Linking from a blog post

Recently I had a conversation with another blog owner about the number of links included in a blog post; we were specifically discussing guest blog posts but the concept really applies to your own blog posts as well.

Links between blog posts are like a mini internet

He stated that he only accepts two links in a blog post and that having multiple links to one blog from within a post is of no real benefit. Do you agree with the lack of benefit? I don’t.

To me, including links is a means of giving more depth to whatever I am writing about. For example, if I am writing about good business communications I may link the terms good spelling, using capital letters and consistent style rather than explaining the value and meaning of each.

Of course there is also the advantage of potential additional traffic through increasing the number of links to and within my own blog. Even if only one link works for search engines, multiple links give a human more opportunities to visit my blog which is also important.

So for search engines, one link in a post may be sufficient but I see other reasons for adding links and judge the correct number of links by the content of the post (if you look through my blog you will see some posts have one or no links while others have many links).

Side note: limiting the links allowed for guest bloggers is a reasonable strategy, however, to avoid someone trying to spam your blog rather than providing quality content. I respect such limits and live to them when I supply guest posts, even when I think there are more links of value to the reader.