"I give away link love by the handfuls every week. It hasn’t hurt me yet," wrote Liz Strauss, laying out one of her not-so-secret secrets of success with web communities."It’s like my own way of making sure the A-Listers don’t own the blogosphere–-that we have our own link-love-fest in our own neighborhood."
Spreading that love and networking with not-quite-A-Lister blogs (like humoring somebody over at The Publishing Spot), Strauss has earned her spot on the blogrolls of countless happy writers.
There's a method to all this love, and that's why I picked Strauss for my deceptively simple feature: Five Easy Questions. In the spirit of Jack Nicholson’s mad piano player, I run a serialized set of weekly interviews with writing pioneers—delivering some practical, unexpected advice about web publishing...
Jason Boog:
You've recently helped develop the new blogging concept of "link leak." Can you explain this a little bit? If you were advising a fledgling writer about the best way to handle blog linkage, what would you tell them? Whose example should we follow?
Liz Strauss:
My first week at Successful Blog, I started the SOB program --links to Succeessful and Outstanding Bloggers...
Mike Sigers was a big help then, when I was trying to figure out what to do for those folks, he suggested a badge for their blogs. I came up with SOB logo and we were off and running.
So when Mike coined the idea and the term "LINK LEAK," of course I was right there with him. That's how friendship works.
But you were really asking about links, weren't you? People act like links are $1000 bills. I want to say "Go try to spend one." I've got all I need and there are plenty for everyone. Do I worry that Google with hate me?
No.
Outlinks are good for your property value, as long as you don't out link to splogs. In fact outlinking to little blogs is like planting seeds, if you believe in that they will grow and not forget you, you only have lots to gain.
Even if folks move on and I become a dim memory, I get the great feeling of having started them off.
You did it again. You make me wish that I could meet me. Oh well, maybe some day . . .
Posted by: Liz Strauss | June 6, 2006 8:18 AM | Permalink to Comment