Several people have asked me to add URL links to my posts when I reference them. I appreciate that links will help my readers, but let me explain my disinclination to include them.
Put bluntly, it takes me about twice as long to post if I take the time to get the URL’s right because I must count 15 spaces exactly from the header, create the link using a Typepad format, and then test it. I view the value of my blog as putting many ideas out there for law department managers, not laboriously linking lots of my posts on the off chance that someone will click through every now and then. If readers are interested in a prior post, they can find them easily in the chrono archive.
My second reason is that the blog, which has more than 2,400 posts, has yet to produce one consulting client. And I doubt that the lack of links has deterred prospects from calling. The return on my time if I were to add hyperlinks is not there. It turns out that my readers are vendors, consultants, law firms, and some law departments. Something is working, however, as I average about 250 visitors a day and have about 200 RSS subscribers.
Thus, I find I am writing it for myself, a diary of ideas and a reason to think about what I encounter and read. I draw on the blog corpus all the time for my consulting and I publish 8-12 articles a year with blog posts often as the foundation. I also enjoy the craft of writing and always try to write more effectively.
It is easy to ask someone else to do additional work, and hyperlinks would certainly make this blawg more immediate and integrated, but the benefit is not there for me. I wish there were software or some easy way to automate links, but it takes me much time already simply to find, think about, and organize my prior posts.
I welcome responses or suggestions.