This is a guest post by Gonzalo! One of my good friends and favorite site visitors. He’s even teaching me a little Spanish Today he’s talking to you about your international blog (did you know you had one?)

Maybe you write your blog today thinking that it’s a kind of old fashioned personal diary, with the little golden padlock and mini key and that it’s a good form to keep your thoughts for yourself. Maybe you think (or know) that no more than two or five friends visit it once during the month in order to keep in touch with you. But unless you use password protected posts, chances are your blog and it’s content is already international.

This is because the web aggregators like Google, Bing, Yahoo and others constantly crawl the net searching for new things to aggregate into their databases. And they even have the “professional courtesy” to tell you that you have been chosen for their sites: if they take you, you will not know until you ask them directly. And if you have a blog, they identify whether there is fresh content on a regular basis, so revisit your site once a week instead of once a month. Some platforms, like WordPress, send an alert (ping) telling the aggregators that there is new content. And… when someone asks them, they could (and eventualy will) show your blog as a result. So, your blog is a global site, unknowingly!

For example, it was a surprise for me that in less than a month publishing my own blog, I had visits from Germany, UK, Spain, Switerzland…and US, Canada, Panama, Uruguay, Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile, Ecuador and Colombia; and of course of almost every state of Mexico. Right now, there are more nationalities of visitors on my site in one month, than friends from other countries for all my life!! And on another site, I even had visits from Russia, China, Israel and Japan. I never thought they would find me! But they do, and now I have an international audience of 300+  that was not intended.

So, here are three great pieces of advice to keep in mind when writing your blog, knowing that it’s already global, whether you intended it that way or not:

1. Remember that all you write will be published and known. If your have hostile writings or make bad jokes about a particular culture or country, chances are that someone from that place will eventually find your site! So, as a very cynical traditional political saying in Mexico goes: “If you think it, don’t say it. If you say it, don’t write it. If you write it,  don’t sign it. If you sign it, dont’t show it. If its shown… Deny it all!”  So, better start at the beginning and NOT ever write things that you don’t want to be known by the person or group you are talking about. Be polite.
2. Measure your data. On Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics) you can get a free acount that, by adding small lines of code on your site, tell you where your visitors come from, how long they stay and if they are new, one time only visitors or recurrent readers, among other data. It’s easy to set up, and very powerful to get retroalimentation on your site. If  you already have a gmail acount, the sign up is very easy. With that data on hand, you will know your audience better.
3. Open your mind! Even if you think your blog is very personal in nature, chances are that it’s a world wide window to all the people in the world, even if it’s one at a time. Write a post on the countries you like to visit or have some curiosity about. Chances are you will get a comment from people from that country that are you readers right now, and you could plan a vacation or know more about that country directly!

And, of course, you can invite people all over the world to see your work. Eventually, they will discover it anyway!

Gonzalo J. Suárez is an economist and public policy consultant in Mexico City. His personal blog where he talks about his readings and everyday observations (Dichos y Bichos) is available in english and spanish at http://gjsuap.com