photo credit: claireg73

Number of Links Per Post - There have been some misconceptions about the number of links that you should place in each post. The common rule is: it’s all up to you! No one can tell you how many sites you should link to, but a common rule is that the more links are placed in the content, the more it looks like spam. For example, if you write an article, then link every single letter to a different link, it indicates that you are quite desperate for traffic. You have to form a policy as to how many links are included in each post. Some people feel that by not including many outbound links, it increases search engine power back to your links and content on your site.

Plugins have helped popularize additional links in posts, allowing bloggers to automatically link to their tags that are displayed in content. In some ways, this helps add to the user experience, providing additional traffic to keywords that wouldn’t normally be as visited. However, you can’t overdo the amount of links placed, or makes you blog come off as spam.

Linking to Sites, General - When you link to other blogs, it proves that you enjoyed (or hated, in some cases) the content found on the blog. Don’t link to sites that you don’t want your readers to see, it is an obvious method for losing subscribers. Instead, gather links that can provide valuable information to readers, links that they can share and enjoy with their readers, too. Double check each link by hovering over it and making sure that it does link to the site you want to, instead of a site that readers wouldn’t approve of.

Linking to Content - Since the beginning of blogs, people have been linking to others’ sites. It provides a sense of authority to the person’s blog that you are linking to. A large part of search engine algorithms give authority to sites with more links leading to particular pages or the entire blog. For this reason, you rarely can have a successful blog without many links from high profile bloggers. In fact, it is illegal to leave out the link to a piece of content that you have taken directly from another site.

Stealing someone else’s work without providing attribution can result in readers disrespecting your work or a loss of credibility. Often, you will never be able to recover from the mistake of not linking or attributing someone else’s work. Keep in mind that all your work should be your own and link to as many sources as possible.

Linking to Large Sites and Blogs - Large sites typically don’t care about links from small blogs. They have people that manage buying and selling links, mainly to larger websites that already hold a lot of power. The traffic and power that linking to their website provides them is minimal, so linking to these sites is not always required under all circumstances.

If you mention Google in your post, you don’t need to link to it. However, if you link to a particular story or search results found on the Google website, it may become mandatory, as readers need to be able to find the content, not he entire website, which is known by most people, assuming they were able to get to your website okay.

In addition, you might find yourself thinking, “Hey, I am a new blogger, why should I provide links back to those large blogs when I should be receiving links from them?” When linking to larger blogs, specifically, you are providing a link and informing the blog/blogger that you exist, and they may follow your link when it appears in their trackbacks/comments panel.

Sites Linking to You - Receiving your first link back from other sites can result in a great feeling of success - someone is acknowledging your work - they are respecting the time you have put into your blog. However, when you visit the link, you discover that the site contains little more than spam links and provides little value to you or your readers. In this case, you must moderate the link, so readers of your own blog don’t follow it through the trackbacks area.

Should another site link to you, contact and thank them for the link back. You may receive more than you were expecting - a link may appear in an additional upcoming post recommending your blog or you may even be able to exchange links. After all, each site that links to your site passes some search engine “juice” as it is called, raising the power of your site against other blogs that have blogged on the same topic as you. As important as this is, many people underestimate this step.

Trackbacks - The links that may appear in your comments area as comments are simply other blogs that have linked directly to individual posts. Spammers often target trackbacks, placing links on their site to your posts, as it drives some traffic to their site and boosts their ranking. Leaving trackbacks, or links back to other sites can provide a valuable, yet quite small, source of traffic.

Linking to Internal Content, Tags, and Categories - Whenever you link to content in your blog, including links and categories, it results in a renewed amount of traffic traveling to content that you have previously created, much of which may not have received the level of traffic that you had hoped. While it isn’t necessary, linking to these posts encourages readers to subscribe to your blog and receive a daily dose of fresh content.

Sidebar Links - Sidebar links, often called your blogroll, is a crucial area, providing links to sites you recommend. Visitors can find valuable information, including other blogs in your niche and other blogs that they should follow. This is also a powerful aspect of your blog, as others can pick up that you’ve linked to them and return the favor.

Why Linking is Dying - A few years ago, before the social bookmarking sites with the names of Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Mixx, Delicious, Techmeme, and RSS/feed readers came along, the only ways of sharing content was through emails, linking to the site, and through sidebars, along with a few smaller, less effective methods. Today, some disputes have arisen over whether linking to other sites is dying or transforming as more people are sharing the popular content/links through these services instead of on their personal blogs. In a way, yes it is, but traffic from individual bloggers’ sites can often result in a lower bounce rate while continuing to grow your blog’s community.

The most important thing to remember is that linking and blogging is continuing to evolve, and while the essentials will still be there, it will become a different form of blogging and linking that exists.

An Overview of Why Linking is Important

• Readers want to see you link to content that you have linked to/created a quote/excerpt of on your own post.
• You become an authority in your niche when you receive a lot of links to several pieces of your content.
• In a few ways, linking creates a need of others to share your content on popular sites, potentially driving thousands of new visitors to your blog in a short period of time.
• Linking can build relationships with other people.
• The web is build on the premise that all sites are linked together in a giant “spider” web - don’t break it.
• Take a look at Technorati - the post popular blogs receive the most links, not always the most traffic.

Conclusion

Linking, however it takes place, is an important step in the process of growing your blog beyond the stage that only a select few know about it. Three main points to remember when managing links are: is the site relevant/important, is the trackback spam, and have I checked all the links for originality in my content?

Without linking, traffic and knowledge of each site would remain stagnant and the Internet wouldn’t be what it is today. What policies have you created on your blog to determine whether you should link to a particular site? Does linking have the same level of importance that it once had?

A targeted number of qualified consumers will also be sent to your website each month using the package, but Sams Club may just be using this to help market another company such as LeadConnect or Innuity, as they may be receiving a commission for each sale.

[via: Karl Ribas]