In part three of our series on finding your own voice we will look at Technorati ranking. In part 1 and part 2 we talked about how John Chow and Darren Rowse make money from blogging as well as some of the factors that help to contribute to their success. We determined that the number of RSS subscribers and technorati rank is really what makes a blog successful and something we should all strive to achieve.

A high ranking on Technorati is a great source of traffic. Its also one of the numbers advertisers use to determine the value of ad space on your blog. Now you can sell posts and links for a few dollars a month or you can work on building your numbers in regards to subscriptions and Technorati rank and really demand some decent prices for your ad space.

Technorati rank is determined mainly by the number of blogs linking to your blog posts. This is why its really important to write useful and unique content. After all if you link to John talking about him talking about eating his purple headed octopus, then I’m not going to link to your post, I’m going to link to John, so John’s rank improves while yours stays the same. So while you are standing up and saying hey John look at me, you are actually hurting yourself while helping John build his rank. Perhaps if you do it enough he will be able to overtake Darren’s Technorati Rank.

So to build your technorati and demand more lucrative advertising offers then you must create content that other people will want to link to. This is where you must be unique. If all your posts are just a regurgitation of stuff all ready written then you won’t gain many links for your efforts. Sure you could always cheat and go out and create hundreds of blogger splogs to help build your Technorati, but that is not a good long term strategy. I know how to do this automatically without a lot of effort and I may write a future post on that subject but for now its best to try and create some killer content that people will just naturally want to link to. You can also go out and try to create some interesting linkbait or participate in some Blog Meme or Viral linking campaign, but the effects of these activities will be far less reaching than just churning out great content day after day. While you may increase your technorati rank with these types of activities the benefits will not be long lasting and it will do nothing for your subscriber count. Without both of these numbers, then it will be really hard to continue to grow your blog and earn any decent money from your efforts.

Of course churning out content is easier said than done. Its hard to continue to come up with new and interesting topics constantly. Darren actually has a post that should help in this area. where he talks about methods to brainstorm for post ideas. I’ve performed this little task and as a result was able to put together a decent list of topics to blog about in the coming months. Subscribers of this blog will get those posts first hand.

Everyone has a voice. Its the reason you started blogging in the first place. You has something to say and this was the avenue you chose to say it in. Everyone is unique and everyone can provide some valid input. So find your voice and say it in your words not in the words of the so called A-Listers. Who knows tomorrow you may be an A-Lister and everyone will stand up and scream to you for attention. While you can’t be jsut like Darren or John, you can be just as good if not better, if you just try. Plus remember building a popular blog does not happen over night it takes a lot of posting. This can be shown on a lot of the big sites. If you read way back in their archives. There was a time when the big blogs where little blogs with only a few readers. If they did it then others can too. And one way to do that is not to copy them, but to learn from what you see them doing. Not what they say but what they do.

Technorati tags: finding your niche, blogging, technorati, Blog Meme, viral linking, subscribers, a-list, Darren Rowse, John Chow, Problogger, linkbait