Day 8 was all about going back over old posts in your archives to do some interlinking.
I'd love to hear how you found this exercise on this thread.
ProBlogger, DPS & TwiTip
This was a great assignment. With my book review blog, BooksUnwound, I found that I could systematically go back and add links to each previous post when I post a new one. I have a footer that says, coming next at the end of each post. This was a natural place to add a link once I published the next post in the series.
I have been adding interlinks to new posts at AllBizAnswers, but hadn't thought to go back and put links into older posts. I love how blog posts can stay alive and pertinent, and this is one great way to ensure that they do.
Bradford Shimp is a business writer and consultant. He writes the blog AllBizAnswers.com
You know...we actually do this regularly on the blog I do for Nerve.com. At the end of each post, we list related blog posts that we've done up in the past.
While I've already been linking to past posts within the text of my recent posts for Freelancedom, this challange made me think that perhaps I should add related links to the bottom of each post, as I've been doing at Nerve. So what I did was add related links at the bottoms of my most popular posts...the ones still bringing in new traffic months later.
Going forward, of course, I'll probably use this tactic within each new blog post.
Steph Auteri, Freelancedom
I added a widget to my main blog (Buttontapper) that does this automatically, and it seems to work pretty well, so long as you've got all your tags matched up. You can even choose the amount of related posts you want to show, so people won't be overwhelmed, or if there are no related posts, you can have random posts instead. I had to go through and re-categorize and re-tag some of my posts, but it was definitely worth it.
Laura Roberts, Freelance Button Tapper
As content and posts accumilate it seems to be much easier to interlink articles to relivant content. We are B2Evolution owners and there has always been a few things that were missing in the plugins because of security risks to the site. But The coolest thing is EdB from B2 is going to build a few things for us, one thing he is doing is a simular post pluggin, very cool people.
Back to the interlinking even though you have a site map for bots the most benificial thing I have found by posting referance links is to get your readers to click to another page on your site. This works great to keep your bounce rate down.
Thanks for having me here.
Brad West ~ onomoney
I'm on Wordpress, and I'm using Yet Another Related Posts Plugin to list some related posts at the bottom of each of my posts (but only on the post pages, not on the index page). Here's a link if you're interested! http://mitcho.com/code/yarpp/
I had massive success with this today. I posted this article this morning with 11 inward links to previous reviews. The article was popular with a few external sites linking but the other pages had a lot of attention from visitors with one site linking to one of the articles specifically.
@starfeeder I kind of remembered the articles to link to but also used the search function.
I use Zemanta intermittently. It links some related posts and newspaper articles. You can also put in your own blog's details so it will automatically pick up related posts to add links to. It isn't foolproof though and needs a human oversigt before relying on it too much but it can cut down on a fair bit of time.
@SonjaFoust Thank you! I have been wanting to add a plug-in like that for quite some time but wasn't sure what to use. I've installed it and loving it.
I've been doing this a lot more lately, linking posts using good keywords - keywords people might be searching for. ''
For example, i just did a post about the Making Home Affordable refinance program. Within it I linked to another post I had written about the program using the keywords 'making home affordable", and "refinance". After doing all the internal linking, and then getting a few external links using good keywords, my post is now coming up good in the google search results for those terms - usuallly 3rd or 4th after the government websites.
Great idea!
Bible Money Matters | LogosForWebsites | @moneymatters
I have two plugins at my blogs, one is the Yet Another Relate Post plugin, which works wonderfully well, the other's name I forgot ;-) However, the other one should use keywords from the post-body to create links to other relevant internal posts. Yet, this one doesn't seem to work for me...
www.icantinternet.org All about internet, internet marketing, adsense and iPhones
lunaKM
Member
For interlinking I do several things. I have a related posts plug in, I use shortcodes and generate lists of posts in a series, I link to related content within a post when I talk about it, I have a tabbed menu on my homepage that shows posts by most viewed, my picks and a specific category. I also have a top-rated posts in the sidebar. Every month I also post a review of the 10 most read posts for that month.
We are the masters of words we've never spoken and the slaves of the ones we have. -- Sandra West
I have not interlinked old blog posts much but have started to do so this year. In trying to not get further behind, I combined this 31DBBB task with my blog posting schedule for wednesday. As a result, I was able to interlink 5 old posts that were relevant to the current one.
Here it is:
Film Festivals 2009: Now Playing this Week in April
Madlab Post Discover indie films and entertaining facts!
I use this method very often. In my posts, after my posts and in the sidebar.
I have been using interlinking more often recently. For example, in today's post - Blogging, Goals, and 101 Things, I linked back to two of my older posts that related to this one, and also to a new subdomain on my site that I started to do the 101 Things in 1001 Days project.
Interlinking is definitely the best way to keep visitors on your site for longer, reducing your bounce rate, and to get traffic to older posts. It also helps new readers get to know what your site is about by linking them deeper into it.
Finally I have completed Day 8
I've been doing this for a while already, but I've never really trained myself to think of my old posts while writing new posts. I just do it when the thought pops into my head. I've never gone over my old post to look for a linking opportunity either, but I'm going to do that right now! :-)
I did some interlinking of older posts into the new one I was writing for the Replanting the rainforests 09 (RTR09) campaign. The reason for this was that it was only logical to do such interlinking. The topics I was writing on were linked to eachother anyway so I thought the best way to put forth the info was interlinking them myself as well. Here's the link to the post.
RTR 09 overview series: Projects undertaken
However, going back to some of my older posts and doing some more interlinking is on my list of things to do to improve my blog. Darren, your tips and tricks and the tasks have helped me a lot in raising the bar on my blog. Thanks :).
I often link posts to older related posts within the body of the narrative, though I haven't gone back to link older posts to newer material as suggested (and a good suggestion indeed).
This did turn into a bigger project than I expected it to be, because as I worked on interlinking posts, I came to realize that my categories and tags need overhauling, too!
Kathi Wilson :: @vomviersen :: Rottweilers Ate My Laptop
Yet another great and valuable exercise. I had done some links between blog and website before but not as systematically as I could have done.
I went back to my oldest post and found a) lots of scope to improve it and add to it b) an opportunity to interlink to my website and c) an opportunity to link to another blog.
I now plan to do a couple of these reviews every day through the back catalogue!
Thank you
Make it and mend it because life's too good to throw away
this was an excellent reminder that improvement is a process. i have linked to other posts before, but never have taken the time to login for that purpose alone. now i'll take time each week to get in there and interlink. for this exercise i linked:
a faith based post on believing to a horse training based post also on building faith through consistancy
thanks again darren. this 31 day process ROCKS!
Blog: SpiritualHorseman.com
Havign internal links will definetly make readers to visit other pages. I tested this using clicktale.com
I removed Related Posts that was displayed below each post for 2 weeks. Average Page Views dropped more than 35% and Avergae Time Spent per page dropped by 40%
After observing how readers were scanning and browsing the page, it was very easy to see readers using links from Related Posts.
Placing links next to relavant context will improve the click through rate. If you are talking about hosting plan and having links next to it that talks about (say Top 10 Web Hosting Companies) will make readers click on it.
I linked to one of my silly posts on beginnerbaby.com/blog.
Here is my post on where you can find germs, with an update at the bottom.
I haven't done this before - I think this is a great idea!
How did you find posts to interlink?
I found keywords within my posts and linked them to one another. Say if I have the word "Bar" in one of my posts, then I try find that word in another post. And I link it back to one another.
The only thing that was annoying was that the pingbacks come back as comments. I've tried disabling this and it still does it.
Do you already do this as part of your blogging?
I didn't do this before, but I realize that it could help my blog now and I will definitely do it more often.
After I redid my About me page to better coordinate with my elevator pitch (Day 1 assignment!), I added lots of interlinking (too much?) to either individual posts or to topic pages. Since this page gets the most consistent hits, I should be able to tell in a few days if it the strategy was successful there.
I typically remember to link if it’s a direct connection (like talking about the same book in two posts), but don’t often remember otherwise. I’ll work on it more.
Seen God lately? Lisa notes... where she's seen Him today.
This was a easy assignment but I only have 2 post in o my blog so far.
<a href="http://www.ArtofCultivation.com" ta
I don't do this often enough. I do have the related posts plugin which works fairly well especially if you're consistent with categories and keywords. Today though I did a recap of the weeks posts wihich also allowed me to incorporate the other lessons of the week -- lists, link love and authority linking.
http://eyespi20.com/all-about-tech-stuff/recap-of-this-week-at-eyespi20/
Thanks for the tips on Widgets to help. I do this some, and had decided I wanted to add a sidebar of my more frequently read posts with links to others, but since my topic has helpful advice mostly interspersed with stores of the things people do, it's hard to manage. It's a good idea.
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