— Antoine de Saint-Exupery —
Bloggers are hungry for every tip, trick, and bit of advice that they can find to improve their blogs. When I am asked a question like “How do I get more readers?” or “How do I get more feed subscribers?” I like to ask the person, “Well what are you willing to give?” Most people think I am asking for money at that point and fail to understand the power of my question. Do you expect to receive without giving?
One thing you will notice about A-list bloggers and bloggers at the top of their niche is that they give more than they receive. What do I mean by this? They give links, they give inspiration, they give their passion, and above all else they give content that is useful and extremely helpful to the readers of their blogs.
This series will focus on ways you can increase your giving. When you stop focusing on what you expect to receive and start focusing your passion on the art of giving before you know it your blog will overflow with with life, community, and you will receive more than you ever expected.
In Part 1 let’s focus on Technorati Favorites.
Technorati Most Favorited List
The odds of your blog getting into the Technorati Top 100 Blogs are higher than the odds of you getting hit by chunk of blue stuff from an airplane. Not to say that it won’t happen (the getting into the top 100 club part not the falling lavatory meteor) however why not focus your efforts on a list at Technorati that you have a better chance of getting on in a shorter amount of time. I’m talking about the Technorati Most Favorited List.
The Technorati Most Favorited List tracks the number of people that have added your blog to their Technorati favorites list. It doesn’t have anything to do with your blogs rank or authority it simply measures how many people have selected your blog as one of their favorites. If you want people to choose your blog as one of your their favorite blogs you need to have a Technorati Favorites button on your site. I recomend you place the button toward the top of your site so that visitors do not have to search for it. If you do not have one of these buttons on your blog you need to goto Technorati.com and claim your blog, then you can add one of the buttons to your site. Here is are 2 of the buttons that you can add :
Once you have added the button to your blog you are ready to apply the most powerful technique possible to grow the number of people that call your blog one of their favorites.
Give!
Don’t ask for people to add your blog to their favorites, don’t beg, don’t even ask them to favorite you and in exchange you will favorite them. You might think I am crazy for suggesting this (my nickname is Wild Bill) but what I want you to do is to focus on giving more and the receiving part will take care of itself.
Now when you are surfing the internet, checking out the blogs you enjoy reading each day, scan their blog and see if they have a Technorati Favorites button on their site. If they do click it and add them to your favorites. If they don’t you can send them an email explaining that you wanted to add them to your Technorati Favorites, but you did not see the button on their site. That is all you have to do.
Before you know it your readers will start adding your blog to their favorites, not because you asked them, not because they feel obligated, but because when you give you attract more of what you give.
In Part 2 we’ll apply the lesson of giving to StumbleUpon and I’ll teach you the secret to getting tons of StumbleUpon users to your blog.
Give And Receive Series
- Part 1 — Technorati Favorites
- Part 2 — StumbleUpon
- Part 3 — Alexa Rank
Popularity: 16% [?]
Digg it! 
Stumble it! 
Fav it! 
Print it!
Get articles like this one delivered to you by email or your favorite feed reader. Subscribe to Passionate Blogger today.
Loading ...
Give seems to be the key. Or at least the theme for the week. People like people who are like themselves. If you read one thing you agree with on a blog, read on.
There are more than likely other posts that will give you insight. Appreciation is a funny animal on the net. All you need is a simple click to digg, or just a shout out in a comment.
I’ll talk about it in the next part (sneak peak) but StumbleUpon is amazing if you are a giver. I’m enjoying seeing you around here Jerad, I also enjoy your blog. Thanks for the comment.
Wild Bill,
You are very wise! I totally agree with you! I always try to give as much as I possibly can and have faved a number of people on Technorati who have not faved me back; but that’s OK. I will still continue to do it! I am also very generous with links at my blog and try to comment on as many other blogs as possible. In short, I want to help as many people as I can! I’m a firm believer that the good you do all comes back to you in the end.
By the way, thanks for practicing what you preach and faving my blog on Technorati! I have faved you back!
Thanks for a wonderful post!
Jeanne
See I told you it works, didn’t even ask for it but I got faved by Jeanne!
Thanks so much.
You’re absolutely right about the giving, it’s like that in real life too (at least most of the time). All the bloggers should focus on what they are offering to their readers; that’s where everything starts from.
As for Technorati, my boyfriend (an experienced blogger)has told me not to pay attention to it. He says that Technorati is slowly dying. But, I still can’t resist checking my authority once a day.
Marija, I agree with your boyfriend about Technorati somewhat. If you have ads on your site you should be concerned about your rank because many advertisers determine a price they are willing to pay for their ad to be on your site with many different ranking systems including Technorati.
Technorati is also a great way to increase your site traffic. It really does not take much time to to see significant growth in your Technorati ranking and it does not hurt either. Thanks for your comment.
[…] Give And Receive → Want to improve your Technorati stats? Give And Receive Series - Part 1 - Technorati Favorites […]
Wild Bill,
Forgot to tell you that you’ve been Stumbled! (8/13)
Cheers!
Jeanne
[…] Part 1 we talked about Technorati Favorites in Part 2 I want to show you how to use the power of giving with StumbleUpon to boost site […]
Again, thanks for giving me some really great information. As a new blogger, I have a few “technical” blogging sites that I read and use to improve my site. Yours is one of the most helpful. I will definitely Stumble you now that I know how and you will be added to my Technorati Favorites too.
Patricia I want to help new blogger avoid some of the mistake I made starting out. I plan on doing a post soon asking for input on what kinds of topics new bloggers need help with. Let me know if there are any thing I can help you with.
Passionate Blogger fits you, I think an equally good name would be Giver of the Greatest Blogging Tips.
[…] Part 1 — Technorati Favorites […]
Wild Bill, Big Mike pointed me to your inspiring series. I so totally agree with you! Not only is the giving for me rewarding enough in itself, this week, with some personal hardships, I have encountered the pleasure of receiving, a.o. from BigMike. I’ve written a new post on it today, also referring to your series. I sure hope to be able to give back what I’ve been receiving!!
thanks for the inspiration!
Sorry, something kinda went wrong there.. Just in case you might want to read the post, I’ve added the link this time ;-))