Trackback and How It Can Improve Your Blog Traffic

Thursday, September 3, 2009
What is trackback and how can it help you to improve your blog traffic?

Trackback is one of traffic technique. It is a technique when you leaving a comments on someone blog or website and put you blog/site link on your comment. However it is time consuming unless you have a lot of time to search every blog/site related to your blog topic, reading it and then comments on it.

Simply said, trackback is one kind of blog conversation that links two or more relevant blog entries together. One blogger writes an article that references or is relevant to another blog's article and fills out the trackback section. When the blogger publishes the article the blog leaves a trackback on the other blog's article, which usually appears in the comments area as a truncated summary with a link.

I will show you how to send a trackback, the way I understand it.

Each blogging software system handles trackbacks differently. Bloggers can also choose to switch trackbacks off or require every trackback be approved before going live, so don't be surprised when you send a trackback and it doesn't show up, it may have nothing to do with you.

Some blogs will trackback automatically, or attempt to, especially if they are the same format. For example a WordPress blog trackbacking a WordPress blog. In that case as long as you include a link to the other blog's post your blog will attempt a trackback (sometimes called a "pingback").



Usually you have to manually enter a trackback URI into the blog entry you are creating. You can find the trackback URI at the end of most blog posts (take a look at your blog posts for the term "Trackback URI" or similar).

By the way -

URL = Uniform Resource Locator, a fancy name for 'Link'

URI = Uniform Resource Identifier, another fancy name for 'Link'

How To Improve Your Traffic by Trackbacking?

If you trackback someone else's blog post you are leaving a link that points back to your blog. Someone who reads the blog article may click through from the link and visit your blog. In some cases, if they are not using the "nofollow" tag, you get some PageRank juice which will help your search engine rankings.

Trackbacks are good because they bring traffic to your blog when you trackback other blogs. Being the "victim" of a trackback is also good because
it means another blogger has read your blog and deemed something you wrote worthy of including in their blog. There is a good chance if they trackbacked you that they also made a direct link to your blog too.

This helps your social proofing because it provides evidence that other people are reading and responding to your blog articles. However the real power of trackbacking is an awareness building tool to get the attention of other bloggers.

When you first start blogging not many people will know your blog exists. By trackbacking other bloggers you demonstrate interest in their content which is a surefire way to make them interested in you and your blog.

It's very likely that the blogger you trackbacked will follow the link and see what your blog is all about. If you have been following my advice and have written some pillar articles your new visitor will like what they see, very likely subscribe to your blog and if you are lucky may even trackback you or mention your blog in a future entry on their blog.

If nothing else, by trackbacking a blogger you will forever occupy some of their mind-space, which in the future may open up all kinds of doors and opportunities for traffic.

There's a lot of other way to improve your blog traffic. If you love to read other people post, then trackback is suitable for you.

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