The Power of Blog Links
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007When building incoming links to your site, it is important to remember that not all links are created equal. And the Google pagerank of the site linking to you is far from the only factor.
It is a well-known fact, for example, that links coming from blogs are especially helpful in improving your rankings. What most people don’t know is why exactly that is the case.
One must realize that one of the most powerful types of link exchanges known to man is a site-wide sidebar exchange between two SEO blogs, also known as a blogroll exchange. Such an arrangement, in effect, creates the potential for each party to receive hundreds (or even thousands) of relevant backlinks. This is due to the fact that each and every page of Site A links to the homepage of Site B, and vice versa. As you can see, an exchange like this between two very large sites can be of great benefit to both of them.
Another much smaller scale type of blog link is a simple reference from another post. These usually aren’t part of a reciprocal agreement, and might at first glance, appear to be quite minor. In truth, however, these links carry a lot of weight, due to their high level of relevance.
I mean, think about it for a minute. Most bloggers won’t link to another post unless it’s clearly related to what they’re writing about. And links from highly relevant content-based pages are going to be valuable assets, regardless of pagerank, etc.
So, having read my overwhelmingly positive description of blog links, you may be anxious to get out there and acquire a few for a blog of your own. It’s important to realize, however, that in order to receive favorable results, you will need to have a good base of quality unique content.
My advice would be to continually write relevant and useful content, while submitting to RSS directories, etc. If people read your material and find it useful, some of them will likely link to it, and that’s where the fun begins.
As you publish more content and get more links, you will eventually become a trusted source within your industry. At that point, you should start contacting the owners of related sites, and politely asking for blogroll exchanges. As you amass such exchanges, you will notice your search engine ranking (and traffic) slowly but steadily move upwards, to previously unattainable levels.
Just remember the basic theory behind it though. Quality content comes first, then links will begin to form naturally. For those who have knowledge, and are willing to work to articulate it, blogs are perhaps the easiest medium to express ideas, and attain back links.