#31WBGB: Email a Blog Reader

Tonia’s challenge for Week 5 of “31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog!” is: 

• Spend 10-15 minutes connecting with your readers, either via email or comments.
• Make sure at least one contact is with a new reader.
• If you don’t have many comments on your blog yet, then spend 10-15 minutes visiting other genealogy blogs and leave “relevant, helpful, and genuine comments.”

Also significant for this week’s challenge was Tonia’s comment: “Yes, it is common sense and good manners. Common sense and good manners are not spectacular (at least they shouldn’t be). That’s why we should do this.”   I should be doing this all the time, but “common” sense isn’t always as common as we might like it to be.

It has been interesting this week.  I began by reading a few new blogs that caught my attention while scanning the blog roll at Geneabloggers.com.  The name of one blog in particular drew me to it immediately — Ancestral Wormhole.  That led to two blog posts  (“A New Look for Static Pages”  and  “Ancestral Trees Page Added”) and an email to the author.  It also resulted in a whole new look for my Pages.  Each post had a reader comment (thanks Greta and Nancy) to which I responded with a comment.

Another blog post (“Be-Attitudes for Geneablogging”) prompted comments from 4 readers.  I responded with follow-up comments, emails, and the addition of two new be-attitudes to the list.

In general, I can clearly say that #31WBGB is working.  My blogging is now a little more widely read, more responsive, and actually looks better.   Thanks, Tonia! and all the other who are participating in this challenge.