Recently, while reading the latest corporate voodoo on how to get ahead, it dawned on me that it overlaps with some of the problogger voodoo on how to generate traffic to a website.

It Doesn’t Matter How Hard You Work…

Have you ever spent time writing a post that you were sure would bring in more traffic? Ever find yourself irritated as hell when crappy posts like “The Top 5 Nice Things You Can Say To Someone” gain incredibly hearty footholds in all the major news sites while your posts don’t get a single comment?

If you’ve been blogging for any amount of time, you probably have felt this way at one time or another.

It Doesn’t Matter Who You know…

Or maybe you spend your time pouring through sites trying to get on the cutting edge of music, games, or whatever your field of interest. Even though you might digest some of the tastiest links on the planet for your content, other bloggers can throw up 50 words about their baby’s new pajamas and get 426 comments more than you, none of which mention viagra, sex farms, or weight loss.

You’re not alone on this.

What Matters is Who Knows You.

Although we might not want to believe it, the thing that gets you ahead in both business and web publishing is not how hard you work or who you know, but rather who knows you. And who does know you? In my case, it’s four Chicagoans, two Canadians, and a guy from New Jersey named Chris. And maybe I’m at the top of my game. But what about all those bloggers out there who you read daily, never leave comments for, and laugh out loud at? I’m not talking about the major leaguers. Everyone knows about them. I’m talking about the unknowns: The Underbloggers.

How are people going to get to know them? For all the posts that they’ve donated to us, we could spend two minutes advertising for them.

I’ll start. Take a look at the list under “Blogs on the Radar” on the right. At least 20 hits a month on their feeds are coming from me because I read them every… damned… day. And even if they are little stats whores, they probably have no idea it’s me because I’m pulling their RSS feeds. And the list is full of good posts and interesting characters. There are ‘Vegas bartenders, DJ’s, strip club DJ’s, death metal loving Kung Fu masters, and even people from Chicago. Yes, Chicago.

Do me a favor. Drop a link to all those underbloggers you regularly read into the comments. If those bloggers check their stats, they’ll know someone appreciated them enough to do some free advertising for them. And any links to them will only help them in search engine rank and hopefully make them more popular.

And don’t feel shy about dropping a link to your own blog.

Posted in Happy, Philosophical BS