Some bloggers have the notion that "If I write, they will come." Well, they will eventually. It's only a matter of time before Google and other search engines index the blog and people start finding it that way. Why not speed the process up just a wee little bit?

I spend a lot of time on the Internet. I mean, a LOT OF TIME. My day goes something like this: Wake up, eat breakfast, harass the relatives and neighbors (I have to prove I'm still alive by actually leaving my house), hop on the net and do a bunch of stuff, eat dinner, watch a TV show or movie (rarely), get back on the net and do a bunch of stuff, and finally pass out when my brain is exhausted. I don't have a set schedule. Breakfast could be at 6 am or noon. My day starts whenever I wake up. It's not always like this, but it's typical — especially when I'm broke.

Anyway, when I'm on the net, I do the things I always do (well, almost always). As a blogger by day and Batman by night (okay, who am I kidding?), I write articles. That's my first blogging mission. My second mission is to visit other blogs, comment, harass the authors into hating me for life, and other such stuff. My third and final mission is to do some drive-by blogging at any number of websites. Well, it's not really drive-by and it's not really blogging, but I think it has the same effect.

We all know (at least us with experience) that social news aggregators such as digg, reddit, Netscape, Plime, Astigg (who?) and others have users that absolutely hate bloggers and bloggers that do nothing but self-promote. Well, they don't hate us when we join the discussions and plug our blogs when the topic is relevant. Well, most of the time. There's an old saying but I'll be damned if I can remember how it goes exactly but it's something along the line of "you can't please everyone all the time" or something like that. So, anyway, I do that on those sites whenever I see an opening (but only when I think about it and it doesn't hurt to think).

I belong to forums at various places too, although I don't make it to them on a regular basis. Shoving some links into my sig at these sites is an acceptable method of self-promotion. Kind of like what people do on the USENET. USE what? If you don't know what that is well, oh my, you haven't been around long, have you? On the Internet, I mean. I had to throw that last part in because some people have to wait until they have the money, the desire, the knowledge, and other things before they can be interested in something like the Internet.

If you're running a "professional" blog, there's a whole different set of routines. I'm not into that. I'm into the personal blog thing. In fact, I tend to avoid professional blogs like the plague — because they can be incredibly boring. I don't want to go to sleep while reading someone's article. Niche blogs (professional or otherwise) have their place, to be sure, but they're in their place and I'm in mine. I can go visit, but not often because it's just not my niche, if you know what I mean.

The point of this article is not to tell you how I do it. Really. It's just to encourage you to do a little "drive-by blogging" of your own.