CT Biz Blogs

One of the things that differentiates a blog from a regular website is that blogs tend to have a lot of outbound links.

This is a good thing! Part of the whole purpose of blogs is to join in a “distributed” conversation; to share ideas and add thoughts to the ideas of others. The way that gets done is through linking.

Linking accomplishes two things. First, it points your reader to more information about your topic, or to the post that you’re writing about. Also, through pings and trackbacks it alerts linked-to bloggers to the fact that someone’s linking to them, so that they can check out what you’ve said.

Sometimes newer bloggers have trouble linking. This post is for them.

One thing I’ve noticed is that sometimes bloggers will talk about a blog post, but not link to the post specifically — instead they link to the blog address.

In order to link to a post, you have to find the address (URL) for that post. The web address in the address field of your web browser is usually for the blog — such as www.ctbizblogs.com. Because blogs change as new posts are added, linking to the blog’s main address won’t help readers in a few days — the post you want to point readers to will be pushed down the page. And most blogs are set to only display a certain number of the latest posts, so after a few days, the post will fall off the main page entirely.

To make sure that the post can be found by your readers, each post has a unique address of it’s own — a permanent address, called a permalink. The permalink address looks something like this: http://www.ctbizblogs.com/2006/05/09/local-events-for-may/. Or it might have an even more peculiar looking URL, ending with id=32 or something. It may look odd, but that’s the address you need.

One way to get the address of the post itself is to check the title. If you roll your cursor over the title and right click, you can usually copy that address.

Also, many blogs have the link at the top or bottom of the post, usually with the word “link” or “permalink.” The link called link isn’t to be clicked on, it’s there to show you the address of the post. I’ll admit this confused the heck out of me when I first started reading blogs. I’d see the link and click on it, only to go nowhere! Writing this post made me remember my initial confusion, and I’ve just altered my permalink link to say “link for this post,” instead of just “link.” I hope that’s clearer.

Getting the link address is only one part of smart linking, however. The other part is getting it into your post in a way that helps you and the linkee.

I’ll write about that on Tuesday.

In the meantime, read what Miz Liz has to say about why you should link.

Related posts on CT Biz Blogs: How does linking to other blogs help me Part 1 and Part 2