I got more than a few great ideas lately from Seth Godin, who has a whole series of traffic building advice bits on his website, which you can find here.  There’s two good reasons why I did what I just did, and I’ll explain them now.

1. Citing those who give you ideas gives you credibility.  Back to that big-C word again, but it’s no less important now than it was then.  By talking about the people who tell you what to say, you prove that you have sufficient integrity to give credit where credit is due.  No one’s checking up on you.  No one can even really prove you “stole” an idea–the best they can do is say that “Simpsons did it first”, or something to that effect.  But when you take away the ability in the first place, declare that you got an idea from somewhere, you remove all the doubt.  This isn’t your idea, you’re saying, you’re just expounding on it.  You’re making a valuable contribution to discourse, even if you’re just standing on the shoulders of giants.

2. You might get some link love back.  Seth further goes on to say, and I agree with him, that when you give links, you should expect links back.  I’m calling you out on this one, Seth–I gave the link love, and now I’m counting on it back.  Remember, links help improve your picture in the blogging realm.  The more links you get, the higher value your blog becomes.

So never be afraid to link to someone else–what you say on your blog is just as valid, even if it isn’t all yours, and when you give link love, you have every right to expect it back.

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