Links have obviously been the main traffic driving thing for the web ever since it began. You go to a page, the info there contains a link to somewhere else, and so it goes on.
I often get emails from musicians wanting to ‘swap links’ – they’ll put a link to my site on their if I’ll add one to theirs on my site.
Now, while I appreciate the thought process behind this, that’s never been what a links page has been about for me. A links page should tell you a lot about the person whose site it is. It’s one of the first places I head when I’m checking out a website – what are they into, who do they want me to check out, what’s important to them? Same with blogs – you can tell a lot about a blogger by the blogs they read.
So my links page is all about what I listen to, what I’m into, what I think is important, musicians and things I want to support, places to go to get more info about the stuff that’s already on the site. My blog links on this page are to blogs I read, not blogs I want people to think I read cos it would be cool, or links I’ve swapped with other bloggers.
There are very few people on my links page that link back to me – a few of the bassists do, some of the music equipment companies etc. They are they cos I dig what they do, not because I can get some more traffic out of them.
If you want to link to me, please do. If you’d like me to link to you, send a link over, I’ll check out the site, and if it’s something that becomes part of my webosphere, it’ll go up there, but not if you make linking to you a condition of linking to me.
So, head over to my links page, check out some of the musicians, or the political stuff, or just the fun stuff. It’s all things I like a lot.
Or just have a read of the links to other blogs on this page.
Soundtrack – Seth Horan, ‘Conduit’ (that’s another link to follow to check out a fabulous singing solo bassist); Spearhead, ‘Stay Human’; David Wilcox, ‘Into The Mystery’.