Linking is the lifeblood of blogging and, come to think of it, much else on the web.

Blogging is based on a dialogue, not a monologue. The community relies on hyperlinks to keep us all inter-connected and the conversations valuable and active.

One-way conversations are boring. In life and on the ‘net!

Those in the blog world who play by the rules and interact with others do and will benefit. Those who don’t, well: it’s unhelpful, to say the least.

By linking to another website you will, generally, help it (though there are increasingly complex elements within the Search Engines’ algorithms which mean that receiving a link from a ‘bad’ or off-topic page may be damaging to the recipient page’s Page Rank – more another time, though see other pages on ClubBlogger on the topic).

Linking to fellow bloggers actually helps you, because they will find that backlink (otherwise known as ego-searching) and probably visit your blog out of curiosity. Who knows — they might even bookmark you, or even better link back to you and become a regular reader. Always nice.

Fact: the blogosphere environment is absolutely no different than the community – in ‘real’ life or online. What you put in, you get out. Or at least, should.

On the topic of PageRank, according to Google:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence,Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important.”

In most blogs and websites that you may have visited, you would have noticed a button saying RSS Feed. It’s orange colored icon, present in all websites that involves regular updates. What does that mean? And how can that help you progress in your online business? How does RSS feed work? What do you need to do in order to get one for your website? Let’s try and explore these. 

Real Simple Syndication – that’s what RSS stands for. People use RSS feeds to collect and spread information across the World Wide Web. An RSS feeder will list all the updates that you are interested in across the various websites, into one single comprehensive list and you can then easily browse through one single list, pick up your choice and explore that further. Regular updates right at your inbox will help you immensely in channeling the wide range of information that is available on the internet, today.

Say you have a great product to sell – let’s consider it is a software that helps the user compose music on their laptops. Now every time that in a blog or a relevant forum, an user raises a query or concern over digital music recording, then you will get that feed instantly which in turn will help you address the query easily. Thus simply put, you stay up to date.

RSS feed will help you grow and manage a steady traffic of new subscribers and not just a handful of people visiting your page a number of times. You can also add RSS feeds to the main page of all your websites thereby allowing a real time record of activities on your website. Use the pinging service to promote your RSS feed thereby directly connecting it to the search engines which will pick up every update on your website and will display that real time. You can use feeds of other websites or you can use your own RSS feeds depending upon the situation. Your target is to give your audience quality content. When they subscribe to the RSS feed provided by your website, they should not get irrelevant content.

Next allow other sites to add your feed content. This will help in cross-promotion and you will get a wider audience. You can also think of importing RSS feeds from social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace.

A large leadership on record will also help you generate good advertising revenue from your website. Tracking the organic traffic to your website is of paramount importance when it comes to online business. You need to create a balance of using RSS feeds and Search Engine Optimization effectively for your product. So the idea is to use all the avenues at disposal to track the traffic and build up on that. Once you have a steady readership, a strong mailing list, good in route into active forums, you are more or less done with the ground work and is now time to actually put the business plan in action.

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Hey guys and gals!

Since today is a long awaited for “Woot Off” over at Woot.Com, I’m going to skip the long helpful post today, and leave you with some links I found helpful around the blogosphere during the past week. I highly suggest glancing through each article if the title catches your fancy, because they’re all awesome articles!

1. You Eat Where You Work (Awesome, but sickening article about eating in your workspace. Thanks a lot, Mike!)

2. Want Your Blog Reviewed? Drop A Comment (Getting reviewed on this blog will definitely boost the old reputation! Great offer here!)

3. 5 Tips To Grow Your Twitter Presence (From the Grandmaster himself. I’ve taken in interest in Twitter lately, and this post was perfect timing!)

4. Does Your Blog Monetization Leave Money On The Table? (Caroline Middlebrook delivers and well written, and well thought out look on blog monetization. Bravo!

5. 10 Of The Coolest Sites Used On The Planet Earth (Thanks to this article, I was turned on to a couple of sites that I had no idea existed, thanks!

6. Josh Spauldings Unique Article Submission Strategy (I’m all about article marketing, and I’m all about good strategies. This post is short, but very sweet. Thanks Josh!)

7. Keyword Research: What Are You Basing It On? (John Cow strikes up a great read here if you’re at all interested in keyword research, which I am, so it’s definitely worth a glance.)

8. Write With Authority And Inspire Trust (A Phenomenal read from PureBlogging.Com – every blogger should seriously take a look at this. I’ve mentioned similar ideas in a previous post. Great, great article!)

9. 6 Surefire Ways To Make A Blog Look Like Spam (This is something that all bloggers, especially new ones, should take a look at. Great tips Patrick!)

10. 5 Steps You Must Take Towards Self-Employment (Nate Whitehill knows his stuff, and this post hit home with me, because I’ve been working from home for about 4 months now, and he’s dead on with his advice!)