I’m using the blogathon and the holiday weekend as motivation to do some blog housekeeping – all the better to avoid the real housekeeping I should be doing. I’ve been working on my blogroll, which has been neglected for too long.
The great thing about a blogroll is you can make it anything you want it to be: a resource guide, directory of your favorite websites or blogs, or list of blogs on the same topic as yours. Your blogroll can be tiny or extensive, although these days professional bloggers and blog designers appear to favor short over long. ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse even killed his after getting too many requests to be on it.
An interesting blogroll is an invitation to readers to link to material that’s related to what you do. It can also be an enticement for readers who normally check out your blog on an RSS feed to actually click over and visit the site.
Which is what I hope WordCount subscribers will do today, after they hear I’ve revamped my blogroll. It has a couple new categories, including one for online writers groups – based on guest blog post on The Social Writer I did recently on my favorite online writers’ hangouts – and one for professional writers’ associations. I also split the resources section into resources for writers and resources for my tech and business reporting.
I’d love people to suggest more online writers’ groups, professional organizations and writers’ resources to add to the lists.
I’d also like to hear from writers who blog – how do you prefer being listed in other writers’ blogrolls, by your name or your blog’s name? I prefer being listed by my blog’s name – gotta build the brand – but what about other people?
If you’re new to blogging here’s some basic advice on how to start a blogroll from Blogging Basics 101.
Oh, this post reminds me that I need to freshen up my own blogroll. I decided to dedicate a page to it titled Friends and I never got around to polishing it up. Never enough hours in the day, eh?!
I, personally, love seeing the title of my blog (Writing the Cyber Highway) in blogrolls because I think it’d grab more attention than just my name…
*smiles*
Michele
I think I have too many websites on the go, My blogs are doing great but I’d like to have more traffic simply because in order to apply for blog jobs, they want you to post your work on a site that gets 300 hits a day? I thought I was doing okay at 50 LOL
I register my blog names because they mean something to people and the thought sticks in their mind. Mine is my company name Idea Girl Consulting then its wordpress 🙂 I have a business site on squidoo as well (company name again) amongst other hobby sites I’ve developed.
Im obsessed with stats, I actually have a little black book that I write in everyday, looking at my blogs , articles and stat information I sometimes gear what types of topics to write about (because they draw traffic to the site). Site Meter is free and it emails you results. I like wordpress because it has a stat section for every article that you write..
I would also like to be mentioned by my blog’s name, you’re so right about branding!
Actually, this weekend I have dedicated some time to contact the owners’ of blogs I have been following to ask permission/let them know I’d like to include them in a blogroll in my soon-to-be website.
One thing about blogrolls is that I can make them a resource guide, a list of what-to-do things,… anything I want. It is very useful for organising the information you want to display in your site/blog.
Loreto Riveiro
Litterate T&L
I think blogrolls can be great resources for a reader, but only if the blog they’re on is great and niche based. Then the sites in the blogroll can serve as an expansion on the topic (and obviously, only if they respect that blogger’s content and thus recommendations). Having said that, I’ve become a bit de-sensitized to blogrolls and usually subconsciously avoid them.
Even if I love a blogger’s content, I usually don’t even notice they’re blog roll. It’s a big reason I haven’t had blogrolls on my sites for a few years.
But, dynamic blogrolls appeal to me. Seeing who the blogger is recommending and that blogger’s latest post title and excerpt without having to click through is a huge bonus and makes the blogrolls that much more useful and less likely to be ignored.
I’ve always called the links in my side bar resources rather than blog roll. Adam’s point is a good one, too. Mine is a very niche focused blog — Irish, Scottish, and Americana/folk music and the creative practice of being a musician, so resources on those areas are often useful to people reading my blog.