May 22, 2007
Link up your Blog
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There is so much blogging info out there that many people don’t have time to delve down into the archives of your blog and experience many of the other fine things you have written. That’s a great pity. And there is something you can do about it.
Hopefully you are already categorising your posts with meaningful categories that make it easier for your readers and yourself to navigate through your archive of posts. But why not take it one step further and reference previous posts in your current articles and link back to them? You can see how I’ve done this at the beginning of this paragraph by linking the relevant text back to my earlier post, Blogging 101.
This gives your readers the option of accessing some of your previous masterpieces easily and adds support to your current article.
Bonus tip: If your blog platform gives you the option to ‘Open link in another window’ (WordPress does but I’m not sure about Blogger and Typepad) always select that one. This way if your reader goes off on a bit of a surfing tangent they don’t have to try to navigate back through multiple screens to get back to your original post.
Another linking technique I have started using is putting a small list of related posts at the bottom of each article (see below). If a reader is interested in your current post then there’s a good chance they might be interested in reading others on a similar theme or in the same category. By presenting this to them at the end of reading your post they are more likely to feel like clicking on one than if they had to go to the relevant category to find one.
I’ve found that since I started using these two techniques a lot more people have accessed my earlier posts (which of course makes me feel very good) giving them a new lease of life.
Ultimately it’s about finding ways to make it easier for your readers to read your stuff. And for me at least, that’s what it’s all about. Hope you found this useful.
Other Related Posts
Blogging 101
Blog Post Titles - make them meaningful
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13 Responses to “Link up your Blog”
More great tips, as usual!
By Hannah on May 22, 2007
I tend to link back to previous posts unless I at stuck for time!! It’s a good tip!! LIke your second tip as well.
By Janine on May 22, 2007
Karen,
As a new blogger, I am enjoying your blog and all of your great advice. Keep it coming.
Michelle
By scrappyhour on May 22, 2007
Thanks a lot for your encouragement Hannah, Janine and Michelle.
By Karen on May 22, 2007
Thanks for the tips Karen. I still have so much to learn and that’s what I find so much fun about blogging ~ so many sites with great info!
I see you have been visiting my blog and leaving comments ~ thanks for dropping over!
By Kahshe Cottager aka Jen on May 23, 2007
Glad you find them helpful Jen
By Karen on May 23, 2007
Awesome tip, I had just started doing doing the link part a couple of times recently but hadn’t thought of the related links - what a great idea.
By pacifictonz on May 27, 2007
Glad you found it useful Toni.
By Karen on May 28, 2007
Thanks Karen for the great tip. I must try that some more. I guess posts do get lost after a while.
By Tania on Jun 16, 2007
Karen - you are my lifeline in understanding so much more about blogging - thank you! I have searched all day for information about linking “related articles” at the bottom of my posts and I cannot find information. I thought I found it and bookmarked it the other day but I must have been dreaming.
Can you either tell me or write about it here for everyone to know please?
By Mackey on Jun 17, 2007
Hi Mackey & Tania,
I’m glad you find this series useful. it just occurred to me that there are lots of ways we can improve our blogs out there but most of us don’t think about them.
By Karooch on Jun 17, 2007