Roll Call!

Hello, my name is Kendra and I am a blog hopper… (Hi Kendra…)

Blog Hopping (v.): The ridiculously addictive activity of going from blog to blog via blog rolls, comments, or other links provided. This activity should not be performed late at night and is like cocaine for nerds.

I appreciate those who enable my habit by keeping their blog roll pruned and by providing links to great blogs.

Before I started my own blog I spent hours just hopping from blog to blog by a person’s links and all of the time I spent doing so gave me a good idea of not only what I wanted my blog to look like but also how I wanted to come across to readers. More important, I gained the inspiration and confidence I needed to start losing weight from these blogs. Now that I’m in the blogosphere and doing a whole lot more blog hopping, I’ve noticed that many blogs have blog rolls that could use some maintenance.

“Why have a blog roll?”

Well, your blog roll helps in a few ways. First, it helps to tell a prospective reader a little about your blog. It’s like how you can tell a lot about a person by their friends. You can tell a lot about a blog by whom they list and who lists them. If all of the links on my blog roll are fitness blogs that should tell you right off the bat that I will be writing about fitness. Incidentally, I don’t write much about fitness…

Second, it helps you to connect with more readers and more bloggers. Getting listed is an obvious way to get your name out there but listing others also helps because it tells people that you are associated (or think you are anyway…) with certain people. Don’t be fake about this, though; listing people whose blogs you don’t actually read and like is not smart. If you are only listing a blog because it is popular and it looks good to have it, it’s only going to send people back to that site and do nothing for you. List those who you actually like and read. Remember, listing them doesn’t mean that they’ll list you back.

Listing vs. Following

While I follow roughly fifty blogs, I certainly don’t list that many on my site. I list those that I not only really like but also those that I want to share or that I think have really superb content. Many of the others that I don’t list are blogs that I like but are primarily lifecasting blogs and not necessarily a resource that needs to be shared.

Cut and Paste

So how do you go about selecting which blogs to put on your blog roll and which to leave out? It becomes an easy choice when they haven’t posted for a year. If you have blogs on your blog roll that are dead, dormant, or have broken links they definitely need to be removed. Perhaps you are wishing that someone will come back to the blogosphere. Keep following them, sure, but take them off your site. Having them there makes it look like you don’t take much care with your links.

When thinking about keeping or removing blogs think about whom you want to support and who… well… not so much. I just recently pulled a link off my site that was for one of the bloggers who originally inspired me. I used to love their blog because they seemed to think like me, they were successful in a huge weight loss, and they were witty all the while. A few months ago, though, I noticed their attitude changing. They became rude to their readers and seemed to think that they were above them. Um, goodbye. I realize that a little narcissism is normal in blogging but there is a line…

I’ve also kept a particular link up despite them not necessarily being a resource or a mindcasting blog. I leave this link up because it not only expresses an aspect of my life that I might not get to talk about on my blog but it also creates a bridge into another blogging circle.

While removing some links, you’ll also want to add some. Why? It helps bring interest into your site that is separate from your posts. It’s nice to have little extras on your site that attract people. I have certain pages that change periodically and that give people more to look at and more to be interested in.

Remember that your whole blog is a work in progress and the blog roll should be no exception. It’s always fun to find a new blog; I think that I have a new blog crush at least twice a month. Check out our Friday Night Boast Post each week for some new blogs to stalk. Browse our blog roll and, oh yeah…add Hollaback Health to yours!

Tagged as: blog rolls, Kendra, Networking