Stop Spamming My Blog!

I just confronted another blogger that thought the way to increase traffic to his website was to keep commenting: "You are invited to visit my blog" on our Perrin Family Blog.  This is an excerpt from what I emailed him...

While I understand that you would like me and our other readers to visit your blog, this is a guaranteed way to keep people away from your blog.  In a sense, it is a way of hijacking our blog and our readers, and this is not acceptable.  And our readers are the type that would never visit the blog of someone that posted such things, so it's actually counter-productive.  

The best way to get someone to visit your blog is to make comments that add value to the discussion... this generates interest in the author of the comment and what else they might have to say.  One way we have attracted new readers is by posting interesting comments on other blogs that pertain to the subject matter.  This communicates respect to both the author of the blog and to their readers.

These "Visit my blog" comments are unrequested and unwanted (read: SPAM) that I end up deleting each time.  Please refrain from commenting on this blog again unless you have an actual comment that adds value to the discussion...

If you desire to create an audience, you have to give them a reason to visit your blog (great content), and generate traffic based on personal relationships and thought-provoking comments on other blogs.  Seth Godin has some great thoughts about this on his Blog.  In one post he writes, "Anticipated, personal and relevant advertising always does better than unsolicited junk."  Absolutely true!