branding

Link this!

or ‘How to get more links into your news site.’

Part of the job or a pr/ branding practitioner these days includes being up to date on everything from politics to what’s hot on television. To that end, the daily dose of newspapers - both digital and physical - and magazines have become a must for me. However, aside from scanning (or trawling) through the sites and pages quickly, there are some online and offline publications that I take the time to look at closely. To really read the articles. To comment. To link to.

However, I’ve often wondered just how good the mainstream news sites were at linking to sites outside of their own.

My own experience in the early days of helping the leading national English language daily in Malaysia build its online presence  and their subsequent growth over the years didn’t exactly inspire much confidence in the idea of newspapers that linked willingly.

While sites like Digg made linking to other sites a core part of its business model, a little digging online - no pun intended - revealed that more and more news organisations were getting comfortable with the idea as well. But did this strategy work - or did it draw attention away from a reader?

Well, according to this story, linking does indeed work online.

The UK based search engine optimisation firm behind the look at how news organisation’s link, found that the higher link in’s to a news site were directly proportionate to the amount of links that it had going out from its site.

	Links out			Links
Newspaper	Main stories	Blog posts	Domain Strength	Incoming	Outgoing
			99%	29,629,082	1,730,000
			99%	18,415,777	970,000
			88%	25,667,372	1,940,000
			97%	15,114,877	1,600,000
			87%	14,421,388	722,000
			98%	11,986,781	729,000
			99%	11,867,676	1,080,000
			97%	9,968,336	1,360,000
			92%	7,862,887	254,000
			97%	7,038,634	474,000
			92%	5,980,262	275,000
			83%	5,434,310	357,000
			88%	4,121,583	144,000
			93%	3,995,969	330,000
			97%	3,709,030	1,460,000
			96%	3,667,889	169,000
			83%	3,233,951	12,600
			92%	3,087,518	226,000
			90%	2,452,153	211,000
			88%	1,001,791	16,800
			78%	552,930	196,000
			74%	408,462	60,700
			60%	183,570	14,500
			60%	164,586	3,960
			58%	94,804	878
			48%	31,356	33

(source: The SEO Company)

True, in speaking to journalists at various publications the findings of the survey - which mirrored a quick straw poll locally - were that there were indeed policies in place that encouraged linking out. Challenges were inherent of course in implementing these policies and also in deciding the difference between ’sources’ and ‘links.’

I also found that magazine sites were more inclined to link to blogs or other news sites as they were more interested in keeping their news fresh online - not always easy with a fortnightly or monthly publication.

My two cents - Now while I understand that a news site needs to make money and keeping a visitor on your site helps you do that, I personally find myself spending more time returning to sites that offer me more value. This does not mean I don’t stop and look at the others - it’s just that I would not spend too much effort talking about them, thinking about them or recommending them.

And is this not the reason you’re online in the first place - to start a conversation and keep it going?

This can be in the form of:

• cutting edge news analysis which goes beyond the wire stories
• reviews that are as relevant as they are fair (even if you are being paid to blog)
• access to experts in the field as well as the man/woman in the street
• thought leaders
• trend setters
• links to other information that is relevant

This last is especially useful as it helps me place the information in context.

It helps round out my thoughts. It inspires me. And most importantly - there is never a single correct answer - just opinions that are closer to or further away from my own. And that last point I think is where links become even more important as they allow a writer to share their opinion and still back it up with facts and figures from other sources.

Should we offer links to opposing points of view? That’s a whole different kettle of fish.

What are your thoughts on this? And if you have any kind of quantitative views on how Asian or Malaysian sites are doing on this please do share them.

© 2008 Journeys Through The Line.