No matter what we tell others or deny to ourselves, we all want to be one of the popular people. One of those blogs which seem to have endless faithful readers. One of those blogs people are commenting on almost as soon as a fresh post is published. One of those blogs you know everyone will link to, refer to and praise as being so great, wonderful and fabulous. But, how do you get from here to there? How do you become one of the popular bloggers? It isn't something anyone or everyone can do. A lot of it takes personality - if you are introverted the social part with be hard for you. Still, there's nothing keeping you from trying and seeing how close you can get to reaching your lofty goal. Don't get discouraged. Not everyone can find fame and fortune. You may get to the point where you find your plateau and realize you are happy right there. Goals should never be so rigid you can't change them to suit yourself. They are after all, your goals, for you.

• Don't give up!
• Stay focused!
• Be friendly!

Don't Give Up Too Soon

Getting a site off the ground takes time. Even if your site is a few years old but you have not been active in the niche community of your site, you are going to need to give yourself time to find your feet and build those social connections.

Take a weekend sabbatical because you shouldn't push yourself so much that you burn out too soon. But, don't give up too easily. If you take more than a weekend off you will lose momentum. Treat blogging like a job with a regular work day. Once you have done your 9 to 5 take the rest of the day off and keep your weekends free.

Focus on One Niche Topic

Pick a niche and stick with it.

You may fear not having enough to write about. So, take paper and pen and brainstorm a list of ideas in your niche. Give yourself an hour or jot down notes over the day as you go along. How many ideas did you get? Review them and see which are not as relevant, which are related to your niche and which are just what you want to write about. A niche can be flexible. Consider seasonal posts which are still relevant content but have a seasonal spin.

A niche does not have to be restrictive. But, it may seem that way if you don't have enough knowledge or really love the topic, theme or niche. Over the long haul you need both knowledge, resources and passion to sustain a blog. You also need the focus to keep on topic so readers will know what to expect and come back for more. If you stray too far out of your niche too often you lose credibility and that nice predictability readers are looking for.

Having said that you really do need a great writing voice. Your own personality should shine through your words. Your own experiences, opinions and ideas will engage readers and make them feel they are connected to a real person. You need to become your niche and don't be afraid to show some humour too. Think about the blogs you read versus those you just skim.

Be Engaging and Encourage Interaction with Readers

Engage readers and encourage comments.

Remember you are writing to people. Think about others as you write. Ask them questions, encourage them to give feedback. Leave open ended posts where readers have something to add rather than just the bland, good post, I agree, sort of comments. Stir things up in some way to give people a reason to leave you a note.

When someone does comment follow up on it. Find out who they are, check their own blogs (if they have one) and find them on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, and so on. You can choose to follow them or not. Don't automatically follow everyone. Be sincere in who you follow and stick to people you have a reason to want to get to know or find out about.

Keep Them Reading

Get writing and then make sure your posts are easy to find on your site. Promote your own links to relevant and related content on your posts. In the sidebar you can gets lists of your most popular posts, most commented on posts and even your posts from a year (or years) ago. Give people more to read and they won't read one post and move on so quickly. Also, you are showing your own knowledge and authority in your niche.

Don't forget tags and categories. These are a great way to build an index to the content on your site. Tags can cover more ground, smaller and more focused topics. Categories should be limited to the main ideas you want to write about. Think of categories as a table of contents in a non-fiction book. While tags are more like the big index in the back. Both categories and tags, and the search you should also use, give readers the ability to find more of your related content.

Learn to Love Social Media

Make sure readers can follow you and repost your links too.

There are a large variety of widgets you can add to your blog for social media sharing and getting followers. What's a great way to get someone to follow you back? Let them know you followed them and why you did. Everyone likes to know you actually followed them for a reason (other than wanting to beef up your own numbers). Plus, people who have a lot of followers usually don't notice the addition of someone new. So announcing yourself, in a positive way, is a great way to get followed back and likely get your blog noticed too.

Be Active in the Online Community

Get to know other bloggers and those who work for other sites and social media.

This is not easy for me. I'm very much an introvert and I like not being too social. However, if you set yourself the goal of becoming a big fish you need to be a joiner and keep your accounts active. Not just Twitter, the odd repost to Tumblr or StumbleUpon. You need to jump right in there with both feet and become a social butterfly.

Build up your small talk skills. Learn more about the art of conversation. Even though the medium is not face to face your sincerity will show through. So work on becoming socially skilled and do your best to shine.

Of course, there is the other extreme, the troll. Know where the limits fall. Don't become the person who has to have something to say about everything, always has to make their opinion known and makes everything about themselves. If you find yourself taking over too many conversations in the forums step back and take a full day off. Decide to not even read a few of the forum threads. Set limits you (and others) can live with.

Not everyone will want to try things like blog fairs, carnivals, memes and such. But, these are a great way to break the ice and meet your fellow bloggers.

If there is a particular blogger or group you want to notice you, write a review of their site and talk about what they do and what you like about them. Share the link via social media.

Write Outside the Blog

Guest blogging gets a lot of mention but I'm not wild about it. As a blogger I tend to get awful posts in the name of guest blogging. People ask me for space on my site before knowing (or caring) what I post about. I have had amazingly terrible submissions. Never accept a guest blogging post unless it really works for your niche and you actually think your readers will want to have the information or the point of view the guest blogger is promoting. Of course, check any links they want you to post. Check them at the HTML level to be sure you aren't getting more than you expected.

As someone trying to find a place to guest blog... it isn't easy. Most bloggers have not had great experiences with guest blogging. Many won't even read requests because so many of them are useless. So, you have a real up hill battle to get your foot in the door and even be heard. Start by leaving comments (good comments) in the blog you want to guest blog for. Get noticed for something you are doing right and then, when you do have your foot in the door, suggest writing a post for them.

An alternative to guest blogging is to write for networks. They do seem to be disappearing but HubPages and others which are still pretty new, are still around. Get your feet wet, create a profile you can link to with good posts. Build up a readership and direct them to your own site as a source for extra information and more resources.

Both guest blogging and network blogging will give you links to your own site from an outside source. As you write more posts on outside sources you will be giving yourself a nice selection of links back to your site and the search bots (and actual human readers) will find you.