One of the great parts of getting involved with blogging communities like Bloggerluv and with other individual blogs is the opportunity to build friendships. Friendships are beneficial in so many ways that are obvious and some ways that are not so obvious. I like to help my blogger friends out without ever having them ask for help. That is how you let them know what kind of person you really are.
For example, there is a guy, Rob Sellen, who has a blog about making money online. Now Rob never asked me for a link. We haven’t been friends all that long. We don’t know each other well enough to be asking favors like that. But, I know what kind of guy he is from reading his blog. I have seen how he has stood up for other people who are friends of his and he looks to have pretty decent common sense. I know that we are likely to become decent friends. I intend to speed the process up a little bit by sending little favors his way.
One way I can do that is by creating that link above here using the keywords “make money online.” When Google and the other search engines spider this post, they will chalk up one more vote for Rob’s blog. Plus they will want to rank it a little better for the term “make money online.”
Now, this blog of mine is brand new and it doesn’t yet have a ton of respect from Google or any other search engine for that matter. Rob’s blog has a lot more respect than mine does because his homepage is PR4. Hopefully in a few months, after I have built enough links back to my site through blog commenting, maybe mine will have some juice to pass around. Then those people who are friends of mine will really appreciate it when I do something like that.
Even though this one little plug for his site isn’t going to make a huge difference to him or his business, I know that it will help build a little kinship between us that will hopefully grow over time. That is my goal here. Someday when our friendship is more mature, I might send Rob a little personal email that says, “Hey Rob. I have a new website project called whateverwebsite.com that I am working on. I am trying to get it to rank for whatever my keyword is. If you know anywhere I can get links for it or you know anyone else in this niche who might be interested in some cross promotions, then please let me know.”
When I do that, there is a pretty good chance that he might think, “Heck yeah. Kathy has always been generous with me. She is a cool cat. I think my buddy Tom has a website that could throw her an awesome link. I should tell Tom about her.” Or maybe Rob will just decide to throw that link in place from his website. Or even more likely, just because we would have a good friendship, Rob might decide to be really generous without me even asking for a link. Maybe he will link to it automatically without me ever having to suggest it. That is the best of all.
Plus, those kinds of links are the links that really make a web page move up in the search results. A contextual link from a popular well connected and well trusted blog page will definitely get me a substantial bump.
Now imagine if I had one hundred friends like Rob. If I had a hundred friends willing to help me out just as much as I am willing to help them out, then I could have a dozen or so decent websites that are fun to work on that also rank well for moderately competitive and highly lucrative keywords. Yeah baby. That is what I am talking about.
Then I spend my days writing about things that I enjoy writing about and spreading the love to all of my friends. What better possible scenario for making a living can you possibly think of? You get to do something you actually love to do, something that is personally rewarding, in a setting that is low stress, working for yourself at a great pay scale when you consider how low your cost of overhead is.
Can I get a hell yeah!
Other bloggers who know how to make money
Since I already wrote this post, I should probably throw a shout out to a couple other people who I haven’t mentioned before. There is my friend Jenny who recently posted about long tail and short tail keywords over at her blog. Every blogger who wants to build websites for organic search engine traffic needs to thoroughly understand keywords, especially long tail and short tail differences.
I also want to throw a shout out to Dazzlin Donna who has an affiliate conversion formula that some of you might be interested in. I haven’t bought her program so I can’t honestly vouch for it, but from the sales copy it sure looks like she knows what she is talking about. And I happen to know a thing or two about affiliate marketing and conversions.
No related posts.
Sharing the knowledge and link love is great help, in blogging community :-)
Yes Alex. Share the love.
Woot! :)
Thanks for that Kathy, paying it forward, paying it fast… ;)
I have no doubt at all this blog will gain PRank, and rightly so.
Great post too, now there are a few lessons in that if people care to think about it in a clear way. ;)
You’re dead right Rob. If people are new to SEO, they should pay attention to what I said there. These links that we bloggers give to one another can be some of the most powerful links for ranking a web page that you could possibly get. It doesn’t take very many of them to get ranked really well for long tail keywords. Friends are worth their weight in gold if you are a niche blogger.
That is why I try to be so generous. This site isn’t going to make me any money directly. But, you can bet that it is probably going to make a few other people some change when I link out to them.
Nice post. Yea, I’m coming to realize that being a blogger is all about the community and helping each other out. It goes a long way to build good relationships.
Relationships are everything Wayne. Doing this business by yourself is ridiculously boring. You have got to have comrades.
Hey Kathy, the awesome thing about BloggerLuv is not just meeting awesome bloggers, but extending the olive branch to one another like you did in this post. I’ve never saw so many talented “new-comers” in one place. It’s a great mix of new and old friends and I’m glad you joined. Thanks for the keyword lesson.
I’m glad you’re glad. I’m glad too. (lol)
I can give you a crashcourse in keywords if you want one. If you have frineds in this business, it is really easy to write a good on-page SEO post and get it to rank well with a few well placed links. That is definitely something that you should learn. That is a great way to make money.
Thanks Kathy for the mention and I agree with you about all the above, Rob, BloggerLuv , and Donna. All are great people and as I can see you are as well, I look forward to our friendship, future, and once again thanks for the mention!
Cool Jenny. We can be pals. I am looking forward to it. You ever need help, just ask.
Hey Kathy, not ready for keywords yet but definitely ready to get over to Rob’s site. I get his posts via email subscription and often lie to myself by saying I’m going to get over there to read the full post after the excerpt whet my appetite. After a couple of weeks of material sitting in my inbox, I never make it but today and thanks to you – I’m on my way!
Rob’s cool Kissie.
Read his stuff and you will learn a thing or two.
He is well connected with other cool and knowledgeable people.
Glad I can help John. Drop by whenever.
Hell Yeah!…..there you go Kathy!….LOL
High page rank or not. You are giving yourself and your blog plenty of credibility by providing posts like this that “add value” and not just gibberish full of affiliate links. You are providing yourself more traffic and a following for yourself and for Rob already. By doing what you are doing, don’t worry about Google. Just let that part fall into place in time.
That is my plan Doug. Good advice.
Hi Kathy,
I’m really new to blogging, and just wanted to let you know that I thought that was a really sweet way to explain how linking helps everybody, in a way I never thought of before. We should all keep sharing the knowledge :0)
Rosie,
Remember no keywords if you want to comment here. You get keywords in the Commentluv part. No need to be overly greedy. Make sure you are paying attention to what people say about their comment policy for their blogs. Mine is pretty clear right below the big box where you type your comment. No keywords in the name field is written in red. I think it is hard to miss. Most other bloggers would put you in Akismet for that. Then you are going to be wasting 50% of the time you spend commenting because your comment will never show up.
Kathy, from my own personal experience I have found networks such as you mentioned to be cliques.
I do agree though about spreading link love without someone asking for it.
Yes, those types of networks can be cliques. They do help you connect with other like minded people though. There is great benefit to be enjoyed in doing that.
Hi Kathy,
That was an awesome read. Most of the successful bloggers were aided by the fellow bloggers in one way or the other on their way to success. Actually, I believe most of our readers are bloggers themeselves.
Having a few really good friends who know what they are doing can put you on the fast track to success.
Hi Kathy,
Your blog post is really important for beginners as I’m. I think that each time we refers to others blogs we should always add the link, just because probably they have inspired our post. Another reason is that generally writing a post is a way to share useful information, so in some way we are helping some else, helping others bloggers is important too.
Welcome to my website Silvia.
Feel free to link back to your website next time. I think that helping other bloggers unselfishly is the ultimate way to create success for yourself.
Kathy, for a new blog, you sure get a ton of comments. Keep up the great work here.
Jay,
I get lots of comments because I leave lots of comments all over the place. I contribute my 2 cents to a lot of other blogs. People see me there. They see a URL link in a Commentluv box. Next thing you know they are clicking over to my site and leaving me comments.
It is a really simple and effective method anyone can use to get traffic and visitor participation in their website.