If you’re a blogger, chances are you’ve heard of trackbacks.

Most likely, you probably don’t know what these are and what

they have to do with your blog. That’s alright, as most people

don’t quite understand how trackbacks work and why they are

useful for a blog. In this article, we’re going to go over

trackbacks—what they are, how they work, why they are important

to blog traffic, and how to get more trackbacks. After you’ve

read this, you’ll know practically everything there is to know

about trackbacks.

What are trackbacks?

The concept of trackbacks is a bit hard to explain. So we’ll use

an example to explain it in the best way possible.

OK, say you see a great blog post on another person’s blog and

want to link to it on your blog. You could do this the

old-fashioned way by manually putting a link on your site to

that blog. However, if you do it this way, the person whose blog

post you are linking to won’t know that you are linking to them

unless you tell them.

This is where trackbacks come in. A trackback is a program which

will notify the owner of a blog when one of their posts has been

linked to at another blog.

How do they work?

A blog that has a trackback system set up will have a link at

the bottom of every blog post. This link will say something like

"Blog This!" Anyone who clicks the link can then put a link to

that blog post on their site. The person who posted the original

blog will then be notified via email that their blog posting has

been linked to. Additionally, the link that was clicked("Blog

This!") will change to "Trackbacks". From that point forward,

the "Trackbacks" link will keep track of how many people have

chosen to blog about that particular post. So after the first

trackback, it will say "Trackbacks: 1". The number of trackbacks

recorded will be updated as they occur.

Why are trackbacks important to blog traffic?

The easy answer is that trackbacks are important because they

increase awareness of your blog. Trackbacks also make a blog

seem more credible. After all, people have to think your posts

are good enough to be trackbacked.

Anytime a person makes a trackback on your blog, they make a

post on their own blog about your blog. This, in turn, lets

their readers know about your blog. Chances are, their readers

will want to visit your blog to see what the big deal is. If

they see something on your blog that they like, they’ll keep

coming back for more, which means you’ll have a whole new

fanbase of readers. That means more traffic for your blog.

Can you imagine what would happen if 5 different bloggers

trackbacked a post on your blog? Depending on how popular their

blog is, that’s potentially as much as hundreds of new readers

for your blog! Pretty incredible, right?

Also, every trackback made, assuming it is a legitimate one(and

some trackbacks are spam, especially if they are there only to

link to another site) adds credibility to your blog. Blogs with

high amounts of trackbacks look credible because lots of people

like the posts enough to trackback them.

How can I increase the number of trackbacks I get?

The easiest and best way to increase trackbacks is to frequently

post. If you post frequently (2-3 times a week), people will

have quite a few posts that they can trackback. However, it is

important to make sure that your posts are of a good quality.

Quality blog posts are those that people can relate to and are

easy to read. If you post a long boring rant, people probably

won’t want to trackback that. But if you post a decent sized

rant that is entertaining (and that people are likely to agree

with), you’ll get trackbacked.

The number of trackbacks you get is totally dependent on the

number of visitors your blog receives and how frequently you are

able to make quality posts. If you’ve got a good amount of

visitors and write good blog posts, you’ll get trackbacks.

P.S. Trackbacks are a wonderful thing for every blog. You are

able to know when your blog posting has been posted about at

another blog, plus you potentially gain more visitors. It’s a

win-win situation for you! BandoMarketing.com