Now some advice to new bloggers who want to be followed:
1. I know the feeling. Some of you I would like to follow. Here are some tips: 1. Read some of my posts to see if we really do have common interests. 2. Leave some likes or comments. I follow those to your blog, generally not your “follow” notice or your profile/gravatar. 3. First thing I check is your “about.” 4. Then I read a blog or two. 5. It is important to have something an “about,” a home, and a blog post before inviting someone to follow. Then I decide whether to follow. This might sound harsh, but I don’t mean it to be; I mean it to be helpful. I was lucky to hop into blogging when they offered “Blogging University.” Made lots of friends there.
2. Since WP doesn’t do that now, I suggest getting into somebody’s challenge. That will “put a face on” bloggers interests. Visit the blogs that have challenges. I highly recommend Ronovan’s Haiku Challenge, rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers, Becky, Cee’s Flower of the Day, Linda’s Hill’s, mindlovesmisery. That’s a start. Much success to you. Hope you will love blogging. And I hope the person who sent me a follow today which led only to a gravatar and sign-up will add a website on the gravatar, do her “about,” and leave me a like on something. I will probably find a wonderful new blogging friend.
3. If you should happen to just need a large following for the sake of sales or influence, leave me a like and a comment which asks me to follow to help you out. I will check your blog. If I think it is worthy of support, I would be glad to follow just to raise your numbers, but I am really not interested in just raising my numbers. I am happy to just add a friend, or two, or three :>) per week. At that “my cup runneth over.”
Current blogging friends: A special message to you. You are so special to me.
4. I have a question. Do you sometimes get a series of “likes” on eight to ten (or more) of your posts and they all come in in a row that covers one or two minutes? Do you have an explanation for that? I don’t know whether the “reader” really reads and likes and WP is responsible for them all coming in together like that or if someone knows how to “play the game” in such a way as to make me think they are reading me. Short as most of my posts are, I still know they can’t be read that fast. I’m a dummy? 😀
5. Now to the bloggers who read me but never make it known. I just have to “weed out” some of the blogs I have been trying to keep up with. Excellent blogs that I enjoy but “this granny is getting slower and slower” and I cannot keep reading blogs whose writers do not care. Please leave me a like or a comment if you are there.
6. Hey, Hey! Don’t you dare leave me! Some of you are so dear to me. Please don’t leave me. I count on you every day to encourage and motivate me, laugh at and humor me, inspire and teach me, empathize and pray with me, entertain and challenge me! You make this decade of my life more enjoyable than I could ever have imagined.
7. If my blogging friends have other tips for new bloggers, put them in the comments. Might help some folks out. Good deed for the day. 😀
Sweet aroma 
I will never leave you, Oneta. We are too much alike.
For eternity. Isn’t that amazing!
I sometimes get a whole lot of likes one after the other, too. That tells me people aren’t reading my posts …. My guess is they are looking for a few likes back.
You offer some really good advice in this post. I would add … make friends with some bloggers who share an interest with you. Read and comment often on their posts. That way, they begin to feel more like real people, and less like people you’ve never met 🙂
And follow links of the ones who comment on their blogs. I often see comments on the blogs of people whom I read regularly. That is where I would go if I were looking for more followers. Thanks.
The second point about joining challenges is a good way to meet other bloggers. Most of my posts are in response to prompts from other bloggers.
Yes, I have noticed you accept a lot of challenges, sometimes even putting challenges to fulfill a couple of challenges in one post. That doubling your outreach.
Oneta, you don’t have to worry about me leaving you. 😀
An answer to question #4: those people might had clicked the site under WP reader and just clicked like on every post. It happened to me many times and then when I take a gander at my stats, the numbers will clearly show this person never visited the post.
Yes, that would work. They could click a lot on the reader. I hadn’t thought of that. I seldom read on the reader. It is not necessary if I can read daily. I do have several readers marked for daily reading. Those notices come in at night, so I’m often a day late. Mostly I go directly to the posts from those who comment or like. It is more time consuming however because that seldom takes me to the last post. That’s how I go to yours. Round about but a speedier response.
Oh, I depend on the reader since I don’t check my email anymore – too many emails overwhelms me. WP used to allow me to create lists -a list of blogs I visit regularly separated by genres and categories – but not anymore.
I’ve wondered about question number 4 myself… let me know if you ever find out. 😉
M, Yinglan above, points out that a person can check a lot of likes on our Reader page. That makes sense. The Reader just give a first statement or two with the opportunity to visit or like. Guess that’s how it is done.
Oneta Dear, I’ll stick with you till Jesus comes (and likely then some). Most days I feel blessed to have a signal at home and overjoyed to have the bandwidth to comment, etc. For important projects I will be going to the library once it reopens. DO NOT take my silence personally. It’s the cost of living in this beautiful part of Northern AZ. ❤
Oh, no. I’d never doubt that you will be dropping in. I’ll be glad when you can do some more writing to update some current activities in your life. I plan to keep you on instant notification to be sure I don’t miss you. Thanks for the comment. Sad to say but I’m not optimistic that the cost of living is going to go down, now that libraries are going to be very welcoming due to the covid thing. I’d never drop someone I know. It’s those who have never left any way for me to know they have been by. The only thing I see is a number from WP. I want them too. But if they only make up three or four out of fifty people I can’t continue reading fifty to be sure I cover the three or four. :>)
As usual, Oneta, we look at life at the same eye level =D. Thank you for the encouragement, my friend. My writing since losing my kid sister last spring is deeply painful and personal (and yet it’s helping me navigate the grief). I’m in no hurry to begin the editing process – yet. I trust our sweet Savior that we’ll be better people for the experience. Amen.
Oh, Roo, I’m so sorry. I don’t remember knowing about your loss. I do know you told me you would email me. I did not receive an email. It probably went to a cox account which I closed. My youngest sister passed in August ’19. So hard. I still can’t conceive of her being gone. We didn’t live close so it still seems like she is in Denver – until the times I want to tell her something. Yes, we have a dependable Savior. We grow in trust. Love to you.
Thank you again for raising this question. Friends in the blogging sphere I have made through the last few years will remain as my friends as long as they keep writing. Oneta is one I chose to follow because what she writes may be not always where my perspective is but I respect her whole blogging writing. I would like to be her blogging friend forever.
I do not go to reader.
I try to daily read what is in my inbox – from ones I have clicked ‘follow’ and always try to read carefully to understand the heart of the post. Sometimes I Click like because I LIKE. Commenting is my way of two-way connecting. With my own blog. I only write what my blog reflects and value all friends who choose to follow. I write a blog post only twice a week. The rest of the week it is my joy to catch up on other writing expressions. I care less about who follows me (I try to also keep in touch with them) than I do about what I learn or gain from my fellow blogging friends, Oneta, what you share is always relevant. Blessings!
That’s very sweet of you Faye. You are an active blogger – putting into and taking from other bloggers profusely. I like that.
Excellent tips. Keeping up with blogs can be a real challenge for those of us who try reading quite a few of them.
Another group of bloggers I read are those who accept the same writing challenges. A lot of them do not follow me and they are not on my follow but I do like reading the input from the challenges. Since I did Friday Fictioneers today a lot of my reading today has been on those blogs. It is fun. But it is 11:45 and I have just tossed about 60 or 70 notifications. I don’t like that but I had to get to these comments which are very important to me.
The April A to Z Challenge is another excellent prompt for getting followers!
Linda, is that a challenge of yours? Sounds like one I want to check out. Thanks for letting me know.
Nope, it’s not mine. It’s HUGE! Here’s the link. http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com
I’m still out here
I know you are not going. Even if you did, I’d be hanging on. 😀
I’m just waiting for life to level off with this move— remind me that if I ever bring up the idea again, it’s a bad idea!!!!
It’s bad.
So I hear
I’ve always wondered about # 4 too. All good tips to keep in mind.
Wishing you a lovely week and month ahead. 🙂
Did you read the likely answer to #4 in the comments. Makes sense that that is happening through the Reader. Thanks for the comment. I love know you have been by.