So you have a knitting blog. You're writing posts regularly, have connected your posts to Facebook and Twitter, joined Pinterest but you're still struggling to increase traffic to your knitting blog. How do you organically bring more people to your knitting blog? Everyone knows that commenting on other knitting blogs can encourage other bloggers to visit your website, but how do you find the right blogs to comment on? What is the right blog for you to comment on anyway?

What to look for in choosing a blog to comment on:

1. Number of commenters

2. Relevance to your content

3. Relevance to your point of view

How to find the right knitting blogs

Now you know what you're looking for, but how do you find it? Just searching for blogs using google's blog search comes up with too many results that take too long to vet. Sure there are a ton of knitting blogs, but with each click you may find only blogs that haven't been updated in months. This is where Blog Alongs come in.

Blog Alongs

What's a Blog Along? It's an organized group of blogs that all choose to blog about a certain thing at a certain time. They link with each other so that they can all read each other's blogs by putting a linked badge on their websites.

Yarn Along

For instance, there is Yarn Along which is run by Ginny at Small Things. On Wednesdays, you can blog with Yarn Along about what you're knitting and reading. Then you visit Ginny's website and add yourself to the list of blogs that are participating in Yarn Along. Yarn Along has almost 200 participants every week. By visiting the other participants, you can be sure that you're connecting with other engaged craft bloggers. Commenting on these blogs means that you will get a little more exposure than just commenting on a random blog (especially those blogs that already get hundreds of comments). Furthermore these bloggers are more likely to reciprocate and comment on your blog.

Eskimimi's Knit and Crochet Blog Week

Eskimimi hosts a Knit and Crochet Blog Week. She provides a list of blog topics, one of each day of the week and provides prizes for the best posts. This is a great opportunity to hone your blogging skills. Eskimimi's topics expand your ideas about blogging and get you thinking outside of your comfort zone. The topics embrace creative photography, video blogs, podcasts and encourage you to explore these other ways to blog. Participating in Knit and Crochet Week not only strengthens your blogging skills, but also encourages new traffic to your blog. It's coming up soon (late April) so go over there now and see if you want to join!

I've joined a Blog Along, now what?

You've written a relevant post, connected it to your blog along. How do you make the most of your participation?

Visit the other bloggers

1. Comment on the blogs you like
2. Subscribe to the blogs you like
3. Revisit the blogs at a later date and continue to comment.

This last one is really important because if you follow these blogs and comment consistently, you will be doing something very important: building relationships. As you get to know your fellow bloggers and they get to know you they will come to anticipate your blog posts and will look forward to engaging with you, making for lasting increased traffic down the line.

Let's continue the conversation

What do you do to reach out to other blogs? How do you find other craft blogs? Are there other blog alongs that I'm missing? Let me know in the comments.