Should you link to others in your blog?
If your blog focuses solely on your own content, perhaps it’s time to change. Consider incorporating links to other people’s content.
High quality links reflect positively on you. “…The ability to aggregate really strong links helps bloggers’ credibility,” as Sara Quinn says in Naveed Saleh’s The Complete Guide To Article Writing. A section of Saleh’s book, which aims at aspiring journalists, inspired this post.
1. Help your readers
Links to good resources help your readers by explaining things in detail that isn’t appropriate for a blog post. Links can also address concerns relevant only to a small subset of your readers. You avoid alienating your mainstream readers, while satisfying the appetites of the few.
I often link to articles to give examples of the points that I make in my blog posts.
2. Provide attribution
It’s not nice to quote someone’s words without giving them credit. These days it isn’t enough to simply name them, if a relevant link is available.
However, a link alone doesn’t give you free rein to use other people’s material. Check out the resources for understanding “fair use” in my blog post, Legal danger for financial bloggers: Two misconceptions, three resources, one suggestion. By the way, the “Legal danger” post is a good example of enhancing credibility to linking to resources.
What’s your policy?
Do YOU link to resources outside your blog or corporate website? What’s your rationale for your policy? I enjoy learning from you.
Disclosure: If you click on the Amazon link in this post and then buy something, I will receive a small commission. I only link to books in which I find some value for my blog’s readers.
HI Susan. Linking to others can be tricky. Are you endorsing them? Are you agreeing with just one thing or everything they stand for? What if the quality of their work varies? My suggestion is to choose links of firms or people that you would be proud to be associated with.
Secondly, while there is a place for curators, an investment firm should create intellectual property and not be a curator – unless IP isn’t your thing at all!
Hi Russell,
You make an excellent point. That’s why I refer to “high quality links.”
In addition, depending on where you work, your firm’s compliance experts may have concerns about linking to outside sources. Before advisors start blogging, they should figure out guidelines for what’s acceptable, in terms of compliance.