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I try to make an effort to respond to messages I receive through my contact form, by direct email, and through comments on my blog. I admittedly haven’t answered every single message, but in such instances, this is more likely due to me missing something as opposed to intentionally avoiding reading a message or writing a response to someone. My personal reason for ensuring I respond to everyone is because of the golden rule, and my tendency to do for others the same that I would appreciate them doing for me.

Neil Patel worded it well in a post he made on Quick Sprout, his blog about branding yourself for success. Of his four primary key points, I think the most essential point is that “no man is an island”, in that the little guys tend to comprise the majority.

My inspiration for writing about this comes from my decision to help a fellow blogger with some link love in my sidebar. I tend to reserve my sidebar links for sites that I consider to contain top-notch content. However, Danielle — a blogger, and more notably an SEO enthusiast — requested some help for an SEO contest in which she is currently partaking. Her request related to my inclusion of her Shopautodotca Seocontest in my blogroll for a period of about 2 weeks until the contest is over.

Whether she wins or not, I like to think that I had the opportunity to help someone out there who otherwise would have a difficult time without my help, as every link counts for her. In addition to the feel-good butterflies, I may have gained an extra reader and perhaps even an extra mouth that will someday say “hey, you should take a look at this blog I know about” when someone asks her a question that my blog might hold the answer to.

Even if this isn’t the outcome of lending a helping hand, I only gave up a little extra time to talk with a nice person online and a link placement that cost me nothing for a little over two weeks. With this in mind, I would recommend erring on the side of generosity and helpfulness in similar circumstances, as many of you will find that the requests you receive are equally inexpensive and unlikely to consume any extensive period of time.