If someone near you at a cocktail party starts talking about you, don't your ears perk up? Don't you feel impelled to get involved in the conversation?
Well, there's a simple tool to listen in on what people are saying about you: your referer log. It shows you who is linking to you and how much traffic they are sending your blog.
I read my referer log every day to see if someone new has linked to my blog. One little trick is I read it from the bottom up. On Radio UserLand it shows you who has linked to you from the highest traffic sites to the lowest. On TypePad, it shows you the referers from most recent to oldest. Not as nice, but TypePad has trackbacks so you can see who is linking to specific posts.
Most referer logs let you click on the Web address of the site that is linking to yours. That way you can read what they are saying about you.
Now the fun part begins: write back on your own blog and continue the conversation! That'll demonstrate that you're listening. That you're clued in. And that you're willing to link "off property."
So, read your referer log often and talk back.
Want something that's better than a referer log? Bloglines.com/citations does the same thing, but lets you look at who is linking to any site on the Web. Just put a URL in and you'll get a list of people who are linking to you. Here's one for NakedConversations.com and another for redcouch.typepad.com.
