How I Discover New Blogs
Finding a new blog to read is one of my favourite things to do online. It genuinely brings me joy. Right now I have 230 sites that I follow in my RSS reader, Miniflux.
If I ever want to spend some time reading, I'll usually open Miniflux over my Mastodon client, Moshidon. There's no likes, boosts, hashtags etc. just interesting people sharing interesting opinions.
It's lovely.
So how do I discover these blogs? There's many ways to do it, but here's some that I've found most successful, ranked from most useful, to least.
1. Personal recommendations
When someone I already enjoy reading links to a post from another blogger, either just to share their posts, or to add their own commentary to the conversation.
This (to me at least) is the most useful way to discover new blogs to read. It's the entire premise of the Indieweb, so if you own a blog, please make sure you're linking to other blogs in your posts. 🙃
2. Aggregators
There are a number of great small/indie web aggregators out there, and there seems to be new ones popping up all the time. Here's a list of some of my favourites:
I tend to use these as a kind of extended RSS reader. So if I'm up to date on my RSS feeds, I'll use these as a way to continue hunting for new people to follow.
Truth is, I actually spend more time on these sites than I do on the fediverse. Speaking of which...
3. Social media
There's lots of cool people on the fediverse, and many of them have blogs. Even those who don't blog will regularly share links to posts they've enjoyed.
I also nose at hashtags of the topics that interest me, rather than just the timeline of people I follow.
So remember to add hashtags to your posts - they're a great way to aid discovery. 👍🏻
4. Natural discovery
This last bucket is just everything else; where I naturally find my way to a blog while surfing the net.
I've discovered some great blogs this way, but it's becoming harder and harder to find indie blogs this way, as discoverability on the web has been overtaken by AI summaries and SEO. 😏
It's still possible though.
Final thoughts
There's plenty of interesting people out there, creating great posts for us all to enjoy. The indie web is thriving, and if you're not taking advantage of it, you're missing out!
Why not take a look at a couple of the sites I've listed above and see what you discover? It's a tonne of fun.