I feel we have a fairly unique product here at Free Business Tips.

One of the reasons the blog and the rest of the site is unique is because, well, to be honest we had no idea what a blog ’should be’ and what it ’should do’ and what they features ’should have’.

This means that we just told our web designer what we wanted, simple right?

Yes and no.

Our lack of “blogging savvy” means we have set things up a little differently to other blogs (and unique is cool), but it also meant we have been a little slow on the uptake on what makes a blog popular and how to get love from Google, Technorati, Alexa, Bloglines etc etc.

Lately I have been surfing around, madly reading blogs and researching what makes a good (popular) blog.

I was having a read at Darren Rowse’s Problogger site and Darren had linked back to a blog post Blogs Are Roads; Intersections by Steve Remington at Skinny Moose Media (cool name)

Steve points out that you shouldn’t be scared to share some “link love” from your blog,

The first biggest mistake most business blogs make is not linking out to external blogs. Some people are afraid it will drive traffic away to potential competitors.

He uses the analogy that you need to place your blog in a position to gain traffic from other blogs, like other fast food restaurants position themselves on the same intersections as McDonalds,

Look at Burger King and McDonald’s. You will always find them across the street from each other, or at least on the same strip of road in any given city. Burger King may lose some business to McDonald’s but in the long run they would actually be losing more business by moving out on a back road somewhere hoping people will come to them.

See how this is working already? Steve writes a great article for people new to blogging, Darren links back to him, I read Steve’s blog because I value Darren’s opinion, I am impressed by the article so I write one of my own and link back to Steve as well. I read the comments on Steve’s article and follow some of the links to the sites of commenters who might have said something particularly sensible, my track back will appear in Steve’s blog as a comment, and potentially we will get some traffic from Steve’s site………

See how the link love works!

Ok, so all you experienced bloggers will say, “Duh, we have known this for ages” I know, I know, bear with me while I catch up!

Have a read of Steve’s post On Skinny Moose Media (it is a cool name, I love it), it’s well worth it if like me you are a little green on the blog thing.

As for us at Free Business Tips, we will be working very hard to increase the traffic, and ranking of the site.

In the near future we will be changing the way we post in the blog a little. We will still have our own unique blogging format (articles written by our very smart contributors) but we will also be blogging in a more traditional way, more topical posts by myself and Steve Gray , more reviews of other blogs and business sites (to get the link love going!), we might even do some competitions, Speed linking (see an example of Speed linking on Problogger) and some other methods.

We are also looking at a layout change.

So, any suggestions are more than welcome, and please drop me a line if you see something on the web that you think deserves a little ‘link love’ from us at FBT

Stumble it!