I said in my last post that I had finally reached the 100 followers mark on Google Friend Connect, a blogging milestone that I'm very happy about, especially considering that some days I feel like I'm not as active in the blogging community as I should be. Since my mom died, I have found it harder and harder to visit other blogs on a daily basis, in part because my list of favorite blogs keeps growing and growing. By the time I visit all my favorites, I'm often too exhausted to use resources like MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and Entrecard to find new blogs and potential new readers of my own blog.With the exception of Twitter, I really haven't ventured beyond blog directories in attempt to find more readers. Assuming I could ever summon forth enough creativity to write more than just one or two blog post a day, I could try a service like A1 Articles to increase the traffic to my blog. A1 Articles is a free article directory that allows you to submit articles that you have written on almost any topic that include links back to your own blog. People can view your articles, download them, and republish them with credits and the links intact on their own sites, thereby expanding your readership base.
An article directory seems like a good idea in theory, especially if you're the one who needs an article on a topic you know nothing about or if you just want to get your own articles and back links out there. However, I'm curious as to how the directories like A1 Articles enforces the requirement that the people who use your article keeps your name and your links in place. Is there some kind of policing in place? If someone violates the requirements, who pursues a copyright infringement claim, you or the directory? Do you really have any recourse other than contacting the infringer's web host? What if someone takes the article you wrote for free, submits it for a job of some sort, and gets paid for it? I couldn't find any answers to those questions on A1 Articles' web site. Until they add those answers, I would be hesitant to write something that someone could basically steal and pass off as his or her own work.
Consequently, I guess for now I'll stick to the old fashioned method of getting new blog traffic--visiting other blogs, commenting, and hoping I get a visit back. However, if I'm ever in a jam for a post that explains some topic that I have no idea how to explain but I want to explain nonetheless, I know where to go.
Thanks to my friends at A1Articles.com for supporting this post.
