If you have done anything with SEO on your web site or blog, you have heard about Links and link backs, and exchange links and the importance of linking to get a good SEO and hopefully a good page rank in the search engines.

There is nothing wrong with this.  I would suggest that if you exchange links you attempt to get one-way links as often as you can.  That simply means if  you have a blog you want someone to link to, offer to put a link from another one of your blogs to their blog.  That gives one-way links to both of you.

Here are some facts about linking I have learned:

1. One-way links give better credit than two-way
2. Links included in text, especially text that relates to the subject matter or keywords of your blog, give you more credit
3. Links in lists on a blog roll give you more credit than one listed in a blog post list of links simply because the blogroll usually appears on more than one page, thus count one for each page of the blog.
4. If you get a technorati account, technorati uses the incoming links to your blog to determine your authority.  Search engines pay attention to this.
5. Submitting posts to stumble upon, digg, redit, and a number of other high profile ‘news’ sites puts a link on that site to your site.  Can’t go wrong with that! And hopefully the submissions will bring traffic to your site also.

I have joined one group who suggested we all get technorati accounts and exchange ‘favs’ as well as links.  I have exchanged favs with some friends at technorati, but did nto think about item #4 above.  Thus, I have started a Link Luv page where I can put all my link exchanges.

Since I am a little picky, I do check out the links before putting them on my site.  I don’t need (and neither do you) to have a porn site linked to my blog - at least not from my site to theirs.  Search engines do notice that type of linking also.

That’s it for now.  And remember to give a little link luv through the day.

The phrase ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’ has shown up several times during my brief blogging career.  What does this mean?

Picture this.  You start a blog.  You go to numerous social networks and make friends.  You establish links to your blog through commenting, submitting stories/bookmarks, answering questions a yahoo answer, and everything else you have been told to do.  You even watch the google trends to find the buzz words or topics.  You experiment to find the right post that will catch every one’s attention.  All this just so people will know your blog exists.  So the person who can benefit from your blog finds it.

The post you right that flows from your fingers onto the page seems perfect.  It includes a popular topic, it has a bit of humor, yet contains valuable information.  You know it is well written - one of the best you have ever done.  But your traffic does not grow.  In fact, it seems everyone ignores the digg or the stumble.  Even the twitter or plurk you sent out doesn’t spark interest.  This is discouraging.

You remember the phrase ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’.  You remember all the work you have already put into your blog.  So you trudge on - making friends, writing posts, searching for more valid information to put on your blog.  You check out other blogs to see what they are doing.  You read posts by blog experts like problogger.com.  You continue to post and mingle.

The occasional comment you receive from others tell you that someone has found help in what you wrote.  Other bloggers that see your blog and say - this is a good blog.  So you go on.  Traffic decreases.  You get discouraged.

You go to a forum of friend you have made and voice your discouragement.  They tell you they understand, but you have a good blog and don’t give up.  Then you again remember ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’.

One day you check your traffic.  600 visits yesterday, and 300 already today?  What is going on?  You check back in a little bit - 700 today,  then 800.  You check to see what post is so interesting.  It is a post you wrote 6 months ago!  In fact, it wasn’t much of a post, but it did have a cute catch.  You look to see where it came from - stumbleupon.  But what happened?  You stumbled it yourself back when you wrote it?  And why so much traffic?  You end up with 1600 visits that day.  OK, for a pro, that is probably an average day or even a slow day, but for you, it is like a miracle.

‘The only way to fail is  to quit’ rings in your ears.  Then the next day, traffic slows to a bit higher than usual.  But does it end there?  Nope, a week later you get a higher volume of traffic (not near 1600 or even 1000), but much more than your usual.  What post is getting the attention?  The same one.  And the visitors are also checking out other posts and pages on the site.  Maybe you are making progress after all.

‘The only way to fail is  to quit’

OK - so if I want to really accomplish my goal, all I need to do is keep trying, keep posting, keep learning, keep making new friends, observe what works and what doesn’t, and DON’T QUIT.