Trackbacks – What Are They Good For?

(Sing that title to the tune of “War!” by Frankie goes to Hollywood! )

Trackbacks are a “blog thing” that I have only learning about recently, thanks to Jack Humphry’s FTR blog.

Jack has this to say on the subject:

What Are Trackbacks and Why Do They Exist?

Trackbacks were created by blog software programmers to help bloggers easily link to each other and get credit for doing so with automation. Rather than writing about someone else’s blog post on your site and then writing to them to let them know you just linked to their post and asking for the possibility of them linking back to you, trackbacks automate the process.

If you’re a blogger, I want to encourage you to start using Trackbacks as a way to not just “tip” the writer for a great piece of content you read on another blog, but also as a way to create and continue the conversation on the subject.

This “conversation” is a vitally important part of blogging that makes it very different from a traditional “static” website.

The traditional site had content on it, and visitors to the site could read the content and (hopefully) enjoy it, but if they wanted to interact with the writer, or add their own thoughts or feedback on the subject, it was very difficult to achieve.

However, a blog usually allows readers to post comments after each post (and submit trackbacks) which helps extend the conversation.

This has several advantages for the blog owner:

1) It adds additional content to your blog, which is great from a search engine optimization (SEO) point of view (more content = more chance of getting rankings for keyword combinations = more traffic), and

2) It adds value to the initial post, by including different opinions & points of view, and can often turn a good post into a GREAT post, just through the interaction between blogger, reader and commentors.

If you’ve never had anything to do with Trackbacks, here’s a 6.5 min Utube video Jack did on the subject that’s worth a watch:

So, to get the best value out of your blog, be sure to use the trackback feature – both on your blog and other peoples blogs (by posting comments on theirs). It will bring you traffic (if you write a good comment) and (if you’re lucky), perhaps even some link popularity.