Does your blog’s sidebar have a blogroll yet?

Before we investigate what a blogroll is (and no, it’s got nothing to do with toilets), here’s a quick video summary of the workshop I gave at BritMums Live! 2014 for those who missed it (and in it I mention a blogroll in it as well):

What is a blogroll?

Basically it is a list of links to blogs or websites you recommend, admire, you follow or follow you, are of the same niche or subject, you are connected with or write for, top notch bloggers your readers must read, or even just your best friends. It’s called a blogroll because the American word for list is roll. Unfortunately I don’t think people in the US call the paper they wipe their bottoms with bogroll (Susanna and Jen, what do you call it?), hence why it is used with impunity.

Anyhow, back to reality. Why should you have a list of blogs on your sidebar?

It’s friendly

A blogroll provides your readers with your personal recommendation of blogs and bloggers you want them to read. On the right is a blogroll I created for another of my blogs, and every time someone liked or commented on my blog, I checked them out, and if they met with my approval I added them to my blogroll.

A blogroll is an opportunity to provide a link to another blog to help with their traffic flow. Even though this may appear to be one-way, don’t be afraid of losing readers to the other blogs. If the recipient blogs are aware of where their readers are coming from, they will return to your blog to thank you and read what you have said, thus creating more reader loyalty.

If a new reader visits your blog and sees an impressive blogroll, this shows that you read other blogs, you’ve bothered to find and know other writers and have formed blogging relationships with them. Even so, it’s worth concentrating on finding genuine followers you can like, know and trust, rather than linking to big shot bloggers who don’t really care and won’t bother interacting with you.

Connecting to other blogs helps with increasing your blog’s visibility. It’s great for regularly visiting the blogs in your blogroll (an alternative to a feed reader or subscription) to read, like and comment on their latest post. This act of altruism will get your blog noticed and help bring in proper and relevant traffic back to your blog.

Be careful

It’s important to fully check that all the destinations on your blogroll are real blogs and not used for spam. You don’t want to promote the wrong kind of site. Also regularly check for broken links and to see if the blog is still in use. Maintaining an up-to-date blogroll is only a courtesy to your readers.

If you want to do things properly, ask the blog’s owner if it’s OK to put their blog on your blogroll. I’m sure most of them will be delighted, but it’s wise just to make sure. It will also alert them of your blog and your interest in their subject at the same time.

Don’t link only to popular or high ranking blogs for search engines optimisation reasons and to gain a better page rank. Your blogroll should be a recommended list, not a vehicle to increase web traffic. If you’re thinking of accepting links for money, even affiliates, encouraging a lot of irrelevant reciprocal link exchanges or generating lots of alternative URL links back to your blog via your blogroll, this will certainly get you penalised by Google for abusing the blogroll system.

It’s probably wise not to do excessive linking to all and everyone, or your blog may be deemed as spam. Even though the blogroll example shown above is very long, it is highly relevant and each link goes to blogs with value and integrity. Also it grew organically throughout the year and without intention.

What’s the alternative?

If you don’t want to create a blogroll (say your sidebar is beautiful enough as is it, or you don’t like the idea of showing a list of links on your blog), you can still benefit the same way by creating a links page (very good for business blogs or those with a lot of PR success).

Alternatively you could just link to fabulous and highly relevant blogs through anchor text (an outgoing link) in your posts. This will generate pingbacks or trackbacks to the recipient bloggers, drawing attention to you and your blog that way.

How do you create a blogroll?

Here’s a quick video I’ve created showing you how to create a blogroll on your WordPress website (for a Blogger blogroll, click here):

Enjoy playing and experimenting with your blogroll!