Ah yes, the blogroll. (Not to be confused with the “throwed roll” at Lambert’s Café, but we digress.) No, this roll of the non-edible variety is the voluntary (or is it obligatory?) sidebar of links that bloggers include on their sites to tell readers, “Hey, if you like this site, here are some others that we think you may find helpful.”
Blogrolls are also a place for authors to swap links, similar to (but not quite as bad as) the Twitter I’ll-follow-you-if-you-follow-me mentality. In this case, the main purpose of the link is to build a link farm, not add value for the blog’s readers.
That’s not the case with our blogroll. The authors to whom we link are experts in their fields, or are company sites with widespread audiences. None of these folks are going to reciprocate our link. But they are going to add value to our readers.
So we wanted to give a summary, not just a cold hyperlink, to some of these authors with an explanation of why we think they are valuable resources for the industries they cover.
Individuals.We’ve followed Matt Cutts for some time. His Gadgets, Google and SEO missives let the long-time Google engineer share valuable information, often with a spam-fighting slant, from inside the Mountain View ‘Plex. New York City’s Anil Dash is a “pioneering blogger” and accomplished speaker with in-depth analysis of technology and the web in general, and blogging in particular. Avinash Kaushik is a current Googler and former Intuiter (can we say that?) adept at web analytics.
Search Engines. If you’re going to have a blog focused to a large extent on Search Engine Marketing, you might want to link to the search engines, huh? Google offers a regularly updated conversation on it products, technology and culture at its official blog, and has several others for AdWords, Analytics, etc. Yahoo has several blogs as well; we only wish the flagship Yahoo Search Blog was updated more frequently. Among the team blogs at Microsoft, the Bing Team has done a nice job since the revamped search engine launched (see our post) in June 2009.
Search Industry. Danny Sullivan and his fine team at Search Engine Land provide must-read news about the SEs and Search Engine Watch, a major promoter of search marketing conferences, keeps its finger on the pulse of search and analysis.
Social Media. Mashable, billed as the Social Media Guide, updates so frequently it’s hard to keep up. But it’s a great way to stay informed. The LinkedIn Blog also does a nice job, and seems to hold a special spot for the small businessmen and women finding our collective ways in the digital jungle. Inside Facebook is a comprehensive, independent recap of the latest from the Palo Alto social media giant. And you can keep up with the microblogging tool that has everyone aTwitter.
Measurement and Technology. StatCounter and comScore measure the digital world in which we live. And All Things Digital from the Wall Street Journal is probably the best look at new media by an old media behemoth. AllThingsD gets it.
Bottom line: Our blogroll really is our version of the tools that help digital marketers like you and us, not a link swap program to help our PageRank. We hope you find some value in the tools.