Blog Research: The Importance Of Surfing Aimlessly

by Jack Humphrey on Dec 17

One day you might find yourself wondering…

“How did I end up on a page about the mating rituals of African Elephants?  I gotta get back to work!”

That’s a fine idea, unless your blog is something to do with African Elephants.  Then I would say quit kicking yourself for surfing aimlessly.

As we get busier, usually in direct proportion to the growing amount of visitors to our sites each day, we start cutting down on what we used to do online when we didn’t consider it a business.  We stopped surfing.

With all there is to do keeping up a blog and marketing, not to mention testing advertising or developing and supporting products or services, it is natural not to use the web much for plain, old fashioned surfing.

But this can become a problem.  You can put yourself in a bubble and your competition can get the jump on you.

8 Tips for Surfing Aimlessly

  1. Allow yourself some guilt-free time to surf around your niche each week.
  2. Venture around the edges of your niche and let the clicking flow.  You never know what you might find that can help you with post ideas, breaking news, or finding great sites you should be following regularly.
  3. Open up your feed reader, clear the cobwebs, dust off some feeds you already belong to, and click around.
  4. Find great posts and follow the links of the commentators to find new blogs and sites of interest.
  5. Use your StumbleUpon toolbar to simply stumble more.  There’s some killer stuff even Google hasn’t ranked yet in StumbleUpon.
  6. Compare the new stuff you find to old stuff you subscribed to before and make the old stuff prove itself worthy, or not, to stay in your feeds.
  7. Make comments on new blogs you find.  Get a link and make some friends outside a social network for a change!
  8. Follow links from the blogs that appear in your Google Alerts.  Most people check the blogs themselves and leave it at that, but a delightful journey often ensues when you start clicking around any given blog’s sphere of influence.

Tagged as: blog research, Blogging, blogging tips, research tips

  • http://fred67.com/twitterblogs.html Pete Moring

    I usually use Sundays as my ‘aimless blog surfing’ day. Though I have to admit to going off-kilter rather a lot when reading specific blogs. (Like yours Jack)
    Also on Twitter, as so many good bloggers direct you to some great stuff.

    Keep it up Jack. Lovin’ it.

    Pete.

  • http://www.bloghelp.org Justin Wright

    I agree that doing some surfing is a good thing. I always find new blogs and information that end up helping me in the end.

    Justin Wrights last blog post..3 Indirect Ways To Make Money From Your Blog

  • http://www.GaryMcElwain.com Gary McElwain

    Thanks for saying it’s OK to just surf sometime. We’re always hearing you gotta stay focused dont get off track, dont waste time doing that.
    Now I can goof off a little in the name of research.

    What a great idea, Jack your brilliant. Or is this the excuse you came up with when your wife caught you watching the elephants mating?

    Gary McElwain

    Gary McElwains last blog post..Michael Dlouhy and Mentoring For Free, Jack Humphrey and Blog Success a Five Pillar Comparison

  • http://www.askwayde.com/new-investment-opportunities/financial-knowledge-is-buying-power/ Wayde McKelvy

    With all the social media tools and bookmarking sites, I sometimes find myself heavily involved in social interaction, and reading the blogs I put in my Google Reader. Rather than kicking myself, I look at this as time well spent, getting educated (as you eloquently put it) on the edges of my niche. Since my niche involves financial and investment strategies, there is TONS of information and advice, and news happening all the time. I want to devote time to research so I can keep my students apprised of any trends or happenings that might impact their financial goals.

  • http://www.howtospoter.com Alex Sysoef

    Jack, as always great tip. I tend to do what you describe at times to discover what is the current buzz within my niche and it works rather well, although it is time consuming and should be practiced with moderation :-)

    Happy new year Jack!

    Alex Sysoefs last blog post..WebProsperity Pre-Launch

  • http://www.fiddyp.co.uk Andy Bailey

    ah wonderful! I can call all those days of stumbleupon “work” !
    FYI: if you put a value of
    text_input
    in the field class of your wp-twitip-id settings page then the field will match the size and class of the others

    Andy Baileys last blog post..I finally made it back to the gym – video blog post

    • http://www.jackhumphrey.com/ Jack Humphrey

      Hey thanks man! I don’t even know what it looked like before because I just added it and had to be logged out to see it, but it looks great now!

  • http://tech.spotcoolstuff.com/best/blu-ray-players Spot@best blu-ray players

    Random surfing through StumbleUpon is a great idea. i also like going through the most recent submitted links on social bookmarking sites like Digg and Mixx.

    Spots last blog post..Flying Cars Ready For Take Off

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  • http://www.squidoo.com/babyboomersandretirement Carol Ann Wiley

    Hmm. The word was dilly. For this post it should have been two words:
    dilly dally which is my style for aimless surfing. I want to thank you for support my morning habit of what I call my surfing and searching. Unfortunately I can find myself doing in the afternoon and the evening as well. Oh look, is that a bird?

    As always, Jack, great post about not just doing the surfing but why to do it.

  • http://confusedbytheworld.com/ confused

    People used to talk about 7 degrees of separation, but with the internet it’s more like 2 nowadays. I do enjoy idly surfing along, you can find some hilarious stuff if you just casually surf from link to link.
    .-= confused´s last blog ..Obama versus Wall Street…. =-.

  • http://www.futuretwit.com J C

    I like to use Stumbleupon when I surf like this. It’s probably the best thing out there for discovering new sites.

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