For Love of the Blogroll: Follow Friday edition

Yesterday Hubspot suggested deleting the blogroll from a blog’s sidebar. Sidebars can get junky with too many widgets, but I look to blogrolls to find new bloggers and likes me a good, current blogroll. So I’ve updated mine.

Expose the Guilty

One of the first things I have changed is recognizing the blogger by name rather than blog title. I like the Spin Sucks name, but I read it because I love Gini Dietrich and her community. See also Mark W. Schaefer’s Business Grow, Shonali Burke’s Waxing Unlyrical. They’re guilty of some good marketing, PR and social media posts so I gotta call ’em out on it.

Act Like a ProfessionalCatch Up with old friends

It’s been too long since I checked some of these, like Bad Pitch or Rohit Bhagarva lately. Glad I did; I read and tweeted some good posts, offered my two pennies in the comments.

Missing in Action

Blogs and bloggers move around, so your blogroll links may be out of date. I thought David Mullen’s blog had disappeared. Turns out it moved; my bad. Mack Collier has his Viral Garden, but it’s not updated as often as his business blog. Same for Augie Ray’s Experience; he does his blogging at Forrester.

Less is More

I “deleted” links from my blogroll, not because I don’t enjoy Beth Harte or Marc Hausman’s posts (I do) but there’s too much of a good thing. I wanted to include bloggers I’m currently reading, like Shonali and Neicole.

Gone, not Forgotten

I have not forsaken those who’ve been edited. Once I figure out the technological voodoo behind have two blogrolls, I may split it into Favoritest and Rest of the Best sections. And still read, link to your posts.

More is Better

Scott Stratten’s Unmarketing blogroll is made of win. He’s listed his favorite bloggers and told you why, right there in the sidebar. Love it. Kami Huyse has the latest post for each blogger linked in her blogroll, that’s a neat trick. Erika Napoletano lists a blogroll on a separate page, which can clear up sidebar clutter and give plenty of space for blogs and descriptions. Yet I suspect I’m one of the view who’s actually visited it.

One of the reasons my Follow Friday is done in blog form is so I can tell you why you should follow these people, give more detail about which blogs I’m reading most often. So it’s a quality vs. quantity thing I guess.

How often do you read a blogroll? Do you ever revisit or update your blogroll links? Tell me.

Want More? Keep Reading.

4 thoughts on “For Love of the Blogroll: Follow Friday edition

  1. I have found wonderful information by following the links in blogrolls, and I think they are a great feature to provide for several reasons, here are a few:
    1) It provides a service to your readers.
    2) It shows people that you are their fan.
    3) It shows something about you.
    4) It makes links. (Search engines love links.)
    5) When you use blog software like WordPress for building *websites*, the blogroll feature is a great way to make external links, to *things not limited to blogs*.

    1. You beat me to it John, I was just about to comment on your Black Friday post.

      I like blogrolls, I look to them to see who everyone is reading, and to find new things. Whenever I get to a new site/blog, I’m always psyched to find a cool, new site or blogger I didn’t know was out there. Which is why I’m trying to rethink mine, keep it more up to date. Thanks.

  2. Thank you for the mention and inclusion, Davina – I truly appreciate it.

    You know, I’m still in two minds about blog rolls. Initially, I set one up because it seemed it was “the thing” to do. I had a few really big-name bloggers on there (the usual suspects), but when I got to the point that I unsubscribed from them in my Reader, I asked myself, “Why are they still listed on my blog roll?” So I removed them.

    I still have my blog roll going and try to keep it updated, but part of the problem is that there are so many different bloggers I find and like who weren’t on my original blog roll… how do I put them on without it becoming a complete cluster-you-know-what? And some of them aren’t in the PR/social media world, but I enjoy their blogs… so what do I do with them?

    I’m still trying to figure it out. Do I do a separate page with different blog categories? Dunno. Any ideas?
    Shonali Burke recently posted..Fitness Tips for Public Relations Pros

    1. In the same boat, Shonali. (Oh and you’re welcome. 🙂 The usual suspects are fine when you get started, but as your blog develops and takes on its own voice, some of those links may not be as relevant. My business and therefore my business blog is geared more towards marketing for small business, so I find more scalable posts to share. I think making a point of updating the blogroll is one step; another is sharing posts from other blogs via Twitter or recap posts.

      I’m subscribed to so many blogs and feeds that my Reader is on overload; need to figure out how to triage and sort those, streamline my reading. When I find a different or interesting blog, I do check the blogroll just to see who they are reading and love finding someone else new. Would just like to find a way to showcase everyone without making the blogroll a hot mess, so I’ll probably start doing more summary posts, like your Weekly Roundup.

      I’m still kicking around my idea of a divided blogroll, should I find a way to do it without junking up the sidebar. Maybe categorize it in sections like you mentioned. I have a “lagniappe” category for blog posts that don’t exactly fit. I do read blogs that are outside of PR and social media, link to good ones like @RedheadWriting when they’re on point but not sure about including them in the blogroll. New post idea: from time to time, list blogs and bloggers we read that are about things other than PR and social media?

      Just thinking… thanks for the ideas.

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