Your Linking Efforts
One method you can use to get traffic to your blog is pretty easy. You just link to other blogs! Unfortunately, some people still don’t see the real benefit in doing so. Maybe I can fix that.
Every once in a while (usually at least once per week) you’ll see me post a blog entry with a catchy title. In the post I’ll provide a link to another blog. Why do I do that? Did they ask for a link back to their blog? Are they students of mine? Interns? No. They’re new blogs that I found with links pointing to my blog.
So, where do I look for new links to my blog? Do I look at my stats? Do I go to one of the main search engines and look for new sites linking to my blog? That is one way. I don’t need to do that though. I’ll show you a picture from inside my WordPress control panel:
I check this part of my blog regularly. When I log in to my WordPress control panel, this is what I see on the right side of the welcome page. By linking to these authors, it lets them know that their efforts are being accomplished, and that they’re affecting me in some way.
But does that mean I’ll post a link to any blog linking to me? No. I have a number of spam blogs that seem to enjoy linking to me. I would never link back to them. One blog on that image is crossed off for that very reason. For other blogs, if there was no information I found useful or that my readers would find useful, there’s no point in sending them a link.
I just read the top incoming link. It’s from Keith Goodrum. So is the third link down. I do recognize his name now. I wouldn’t have if he never linked to my blog. The other blogs on the list are from Mohamed Bhimji, James Brausch, Terry Dean, Stephen Dean, and Jim Sansi. Are you familiar with these names yet? I sure am.
- Aaron Brandon
Yet another great post. Well Done.
Do you know of video tutorials on wordpress out there that are really comprehensive. For me Wordpress is not as straight forward as one would think.
Comment by MartinFortKnox — February 6, 2008 at 8:26 am
Aaron,
There is certainly something to be said for the law of reciprocity.
I have found that in my markets, it is quite easy to obtain links if you are willing to give them out. This has been expecially helpful when entering new markets - along with commenting on great blogs in those markets.
Comment by Tyler — February 6, 2008 at 9:14 am
Hello Aaron,
Thanks for bringing up this issue!
It can also be fun to sometimes just go out and look for blogs. I did this in a recent post on my blog; I simply looked for Internet Business blogs that don’t use the “nofollow” tag (using Chris Crompton’s tool) and linked to five of them. Beyond getting a couple of links back to my site from it, it exposed me to some great new blogs that taught me some new things.
Best regards,
Tom
Comment by Tom Brownsword — February 6, 2008 at 2:05 pm
Hi Aaron
I noticed that you no longer have a blogroll.
Was this removed for any particular reason?
John
Comment by John — February 6, 2008 at 5:01 pm
john - I’m not sure what you mean. I haven’t had a blog roll since this blog was brand new. I removed it because there were too many people to include on the list. I just link to the blogs I like in blog entries.
- Aaron
Comment by Aaron Brandon — February 6, 2008 at 6:16 pm
Useful advice. One of the reasons I run a blogcarnival is to find new blogs, information and contacts for my current blog. It works well.
Kenneth
Comment by InvestorBlogger — February 16, 2008 at 9:33 pm