Don't Overestimate The Power Of Blog Links
I have been doing some digging in the statistics of this site. As most bloggers I watch how many inbound links I get. It is strange bordering on the ridiculous, but with few other measurable results, watching the amount of conversation involving you is a way to make blogging worth the effort.
The question is, do blog links give any hard results besides the fact that a new link makes you go to sleep a bit happier...? Does blogs generate visits?
We could just say "yes" - end of discussion. That would be true. A link here and there gives you some random visitors. But if we make the question a bit more complicated, it is another story: Can blogs drive traffic to you the way traditional web sites can?
When I look in my stats reports, the answer is "absolutely not". The last three months something like 250 blogs have linked to this blog. Two thirds of them has generated less than 10 visits. A substantial number, say 40 blogs, has generated one click. One click, that would be the blogger himself checking that the link works.
This can be compared to Marketing.about.com where one link in two weeks has generated almost 400 visits, or Kommunikationsforum, a small Danish site, almost 150 visits.
Ok, I can hear you screaming: Doesn't he understand that he's just not good enough to be linked by the really good and big blogs, which would change the stats entirely!?
That might be the case. But most blogs aren't referred to by Doc Searls or bloggers like him.
That is why I come to the conclusion that you should not overestimate the power of blog links. They are a nice way of watching and engaging in the conversation, but they will not give you that many visitors. If you are struggling to find new readers, focus on finding ways to get into the traditional web sites. The readers are still there. And you may be their first encounter with a blog, which gives you amazing opportunities to grab their attention.