Page 157 - Social Media Marketing

Blogging Your Way to Credibility 141

Add Links to and from Your Blog

Another way to increase your blog's visibility and relative impor-
tance is to show that your blog is a popular member of a community
of web sites and blogs. To accomplish this, make sure your blog links
out to other web sites and blogs, and that relevant sites that contain
content related to your blog are linking to your blog. The following
items suggest a few ways you can use a search engine's preference
for well-connected sites to your advantage:

• Cross-market your web site and blog. When you blog about
something related to your company, insert links in your blog
entry to your company web site. Similarly, add a permanent
link to your blog from your company's web site navigation
bars.

• Populate your blogroll with relevant listings. Most blogging
systems enable you to create a blogroll: a list of other web sites
and blogs that are relevant to the content you post on your
site. Creating a blogroll serves a dual purpose: It helps search
engines determine what your site is about, and it encourages
other web site and blog creators to link to your site as a way of
thanking you for linking to their sites.

• Add relevant links to posts. By adding links to the body of
your posts (in addition to the blogroll), you show that your
content is part of the community. If you read an article on the
Web that you would like to respond to, for example, you can
post your response and include a link to the article you are
referencing.

• Add links to cross-reference other posts on your blog. You
may have noticed that when you search on Google, some sites
have a double listing-a main listing with a sublisting indented
below it. Studies have shown that people click these listings
more often than they click single listings displayed in the same
list of search results. You're more likely to obtain double listings
if your posts contain links that cross-reference other posts on
yourblog.