Just writing you blog post and leaving it to linger is not all there is to blogging. It is core to the art, sure, but it is only a very small part of it. You blog extends far beyond the website where it all started.

For Thanet Bloggers a tight knitted yet open community means that can quickly become "plugged in" to the Thanet blog scene. However, there is a world of additional support, services, tools and communities and more are springing up every week it seems. In this post I will be looking at the services and sites that have an impact on your blog.

Google and other search engines send a lot of traffic (readers) to your blog and if you are hoping to earn a little from adverts then this is a vital source of income for you. I will be talking about SEO which is the art of ranking well in search engines in future posts. Basic SEO is not hard.

Technorati and other specialist blog search engines (such as Ice Rocket) are another strong source of traffic and a way of keeping tabs on the health and status of blogs in a given niche. Many bloggers use the tools to gage the rating of their blogs against others. There is something innately human about wanting to be "the best" in something.

To increase the rating of blogs requires that you get people's attention. To get people's attention you need a high profile. To break this vicious circle most bloggers engage in Social Networking. On such platforms bloggers meet like minded people who will be likely to follow blog links in signatures and profile pages.

Thanet has it's own social network with a forum and the ability to share. It also has a blog platform that might offer an alternative or addition to the current homogeny of blogger.com use in Thanet.

BumpZee and other social networks exist that focus on blogs specifically. Bumpzee (our example) makes the blog posts you make (headlines and teaser only) part of the entire social interaction so that everything you have to say is shared and explored. There is not a current Thanet community (which any member could make) but there is a UK Blogs listing which is quite lively should you wish to connect outside of Thanet, Kent.

Even this small tour of where your blog can go outside of the blog is just the tip of the iceberg (so to speak, no actual ice exists). Use of these tools can reshape your view of blogging from an interesting hobby to any combination of grassroots journalism, lifestyle, business promotion and/or potential earners.

Blogging is not just about the blog.