9 Ways to think about linking in a blog post

9 Ways to think about linking in a blog post Theres a blogger I like a lot, but she never links. I asked her why, and she said, It takes too long. Its true that linking does take a long time. But its one of my favorite parts of blogging. Sometimes I spend a couple of hours on the links an hour reading the relevant conversations online and figuring out what to link to, and an hour arranging links in the post. I think all the time about why I am linking, and where I should link, and what should be underneath the link. Here are the types of links that I think about: 1. The respect-gains-respect link The Internet is very democratic about authority. Authority is up for grabs, and you get authority if you say something smart and interesting. To this end, whenever I am presenting a controversial opinion, I link to as many of my sources as possible. I want people to be able to look at the research that I am looking at and decide for themselves if my conclusion is right. Also, I have found that doing this makes conversation in the comments section more interesting. 2. Easter egg link When my brother was guest blogging for me, every link he had was a joke. I have a background in user interface design, and at first I told him it was a bad way to link because people should know what theyre getting before they click. But then I realized that it is actually just a style of linking, and people came to expect his links to be fun. I started referring to these as Easter egg links, after the practice programmers have of adding secret messages behind the code. (For example you used to be able to type zzzz into a Microsoft Word document and spellchecker suggested sex.) 3. Here-are-my-friends links Guy Kawasaki is the king of this. When Guy links, it is usually to one of his friends, or a friend of a friend. So Guys links serve to remind us of how well-connected he is. This is no small peanuts since he is, in fact, very well connected offline especially for someone who is willing to commit to blogging regularly. Reading Guys blog is sometimes like the smart-mans Page Six of Silicon Valley. 4. True-love link Sometimes Ill fall in love with a link and structure a whole post around it. Like this one. And sometimes Ill save a link for a year before I use it. Usually my links are very serious to back up some point Im making. So I think of it as a treat for me and the reader when I throw one in just for fun. Like this one, about how to recharge and iPod using an onion and Gatorade. 5. Self-referential link Most bloggers have pet topics they go back to time and again. So its helpful to a reader if the blogger links to a few of the other posts on that topic to give the current discussion context. I do this a lot, but I learned to do it from the team of writers at Techdirt. Those guys are great at linking to other stories theyve written on the same topic. I dont read Techdirt every day, so if I happen to be reading, I can get a history of a given topic by reading their links. 6. Hat-tip link Sometimes, a blogger finds a very obscure piece of information, and links to it. Then, a blogger who regularly reads that blog also links to the obscure piece of information. Its pretty clear that the second blogger got the information from the first blogger. And in this case, a nice little hat-tip is a courtesy to say that actually, the stellar Internet research comes from someone else, not me. I do this often. For example, when I read this womans post because she blogged about me, and then I blogged about a link in her post. Heres an example of someone railing against a blogger who did not follow the etiquette. 7. Link-bait link When I first started blogging, people told me to link to bloggers who are bigger than I am. I didnt really believe it would do anything for me, but thats because I didnt understand how much traffic a big blogger can send. So, I followed advice, even though I was skeptical. Heres the post and it changed my life as a blogger. Literally. I linked to Lifehacker and they linked back, and for a year, that was the most popular post on my blog. Lifehackers audience is breathtakingly huge, and to get linked to from them is a big day for almost any blogger. 8. The friendly link Blogging is a conversation, and it is much more fun if you are part of it, instead of just talking at people. One of the great pleasures of blogging is linking to someone who I dont think knows that I read their blog. A link to someone is like saying, I really like what youre writing and in fact, I want to share it with everyone I know. A blogger trades on ideas, so recognizing another bloggers ideas with a link is a big deal. And its so easy to do, considering how nice it makes people feel. So do it. 9. The poetic link If I write a list, and I have links to two out of three list items, I find a link to the third. I think the symmetry is important. Not like anyone will be upset if I dont link, but I think that good rhythm to links is like good rhythm to sentences. It makes reading so much nicer. I do this in paragraphs as well try to keep the linking structure rhythmic as the reader scrolls down the post. I dont need to do that for meaning, I do it simply for pleasure.