Photo Credit : Similar by Elsie

Similar posts is a wonderful plugin which helps you display related/similar posts after or before your blog posts, however it works only for you blog posts. Although, you may also want to display related content from various other websites and help reach your readers to the right places.

Well, I don’t get the point of displaying the links of other people ?

Everyone has a perspective and if you are not interested in showing the links of other bloggers then you are free to avoid these things. However, I would specify the benefits and negatives of this and you can take your decision after going through both sides of the aspect -

Benefits of displaying related posts from blogosphere -

1. User experience is what matters : The reason people prefer to read blogs is that they are interested in some quality posts from subject matter experts, although there are many people who have written something or the other on a subject and have different perspective to things and as a reader you will relate to that person more, who’ll have the perspective similar to yours. So, a reader will get back to your blog more and more the more you’ll send them away to great content.

They want to reach great content and if you can provide great content and links to great content, then they are likely to come back to your blog rather than the blog which can only provide great content. The reader experience gets better and that’s why they’ll prefer you over other blogs.

2. Link outs to other blogs : This strategy can be pretty handy to drive more traffic to your own blog. When you link out, that particular blogger will come to your blog and because they are in the same niche, you will be able to network in a better way and every blogger who has a great network gets more popular than the ones who don’t have huge network. So, the idea is to ensure that you increase your network and get more popular.

Negatives of displaying related posts from blogosphere -

1. Reader may not come back : If you aren’t that good in providing the good content and if the blog where the reader will land up from the related link from your blog can attract that particular reader. Of course, this is a possibility and you should work on your content, if that’s your fear.

2. Hurts the Search engine optimization : When a page has many outgoing links then it hurts the search engine optimization too. Search engines give less value to those pages and that can overall hurt you search engine rankings.

How can I display related posts from the blogosphere ?

There are various plugins through which you can easily display the related posts from around the blogosphere and you can reap the benefits -

1. Sphere Related Content : This is an excellent plugin from the service, Sphere. It display related blog posts, videos, photos to ensure that the readers will be able to get the best of the blogosphere content.

2. TagALLY for WP : This plugin puts a tag cloud and once someone mouse overs those tags, it displays the related content from your blog and around blogosphere.

3. Arkayne Related Content : Arkayne related content is similar to similar posts plugin and displays the related links above or below your content. The only thing is that it gets the links from outside your blog. It’s a wordpress widget or can be used as a javascript as well.

So are you in favor of showing related posts from the blogosphere or not ? Do you think it can improve your blog’s visibility or will it affect you adversely.