Overview: Link Relationships
Posted by Necole Bitchie on Tuesday, March 11th, 2008
I’ve been fielding questions through email over the last few weeks of topics to cover on The Urban Blogger. The question I have been asked the most since my site (NecoleBitchie.com) started is “How Did You Market and Traffic To Your Site??”. I’m gonna be honest when I say that I haven’t marketed my site since early January. I used to do my blog rounds, coupled with myspace bulletins, facebook, newsletters etc but I don’t do any of that anymore. Strange enough, when I stopped all the hustle work, the and the site numbers kind’ve grew organically. I’m sure if I go through the proper channels to market my site, the numbers would triple but I have to contribute the majority of my growth to relationship building and link exchanges.You can promote your site day in and day out but there is nothing like another site endorsing you. Building a link relationship with other bloggers will probably be one of the top traffic drivers to your site. There are three ways I recommend to build a relationship:
Blogroll: Almost every blog that I have on my blogroll (100+) has added me to their blogroll. Fair exchange! “same time same time”. Seriously, you can add a bunch of big sites to your blogroll in hopes that they will add you to theirs but 9 times out of 10, they won’t, especially if you are a new blogger. My suggestion for new bloggers is to start small and work your way up. Do link exchanges with smaller and similar blog sites first to build your links. A site that already has hundreds of blogs on their site will be less willing to put a new blogger on their blogroll because bloggers come and go which will leave them with a list of broken links (not cool). If I put you on my blogroll, it’s like I endorse that your site is a great site and my readers will click on the link expecting just that.
Link Friends: I have no idea what the proper term for this is, so I pegged the term link friends. Get together a group of bloggers that have similar blogs as yours and take turns linking each other throughout the week. Have you ever seen a post of mine where I link 5-10 stories from other blog sites? Example Here. I’m either linking my link buddies or throwing in links to sites that have linked me during that week. I try my best (it’s hard) to link back every blog that links me but a lot of times if the blog isn’t on wordpress, I don’t receive the ping. If you are on blogspot and want to know who’s linking you, I suggest signing up for Google Alerts.
Blog Networks: There are many blog sites you can join like blogtoplist.com, bloglines.com, and blogarama.com that will connect you to other bloggers with sites similar to yours. I’ve made majority of my blog friends on Mybloglog.com (a social community for bloggers that I’ll review later) and for the new blogger you will probably get the most support and comments from those folks you meet on mybloglog.
Of course if you have an exclusive story, it’s always good to email some of the top sites your exclusive in hopes that they will place your story and link you back. Some won’t *that ain’t right* but cross your fingers because this method will drive thousands of visitors to your site and hopefully they will bookmark your site and come back.
The Urban Blogger is a blog network as well (you’ll see in the upcoming weeks), dedicated to helping up and coming bloggers as well as established bloggers build their network and offers additional resources for generating traffic and monetizing your site. We will also profile and survey successful urban bloggers who have made a career from this phenomenon. Please sign up for pur feed to get our posts daily. If you are interested in being a part of the Urban Blogger Network put the email to your site into our subscriber list.
Hope this gets you started! Stay tuned..
Let’s grow together!
Filed in Growing Traffic, Link Exchanges, Link Relationships, Marketing |
Great info, Necole!
I’m soaking everything in and will take all of your info and run with it!
Thanks again for helping all of us new bloggers.
Quality, quality, quality. Good post.
oh and I just wanted to add that, the reason you didn’t have to constantly market your blog is because great content markets itself.
Once you get the ball rolling, people will spread the word to their friends, if your site is truly providing quality, interesting information.
Great info. You took the time to answer my question way back when. I’m glad you created this site.
Building links is one thing…but what happens when you don’t get a response feeback from these sites?
It reminds me of a Blogger I know (won’t put their name out there) and he wanted to get linked by a bigger blog site really bad and they pushed and pushed and pushed, and ended up getting linked two days in a row. I always say start small because it’s so much easier getting smaller blogs to link back first and your authority on technorati will rise regardless of if it’s a big blog like concrete loop or a so called Mom and pop. We have to remember that some of these bloggers get more requests for link backs than they can handle.
For blogs that’s on blogger its a bit harder as well because you guys can’t ping back a wordpress blog so if you link a blog they won’t get a pingback notifying them that you linked them.
Great post Necole, as always.
Yeah I do agree with that, but I was talking about other sites that aren’t big as cl or ybf. Speaking from a personal view, I have no problem linking sites that I visit on a daily basis. Even though at times I might not be really interested in certain posts on that particular site. I have been on the net for a year now since the 12th and I still don’t get that respect from lots of websites that I have shown love to on a regular basis. I don’t know how angel and natasha made it, but I look up to them for that.
Hey Reppin! One MAJOR thing that may make a huge difference is you securing your domain now. I’m surprised you haven’t already. The blogger address that you have may not be memorable to most and that is a very important aspect when 1)people go to look for your site 2) in the overall marketing and branding of your site. That slight change will make an overall difference in the growth of your site. Trust me.
You may need to get at me through email and I’ll help you personally. . Also what methods are you using to market your site right now?
This post clarified a lot of things for me. I though I understood link exchange but, like any thing there is the hands on realistic way to do anything. I have been doing some of things you suggested to do but you have given more direction. Thanks
Necole this is incredibly helpful and I love what you are doing. I can’t help but be shocked and amazed that a successful black blogger wants to help others….shouldn’t be that way, should it? You are proving that there is room for everybody and we can all get our shine. You are amazing and I have definitely added you to my blog roll. Your advice is invaluable. Keep makin it do wut it do!
Girl I use myspace, mybloglog! LOL! Although that might not seem a lot, but when I send out a myspace bulleting looking at sitemeter all of my 300-500 visitors a day comes from Google engines and the myspace bulletins.
Repping, I notice that you get discouraged a lot, DON’T I been in the same situation that your in now and although i’m still struggle you have to stop letting these link backs and stuff mess with you. I think Necole said it before once you stop marketing so much people start to notice you more. Get all your friends to email your site to all there friends and if it’s not working by the internet do some foot work. send out emails to all your friends and ask some of you your friends to post you up on there myspaces.
Necole- Thanks for this blog because although blogging can be a business people need to remember to HAVE FUN. that’s how i stopped being so stressed i was like F’it i know 4 people that read my blog everyday religiously and i blog for those 4 people.
I know Hotsauce, but damn that shit gets FRUSTRATED! to not being recognized…I think after one year RBTF should have been much further than that. But I am going to take a good sit-down and make a few changes.
Ooops! I mean *sh! hehe! I, sorr(ie)
Necole, I think it is amazing what you’re doing! We started our site under a month ago and it’s haaaard work but we love every minute of it! Ultimately, we would like to make a living out of this. I’m already getting sick of my 9-5.
We made the mistake of thinking the larger blogs would just up and link us if we asked–we’ve only had 2 do it– so starting small is great advice and something I plan on doing!
Keep the advice coming! I’m adding you to my blogroll right now!
I’m just starting the link exchange thing. Some add you and some don’t but that is the chance you take. Sometimes you have to just ASK. I asked a fellow blogger/reader how come I wasn’t on their blogroll and they said, “because you didn’t ask.” So I think sometimes asking helps too.
Just my two cents.
In only 4 mos. since I’ve started my site it averages over 5,000 visits a day & even though my site isn’t gossip oriented with a targeted male audience I’ve gotten shouts outs from CL, ybf, Bossip & many others as far as exclusive music/videos/news I posted regarding hip hop they in turn used. All this to say in this short time frame of 4 mos. I’ve gotten my blogs name out there now how do I & others like me turn that into a profit?
Great info, very insightful. Thanks for your expert perspective.