Maple Leaf Mommy

A little while back I posted about How to Thank a Blogger and I received a flood of awesome comments with tons of great suggestions on other ways to show your appreciation.  Definitely more then enough fodder for  a second post! So here it is, part two: Five More Ways to Thank a Blogger. You can think of the first post as How to Thank a Blogger for the Layman, and you can think of this one as for the more tech savvy out there.

If you're a blogger, you probably spend a large part of your time reading other peoples blogs. And as a blogger you know how much you love to receive comments, and how great it is to see your readership numbers rising. So you're probably already aware of the more obvious ways to thank a fellow blogger, such as becoming a follower, or leaving a nice comment.  But how else do you show your appreciation?

1 - Shout it out!
Some bloggers do a weekly round-up of posts they've enjoyed, or an interview "spotlight" on bloggers they love. Mentioning a fellow blogger in a post is a great way to show your appreciation.  Linking to their blog is helpful in so many ways, from increased exposure to helping in search engine rankings.

Here's a tip - the best way to link to someone, for search engine purposes, is by a short descriptive sentence (like "mom blogger" "product review blog" or "giveaway blog") .  So for example if I wanted to send some love out to Jennifer over at Mom vs the Boys it is more effective to link like this:

You should stop by and visit fellow Canadian mom blogger Jennifer over at Mom vs the Boys.

as opposed to linking like this:

You should stop by and visit fellow Canadian mom blogger Jennifer over at Mom vs the Boys.

By using a descriptive phrase you are providing the search engine with some new info, as opposed to something they already know (such as the blog tittle or author name).

2 - Spread it around!
If you read a post you enjoy share it with others.  A great way to share a post is by tweeting out the URL or by linking to it on Facebook.  Or share it on another site such as Digg, Technorati, etc. Many bloggers have buttons in their posts to help you spread the word. Look for "retweet" buttons, or other sharing icons. As you can tell from taking a look at the sharing widget along the top of this post their are a plethora of different sites you can choose to help spread the word.  Everyone loves increased exposure!

When I find another blogger that I really respect, I like to invite them to join one of my Triberr tribes, so that we can automatically share each other's content on Twitter.

Another thing to keep an eye out for is the new Google +1 button (See mine in the top right hand corner of this post?). Think of it as the "like" button on Facebook, but as applied to webpages. Clicking on it gives that post a +1 and among other things will help with page ranking.


3 - Review 'em!
Post a review of their blog on a site like Alexa, Fuel My Blog, or Blogged. Some folks have buttons in their sidebars to help point you in the right direction. Writing a review can take a minute, but is definitely one of the nicer ways to thank a blog well read as a positive review or two can really help with page ranking.

4 - Share your space!
Sharing a little bit of your webspace with your fellow blogger is another great way to show your appreciation. Most bloggers have a "Grab My Button" widget somewhere along the sidelines on their page, so you can easily cut & paste the code you need to display their blog button ad in your sidebar or on your "blog roll" page. You can always try emailing a blogger you admire and offering to swap button ads. Think of it as exchanging free advertising!

5- Bring the right tools to the party!

In my opinion StumbleUpon is one of the two Must Install toolbars out there, the other one being the Alexa toolbar.  Alexa is a page ranking system that some PR folks like to pay attention to. The way that Alexa calculates page ranking is skewered, with visits from those who have the tool bar installed "weighing" more. So installing the Alexa toolbar is a great way to help out fellow bloggers.  Once it's installed each time you visit a site you are helping to boost that site's Alexa page ranking. You don't have to do anything, just stop in and have the toolbar installed.


There you have it folks, five more ways to "virtually tip" your fellow blogger.

So what do you think? What other sites are worth posting blog reviews at? Any cool ideas on short descriptive phrases for linking up your blogging favourites? Anything else to add to the list?

Image #1: Mikael Altemark, Image #2: Liftarn.