Like many others with a food blog, I have other web sites--some business, others personal--and I am wondering about establishing linkage between them and my food blog. I can see how perhaps a link to my business might be a good idea (I am a writer so this even makes sense) but then there are others that I am less sure about.
Like sites based on humor.
I have a Cafe Press site that is selling items with a humorous line on them. But one person's joke is another person's fighting words so I am not sure if I should link one site to another. OTOH, it's not unreasonable to use one of my sites to promote another of my sites--especially the one that might make me a nickel.
But I don't want to lose readers either.
Thoughts? What of your other stuff do you link to? How? Have you had any feedback or did nobody even notice?
(if you want to see the humor in question, the cafe press shop is "usorthem" (all one word) but i am not linking directly to avoid this seeming like self-promotion, which is not the point)
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I guess we are one of the few blogs that is directly linked to a business of sorts - our blog Via Ritiro N.7 is directly linked to loveSicily our travel company to Sicily.
I never thought of it as a negative thing since both things started out of a wish for us to move to Sicily and share our experiences - especially with regards to food. And we hardly evr post something on the blog to advertise the company directly. In fact, I would be suprised if most of our readers never made the link!
It would be weird if the blog suddenly started supporting a businees that is completely irrelevant to the blog subject.
So in conclusion - a little link is not bad. Total integration if totally relevant could also work. Non-stop promotion - i.e. stories that are just advertising is downright annoying.
My blog was originally a part of my business. I teach cooking and it was intended to be a place to add recipes for my clients to read. I was just unaware at the time about the exact nature of blogs and how they are veiwed) with direct and overt links to my work website.
I have downplayed those links over time as the direction and tone of my blog changed.
While it is still relevant to my job, it (the blog) is no longer functioning as a subset to it. (That and the fact it has taken on a life and purpose of its own!)
That said, many of my clients do still read it and therefore I do think twice before linking to any sites I think may offend people. (And yet, some odd choices remain. Go figure.)
Once I get around to revamping OWF's links, I intend to put a link up to my (new) personal blog. I can't that people from around the world would care much about my non-food blog, but then at one point I thought the same about my food blog :)
If people read both, I'm sure my opinions will offend some, but I just figure it's not that big of a deal. After all, they might attract others as well.
I do keep in mind that an editor I'm pitching might choose to look at my food blog, and thus my non-food blog (though truthfully I can't think of any editor that has that kind of time), so I'll try to maintain the quality of my writing (such as it is) on both, but I'm not going to worry too much about my opinions.
thanks for the insights... on the Internet, nobody may know you are a dog, but they do know if you also write tech books... :-)
now i also get to deal with the problem with humor--the secondary site i am talking about was much funnier before i turned on the news (half an hour after i posted the question) and then suddenly not-so-funny for some people... (Sam and the rest of our UKers, i am hoping that everyone you know is safe and terribly sad for you and your countrywomen/men)
Hey - would swap authorship of "Agent-Based Software Development" with authorship of something along the lines of "The only recipes you will ever need" anytime!
heh heh... i am looking for some trade for anything on directory services...now there's a topic that more people should care about but don't... and yet, for some reason, i'd rather bake bread... LOL
I've been wrestling with this as well. My plan originally was to have TPC share the same visual look as DIF, mostly out of effeciency.
As I got closer to roll out, I decided to keep it more autonomous, partly because the hard sell isn't my nature anyway, and partly because I realized there is a lot going on in the world of food I wanted to cover that has no association to DIF. I will continue to mention my products though, especially until DIF gets rolling. Basically, I'm letting the content dictate the association, I guess.
My plan is to put some kind of humours disclaimer up at some point, but most of my readers are customers anyway. Of course, that leaves my blog half finished...
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