While we wait for Traffic to climb and our Google search engine page rankings to move up and our Adsense revenues to break the three dollar barrier the upward movement in Technorati rankings has been a great motivator for the last few days. When you spend late nights tweaking key words and posts and ponder over stats and ask what is it that is holding traffic back despite your four hour plan there is not much that can visibly motivate you other than following your Technorati rating, which is possibly the only visible avenue for quick and relevant feedback on your efforts.
My blog portfolio on Technorati now includes Oil Insights, Desi Back to Desh, Learning Finance and Startup Insights. With the exception of Desi, all three are now ranked with a 400 plus Technorati ranking. Oil Insights recently has been on a rapid climb and in addition to being a Technorati Top 100 blog, this afternoon also broke into the top 5000 blogs in the overall Technorati ratings. If things go well Oil Insights will also break the 500 overall rating sometime next week. After that it is going to get tougher to see progress because once you get into the top 1000, it’s a pro’s world without much space or latitude for rank amateurs like yours truly.
After blogging for more than 6 years and multiple failed attempts to reach this milestone I think I somewhat understand how the Technorati code (or rating game works). Here is my short and sweet attempt to explain what I have picked up in the last four weeks.
The Technorati rating game has three key elements.
Key words density:
Within a specific key word category. So the topic you like and can write about as frequently as you would answer your cell phone. For me this set includes Oil on Oil Insights, living in Pakistan on Desi Back to Desh, teaching Finance on Learning Finance and Starting up on Startup Insights. It helps that I run a business that requires me to generate content on three of the above four topics and that over the years I have really picked up a taste for writing. Note that I have been doing this on a regular basis on Desi Back to Desh but the range of topics defeats the Key word density principle.
Posting Frequency:
How frequently does the blog get updated? Not detailed or in-depth coverage but post recency and relevance. You can’t post gibberish; you still need to post relevant content. The threshold is 4 to 8 posts a day in a given category that sets you apart from the competition. This is where commitment, the four hour plan or a team or your Odesk and Elance resources comes in handy.
Cross linkage:
From other Technorati rated blogs – or how wide spread is the Technorati following. This comes through genuine and loyal followers such as Jehan, Adnan and many others as well as through your blog portfolio.
While one specific focus on any three of the above elements may work well, in the long run you need a combination of all three. Go ahead put this to work; see your ratings climb for the Technorati world is big enough for all of us and a very useful contributor of relevant traffic.