Today’s blogging challenge is to write an outbound link post. An outbound link is when you link to a site outside of yours.
Benefits Of An Outbound Link Post And How To Write One
Video Transcription
Outbound linking was a common practice for many bloggers before social media became popular. Many bloggers would find a great post or article about a trending topic and write posts that would build on the original idea and link back to the original post.
Outbound linking today is less common for several reasons. Some people feel it is a waste of time because it does not affect their SEO or PageRanks directly. Or they might feel it is a bad practice to direct people off a site.
Those people are losing focus of the big picture. They are trying to use the latest hacks to generate traffic to their site and are ignoring the purpose of blogging, providing value to the reader.
Benefits for an Outbound Link Post
- Valuable Resource
- “Best Post”
- Add Credibility
- Inspirational and Motivational
Valuable Resource
By writing outbound link posts for your art blog, you are providing a valuable resource site for your audience. People will start to go to your site for the information they are searching for because you will be providing value and answers to their questions.
If you are writing posts about oil painting, you might want to write a post on how to avoid hazards. When you gather the proper information, you could link to the sites so the reader can read more in-depth on the topic.
“Best Posts”
“Best posts” are extremely popular and could drive a significant amount of new traffic to your site.
You could write a list post of your favorite art supplies and link to where they can purchase the items.
A list post of your favorite art resource books or videos would be very helpful for your artist followers.
For your art collector, you could provide a list post of best frames for art or where to purchase frames.
There will be many people you can start attracting to your site if you develop a strategic outbound link plan.
Add Credibility
Nobody knows everything. It is said that the best teachers do not know all of the answers, they know where to find the answers. Providing links to statistics or information you are not an expert in will build your credibility by offering value to the reader.
You will also be validating your views and thoughts with information from an outside source.
Inspiration and Motivation
You can provide inspiration and motivate people with your posts by offering links to your favorite inspirational and motivational quotes. These types of posts have been proven to do well with traffic and social shares.
As you can see, there are many positives for writing an outbound link post. The main reason you should write outbound link posts is to provide value to your reader. When you provide value to your reader, they will become a loyal visitor to your site.
Today’s Action Plan
Take some time to decide on what type of outbound link post you will be writing.
Outbound Link Ideas:
- Resource post
- Build upon another post
- Inspirational Quotes
- Motivational Quotes
- Arts Studio organization tips
- Supply Tips
- Purchasing art tips
- Posts about other artists
These are just a few ideas to help create a spark.
After you have decided what topic you would like to write about, do some research and find some posts you will be linking to.
Make sure you are linking to reputable sites. You want to enhance your reader’s experience.
How to Link To Another Source
There will be a couple of different ways you will be linking to different sources.
If you are going to quote a post, you will need to give credit to the author as well as a link to the post the quote originated from.
For example, “Name of person you are quoting” stated in a post written on “Post Title.”
The name of the person should be linked to a page where the reader can find more information on the individual. You can link to their website, blog or a profile page.
The post title should link directly to the post.
If you are creating a link to where a person can purchase an item, just link the item to the address where they can buy the goods.
You might want to consider using affiliate links, such as Amazon, for your posts. It is important that you clearly state a link is an affiliate link if this is something you will be doing.
How to Create a Link in WordPress:
Creating links is very simple to do. First, copy the URL of the post you are going to link.
In your WordPress dashboard highlight the work you would like to hyperlink.
Click the link button on the menu of the editor.
Paste the link in the pop-up box that will appear after clicking the link button.
Click enter.
Now the word that you highlighted is a hyperlink.
Conclusion:
There are many benefits for creating outbound link posts. After you have written today’s outbound link post, take a few minutes and write down some other ideas you would like to write about.
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