by Gordon Hamilton

Created on: March 23, 2009

It is almost always a good idea that we use any and all presences which we may have online to effectively promote our other web pages and blogs. This is, after all, what the Web is all about in the sense that pages link to other relevant pages as much as possible and create what becomes an effective information chain. When we are looking to promote other websites and blogs on Helium, however, we have to be extremely careful in how we do so and for very good reason.

Whenever we are including outbound links on any of our websites or blogs, we should always make sure that they are relevant to the content included on the said website or blog. This may therefore give the novice Helium writer the impression that if they are writing to Helium on such as a cooking recipe and they have a very effective and successful blog upon the subject of cooking recipes that it is perfectly acceptable and extremely relevant to link from their Helium article to their blog. In terms of the theory described in the opening paragraph of this article, the link would of course be relevant but if the blog identifies the Helium writer in any way, a problem could very well arise.

The problem is of the kind that Helium is designed in such a way that the textual content of the articles written to the site must not identify the author in any sense. This is because the rating process, which determines the position of the article in relation to others written to the same topic, depends on anonymity. If a rater is faced with two articles and clicks on a link on one of them which identifies the author, it is possible that the rating process will be compromised, either in the author's favour or possibly otherwise. That is why it is good to include relevant links from Helium articles but they must be to sites which either the author has no personal interest in or which do not identify them as having such an interest.

The good news, however, is that Helium provides ample and very effective opportunities for its writers to promote their personal websites and blogs via their "About Me" page. The writer can complete this section with their personal and professional details and although the main panel does not permit HTML for including links, each writer does have space to the right of the page for links to up to three other presences on the Web. This even means that said links need not be to pages or sites which are relevant to the subjects upon which the writer writes on Helium as the page is promoting them as a person and their Web activities as opposed to any particular topic.

This means that we can utilise Helium very effectively to promote our websites and blogs elsewhere on the Web - we simply have to be very careful and conscious of how we go about the procedure.

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