Link, Link, Link And More Links

Links are vital to promote your blog, it’s no good blogging if nobody is reading you. Right? This can be done in many ways and remember don’t hold back, exploit every opportunity to the full.

The Sidebar

This costs nothing and is an excellent way to link to hundreds of other bloggers. Just take a look over to the left and you will see, mine is quite big (wink, wink). If only 10% of the blogs listed on your sidebar link back to you out of courtesy, then that is a good start. In fact what the hell, use ours over there as a starting block.

Make sure that you keep your sidebar updated regularly. The best strategy is probably to link any new commentor straight away, then they are probably going to reciprocate and not forget. It’s a good idea to have the sidebar ordered alphabetically, it stops bloggers wondering why you put them at the bottom of the list, which would happen if you just tagged people onto the end of the list. There can be exceptions to this, if you want to plug a blog who is giving you lots of hits, just stick it at the top. If it looks a bit odd you can always add it under the bloggers name or in desperation a nickname. Choose the naming convention that fits your purposes.

Buttons

Create a button for your blog, which can be placed on fellow blogger’s sidebars. Make this eye catching so readers are tempted to click to your blog. And don’t be shy about pushing bloggers to use it. You can do a full post about it or even more pushy, email them out to your comrades. You may be fortunate to get a high uptake if they feel sympathetic to your promotional campaign, or obliged if you ask them nicely enough. Never be shy about pushing yourself and your blog. A faint heart and all that.

Post Links

When composing your daily post ensure that you create at least one link to a fellow blogger. The link can be as simply to quote on that person’s blog, what’s important is that you linked them. Which means they will be doing the same back to you at some point. And so it goes. These links act as arteries feeding new readers over to your blog. Do not underestimate the power of the link.

Some bloggers create their day’s post’s from links. Pulling extracts from bloggers to quote as a daily post. Although a tiresome practice, it does enable the blogger to post daily without the need to produce content personally. Plus giving you extra bonus points for linkage.

In practice you need to make your links varied. Don’t do like some and link only to a small inner circle of friends, remember you need maximum exposure to succeed. Being featured on the same blog day in and day out is not going to pull in a new audience.