LINK BAITING
Link bait blog posts are typically written about hot, buzz worthy topics that people are actively search for online. You can write a post on a hot topic in an attempt to not only drive short-term traffic from those searches but also to encourage other bloggers and web site owners to link to your post.
Link baiting can be a great way to boost short-term traffic to your blog, but unless the subject of the post with the link bait is related to your blog’s topic, the short-term traffic will disappear as soon as it arrives simply because it’s unlikely the rest of the content on your blog will interest those visitors. Consider how well link bait posts fit into your overall blogging plan before you use them, particularly because they can dilute the overall experience on your blog for users who are confused by the inconsistency they can present.
ASSIGNING PERMALINKS
Because most blogs are created on dynamic, database-driven platforms, their posts don’t have fixed web addresses. Links to individual posts disappear after the posting is archived and no longer available on a page. Obviously, that’s bad news for inbound links and SEO.
Permalinks (short for permanent links) solve that problem by assigning a specific web address to each post. Then individual posts can be bookmarked or linked to from elsewhere, forever.
Most blog software programs, like WordPress, already offer this option; you just have to use it. If your blog doesn’t offer it, you can generate permalinks at www.generateit.net/mod-rewrite, though you may need help from your programmer to install them. Try to avoid links that look like this : www.yourblog.com/?p=123. Instead, choose an option to use one or more keywords, such as www.yourblog.com/contests/summer-travel-competition.
To generate WordPress permalinks, open the Settings option in the Admin panel. From there, select the Premalilnks panel and choose a common option or enter your own. (eg, you might want to insert a category). For new blogs, that’s it, for existing blogs, you may need to use the Redirection Plug-in as well. For more information, see http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Permalinks. Permalinks on Blogger.com are a little more complicated. Go to www.google.com/support/blogger/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=41436 for directions.
USING TRACKBACKS
Trackbacks are the breadcrumbs of the internet. Whenever another blog or web site creates a link to one of your blog posts, the visibility of the posts. It is seen by not only visitors to the site that created the trackback but also search engines, which gives your post a higher priority over a similar one with fewer or no trackbacks.
If you announce a new post to your Twitter followers, and one or more of them creates a link to the post, you have trackbacks. Your Facebook page can serve the same function. If you use the option to automatically show new posts on the wall of your Facebook page, your fans will notice. If they add the link on their web sites – it creates another trackback.
You can create trackbacks the old-fashioned way, of course, by sending a message to a web site owner requesting a reciprocal link. However, one of the easiest and quickest ways to publicize your blog and create trackbacks is by using FeedBurner. FeedBurner makes it possible for you to publicize your feed, which in essence gets your blog out to the masses.
BLOGROLL OR LINKS
Depending on what blogging application you choose, you have the option to include a blogroll or list of links in your blog’s sidebar (or footer, depending on your blog’s template layout). A blogroll (or link list) is a list of links to other blogs that you like and recommend to your readers.
TRACKBACKS OR BACKLINKS
It’s important that you take the time to turn on the track back or back link functionality within your blog settings and then actively use it. Doing so let’s other bloggers know you liked their content enough to link to it thereby promoting it on your blog too.
LINKING
Following are the two primary reasons for the importance of incoming links:
. Traffic from search engines : More incoming links (particularly from popular blogs and web sites) translate into a higher ranking on search engines. Higher
search engine rankings lead to more incoming traffic and higher advertising rates. Sites such as Google rank pages with more incoming links from real
sources higher because the automated algorithm used to find and return search results assumes pages with more incoming links are better than those
without incoming links. The theory is that no one would link to an inferior page, but many will link to a great page.
. Traffic from the links themselves : More incoming links means more potential traffic to your blog from the blogs and web sites that publish those links.
LINKING AND CREATING TRACKBACKS AND BACKLINKS
If you use WordPress, TypePad, or Movable Type as your blogging application, you can use the trackback function incorporated into your blog post editor to provide the URL where you want to send a virtual shoulder tap, which lets another blogger know that you linked to his or her content within your blog post. Your link appears within their blogging application dashboard as well as on the post page for the URL you tracked back to. Readers of that blog can see the link to your blog and follow it to read more from you.
Trackbacks are automatically sent between WordPress blogs without the blogger taking any additional steps.
If you use Blogger, a backlink is automatically sent to other Blogger-hosted blogs that you link to within your blog posts. Backlinks display above the comments section in a Blogger blog post. The feature is more limited for Blogger users, but it does help generate some traffic and awareness of your blog.