Incoming Links Aren’t All The Same

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The internet is built on links and, as any experienced blogger will tell you, so are blogs. Whether you’re just starting a blog or you’ve have been at it a while, you need incoming links.

There are, however, wrong ways and right ways to go about gaining incoming links. Examples of the wrong way to gain links are:

• Leaving your link within a comment at other blogs. (You’ve already left your URL in the appropriate field; anything else is spammy.)
• Bulk link exchange schemes.
• Participation in “linky love” blogrolls which require each member to list the entire blogroll on their site in order to participate.

Leaving links within comments at other blogs isn’t just rude, it’s also pretty much pointless. Most comment sections are “nofollow” to begin with, so that link you dropped into the comment body isn’t going to count as a link back to your site.

Depending on the host blog’s spam settings, your comment might also land in moderation. It takes only one lazy or overwhelmed blogger (or someone just having a bad day) to mark your comment as “spam”, which gets you added to the blacklist. Do that to enough bloggers and you’ll find you have problems leaving comments anywhere.

Bulk link-exchanges can work against you, too. These include various forms of “link to me and I’ll link to you” arrangements… possibly including a popular ‘viral’ link meme going around.

Then there are the “linky love” blogrolls that many bloggers associated with one particular paid blogging company are fond of. These “linky love” rolls require members to post the entire blogroll on their site in order to be included. The problem is that such blogrolls include links to sites that aren’t relevant to yours, a practice that can water down your blog’s PR.

Yes, in many cases those “linky love” blogrolls consist of your friends and fellow paid bloggers, all of whom are willing to give you links back to your site from theirs. While that sounds like the best form of linking payola, the fact is that it may very well damage your site’s PR and, hence, your ability to make money blogging.

So link your friends, yes, and seek links in return from them. But do so correctly — selectively, one blog at a time, rather than signing on for the latest “get links quick” scheme.

Some other “right” ways to build your site’s backlinks:

• Write strong content that’s useful to other people then send emails informing other bloggers about such entries. (Bonus if you provide them with the entire text of the entry and the Trackback URI to save them work!)
• Leave insightful comments on other blogs to attract visitors who may link you.
• Submit your URL to quality blog directories.

There’s a lot to be said for these types of “natural back links”: they let you know when you’re delivering the kind of content people want to read, and they don’t irk search engine gurus. That kind of natural linking obviously requires patience and persistence, but it will benefit your blog far more than any reciprocal “linky love” from other blogs already on a certain search engine’s Naughty List.

More importantly, since links get counted as a vote for your site, what better way to know that you’re writing well than to be linked by people who do want to link you, and not merely those who’re giving you a link so they can get one in return?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 4:43 pm and is filed under Building Traffic (Blogging 201). Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Tagged in: back links | blogrolls | Building Traffic (Blogging 201) | link exchanges

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