How to Support Your Favorite Bloggers

I love blogs. I own a couple myself, and I have not only learned a lot from reading blogs, but have made several friends (as in "real life" friends) within the blogosphere.

Blogs have been criticized for a variety of reasons, but they don't seem to be going away anytime soon. For people who are interested in topics that are outside the radar of popular media, blogs may offer their only option for reading, learning, and keeping up-to-date on their interest(s).

Most bloggers aren't professional journalists: They are just regular folks who have an interest in something and take the time to write about it. They aren't drawing a salary, and nobody is financing or supporting their work. So it is up to us, the readers of blogs to support and encourage our favorite blog writers. Below are a few tips for doing this effectively:

1. Subscribe to their RSS feed. This helps the site’s ranking in important search engines such as Google Blogsearch. It also ensures that you won’t miss any blog postings.

2. Comment, comment, comment. Blogs (usually) invite participation, and bloggers appreciate it when someone is interested enough in their writing to make a comment. Your comments also encourage others to do the same, and when a discussion (or debate) breaks out amongst a blog’s visitors, this only increases the site’s popularity.

3. If a blog features advertising, take the time to visit those advertisers and, if appropriate, patronize them. Most bloggers don’t blog with the assumption that they will make a full-time income, but a bit of revenue to offset their hosting bills is always nice.

4. If you have your own blog or website, add your favorite blogs to your blogroll and/or link pages. If possible, categorize your blogroll so that it is easier for readers to find blogs that they are really interested in.

5. If you are a blogger or have a website, link to, preferably with commentary, posts on your favorite blogs. This really encourages new visitors, and it also helps that blogger’s rankings.

6. Give your favorite bloggers ideas for things to write about in the form of links, articles, etc. You might just be giving them the inspiration that they need for a new post!

7. Drop bloggers a note thanking them for the work that they do.

8. If a blogger regularly reviews books, films, music, etc on their website find out if they solicit submissions for review. Let your writer/musician/filmmaker friends know about the blog and encourage them to submit their products to the blogger. The blogger gets free stuff (and more to write about) and your friends get (hopefully good) publicity.

9. Favorite them on Technorati.

10. If you use bookmarking services like Digg or StumbleUpon, use them frequently with your favorite blogs.