How to find relevant blog posts to link out to
I’ve talked a little before about the importance of linking out to other blogs as often as possible. But, how on earth does one find relevant posts to link to? Since my goal is to become a resource for my readers, I always want to steer them to quality blogs that might improve their blogging or some other aspect of their lives. It’s important to me, therefore, to find quality links worthy of receiving my link.
The first way to find relevant links is to search the blogs you currently subscribe to in your niche. Visit the blog’s main page and look for a search this site feature. Type in a few key words or a whole phrase, click Search, and see what you find. This can be a good way to find a quick worthy link, or it can also be a good fall-back strategy for when you can’t find anything else.
To find other quality blogs to which you can link out, just try the Google Blog Search feature. By visiting Google.com, and under the “More” link clicking “Blogs” before you do your search, you’ll end up searching Google’s exhaustive blog directory for any phrase you wish. I use this strategy all the time.
For example, if I want to write a post about updating the “About page” on your blog, I can head over to the Google Blog Search and search for a phrase like improve about page. (Notice I leave words like “the” or “your” out of my search, as including them could limit my results.) I click to search, then can review the results of recent blog posts on this topic. A quick perusal of not only the relevant post but also of the rest of the website tells me if it’s a blog worth linking to (and not just a link-bait or “scraper” blog), and voila - I’ve got a blogger to link out to, a new resource to share with readers, and probably a new blog to add to my own RSS Feed Reader.
Finally, it’s important to note that you don’t always have to link out to other blogs in your own niche. If you come upon a post from a blog in a completely different niche that you think would be valuable to your readers, by all means link to it!
And, if you don’t find a link immediately that you want to use, go ahead and publish without it. If you do find a great link in the future, you can always update the post later to include the new-found link.
The value of linking out to other blogs
Q. I read frequently that I should “link out” to the posts of other bloggers writing about similar topics. Why should I do that, when I want to keep readers on my blog?
A. This question speaks to the very heart of what makes blogging collaborative rather than competitive. It was the biggest hurdle I had to overcome when I began niche blogging.
My first niche blog was about small business marketing. I was eager to share my knowledge of the topic, but I was also very protective. Why should I put my wisdom out there free of charge, I wondered, and why on earth would I send my readers off to read someone else’s blog?
It took me a long time to digest the notion that my blog was a bit about me, but not just about me. I finally understood that there was tremendous value in becoming not just an authority for my readers, but also a resource – their link to more voices speaking on the same topic - because becoming a resource helped make me an authority.
Linking out is also a good traffic-building strategy. When you link out to another blogger writing about your topic, you begin to build a relationship with them. They will not only come to your blog to check out who is linking to them, they will also most likely link back to you on a future post. This will bring new traffic to your blog, and links coming in also tell the search engines that others find your blog worth linking to. This means better search engine results.
One of my all-time favorite bloggers – no, make that all-time favorite people – is Mike Sansone of Converstations. Mike believes that blogs are “conversation stations,” and that it’s essential to include one link out in almost every post. I believe him.
