Sorry I’ve been MIA – my flu got pretty bad, then I got better, and of course I had work to catch up on. In any case, I have an informal poll question.
Recently, a client I blog for decided that a good way to increase page views might be to try a daily link love post. If you’re lost on link love, here’s a link love example you can view. I like link love posts, because they allow me to offer extra content to readers, stuff I enjoyed reading, that I assume my readers might also enjoy. I also think it’s a decent traffic builder when done in moderation.
The problem I have with link love is not everyone likes a list of links – good links or not. So these posts are lost on some readers. Also, to me, these type of posts don’t exactly represent content. It’s more filler. If I visit a blog daily, I expect to see fresh content, not rehashed links. To me, good original content is what a blog is about and also, if you have a blog that’s in my topic focus and interest, for example, a green blog, and I see a list of links, there’s a good chance I’ve seen some, if not most of these links already.
That said, I tend to only post link love posts once weekly per blog or less.
If I like a blog, and each day that blog posts say one or two original posts AND one daily link love post, I think I might get annoyed. I don’t want to read a daily list of links. I get that at my own RSS feeds. If in fact, a blog I like started a daily link love post, I may not visit anymore.
BUT being that I’m picky, and being that I’m not the only blog reader on the planet, I’m wondering what you think. Is there a line between a good amount of link love vs. too much?
How many link love posts are you willing to read? What sort of link love rules do you apply to your own blogs?
I like link posts, but only if they have a purpose or theme. Random link love not so much. I try not to do it more than once or twice a week.
I like to do a weekly link love post – sharing my week’s reading with others.
Also, originally blogs were nothing but links. The first blogs were just people sharing links with others.
This was actually a big issue in what I like to call the “PR blog party” – There are more than a handful of PR bloggers who obnoxiously link to each other within their little echochamber. In those cases, it’s not even so much the link love posts, with a list of links, but rather constantly feeling a need to link to those they agree with both for backlinks and support for their own views (quite a few won’t post anything too opinionated if they don’t first know their buddies will back them up). It’s quite disgusting, and the readers do eventually notice.
For list-specific link love posts, I don’t see any good reason to do it more than weekly. I’d probably get annoyed if my favorite bloggers started doing it daily.
If they really want to spread the love with every post, there’s a better option. Write unique content, and then link to 5-10 related posts on other blogs below it. It’s added value for readers, because they can further dig into the subject matter if they want to, you’ll still build backlinks with trackbacks, and still get the attention of those bloggers when they see the links come in. I’ve actually been wanting to do this for a while at AllFreelanceWriting.com, but never seem to remember.
If there’s something that’s so amazing and you can’t wait to share it, then…of course, share a link…but I don’t particularly like link loves on their own. I think it’s because I find them overwhelming. The internet has so many amazing sites that it’s mind-boggling…
In general, I would say that I’m not a fan of scheduled link love myself. If I’m here, it’s because I want to be. Why send me elsewhere? On occasion they’re okay (once every week or two), but any more than that would be too much in my book.
But, as you mentioned, everybody’s different!
I like a weekly link love update. That way I don’t get too inundated, and yet am exposed to new information and sources that will probably be relevant to me.
I’ll tolerate an occasional link post, especially if it has a theme or commentary, but if I wanted just links, I’d subscribe to someone’s bookmarking feed.
@Deb – I remember those old school blogs – with just links. Some of the posts were so long, it’s sure not the blogs we know now.
@Everyone – It seems that we’re erring on the side of less link love is better link love. I’m glad we all seem to agree. My gut was telling me that less is more.
@Jenn – I really agree with and like your suggestion. IMO it’s cool when people list some extra info in link form after an original post. That’s like the best of both worlds.
Maybe it depends on the types of blogs that you read?
I’ve noticed that when I really enjoy and look forward to weekly link love, it’s usually on certain types of blogs. Many design and cooking blogs will have a nice roundup of interesting things they’ve seen that week. I’ve also seen 6 degrees of blogging type posts, which I think are fun.
@Anali – you have a good point. I do really like link love on design blogs; not EVERY day mind you, but I like link love on design blogs more than anywhere else. Also, I can see where cooking blogs benefit, because you can offer more than the norm of cool recipe links. But personally, I’m not interested in reading loads of most links, even a lot of green link love (and I LOVE green blogs), that said, I only do green links myself once a week or less. I guess it depends on the blogger and topic.