Skip links

Performancing

Main navigation

lizs

Relationship Linking Part 1 — The Hows and Whys

by

Great bloggers are always on the lookout for opportunities to link to other blogs. Linking for traffic and incoming links is a good thing. Sometimes an idea offers more than one opportunity. In like manner, often a blogger has a choice of ideas to write about.

The very word linking implies a relationship, but I’m talking about more than a one-link stand. Long-term relationships with other bloggers offer support and visibilty that short-term, high-traffic links will probably never deliver.

Many bloggers begin their blogging day by reading feeds. They link to the article that sparks the idea they will be blogging about that day. If this is your style of blogging, take a moment to review your feeds. Add in blogs at your level that have the same values and quality standards as those you hold for your own blog. Remove all that don’t meet your standards. Have a 70% ratio of blogs at your level or one level higher — don’t read only A List blogs.

Sometimes we blog in the opposite direction. We write the article. Then we look for a links and quotes to support what we have said. Use the same standards to choose the links you’ll share with readers. Find the strongest example from a blog that you hope to have a relationship with as your blog grows.

Here’s how to put this relationship linking strategy in action.

  • Sort your feeds to include only blogs that have the same values and quality standards as those you hold for your own blog.
  • When you choose to use an idea from one of these, leave a comment to show that you were mindful and attending.
  • When you write your post, be mindful of the anchor text and words around the link you set for the trackback. Choose words that pique the interest if you can. Between the previous comment and the well-chosen anchor test, your trackback will be almost magnetic . . . the blogger who wrote the original will want to see what someone who is so interested in his article wrote. Now you have moved from being another blogger to being a person with a blog that bloger knows.

    • If you’ve chosen well, soon you and a new blogger friend will be exchanging post links when appropriate and sharing thoughts and ideas through the comment box, email, and even voice.

    As each of your blogs grows, you’ll both be stronger for the links. You’ll introduce that blogger to your readers, and the same will happen for you. This one long-term relatiosnship will add lasting value to your blog long after a one-shot link to a blog that has interesting content.

    Liz Strauss

    What Are You Trying to Say to Me?

    by

    I’m blogging at a reasonable speed. The thoughts are coming down the blogging pike blissfully. I’m making point after point, like a basketball player. I’m in the zone. I should be in the Blogger 500 on Blogger TV.

    Then I go and ruin all. I stop to read what I wrote. Blogger TV, yeah. The horror channel, maybe. I could play the character with a schizoform discorder and the severe ADD.

    The problem is that the words I wrote so well and so quickly, for some reason they all don’t belong in the same piece. What kind of mess have I made here? It looks like the Blogger 500 has had a horrible 3-blog-post wreck.

    I have four sentences there that work perfectly well. Three sentences there that make a beautiful point with clarity. Those two sentences next are genuinely clever. Each set of thoughts just belongs on its own.

    How did this happen? It happens quite often when I write without deciding first what I’m writing about.

    It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Know my point. Know my message. Know what I want to say, before I hit the keys.

    It works for everybody that way. It’s the same as “If you don’t know where you’re going, you won’t get there.”

    When I trained writers, it was a usual thing. About once a month, a writer would come to my office, plop in a chair, and throw his or her hands in the air, saying, “I’m sorry I tried for days and I can’t write this piece.”

    My answer would always be, “What do you want to say?”

    Then we’d talk to find the point the writer wanted to make. The piece would be done within the next hour.

    Ah, that’s the point I want to make here.

    It’s easier to write, faster to blog, simpler to get a message across, if we take time before we start, to figure out that one thing we want to say.

    Liz Strauss

    Blink Your Blog to See What a First Time Visitor Does

    by

    Long posts or short posts, I’m sure you’ve encountered the question. Longer means more content to reed the spiders and the deep readers. Shorter means casual readers are more likely to stay longer and read deeper.

    Readers, those readers, unlike spiders, can’t be configured to do what we think they are supposed to.

    When readers glance or glimpse our blog page, we’ve got a blink to draw them in. A blink isn’t long enough to read, or even sample, the content. A blink is exactly that – a blink. We’re talking a matter of seconds.

    Being Blind to the Old

    If we’ve been with a blog for more than two weeks, unless we’re in a redesign, we’re used to how it looks. Our brain filters out what is no longer new, so that we can concentrate the changes in our blog environment that are useful to us.

    This filtering is critical to survival. It keeps us from being over-stimulated by everyday information that would be disruptive –- it’s counter-productive to be as impressed with our template or our new cotton sweater as we were the moment we first saw it. If we were, we would constantly be being bombarded by information — never able to sort the old from the new.

    Unfortunately that also means that we quickly become blind to how the things we see every day actually look.

    Blink Test Your Blog

    So how do you get a fresh look at your blog? Do a blink test. That’s what I call it. Read all of the directions below before you do the blink test. That’s so that you can concentrate on noticing where your eye goes and what your reactions are.

    1. Open your blog fully on your computer in front of you.
    2. Look away at the ceiling or a neutral color wall –- white is the best if you’ve got it. Try to look for 2 or 3 minutes so that you’re completely clearing your mind of any “cached” images.
    3. When you look back at the screen notice where your eyes go, and notice how easy or hard it is to draw your eyes elsewhere.

    Where did your eyes go? Most folks will find that their eyes went to some visual element. Often that element is the big orange feed button. It’s good that people notice your feed, but is it really what you want them to remember most?

    I would think the visually strongest pull on your blog should be your blog’s title. Now, don’t necessarily make your feed button smaller, but rather make your title visually more prominent.

    Using the blink test. Find the 3 strongest visuals on your blog. Make sure that they are in order that supports your goals. Next Week, I’ll be showing you a blog on which we did just what I’m talking about.

    Meanwhile if you blink your blog and have questions, c’mon let’s talk.

    Liz Strauss

    11 Reasons to Write When You’ve Misplaced Your Passion

    by

    No One Has Passion Every Day

    Maybe it was that party last night. Maybe it’s I’m getting old and cranky. Maybe I’m catching a cold, getting the flu, or maybe folks just irritate me.

    Immitation is the highest form of pissing me off. Quit stealing my content and violating my copyright. — Jen T. Verburmessor

    It doesn’t matter, if I’m feeling mean and puny. Blog posts are waiting to appear on that blank screen. Why do we do that? It’s hard and it takes so much investment. Then if we’re lucky folks read it and comment, and the comments, well the comments, . . . and if we’re lucky folks write helpful comments that make us think.

    1. There’s one reason to write — the comments we receive can make us see our ideas. Sometimes folks interpret what we write in ways we never expected.
    2. Speaking of which, writing is a chance to say something uninterrupted. If we take the time to think through a thought we can present it fully, completely, and entirely.
    3. Writing gives our tiny voice reach around the world. No one I know can scream that far, even though my older brother said I could.
    4. Writing tends to keep our feet our of our mouth. Those things we say that embarrass us — the proverbial foot in our mouth — doesn’t happen much when we’re typing out the next thought we usually think about it.
    5. Talk floats away, but our writing stays for tomorrow. In the case of the Internet it stays longer than we will. That’s a legacy, boys and girls, Folks will know us long after we can say anything about it.
    6. Every – single – word – of – quality – content – we – write – is – promotion. Relevant content converts to audience attention which makes it more relevant which means that search engines value it more and more so that it becomes even more relevant.
    7. Look at how each post makes us more visible.
    8. Writing is a great way for people to get to know our goals, our skills, our aspirations.
    9. Writing makes us think through and organize our thinking. By articulating our ideas in writing, we force ourselvess to pinpoint our meaning. A goal that isn’t written is a speeding train soon to run over us and the goal we have been planning.
    10. Here’s our chance to tell our story loudly and clearly so that folks can hear it.
    11. Don’t forget what we write brings people who comment back. Some of those people are destined to be with us in the summers and all of the seasons.

    Whew! I’m feeling less cranky, less mean and puny. I’m feeling more like writing those blog posts now. I’ve got those 11 good reasons. Of course, I have a whole lot more reasons. They are the folks who read what I write. You know them . . . some of them write spy novels — or, like me, that’s what they say they do.
    Liz Strauss

    Are You Sure You’re a ProBlogger Wanna-be?

    by

    Ah Raj,
    We really outght tell them the rest of the story. . . . 🙂

    If you’re thinking about being a problogger, folks don’t tell you everything you might want to know about it. You might see what looks exciting. Take a looke a little closer.

    Glamour is only glamorous from far away. I sit at my keyboard writing this at 10pm tonight.

    Those 940,000 hits I just looked up by my name on Google aren’t fun or interesting when I want play or read instead of write another post that’s due tomorrow.

    If you become a problogger you will find

    • that you have to explain what you do to every person you know over and and over and over and over again. . . . I tell my mother-in-law I write spy novels. It’s easier.
    • that every job you get will take longer than you thought it would. I don’t know how this happens. . . . It’s a Murphy’s law thing.
    • that occasionally folks who become your fans will send you email and expect you to stop your work to answer them over and over and over and over again. . . . . Unfortuantely, telling them you’re in the middle of blogging a spy novel won’t work with them.
    • that you’ll still have the same problems with traffic and stats that you had before, escept they’ll feel bigger because now you think about losing money.
    • that no one will be as excited as you are that you’re finally a problogger.

    So Why Does Anyone Do It?

    We do it because we can’t NOT do it. Blogging is something that makes us better. It makes a connection that is more than what people can see on the surface. We do it because

  • blogging connects us to our thoughts.
  • it forms an emotional bond between writer and readers.
  • it gives us a voice with which to become thought leaders.
  • it is communication in the newest, the fastest, and the broadest way invented.
  • it makes us part of a change in the history of the world.
  • it leaves out words indelible for the future, across time and spce to every corner of the world.

    • On top of it all, a problogger gets paid for that.

    Okay, so it’s not so glamorous, but with a payoff like that the work is sweet, when you can get it.

    Don’t just sit, there. Help them out. 🙂

    Liz Strauss

    What’s Liz Doing at Performancing?

    by

    When I first started blogging, it was easier. Technorati indexed something near 12 million blogs, not the 60 million it does now. Blog Networks hadn’t really started. Content theft wasn’t a major problem. I had 20+ years of writing experience. I had managed major print and online publishing efforts that were produced for International markets.

    It still took me 21 days to get my first comment.

    I left a few of my own, and few people followed me home. One was blogger who beautifully described what the blogosphere was like back in summer of 2005.

    I’m beginning to find that having a blog is akin to having a village store. You have the regulars that stop in on a regular basis to get their usual wares and to catch up on anything new. And then there’s the new person in town who stops in for a look see. The new person might get a couple of the regulars curious to the point where one asks, “Who’s that.” To which the reply is, “Don’t know, someone passing through I guess.” As for my blog, I’m glad you stopped by to have a read and for your kind response.

    That’s what it was like, back in days when we had time.

    But now . . .

    In just a brief one-twentieth of a second–less than half the time it takes to blink–people make aesthetic judgments that influence the rest of their experience with an Internet site.

    –Kamakshi Tandon
    REUTERS, Internet users judge Web sites in less than a blink
    Jan. 17, 2006

    A twentieth of a second.

    Today everyone is a reluctant reader. Publishers who waste our time with text that is

    too dense to read without a machete,

    too broken up by ads to have the energy to find our way through,

    • too distracting to hold our attention
    • too apologetic, self-serving, or link-begging, self-promoting, “give me a break” unaware
    • too many colors, too many type faces, too many gizmos, gadgets, and widgets, to attend to what’s being said

    have no idea how fast we click away leaving their content unread.

    My career for the last couple of decades has been getting readers to want to read.

    I’m going to show you how I do that.