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What Links Do You Put in a Typical Blog Post?

by KenTheriot
6 replies
Is there a rule-of-thumb for what links most of your blog posts should have? I find myself putting a link to my main domain url/home page, one for my products page, and one for a particular landing page. If there are affiliate products related to the article, I also put them in.

But I don't really know why I do that. It's just become a habit and I'm not sure if it's the best thing. Am I missing something obvious? For example, I thought I read somewhere that you should link one post to other pages/posts on your site. Not sure how that would work.

Any insight appreciated.

Thanks!

Ken
#blog #links #post #put #typical
  • Profile picture of the author tommygadget
    Some people have been getting good results with the wordpress related posts plugin. It puts the links to related posts in for you.

    TomG.
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  • Profile picture of the author impact-productions
    For my online marketing blog, I very rarely put links in there that go off site. If the post is the follow up to someone else's post on another blog, I'll link there out of courtesy. If it's a follow up to one of my own posts, I'll link to that. Otherwise, the Related Posts plugin keeps the internal linking structure looking good, and there's plenty of links built into the link structure of course.

    Generally, I'd prefer it if people got directed to the comment box, where they can add to the site, and I can interact with them, rather than them get directed away.

    Thom
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    • Profile picture of the author KenTheriot
      Thanks! I didn't know about that plug-in!

      Ken
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  • Profile picture of the author ChrisCree
    It totally depends on what the goals for your blog are. If your only reason for blogging is SEO then only ever link to your own posts/pages.

    I think that's a little short sighted, though.

    The better strategy is to work at building an audience. As your audience builds your site gets more traffic and you have a larger pool of potential prospects to sell to.

    And if you're about building an audience then you should link to anything that will be interesting to your audience and add value for them. In that case don't worry about whether the page you're linking to is one of yours of not. Just make sure it adds value to your audience.

    Besides, it's been my experience working with tons of clients that when it comes to links and blogging the law of planting and harvesting totally applies. When you "plant" outbound links to sites that add value to your audience you will "harvest" more inbound links naturally and not have to stress over inbound links. Just keep in mind those inbound links will likely come from different places than you link to.

    Oh, and a plugin I really like for encouraging your readers to explore deeper within your own site is called LinkWithin. I see better click throughs and lower bounce rates with it than other plugins because it displays a thumbnail along with the link to the post.
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    • Profile picture of the author DavidMaddux
      If you are looking for WP plug-ins, I like this one: Possibly Related Recent Posts for adding related posts links within your blog post. It's totally free, and even a guy like me can understand how to set it up, that's important! I can't say that for Y.A.R.P. and others.

      I believe, it pulls from post categories and content, rather than post tags. I'm not sure if that is an advantage or disadvantage. Someone like tommygadget would be much more knowledgeable about that.

      You can see it in use on my blog posts via my signature link.

      More to your question, ChrisCree says it all:

      Originally Posted by ChrisCree View Post

      It totally depends on what the goals for your blog are.

      Best wishes.
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      • Profile picture of the author Vogin
        5.

        When you put 5 links into each of blog posts, you'll become rich in exactly 57 days.

        Just kidding, don't look for a rocket science thinking where there is none. When you need to link to something, do so. For example, I often link to The Challenge, because they say useful stuff...
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