I don’t want to visit a blog, stare at the home page and then leave. Do you? What do I benefit from staring? Nothing! Why did I visit the blog anyway? Maybe I just wanted to have a look. Having a look actually means looking around, so there are probably many things I will like to know about the blog.

If I intend doing more than looking around, as in the case of searching for information, I will have to “forcefully” get it from the blog I visit. This will require some sort of interaction with the blog. Interaction, in this case will mean

querying the search box for information,
browsing through categories and archives,
reading and replying to comments,
or posting new comments to come back latter for an answer.

The level of interaction between you and the blog you visit will depend on exactly what you want from it. This interaction can range from just

• Looking around,
• Reading posts
• Reading and replying comments
• Saving posts to social bookmarking sites
• Subscribing to a blog
• Creating a user account on the blog

Visiting a blog just to look around…

When you are visiting a blog for the very first time, the most probable reason is to just have a look and see what it has to offer before you decide to do a one-time exploitation or make it your regular stop. Just looking around, it is imperative that you know what the blog is all about (education, politics, news…) and the type of content it publishes (text, photos, videos…). Some people might just be interested in the blog’s design (theme) while others will be looking for extra features that don’t appear In some blogs (avatars, social bookmark buttons…etc).

Reading Posts

People who already know about a particular blog may visit it with the intention of actually reading the published content on it. Most just glance at the topics or read just excerpts to decide if the entire post is worth their time. This is why bloggers are usually advised to make the topic and first paragraph of their posts as captivating as possible. Some people will decide to read posts by categories. In an Arts and Entertainment blog, someone may decide to read posts under “celebrities” only, leaving out others like humanities, humor, movies, music, photography, poetry, etc…

Reading and replying comments

Without comments, your blog will be like a bible. You will be indirectly telling people that “this is that”, nothing else. Most bloggers have realized that it is important to interact with readers. The best possible means of doing this is by letting readers post comment on their favorite posts or articles. At times, even if you are interested in a post but don’t have anything to say just read at comments by other users. You may be inspired to say something, or just reply to someone’s comment.

Saving posts to social bookmarking sites

If you love a post, unless you think you are really done with it, you may be looking for means to save it so that in future you can easily locate it. The Internet is a very large medium and it is easy to get lost in it. There are sites called social bookmarking and social networking sites where one can easily save his/her favorite websites, blogs and blog posts. The ones I use (not necessarily the best) are digg and stumbleupon. We shall talk more about social bookmarking on the next post.

Subscribing to a blog

Not everyone will like to visit a blog over and over just to find out whether or not it has new content. Developments in web technology has made it possible for one to have recent information from a blog or site regularly received by email or read in a fees reader like Google reader. We shall talk more about feeds and feed readers in the nearest future.

Creating a user account on the blog

Some blogs will require you to create a user account before you can partially of fully interact with them. Some will require that you create an account before posting comments. In the case of multi-authored blogs, you may be required to create an account before you can submit a post.

Don’t skip the blog reader to go to the blogger. Before you ever think of starting your own blog, I suggest you take this post serious. Learn how to actively interact with blogs so that when you start your, you can boast of the ability of feeling wearing your readers’ shoes.

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