As part of my series in building a money making blog in 365days, last week I got you to subscribe to a bunch of RSS feeds an read through them.

I have no doubt that some of the stuff confused you, and some of the stuff got you exited. I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section.

This week, I want you to take one extra step in the process. Beyond just reading other blogs I want you to begin interacting with them. The easiest way to do that is to leave comments. You’ve spent a week reading the various blogs and you have no doubt become familiar with more than a few. So you might want to choose a few that you’ve enjoyed and comment on them.

Leaving a comment on a blog serves a number of purposes. Firstly, it tells the writer that you are reading his / her content and that you appreciate it. Then it also tells others in the community that you are there, and that you’re part of the community.

But more than that, it begins to get you some exposure. So if you read problogger, JohnChow, and Shoemoney and leave comments on each of them people will recognise you, and get familiar with your name. This way when you lauch your blog later you’re not a complete stranger.

When you post a comment there are a few fields you need to fill in. The first is your name. I’d suggest that you use your first name and last name for this. Especially if your name is John, or Mark. This helps people to identify you. Then there is an email field. It’s safe to enter your email address in here becasue it’s not displayed and not publicly available.

Then there is the URL field. Obviously if you have a blog already you can enter your URL here, but if you’re not setup with a blog yet, and you’ll only be doing that later, then you can leave this field blank.

Lastly there is the Comment box. This is where you will type your comment. There are a few guidelines when leaving a comment.

1. Read the post first.  It’s pointless commenting if you have no idea what the post is about, and it’s the fastest way to make a complete idiot of yourself.

2. Don’t write rubbish like ‘Cool Blog’. This is an obvious comment for comments sake. Both the blogger and his community will see right through this and pretty much just ignore you.

3. Make your comment meaningful and useful. If you have a question, ask it. If you have an answer, give it. If there is a discussion going on in the comments then take part in it.

Before you post, on some blogs there is an option to get further comments emailed to you. This is useful is you are expecting an aswer to a question or if you are taking part in a discussion.

Try this for the next week. Keep reading the posts, but select a few to comment on. Don’t try to comment on every post, just comment on the posts where you think you can make a constructive comment or add value.

Somethings that you should NOT do:

1. Don’t get involved or start a fight. 

2. Don’t slate the blogger, even if you disagree with him.

3. Don’t use any foul language. 

If you have any other tips about commenting then please leave them in the comments section (’scuse the pun).

Reading other blogs, and commenting on them is a habit you need to get into early. It’ll become  a very very valuable part of your blogging routine. And this applies to people who want to go into full time blogging and replace their income, and for people who will only blog part time or some extra cash or credit.