The secret to blogging success. (Really.)

As you guys might or might not remember, I'm currently in the process of visiting all of the blogs I've followed since the first time I started blogging.

Yes, I'm still doing this more than a year later. I followed a lot of blogs.

You know what's frustrating me, though? How many people stopped blogging seemingly because they were discouraged by the lack of comments on their blogs.

The reason why I find it frustrating? Time and again, these would be the people I used to visit frequently, but who just never seemed to visit back. And having been through about half of my list and visiting everyone at least once, I can say with safety that there are still people out there who expect other people to read their posts, but who don't actually seem to get involved with blogs outside their own.

And now, it's seemingly getting worse, because google seems to be actively discouraging the use of their "follow" button. So there's no longer an easy, surefire way of getting a blog's feed on a blog reader. (I use bloglovin, but dang, it can sometimes be a major schlep. Because bloglovin requires me to search for the feed on their site, and then, if it's not there, they'll add it later and I'm supposed to "check back." Right. Because "checking back" on a link I will have forgotten in a day or two is going to happen.)

At any rate, it's becoming easier and easier for people to "lose" blogs they visited once or twice. And there's only one solution that I can see to this:

We have to visit each other, people. I know I disregard my advice a lot, since time sometimes just doesn't allow me to do anything but post and run. But the moment I do that for a week or so, I can see my traffic taking a hit.

Back to my point. If we got back to the old ways (gosh I'm sounding old now) of reciprocating visits, and we knew everyone we went to would do the same, we wouldn't have this problem with people not visiting.

It's not that difficult either. First stop is your comments section. More often than not, your commenters' names are in fact links that lead to their profiles, that lead to more links, that lead to their blog. So if someone says hi, go say hi back. See? Suddenly this has become a bit more of a conversation. A first step toward a relationship.

And suddenly, you're not alone.

Tada! Discouragement problem solved.

Seriously, though. If you're a lurker, yes, you in the back seats munching pop-corn while reading the comments. Please say hi! I actually WANT to find your blog.

Promise.

At the least you'll get a hi back within a few days. Or... depending on what you're posting, maybe even a really thoughtful comment. (I try to be generous with those.)

Anyone else sharing my frustration with people not visiting around and then getting discouraged? Any tips for me to find new bloggers? Are you a lurker? (Hi!)