Here we are at day 25 of our series “Building A More Successful Blog in 30 Days“.  We only have 5 days remaining and I’m looking forward to finding out how much your blogs have progressed so far.

Today we focus on building a team of other bloggers that you all can leverage to make your blogs more successful.

As a blogger the easiest things to do are create content, monetize your blog, review products, etc., but all of these are good for absolutely nothing if no one knows of you.  If no one is reading your blog, your work will all be done in vain.

Building Your Roadmap

In order to let people know that your blog exists and that it has great information the reader may be interested in, you must effectively market your blog in some way.

In order to be successful, you have to be everywhere.

Think of marketing as the roadmap to your blog.

How many places have you ever traveled and had to use a roadmap to find it?  Probably quite a few.  Your blog is no different.

To help you build that roadmap, you want to leverage as many other bloggers as possible.  We’ve covered ways of doing this like commenting on other blogs, joining social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, and even giving some link love to specific bloggers you want to notice you.

But why not build a small team of bloggers and double, triple, or even quardruple your marketing efforts with absolutely no extra work?

10 Benefits of Building A Blog Team

These benefits come from a great post written by Eric Hamm & Sean Platt at Problogger.

1. You can get feedback on posts, prior to pressing publish. Writing without a sounding board can be difficult. Writing without a sounding board when we’re about to publish our thought for world consumption can be terrifying. Having someone with whom to send our words for perusal can make all the difference in how we feel about our work. Sometimes, feedback is as simple as a good job! or a quickly corrected comma. Other times a slow down! or a what exactly are you trying to say? might be more in order. Good or bad, a buddy can help lead us in the right direction
2. You can have someone to vent to, who understands your situation. Blogging is difficult. No one understands this essential truth better than another blogger. Most of us suffer common setbacks. Simply knowing that someone else is feeling, or has felt, something similar, can be all we need to know our feelings are only fleeting.
3. You can work on projects together. Collaboration is one of the great joys of blogging. Cooperation comes in many forms, and often by surprise, but pooling minds on a joint project offers pleasure like little else. Swapping ideas through email or instant message is immediate and often amusing. Inspiration will surely abound, and take you to wonderful places you were never even planning to go.
4. You can share link love. It’s well established that links are the currency of the net. They strengthen our rating with analytic aggregators such as Technorati and Alexa, while erecting new roads for readers to reach our words. Having a buddy that we can count on to help generate links is like having a friend post flyers to our show on telephone poles across the city.
5. You can share each others posts through social media and with other bloggers. Social media plays an enormous role in helping drive blogs toward success, and can sometimes be the difference between breaking out and blowing up. When it comes to outlets such as Twitter and StumbleUpon, every blogger brings a different audience. Even with audience overlap, a post spread by your blogging team will extend to a different audience than your own.
6. You can share communities. Each post develops our community further. Every blog has its own set of readers and subscribers who drop in to say hello. Commitment is a natural byproduct of community. A buddy blogger can ask his audience to give your work a chance. A portion of the audience will be happy to comply, and that chance could make all the difference.
7. You can help each other stay motivated as you share encouragement. The peaks and valleys of daily blogging lend themselves well to the buddy system. Just as one buddy sees a lull in subscribers, the other may be experiencing a peak. That peak could be a prompt for encouragement. Your buddy is part of your team. Success for one means success for all. All it takes is the proper mindset; choose to celebrate successes, and supersede all difficulty.
8. You can guest post for each other. Guest posts are an excellent way to build your name brand, while continuing to refine your craft. Landing a guest post, especially in the beginning, can be difficult. With a blogging team, it’s as simple as trading baseball cards.
9. You can share each others talents. People are different, and bring separate skill sets to the table. Some people tend to be more creative, while others might display a stronger technical side. Fate seems to have an odd way of laying opposites together, and often you will find that the talents of your blogging buddy, or buddies, will nicely compliment your own.
10. You’ll have twice the blogging power at your disposal. Getting started blogging is hard, gaining momentum even more so. Having twice the reach, or at least twice the intent, can be the difference between barely eking by, and soaring through the stratosphere.

Real World Examples

I have done everything that I’ve suggested you do in our Building A More Successful Blog in 30 Days series, and this is no different.

I’ve actually expanded upon simply building a single blogging team, and now have two blogging teams which has helped to expand all of our blogs and outreach unlike anything you’ve ever seen.

My Secret StumbleUpon Group

The very first blogging team I became a member of was actually started by me.  It’s my Secret StumbleUpon Group.

The idea actually came to me from a post written many months ago at Problogger.  The focus was on the idea that StumbleUpon can bring massive amounts of traffic to your blog if you work it the right way.

This group was built solely so that other bloggers and I could submit each others newest posts to stumbleupon.  And I can’t say that I’ve been dissapointed with the results.  Because of my StumbleUpon group, the majority of my visitors have come from StumbleUpon.

This group is actually what has helped launch my blog into success so fast.  I went from being an absolute no one to a very successful blog in just one month.

This group is amazing, and if you’re interested in joining, you can click here to learn more about it.

The Izea Insiders

Ted Murphy, CEO of Izea, started a group called the Izea Insiders, and held a contest giving readers a chance to be an Izea Insider Crew Leader.

Only 10 contestants were selected.  I, of course, was one of the lucky 10.

This blogging team is focused on helping Izea in many different ways, but it has also given us 10 bloggers the chance to get to know each other better and to leverage each other to help promote specific things we are doing on our own blogs.

This team has given me opportunities that it takes normal bloggers years to get.  I get free tickets to IzeaFest 09, as well as other blog conferences and events paid for.

While my StumbleUpon group has given me more blog traffic, I’ve found the Izea Insider team to be an even bigger blessing for me and my blog.

As an Izea Insider Crew Leader, I’ve named my crew Izea Mafia, and I am giving anyone who is interested in leveraging the power of a blog team the chance to join.

This group will give you opportunities to win great prizes, work together to help promote each other’s blog, the ability to actually start making real money from your blog, and so much more.

If you’re interested in joining my Izea Insider crew, you can click here to find out more information.

There Is No I In Team

A blogging team can help benefit you in so many ways, but always remember that there is no I in Team.  You should always try to help your team more than they help you.  It’s only when everyone in the team has that same goal that your team will be very successful.

Do you have a blog team to build your blog’s success?  If so, how well is it working for you?  Feel free to start your own blogging team and let others know about it by leaving a comment.