Being Selective of Your Blogroll Links

Recently a friend of mine; goldfries, came up to me in the forum to tell me he’s added me into his Blogroll due to my content. Goldfries blogs about computer related topics from hardware reviews to games and has got some insightful tips on how to buy your next computer.

When he told me that, I assumed he wanted a return link as well because that’s what most bloggers want in return if they link to you. However, goldfries isn’t your average blogger therefore he told me it isn’t necessary to link back as he noticed I don’t even have a Blogroll on my blog. But then we got to talking about the Blogroll and why the need to be selective.

The simple reason as to why I don’t have the Blogroll on my blog is because I’d like my mum to able to navigate my blog. I want to remove unnecessary clutter and most importantly, keep the blog simple enough that it is about the content.

He did mention to me if he became selective and only included the blogs which were of high quality, then it would be unfair and his list would be halved. Well, I believe a blogroll can work its magic yet give you witchery. If you’re a niche blog (blogging on a selected topic), then what sort of value are you providing your readers by including a mass library of links in your own blog?

While I was mentioning this to him, immediately I thought about the ‘Links’ page websites used to have. We used it to link to almost anybody, mostly friends who had websites and this was back in the 1990s. Today, the links page is still existent on blogs too.

I believe a Blogroll or links page can be a powerful marketing channel if used sparingly and strategically. Just like how blogs can be a great marketing communication tool in corporate blogging.

In order to create this value, I would set certain requirements for my Blogroll requests. For example:

• Must be in a related industry or business
• Have 4-10 blog posts in the first month
• Must NOT be over populated by advertisements

As you can see, the requirements need not be set to the highest atmosphere. It should be enough so it would add more value to your blog at the same time benefit your Blogroll-ers by reciprocating their links.

And to be fair, if you own a personal blog than you need not be selective. Personal blogs are more ‘free’ per se and well…it is about you, your life and the people around you. However, if you run a blog in a niche market than you might want to rethink about your Blogroll.

Question of the day:
How many links to other blogs do you now have?

[tags]Blogroll, Blog marketing, Reciprocal links[/tags]

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