If you’ve come to the site expecting the next, great method for optimizing your site by strategically linking out to other sites, you’re going to be disappointed. What you might find is a good business practice.

This post was inspired by a reader (who doesn’t have a site or else I would link to him!) who emailed asking if I have a strategy for linking and referencing other posts. There is a method defined by many smart search engine optimization professionals that shows linking to well-established sites with high traffic and high search engine rankings can in turn help your blog or site look better to search engines - thus helping get more traffic from searches. Their strategy is certainly not incorrect. They know what they’re talking about (and can explain the practice much better than I can).

But, I’ve chosen a different strategy - linking out to quality content that I think the small business marketer would enjoy and from which they will benefit. That could mean referencing an author’s first post on their new site (which I’ve actually done) or a post written by an author with over 10,000 readers (done that as well).

When I first started the Lonely Marketer, I never thought 450+ people would subscribe to my site. I also never imagined established, quality authors such as Matt, Drew, and Chris would reference one of my posts on their site. They had no idea who I was at the time, but found something they liked in my post that their readers might enjoy. That is what this is all about!

I tie this strategy back to my outlook on business and that feeling when your company lands that big order from that huge customer. What a great feeling, right? Well, that huge company was once small.

Remember to take notice of the small orders and build those relationships from the ground up. One day those small orders won’t be so small.

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