Wednesday

The Blogroll

What is that? It's a group of links in the right or left columns of your blog, with links to other blogs. Why would you want one? Well, for several reasons. It makes your blog more noticeable to search engines for one thing.

You can use your blogrolls to connect to blogs that offer your readers added content that might interest them. My links would probably embellish on the theme of blog book tours. I also have a blogroll for members of the current blog challenge, and use these links list to visit the blogs. This is part of what we call "cyber-schmoozing" and it's a good thing to do in preparation for your own blog book tour down the road.

Finally, it's a good idea to have a separate blogroll of your favorite blogs that you think might make good hosts for your future tour. Scoping out those blogs takes a lot of time, so it's best to do a little work each day. It's so much easier to look at your own list of favorite blogs, and then invite those friends to host you, than to be left scrambling just weeks before your blog book tour is scheduled to begin.

Here's a starting point for you thanks to My Friend Amy's Blog - a list of book review blogs, lots of them. Click on the button at right, and then explore a few of them every day. Add your favorites to a blogroll on your site. It won't take any time to accumulate a list of fabulous blogs to host you. We'll also cover other techniques for finding great and unusual blogs at a later time.

How do you go about finding blog hosts for a tour? Leave us a comment.

10 comments:

Morgan Mandel said...

My blogroll is getting immense. I can't always go through the whole thing in one day. I'm thinking I'll vary and sometimes start at the bottom to give everyone equal time.

Morgan Mandel
http://morganmandel.blogspot.com
http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com
http://bloodredpencil.blogspot.com

Katie Hines said...

Learning more about blogging is part of the reason I'm here in the group. Thanks, Dani, for a concise, easy-to-understand posting!

http://katiehines.blogspot.com

Katie Hines said...

I went to the Amy site, but was inundated with too much information. Wading through it was not a pleasant prospect. Other than reading the whole darned thing, I tried to scroll to the bottom right and find the book review sites, but I couldn't find it.

Anonymous said...

I love my blog roll. It gives me quick access to blogs that have an opening of interest to me.

I also like the blogger function that allows me to quickly add the blogs that I decide to follow in my travels.

Simplicity is awesome.

http://karensyed.blogspot.com

Jane Kennedy Sutton said...

Thanks for adding me to your blog-a-day list. I have started a blog roll list of my own today. I am learning so much from this tour!

Jane Kennedy Sutton
Author of The Ride
http://janekennedysutton.blogspot.com/

Ann Parker said...

I'm so glad you addressed blogrolls today, as I am slowly working on mine and needed some guidance. And here's a question:
Is it better to ONLY list blogs that relate to the focus (or foci) of your own blog site (for instance writing, editing, mysteries, what have you)?

What about those other, random blogs on unrelated topics? Is it okay to add those or does it "dilute" the whole effort in some way?

Thoughts? Comments?

Thanks!

Joy said...

Thanks Dani. It's good to learn more about blogging. This challenge is fun, so far. I just hope I don't run out of ideas.

Joy Delgado
http://www.laughing-zebra-children-books.com
http://zooprisepartyfiestazoorpresa.blogspot.com/
http://goingbeyondreading.blogspot.com/

Sharon Reece said...

Hi Dani,
I'm doing the Jan blog challenge and noticed that my name is not on your blogroll. I think there may be others not on it as well. So if people are using that list they will not be visiting all the challengers. I added each one manually unto a blogroll on my own blog in order to easily follow and comment on each one. Unfortunately I can't do all the 20+ in one day so I'm trying to skip around and get in as many as I can each day. I'm having a great time and learning a great deal.
Thanks,
Sharon
http://grandmaisawriter.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

I customize my blogroll(S) (I have three of them, categorized for ease of sifting)to be listed according to most recently updated and I have a "snippet" showing of what they are posting about. That way I can visit and stay in touch with revered bloggers posting topics of interest to me without having to visit them all every day.

Nancy J. Parra said...

Thanks for the great info!