Here is a link to the interview that Jeff Chandler did with me. It’s 53 min’s long. We talked about building community, networking & personal branding. He did a great job & had some good questions.
One of the listeners sent me an email asking a couple of questions:
I’ve never understood clearly the workings of trackbacks, etc. ( I do realize the value, just not how to use them), I was hoping you could explain to me just what you meant by that statement – "put backlinks in comments".
Trackbacks are created on my post when someone links to the article from their post. A portion of the quote from their post is shown. They are helpful because they show who has referenced your blog post & continued writing about what you’ve written on. And they contribute towards SEO because they show that your wrote something worth linking to.
Backlinks in comments are something else. When I comment on someone’s blog post, I will sometimes leave a link to an article that I’ve written that offers more information on the topic.
The difference is timing:
If I were to respond to the post & write an article linking to the post then that would create a trackback on that person’s post. When I put a link to my blog post in the comment section it’s because my post was written first. If you do this you want to make sure that your link is relevant & adds value to the post. I will also add links to other resources from around the web (not just mine).
The backlinks then create legacy links. Imagine the links that you’ve sprinkled around the web in your topic area (don’t do it all the time). I call them ‘legacy links’ & they provide paths for future readers to find your blog.
In Feedburner I can see where my traffic is coming from. Two came over from a comment I made on Chris Brogan’s post on Skills of a Community Manager. And one came over from RWW’s post on Hiring a Community Manager.
Both of these posts had over 60 comments, but people continue to read the posts. Imagine the effect over a period of time? So I refer to them as legacy links because they help new people find my work on that subject. Usually they are learning & mining blogs. Some people say that this isn’t acceptable, but I’ve never been criticized for it (or told to not do it).
Tips:
- Identify who the influencers are in your niche with lots of traffic. Although everyone likes comments.
- Comment early on (although I don’t think that matters). Sometimes I enjoy leaving a comment after many people have (that’s especially the case on Chris Brogan’s blog).
Does this make sense? What are your tips?
Thanks for clarifying the difference between trackbacks and backlinks. You’ve helped me wrap my head around the whole concept. You also included some good advice about not overdoing it, and of course always keeping things relevant.
Great job!
Excellent post.Track backs are a way for you to notify a web site when you have published an entry that references it.In order to create a track back, you will need to use a special link that is provided on the blog you want to reference.That´s what I understand about it :)