Link Love Not for Sissies

Should I Start a Blog for My Small Business? is the question asked by Allen Taylor. His recent newsletter describes four reasons why.

Here is his 3rd point:

"Thirdly, don't promote your competitors. Promote yourself. No-brainer? You would think, but I see small businesses promoting their competition all the time."

Okay, this is the same discussion that comes up when we are working with new blogging clients.

We recommend they research other blogs in their field, leave meaningful comments on them, and start participating in the Blogosphere. We encourage linking profusely to other resources they find on the Web which benefit their readers.

So I asked Allen to elaborate on his comment on competitors, and here is his response, excerpted from his email:

in"I appreciate where you're coming from on the blog issue. Yes, it is true that commenting on industry issues and linking to other sites to reference them is the proper thing to do. I highly recommend it. I believe most industries have enough third-party sources to gather information and resources from that linking to one's competitors isn't necessary. However, I have done it and if you do it the right way you can discourage the click-through rather than encourage it."

"But won't I be linking to my competitors?" blogging newbies often worry.

"Yes, but they'll find them anyway, and you'll look good because you are generous and confident in your own services," our response goes.

Yet obviously there is something here that requires careful discernment.

Please note that what I am doing here in this post is the very thing that we are talking about: modeling linking behavior to someone, Allen Taylor, whose expertise overlaps our own.

I am linking to a (possible) competitor, sending some link love and some readers his way. Will we lose business because of this?

Maybe, and of course I hope not. Allen is also in business to help people with their content issues on the web, so that overlaps with ezines and blogs. But we have different business models and probably different clients.

The point is, you want your readers to find the resources most appropriate to their needs.  Are you courageous and confident enough to be generous?

Hey, who said being transparent, authentic and generous was for sissies?

Comments

[Allen Taylor]

Nicely done. View my response at http://www.yorkadamssmb.taylor-and-associates.com/blog.

[Chris Cree]

I see being stingy with links as an insecure scarcity mindset. With something over a billion internet users, there are plenty enough to go around.

If all the folks who come to your blog leave through links to competitors and don't come back the problem is a lack of quality of your content and writing, not too much quality in your links!

[Chris McElroy aka NameCritic]

I agree with the first comment. If your competitors are leaving your content might be the problem.

However, in the old days we called all links out to anyone, "traffic holes" and discouraged it.

Both mindsets have pluses and minuses and different websites, services, and products, should decide uniquely what to do with their own website.

Example; I don't link to other people who sell the exact same thing I do. I provide text content. However I would link to someone who provides mulitmedia or photo content.

In that case I am providing value to my customers and if they know they can find all kinds of links to content through my website, I'm the one they are bookmarking.

While they visit me to find what they are looking for, they may also buy from me.

Just an opinion, but each case is different so your mileage may vary.

[Rebecca Prescott]

I agree with Chris aka 'Namecritic'. A scarcity mindset can be very insidious, and I think if you're 'feeding' it by worrying about losing a certain (small) percentage of visitors through links to good quality information, then it's no doubt affecting other areas of your online business too.

I think there's a few things going on here, not least is the credibility that you can build up with visitors by becoming a central resource - including listing other recommended or discussed sites. Look at all the true authority sites - Wikipedia, About, etc. Do they worry about lisnking to other good sites? People go back to them again and again because not only do they provide value in their articles, but they provide valuable resources to other, related information. Look at the Social Bookmarking sites - nothing but links!

Even when sites are on similar themes, no one is going to be a carbon copy of another - unless it has been swiped, of course. Everyone has a unique perspective, a slightly different way of looking at issues, the world... everyone has a different value system, and the way they present information (even when it seems they have NO value system - lol!), is unique. Our value system causes us to omit things, place greater importance on others (not unlike the subject matter of this page :-)).

Even amongst those that present similar viewpoints, they have a different way of explaining things. So, if you're committed to providing value from your end, there should be nothing to worry about. What's the difference between a link 'hoarder' and someone who hoards, say, money? There's a fundamental level of insecurity in both.

On another level, no-one can truly expect to provide everything to everybody within their niche (I mean to their potential customers or visitors). It's a little arrogant to think so, and if you don't think so, then it's a little selfish (towards those customers/visitors) to effectively try and build a dead-end street that can't possibly fulfill all their needs/answer all their questions, on a given subject anyway.

Finally - people are more than able to click back and go onto the next site in the search results anyway. Why not build a true resource for them in the first place?

[Franck Silvestre]

Your post is right on the subject. I consider myself like a Blogger newbie, and it is great to find a post like yours because I was wondering why the successful blogs are linking all the time to their competitors.

I like your blog.