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Chances are you’ve heard of trackbacks but probably you don’t know what these are and what they have to do with your blog. Many bloggers don’t quite understand how trackbacks work and why they are useful for their blogs. So 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 placing a link in a post to
that blog. However, if you do it this way, the person whose blog post you are linking to may not pick up that you are linking to them unless you tell them.

This is where trackbacks come in. Under the post while you are writing it is a trackback box. So as well as placing the link in the post also place the url into the box. If you are using several urls, leave a space between them so the program will know they are separate urls. The trackback program will then notify the owner of a blog when one of their posts has been linked to at another blog.

How do trackbacks work?

Wordpress has a system incorporated in a new install but an older install may not and you may need a plugin. A blog that has a trackback system set up will have a link at the bottom of every blog post but you may need to actually open the single post to see it.

What I mean by this is to click on permalink or the title of the post (if that is a link) so that you can see the whole post with comments. Then to enable trackBacks in WordPress , go to Options > Discussion.

Check the checkbox “Attempt to notify any Weblogs linked to from the article”(for sending a trackback) and also check the checkbox under it ”Allow link notifications from other blogs (pingbacks and trackbacks.) “ (for receiving a trackback)

When these are enabled the person who posted the original blog will then be notified that their blog posting has been linked to. 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 may say “Trackbacks: 1”. The number of trackbacks recorded will be updated as they occur. Or it may place a trackback excerpt in the comments field.

If that all sounds a little complicated watch Jack Humphreys Video Tutorial on Trackbacks in the library for more clarity.

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.

When a person makes a trackback on your blog, they have made 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 else you have and you’ll have a whole new fanbase of readers. That means more traffic for your blog.

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! So it’s worth doing, 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(2-3 times a week), good quality content.Quality blog posts are those that people can relate to and are easy to read. If you post a decent sized article or rant that is entertaining (and that people are likely to agree with), and you get a bit of traffic, eventually 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. 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 both you and the other blogger! In fact if you have friends blogging, try to exchange trackbacks regularly, it will help both (or all) of you a great deal.

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