I was surfing through Technorati yesterday after checking my stats on a newer blog. Having no other inbound links to this blog, the Technorati tags alone got the domain indexed in all three major search engines -Â and those tags were also driving traffic to individual posts.
That blog is barely two weeks old, and already generating income ;)
Considering how easy it is to set up an account at Technorati and use tags, this is obviously the easiest way to get your new domains indexed these days – and it’s also a great source of targeted traffic.
I’ll share with you my personal Top 7 Technorati Tips for getting the most out of your Technorati account…
- 1. Claim & Configure Your Blog!
According to Technorati, “Claiming your blog allows you to add your name, photo and description, list it in up to 20 categories in Blog Finder, and get cool tools for your blog.”
The Blog Finder is Technorati’s own blog directory. Setting up an account and claiming your blog not only gets you listed there… it also qualifies you for potential inclusion on the front page of Technorati.com under Featured Bloggers!
You also get to add your photo, a brief bio and choose the tags (keywords) that your blog will be listed under on Technorati. Your profile page is hosted on Technorati (which is frequently crawled) and contains a quality, relevant link to your blog.
Simply put, doing this step will increase your exposure!
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- 2. Using Technorati Watchlists to find Content
Obviously when you reference someone else’s post, you will link to that source. When you do this, you create a trackback – or a link from your post to theirs – and this will generaly show up in their post as a comment. Not only does this method put content on your blog, but it also creates links from popular posts to your own posts!
Not only can you set up a Watchlist to view from within your account, but each Watchlist also has it’s own RSS Feed. If you funnel feeds into your blog using a program or a plugin (to generate pages on your blog based on other people’s content), then you already realize how powerful this option is. You can easily funnel content into your own blog based on keywords or keyword phrases (using Tags).
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- 3. Using Technorati Watchlists to get Links & Traffic
Create a set time in your work schedule to work specifically on gaining quality links and driving traffic to your websites/blogs. You might set aside 30 minutes each morning for this task, or 2 hour blocks three days a week. Whatever works best for you, but is consistent and something that you can stick with, is sufficient. The key is to continually gain quality links and to consistently build your traffic and readership. (The search engines prefer signs of steady growth over spikes!)
Using your Watchlists, find bloggers and blog posts that interest you and that are related to the topics on your own blog. Leave comments on posts of interest. If you find a blogger in particular that you like, stay active in their discussions consistently by leaving relevant comments. Not only does each comment that you leave include a link back to your site (which other readers – and spiders – will follow), but it also ‘introduces you’ to that blogger.
Add blogs or bloggers that you like to the Blog Roll on your own blog. Most blog platforms will notify that blogger immediately that you have linked to them. Through your comments on their posts, and the fact that you have ‘blogrolled’ them, they will generally take the time to check out your blog.
It has been my experience that (if you maintain a quality blog) this will usually result in them adding your link to their blogroll in return – and beginning to comment on and ‘trackback’ your posts. Even if they dont immediately show interest, they will at least be familiar with you when you email them with an offer to exchange links.
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- 4. Using Technorati Search for Brainstorming
Use the Technorati Search feature, and type in your primary keyword. For the sake of example, let’s use “affiliate”. When you search for affiliate on Technorati, it not only gives you the search results for that word… it also gives you related terms at the top of those results. This helps you to refine your search, or look at related search results. But you can also use it to get ideas, and to fuel your brainstorming!
This is similar to when you “dig deeper” when you are doing your keyword research – looking for related phrases, or more specific phrases. When I look at the affiliate results, for example, I see:
-marketing
-affiliate programs
-internet
-adsense
-internet marketing
-money
-affiliate marketing
-make money
-blogging
This gives me an idea immediately: to write a post about how to earn money as an affiliate by blogging! And if, after looking over the list of related results, I refine my search to affiliate marketing, I get a whole new list of potential ideas. From 5 seconds at Technorati Search, I can make a quick list of potential articles or topics to post on my blog:
- Earn Money as an Affiliate by Blogging
- Work at Home in Affiliate Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing as an Internet Business
- SEO and Affiliate Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing for Affiliates
Using that process, it’s easy to brainstorm for new topics, or to come up with titles for articles that you can write! This is also a great way to brainstorm new categories you can add to your blog.
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- 5. Easy Access
That way each time you open your RSS reader, or your browser, you have instant access to new content, potential link partners and new ideas!
This is pretty cool – especially if you are an “out of sight, out of mind” kind of person (like me
lol).Â
- 6. Go With What’s Popular!
Note: When you are looking at the Top Tags section in the left-hand column of the main page, you will notice that some of the tags (or words) are larger or bolder than others. Those tags that are emphasized are more popular, or have more posts and pictures associated with them.
Also, pay attention to the most popular blogs. These should be at the top of your list for potential linking and networking (by using trackbacks or leaving comments).
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- 7. Include a Special Tag to ‘cluster’ your posts
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Do you have Technorati Tips that you’d like to add to this list? Leave a comment below and share them with us!What else can you do with Technorati tags?
“Meblogging” is one use I’ve come across, and very clever it is too. If you post to several blogs but want to see all your posts in one place, just tag each of them with a unique identifying word and then the Technorati tag page for that word will pull all your posts together (I’m going to start labelling my own posts with “Improbulus”, “Consuming Experience” and, because I’m anal retentive, “A Consuming Experience” too). Of course there’s nothing to stop other people (like practical joker friends) from using the same tag too, and cluttering up “your” tag page with their stuff…
A group of people could even set up a “secret” group page by tagging their posts with a special private tag (say a jumble of letters and numbers) that no one else knows, perhaps making that tag invisible on their posts (although that may go against the idea behind the rel=”tag” specification, which intends tags to be visible links).
A tag could also be used to collect together conveniently a whole bunch of related blogs on the same general topic, all on the same page – if the bloggers concerned co-operate to use the same unique tag (decentralised group blogging).
Additional Resources…
Technorati User Tips
The people who use Technorati are some of the smartest people we know. And sometimes they write about us! So here are a few great posts written by our users on how to use Technorati.
Ten Technorati Hacks by Steve Rubel.
Technorati Front Page Can Feature Your Blog by Know More Media.
HOW TO: Boost Your Blog Traffic by Paul Stamatiou.
Technorati tags: an introduction by Improbulus.
Blogging: Creating Technorati Tags by David Fordee.
Making Typo properly ping Technorati (and others…) by Ryan Daigle.
Tip: How to Use Tags To Increase Your Traffic by Fitzgerald.
Using Technorati, on RSS for tags.
Put Technorati Mini in Your Firefox Sidebar by Steve Rubel.
Put Technorati Mini in your Opera panels by Brad Isaac.
Tools from Technorati Users
The people who use Technorati are some of the smartest people we know. And sometimes they write tools to help you use Technorati!
Technorati Tag Generator, an OSX Dashboard Widget.
Fintan Darragh’s Technorati Tag Generator, a web-based tag generator.
Technorati tags bookmarklet, a bookmarklet tag generator.
Bunny’s Technorati Tags, a WordPress plugin.
A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and wordpress.com Users by Lorelle VanFossen.
Technorati Tags Button, a Greasemonkey script by LouCypher.
How To Write Java XML Pinging (Technorati, blogs) In To Your Application by Brandon Werner.
Technorati Tags, a simple .NET tagging app by David Smith.
Put Technorati Mini in Your Firefox Sidebar by Steve Rubel.
Updated multiple word Technorati tag creator for Blogger (Firefox 1.5, Greasemonkey 0.6.4) with added features by Improbulus.
Technorati tag generator A windows program to create tags. by Rhys Wynne
And just for fun…Tags: technorati, tags, tagging, wordpress, traffic, tips, marketing, blogs, blogging, rss
Hangman for Technorati
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