3 Reasons You Don’t Need A Blogroll On Your Blog

Are you one of those bloggers who believe that having an extensive blogroll is doing service to other struggling bloggers like yourself? You may be right in thinking that, but what does having a blogroll do for you and your blog? Are they a good idea, or do they just take up space and clutter your site?

Blogrolls aren’t good for your SEO

You’re leaking PR juice by linking to blogs whose owners may never even visit your site. Think carefully before you add a site to your blogroll. Remember that your homepage will always be the highest ranking page on your blog. A blogroll is usually put on the homepage – which means all the blogs you link to are getting the SEO benefits from you. What are you getting from them?
I’m not saying that linking to blogs is mainly about what you can get from them. Your blog list obviously includes blogs you like reading, but beware it don’t go crazy and link to every blog under the sun.

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Here’s what I’ve done:
I’ve removed my blogroll from my homepage and made a special ‘blogroll’ on one of my pages instead. I link to this page from my homepage so that one of my own pages receives the benefit from the homepage link. This way I can serve myself and still display my friend’s websites.

A Blogroll crowds your homepage

When you start adding blogs to your home page they can soon get out of hand. Where do you stop? How many do you add? How do you choose to add one friend’s site and not the other’s? You can offend a whole lot of people with blogrolls, and even lose some readers because of it. Of course, some bloggers will link back to you when you link to them, but the big blogs won’t care because they can afford to do without the handful of traffic you may be sending to them each month. Blogrolls make your homepage look very crowded. Apart from the SEO factor above, this is the main reason I removed my blogroll from my homepage. I wanted a more streamlined blog. You also have to spend a lot of time ‘cleaning’ your blogroll. Many bloggers don’t update their sites for months on end. You don’t want that sort of site visible from your homepage.

A Blogroll can make you lose traffic

Just think about it. You work long hours into the night in order to get blog traffic, yet the first thing (on your home page) you offer that hard-earned traffic when they arrive, is the temptation (and even encouragement) to leave your blog. Let’s face it, your blog is probably not the brightest one on your list. Readers will notice the bigger, better blogs they may have never heard of – had they not seen it on your site – and go over to read what they have to offer. You can potentially lose this reader if he/she finds something better on the blog you pointed them towards. Keep your readers on your blog by giving them as few reasons to leave as possible. You have to keep your ads if you’re earning from them. What is your blogroll bringing you?

What do you think of a blogroll? Do you have one and do you think they’re worth your while on your homepage?