Building your technorati rank can do a lot to build your blog’s visibility. for this reason alone you should work to get your rank and authority as high as possible. Now some people may say you should not work to increase this number and you should let it grow naturally. While I understand the argument behind that argument, I’m also doing this to earn a little money. The higher ranks you have with the various services around the net, the more you can charge for advertising and the more traffic you will receive. So in my opinion you should work as hard as possible to build up all your ranking, not only with Technorati, but with RSS subscriber count, page rank, Alexa or what ever other metrics you want to build. Now a lot of people say this things can be gamed and they are correct, but that does not mean you should not work to build it. Whether people call it gaming or not, the numbers are still there and they will help your blog or website’s visibility, which it turn will bring more traffic.

Regular readers of this blog may have noticed the Big Bang Meme I participated in  a few days ago. Participating in Memes is a great way to build up your technorati rank. I don’t really like them as they do not ad any value to the reader, but they definitely can help a blog’s visibility. Within a couple of hours of posting the Big Bang, I knew I have made a good decision. When I posted it, this blog had a Technorati Authority of a little over 100 and a rank of 80K. Well after just a few days, the authority is over 200 and the rank has went down to 27K. This jump is directly related to the big bang meme and the number of sites that are participating. I’ve spot checked several other sites that are part of the meme and I see similar results for those blogs. Now some people will say this is a link farm and its going to kill me. Who care what other people say. My rank is improving and for every link I have going out I have just as many coming back in. I don’t expect to receive any traffic from the links on those various blogs, but the increase in technorati and the increase in number of backlinks should help me with my SE rankings in the coming months. Is this gaming a system, absolutely, but I don’t see anything wrong and if it helps this blog or helps one of my readers improve their rankings then its something good for me to do. I have a much more intensive post on improving rankings on a variety of systems that has been inspired by the recent controversy on Entrecard about utilizing RSS subscriber count as a metric for determining Entrecard ad price, but I’ll save that one for later as I need to do a little research to prove my point.

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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

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Well I’ve been tagged in an Entercard Meme for the top card droppers on my blog. I actually was already tagged twice so I better get on with it before I get tagged again. I have been off the day job a lot the past couple of weeks and I’ve dropped a lot of cards.

I know there has been some controversy about link posts as of late on Entrecad, but my No Nonsense opinion is those people who have made such a fuss don’t know a whole lot about how blogging actually works. Blogs become popular by gaining links and Technorati rank. Higher Technorati Rank is a direct result of more links to a blog. Participating in Memes or Viral Linking, Link love or what ever you decide to cause it only helps your blog’s exposure as well as all the blogs you link to. In the end everyone wins

So, here are the simple rules of this Meme:
—————————————————-
1. Post your Top 10 Dropper’s Blogs, and write a little comment about them, which you could use as a recommendation should you choose

2. Message them with the Entrecard message system to let them know that they have been tagged, and encourage them to continue the chain. (and thank them for dropping so many cards:P)

3. Include a link to the Entrecard Meme article of the person who tagged you

4. Include a link to this original post
The Entrecard Top 10 Card Droppers Meme @
http://www.yimto.com/the-entrecard-top-10-card-droppers-meme

5. Drop your card on your Top 10’s sites, if you haven’t already

6. Drop cards on the other sites that were tagged along with you if you wish, as they will probably drop back

7. Copy these rules onto your post, so that others can easily participate!
And that’s it! So get tagging!

Here are my Top Card droppers! Thanks for dropping by so often. :}

CK Marketing Colin has a great site full of Wordpress tips and marketing advice every site could use. I would visit Colin’s site every day even if he did not have an Entrecard spot for me to drop on

JeanCosta.com Jean offers up some great Gaphic and HTML tips every webmaster of any type can use.

Toast & Egg & Me… Offers up some great advice on making money on the Internet and there are some interesting posts on how to improve your site’s traffic.

MaleWail I’ve never actually visited this site, but he is a top dropper. I’ll need to check it out. From the description –MaleWail dot com is about men posting their comments, ideas and advice. We will review music, movies and books. Gripe about just about anything. Try and give the male perspective.

joanjoyce — This is Joan’s personally blog where she talks about anything and everything that comes to mind. There are some great tips there and this blog is a pleasure to read.

rhyan dot net Ryan talks about making money online and offers up tips for doing so and generating traffic to blogs and websites.

Real Money Making Advice As the title says this is Real Money Making Advice from South Africa. I’ve picked up several decent tricks from reading Justin’s musings.

Blogging 4 Everyone dot Info Blogging 4 Everyone talks about how to make money using just a blog online. Its updated every Friday with the amount earned for that week.

OneRichGamer — Video game reviews, news and more!

Internet Dreamer — Toni runs a great blog here. I thoroughly enjoyed her Christmas wish post/video. She will even posts some interesting pics from time to time. Still don’t see why Digg banned her for one little friendly picture of a girl. Wasn’t obscene or anything

So here are my top Entrecard droppers and you will too be tagged soon. I was actually tagged twice once by Susan At FriendsNetworkingSharing and

Colin from CK Marketing

Thanks to everyone who drops and comments on this blog and I hope everyone’s Internet dreams come true on 2008.

Technorati tags: entrecard, entrecard meme, viral linking

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