Many bloggers publish weekly or monthly link roundups, highlights of some of the interesting sites they’ve found on the web. Most use a variety of automation techniques to generate this link list, bookmarking the web pages to a bookmarking program that helps them generate this list and release it once a week. It’s a lazy way of doing it, but link roundups can be fun and of value to your readers, too.
In this Blog Exercise, let’s look at the value and status of this long held blogging tradition.
If you are not familiar with link roundups or link lists, they are a list of links, usually no more than 10, with quotes or descriptive text recommending the article or resource to readers.
Some bloggers used link roundups for themselves, collecting links as they hunt through the web. The assumption is that if he or she likes the site, it might be of value to readers, but not necessarily. The resources are usually saved for their own purposes, like someone bookmarks a site or saves a clipping from the newspaper or a magazine.
Others focus on these link roundups as a fun way to share more than one resource with their readers and fans. Not all linked resources need an entire article written about them, and sometimes the collections can be fun, leading to a serendipitous experience for readers.
A blogging friend called link roundups as third-party treasure hunts. “I feel like a modern archaeologist and treasure hunter. I find the treasures and my audience gets the benefit of my hunt.”
Link lists can be the epitome of sharing on the web. However, the best link roundups are the ones that tie in directly with your subject matter, focused on what your audience wants and needs rather than random collections.
The format of a link roundup is as follows:
- Numbers or Bullets: Some bloggers set a goal for the number of recommendations. Ten a week. They like numbering their recommendations. Others just like numbers. In general, use bullets to structure your link recommendations.
- Lead with the Article or Resource Title: Much like this list, put the name of the site or article in a properly formed link and wrap it in bold to highlight it in the link list.
- Use Your Words: While it is acceptable to quote from the article, use your words to explain your recommendation. Tell your readers what you found of value and why they should click away from your site. Give them good reasons.
- Use Proper Quotes and Citations: When quoting from the recommended site, quote properly in compliance with copyright and standards for writing and reading. Use quote marks at the very least so the reader knows what is content from the source and what are your words.
- Link Roundup Post Title: Typical link roundup titles are “Links for Week 132,” “This Week’s Links,” “From Around the Web for the Week of Jan 4, 2013,” “Thursday’s Discoveries,” or just “Link Roundup This Week,” or variations on a Theme. If these are random links and resources, then it does not matter much what you call them. If they are on a specific topic, put that topic in the post title. If this is a weekly routine, title it as a series then add a colon followed by the date or subject matter.
Your exercise today is to create a link roundup.
Consider your audience. Would they appreciate just any random links or a specific collection of links? Run a photoblog or highly graphic and visual site? Consider making your links like a Pinterest gallery, each image linking to a site or article you recommend.
Experiment with this and have some fun. As always, once published, track the response to the post through your stats and audience response.
Remember to include a hat tip link back to this post to create a trackback, or leave a properly formed link in the comments so participants can check out your blog exercise task.
You can find more Blog Exercises on Lorelle on WordPress. This is a year-long challenge to help you flex your blogging muscles.
Via Feedburner
Subscribe by Email
Lorelle on WordPress
6 Comments
I’ve been doing my “Interesting Links” posts for at least 5 years now. The posts are generated automatically with a WordPress plugin called Postalicious based on new bookmarks I add to my delicious account. They are created each day that there are new bookmarks. After about a year, I manually combine all the links for a month into one post for the month, mostly as a way to archive them and reduce total post count.
It’s important to note that I turned commenting off for these posts — they tend to include topics of a controversial nature and I was tired of dealing with troll comments.
In the case of my links posts, they cover a wide range of topics that interest me, ranting from technology to aviation to politics. I occasionally use link lists to store links to posts that I refer to when making a point in my own blog posts.
What a brilliant example of speed blogging and efficiency. When delicious was threatened with closing, I tried switching to another service but Postalicious and delicious work together so beautifully. Now that it’s not going anywhere, time to return back to the fold!
Turning off comments on posts that don’t need comments is good advice. It doesn’t stop trolls or spam as they just switch posts, but it makes us feel better. 😀
I love your link posts. They are always insightful and take me in directions I hadn’t considered, a sign of a good mind behind the list.
Thanks, Maria!
Just wanted to let you know I mentioned this post here, Lorelle: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/link-roundups/
I’m trying to use Postlicious and Delicious for my blog round ups. Where do i get the feed for delicious and how is the posting created? Is there a post that shows how to do that.
This is the help document from Delicious on feeds, and there are many articles on how to get the feed for delicious and how to use delicious to create feeds. If you are on WordPress.com I believe it must be done manually. There are WordPress Plugins for delicious which handle it automatically, based upon your customization and settings, so the post would be created as you wish it to be done or the limitations of the Plugin.
Personally, I prefer the manually created ones as it gives you time to add your original voice to the link recommendations.
Good luck with it.
I just want to mention that I used these recommendations on YunGO official website and they were useful.
7 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
[…] for a moment and read Lorelle on link roundups. I’ll wait here.Back? […]
[…] was a Blog Exercise that you can work out yourself by reading up on it here. It was also a steamy platter of Pokemon references, […]
[…] and post about our four favorite posts of week six. I followed the guidelines set by Mr. Morgan and Lorelle VanFossen. The guidelines were very helpful, and what resulted was a short, neat post about the four best […]
[…] Blog Exercises: Weekly Link Round-Ups […]
[…] “Weekly Link Roundups” and “Making Lists” blog exercises I covered some basics of how to make a list. […]
[…] Blog Exercises: Weekly Link Roundups […]
[…] research to find the best resources and references for your list rather than just whatever you stumbled upon that week. Cultivate and craft your link list […]