Blogroll vs linklove vs advertiser
What's the difference? Everyone is searching for some degree of success with a blog whether it be a personal blog or a business orientated blog. When this success comes one needs to make some decisions that might not have needed to be made previously.One such question is how to define between a blogroll, linklove and an advertiser. Sponsors are more easily defined as they are clear-cut from the get-go.Who do you blogroll? People you knowI had an interesting, albeit brief, discussion with Justin about his new design and who he blogrolled and why.He made it clear that his blogroll is trying to be a definition of his blog and his presence online. He has blogrolled people that have influenced, affected or touched him in one way or another. I think this is a good move. Especially when it comes to a personal blog. This is an effective what to decide who receives free advertising on your site.People who have blogrolled youThis is what I have done on this blog. I have blogrolled people who I personally know and who have blogrolled me. This makes for a very, very long list. It also makes for a list that becomes irrelevant and meaningless in the greater scheme of things. But one cannot simply remove the people who you have blogrolled. Why I say this is because when I started my blog I worked hard to build relationships so that people would put me on their blogroll. This has helped me with my Technorati ranking.If I remove many people from my bogroll, they might just do the same.People who payThe more tricky of the three option is this one. You need the right stats to demand payment for a blogroll. Simple. If you don't have the stats you wont get the payment.Then there is the small matter of "selling out". Selling your blogroll can seem like a bit of a sell out to your readers. This is definitely not the primary option in my mind.Your sidebarI think it is necessary to clearly define areas of your sidebar. It's pretty simple:SponsorAdvertiserLinkloveBlogrollThese are all basic ways you can define a sidebar when it comes to links. It's now easy for you and your reader to see who is paying you and for what service.It is also tricky to define the difference between a sponsor and an advertiser. If you look at the SA Rocks blog you will see that Virgin Money is the main (and only for the moment) sponsor. In my mind they are classified as both and advertiser and a sponsor on SA Rocks. For a very simple reason: there is a Virgin Money banner advert in the sidebar as well as a main sponsor button in the header.One of my favourite ways to reflect advertising space and advertisers is with a small and dedicated space in the sidebar that consists of various small square-sized adverts. This way advertisers receive maximum exposure, readers aren't confused and you stay content with the differentiation between a blogroll, linklove and and advertiser.LinkLoveMany people seem to forget that linklove within a blog post is a form of free advertising. However I personally have no issue with this if the post and the mention of the product/site/person is also relevant to the blog post topic and your blog in general.If you are going to do an entire post on a single product and your statistics call for it, you can charge for advertorial content. This is an extremely print-media orientated method of charging for content but when it comes to blogs this is extremely effective.Choose your poison and see which model fits with your blog.
