!

To take full advantage of the Group Writing Project:

  1. Think about your post title carefully. Is there a term you’d like to rank better in search engines for? Does it work in the title and text of your post? Use it!
  2. Republish the final list—you have my permission. This helps to spread the link love to all the participants. The more people that republish the list, the more links we all get!
  3. Barring that, link to your favorite entries. Again, spreading the link love often comes back to help you.
  4. Pass the word along. During the project, tell your blogging friends about it. Ask them to participate (or at least mention it on their blogs), and maybe republished the final list. (Plus, especially for July’s topic, I’d love to see lots of responses to this universal theme!)
  5. Comment like crazy. I’m still impressed by Karen of PediaScribe, who created a Google Alert about the MamaBlogga Group Writing Project and commented on many of the entries before I could! Comments can get people checking out your blog and eventually maybe even linking to you (as I mentioned earlier this week).

Hope to see your entries next week!

17 replies on “Take advantage of MamaBlogga”

You are awesome! This is a great post!! 🙂 (is this my 10th comment yet?) 😉

Looking forward to the writing project! Glad it’s going to hit AFTER my current contest ends. It has been very time consuming, but incredibly fun for me! And it’s been good to know I’m not alone in the poop/puke/general kid grossness that we call “motherhood!”

p.s. I’m going to Stumble this post! 🙂

Thanks for the opportunities to be better bloggers! I’m looking forward to the writing project. It will be my first time to participate.

Once again, priceless information for a beginning blogger like me! I’m going to remove the “no follow” on my site. I (heart) MamaBlogga!

Oh, I was just going to ask when the next Group Writing Project would be! With moving this summer, I haven’t been able to participate. I look forward to this next one.

Thanks, as always, for such helpful blogging advice!

Cool tips! I agree that we should all help each other out in this big bloggy world.

I love Pediascribe, too!

I continue to learn so much from you! And I’m all about spreading the link love on the group writing projects! Let’s do it everyone! It will help us all out on tenchnorati 😉

Thanks so much for the comment stuff. I am fairly new and I love to comment on blogs I like. Can’t wait to read more! And the writing project sounds wonderful!

This is a good post! I think that you have a lot of good ideas. Do you have some sort of a widget that tracks how many comments someone makes, or are you tracking manually?

I have been looking for some way to reward readers who frequently leave comments myself. I haven’t been able to find anything that automatically tracks how often a reader comments. (I think I’ve got the nofollow permanently turned off, so I’ll leave it that way unless spam becomes too much of a problem.)

@Laura—Thanks! I do it automatically with the Link Love plugin.

Edited to add: Try the Top Commentators plugin. It can display a sidebar widget of the people making the most comments each month.

Thanks! I have a recent commentators plugin. I’ll look for the top commentators plugin.

thanks for these great tips.I am considerign giving it a go … my friend Tiff@three ring circus is my inspiration.

Thanks for all of the advice. I’m kind of new to this and enjoy learning from you “pros”!!

I’m excited to participate in the group writing project for this month as well!

Brandi

I’ve read this post two or three times. It’s a good reminder for me and I notice that I incorporate some of the ideas, some of the time. I’m working my way up to most of the ideas, most of the time. I’ll let myself off of the hook of perfection. That’s a lesson I’ve learned as a mama, as well as a blogger.

This is a good idea, but I am sure people will still come up with 10 posts to get linked. I have never agreed with all this linking business anyways. I don’t even have PageRank for my blog. All I have worked on is providing good content and the search engines have been generous in sending regular traffic my way. Tried Social Networking for a while, but then gave up on that too.

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