Seeking Guest Blogging Exchange and cross linkages - Good and bad Experiences?

[SB Frank]

Hi - I'm writing because I'm in the process of looking for bloggers who are willing to cross post some material on my site in exchange for me posting some material on theirs. I'm looking for something more formal than just pulling their review off the wire. I've also been offering to link to anyone's page related to my genre (urban fantasy and paranormal romance). Does anyone have any good bad experiences with these tactics for getting my blog off the ground? Advice for the newbie?

[Stacy-Deanne (Novelist)]

Hi SB,

I don't know if bloggers exchange content much but I do know that they will exchange links with you. All you do is email them asking them and most of them will agree. As far as content exchange, I have seen literary bloggers share reviews from other sites but it seemed to be only with folks they knew personally. You can always ask though.

Good luck! As long as you don't spam or plagarize anyone then you're on the right track.

http://www.stacy-deanne.net

[SB Frank]

Thanks!

[Books For Sale]

Cross posting is generally not a good idea. The reason for this is that Google doesn't like it when they see the same post across multiple blogs. They assume that one of the blogs copied it, possibly without permission. If you rely heavily on Google search engine traffic then be aware that such cross posting can result in duplicate content and penalties on your site which would hurt your search engine rankings.

However, link exchanges are always good. Of course the older and more developed your blog is the higher up you can link. When you first start out you usually can't expect to get link exchanges with any but the smallest of blogs.

The best way to handle promotion is to exchange links within the body of reviews. For examples if you know someone else who has reviewed the same book that you have they can link to your review and you can link to their review. These links are much more valuable for both parties involved.

[SB Frank]

This was very helpful. It never occurred to me to ask for links within reviews. Thanks!

[drey]

I agree! And I know it's hard to start out...

As for linking to reviews of the same book, I'm just starting that practice, so email me if you're reviewing a book I've reviewed. Which means I need to update my list of books reviewed. *sigh* Why oh why is there never enough time in a day? =)