Informal Poll – Where is the line between link love & too much link love?

Sorry I’ve been MIA – my flu got pretty bad, then I got better, and of course I had work to catch up on. In any case, I have an informal poll question.

Recently, a client I blog for decided that a good way to increase page views might be to try a daily link love post. If you’re lost on link love, here’s a link love example you can view. I like link love posts, because they allow me to offer extra content to readers, stuff I enjoyed reading, that I assume my readers might also enjoy. I also think it’s a decent traffic builder when done in moderation. Read more

No Link Love For Blogging Bloggers Today

I was going to link to some good blogging posts today, but decided not to. Deb did on Sunday anyhow, and we read a lot of the same stuff.

I like blogs in the niches I blog best; probably because I (thankfully) get to blog what I enjoy. I love architect bloggers, and also really like blogging and green bloggers. These are the topics I write about most, and likewise the blogs I visit most.

However, breaking out of your niche is cool. I think bloggers should have a good handful of blogs, that don’t relate to their own topic, that they visit on a regular basis. There are payoffs for visiting outside of niche blogs. The biggest is you have no idea what other people read. If folks see you around, making comments, they might click your name and like what they see. Sometimes you get the oddest, most seemingly out of character readers.

Example: For the longest time, at Offbeat Homes, I got a ton of page views from one guy. I went to investigate. Turns out he didn’t even have a blog, he was on one of the social network sites – MySpace or something like it, where we had one friend in common. All this kid (he was young) talked about was beer. How to get it, drink it, and beer based shenanigans; typical kid just found beer behavior. He did however, like my blog. He’d link to it, and this kid had oodles of pals, who also only talked about beer, but they liked beer guy, so they’d click on his links. End result, me with lots of page views (and some odd comments – but I can live with that). You never know who might like you.

Another benefit is it keeps you from wearing out. Maybe five of my blogs are green, or have a heavy eco slant. I love green, really, but sometimes I’m just so tired of thinking about it all the time. Reading outside of my niche probably saves me from complete and total saturation; my brain gets a rest. You can also get some quirky ideas. You’ll find stuff you don’t normally blog about, that you can perhaps slant to your topic. All in all it keeps things fresh.

So today, forget reading all the blogging blogs, forget blogs in your niche, go find something new. If you have no clue where to start, here are five random ‘out of my niche’ blogs I visit.

• People In The Sun
• Cranky Fitness
• Smells Like Alternative
• Mid Beacon Hill
• My sister’s random blog

Now tell me five out of your niche blogs you like. I need some nice new reading.

Who Should You Link To?

Someone on one of Deb’s posts here asked, “I am working on identifying the important blogs in my various niches – how about a post on how exactly to do that? It’s easy if your niche is tech or web related. You can just look at Technorati’s Top 100. But what’s an efficient way to go about finding other niches? How do you know who’s big? AND how many of these communities is it reasonable to strive to be active in?”

Now, since it was Deb’s post I’m not going to answer the whole question – maybe she’d like to. But I wanted to comment on this, because I’ve always found the whole “who to link to” issue really interesting. I’ve seen people ask this question before on forums, and it’s fascinating to me, because I’m sort of the old school mentality of linking to who I like vs. linking strategically.

Not having performed any serious scientific studies on linking, I can only offer my opinion though. Maybe it would be more beneficial for me to only link to big names, maybe not. I know it’s sometimes beneficial when big names link to me, but the other way around, well, I’m not so sure.

Examples:

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Being A Team Player at A Blog Network

As a blogger at a blog network, what’s typical is to be split into sections (or niches or channels). It could be by blog topic (such as all the pregnancy and parenting blogs are grouped together), it could be that your blog is simply one of many assigned to a particular managing editor, or it might be that the network is small enough that everyone falls under one main managing editor, or whatever the boss likes to be called.

What’s true of all networks is that within your section, the bloggers and editors can work as a team or not as a team. Having blogged on teams that actually are a team, and teams where you don’t even know each other’s names, I can tell you that the, “Let’s work as a team situation” is absolutely better.

When the editors and bloggers in a channel or niche are on board with teamwork, it’s great. If not, well, it can be frustrating.

It’s frustrating because perks of working as a team can be really nice. Perks of teamwork can include higher page views for your blog, the channel, and the network as a whole, better communication when something goes wrong, or even better when something goes right, overall happiness with your job, more friends, and a more flowing feeling.

Honestly, what’s the point of being part of a specific channel, if you’re really not part of that channel? Many bloggers come to a network after having blogged on their own, so maybe the switch to team player is tough. But that’s a network. If you sign on, you’re signing onto a team, not simply your own blog.

Team components:

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