- 31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog
- #31WBGB: Write an Elevator Pitch for Your Blog
- #31WBGB: My Elevator Pitch
- #31WBGB: Make List Posts Work for Your Genealogy Blog
- #31WBGB: Promote a Blog Post
- #31WBGB: Analyze a Top Genealogy Blog
- #31WBGB: Contact a Reader
- #31WBGB: 27 Must-Read Tips for Genealogy Bloggers
- #31WBGB: Write a Link Post
- #31WBGB: Interlink Your Old Blog Posts
- #31WBGB: Participate in an Online Genealogy Group
- #31WBGB: Set Up Monitoring Alerts
- #31WBGB: Come Up With 10 Post Ideas
- #31WBGB: Develop an Editorial Calendar
- #31WBGB: Update a Key Page
- #31WBGB: Find a Blog Buddy
- #31WBGB: Solve a Problem
Welcome to Week 7 of 31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy Blog! Week 5’s topic is about linking out to other blogs or websites.
Why should you link to other sites?
- Linking out gives something valuable to your readers. There is a lot of great information out there, but who has the time to sort through it all? When you share a post or a site that you have found valuable, your readers will be appreciative.
- Linking out builds your credibility. Building on the above bullet point, by sharing the valuable information you have found, you establish yourself as an authority.
- Linking out builds relationships with other bloggers. They’ll appreciate that you are sending traffic their way and if your post builds on their ideas, it could lead to a continued dialogue and ongoing interactions. Plus, it’s just a great way to support others in our community.
- Linking out may help your search results. Search algorithms consider outbound links to related content as a positive thing, so it could help you appear higher in search results.
3 Types of Link Posts
There are many types of link posts. Here are three examples:
- Build upon the Points of Others – take a post written by someone else and add a new perspective or some information that they didn’t include. For example, if someone wrote a post, “17 Gadgets That Will Help Your Genealogy,” you could write a follow-up post called “7 More Gadgets That Will Help Your Genealogy” and link to the first post.
- Build a Resource on a Topic – Maybe there is a hot topic floating around that a lot of people are writing about. You could write a post that pulls together links from all those other blogs. DearMyrtle did this a few weeks ago with a variety of posts relating to citation styles. It doesn’t even have to be a “hot” topic. Maybe you are researching something; you could pull all the posts you find on that topic together into a link post.
- Suggest further reading – Another way to add value to your readers and create extra depth to your posts is to add links to what others are saying on your topic.
Note: be sure to link to quality content. You are basically endorsing any site that you link to.
A Tip on Collecting Links
An easy way to collect links that may be useful for future link posts is to use a bookmarking site like Diigo or Delicious. Create a tag that you only use for links that you may want to share in a post. For example, I use a tag called “31 weeks” for posts that I think I may want to share in this series.
Action Item
- Write a post linking out to another blog or blogs.
If you are just joining us, then “welcome.” You can read the kick-off post about 31 Weeks to a Better Genealogy blog here. Feel free to start with this week’s reading and action items – you are not behind!
Giveaway
The giveaway this week is a $5 discount* from Familyarchives.com. To enter, leave a comment below with a link to your link post. One winner will be selected randomly. Giveaway ends at 11:59 Eastern time on Saturday, August 20, 2011.
*This discount was a blogger gift from SCGS Jamboree. I have no affiliation with Family Archives.
