Recently I told you that I had seen a metablogger offer the “blogwork” (read:homework) to his readers to write 20 blog comments that day.

I decided to take up the challenge.

I felt that this would indicate 20 per day per blog. Otherwise it would be watered down linkage-wise. So my goal was 20 for About Blogging, and 20 for Bitter Women.

Also, when I first started, I wanted to make this 20 NEW blogs, so leaving comments on places I had commented before wouldn’t count.

RESULTS

1. No freaking way do I have the time/energy to leave 20 comments per blog per day. (I’m now up to 3 blogs, so this would be 60. It’s a nice idea, but I just couldn’t do it.

Monday: I did very well… I left 23 for About Blogging and 13 for Bitter Women.
Tuesday: I felt ready to slit my throat after 20 for About Blogging and 10 for Bitter Women. I’d also abandoned the rule about it having to be places I’d never been before. That takes SO much time to find new, quality, relevant blogs!
Wedneday: I kept pushing on, with 10 for About Blogging and 20 for Bitter Women.
Thursday: I did squat because I was creating The Naked Celebrity .
Friday: Exhausted. Still working on The Naked Celebrity layout, but decided to push myself and wrote 13 comments for each blog.

2. I DID notice an increase in traffic. But not one so substantial that it was worth killing myself over it. This week my traffic increased by about 50% over the previous week, however this was largely due to some serious stumbleupon traffic (thanks to people simply taking a shine to some of my stories), and did not come from comments I’d left. I also noticed an increase in subscribers. Actually, the About Blogging subscribership doubled. (But don’t get too excited. We’re a new blog, so I’m talking going from 11 subscribers to 22. I’m glad to have you, by the way!)

3. The biggest happy result was my own blogs got a boost in comments received.  In ONE WEEK the comments posted made up 20% of all comments on Bitter Women and 40% of all comments on About Blogging.

The most important thing I learned this week was:

4. Keeping Track of How Many Comments I Wrote Inspired Me To Do More. I had thought I commented more than I did. So far today, for example, I have a feeling that I’ve visited lots of blogs. But when I look at my tally, I’ve only actually left 5 comments. I’m doing a lot of post-writing today, so today may not be the day to go out and leave 20 comments elsewhere, however at least I’m not fooling myself into thinking I’m doing more than I actually am.

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