Affordable Website Promotion

29 May

You may have decided that you need to get a Technorati Authority for your weblog, but how do you go around it?

First, I used to consider that pinging Technorati works. Don't bother, they ignore pings now! You may as well get rid of the ping from your website and save the processing time. So what do you do? Here are the things we have used to swiftly get a ranking.

1. Go technorati.com and sign up for an account. Straightforward. You will need to validate it as normal by clicking an email link, but on the whole, nothing clever!

2. Find the claim a website button. Follow the form for instructions here - enter your website URL and press next, then type in the particulars you find. Don't submit it merely yet!

If you don't know your RSS feed address, it should be shown on your blog somewhere. Only right click and then copy link location to copy it and paste it where it is asked for. If it isn't shown somewhere, you are absent a trick!

3. One of the optional fields is for websites linking back to you. If you have been using FTS or article sites, then you should have some of these. Go to Yahoo and search link:www.yourblog.com and find several websites linking back to you (forget Google, unless you have stacks of links). Copy and paste three of these into the form. I have no idea if it really helps, but the question is there, so in case it does...

4. think up a few suitable tags and enter them, plus choose the three categories that match your blog the best. Now, check the details and press submit.

Now, they will email you a claim code that you have to put into your blog. This seems to be the biggest sticking point for getting listed - positioning this claim token. The problem is here that Technorati seems to do a double check.

First, they spider the website to check the claim token exists and second they look for it in your RSS feed. The second makes sense, as I will explain in a moment. But why then do the first? If both checks used the RSS feed then an error message can be generated. I imagine that this is the reason that loads of claims are failing and why numerous sites are not getting listed. Let me explain more!

The reason to use the RSS feed rather than merely spidering the site is because anyone could place a comment in a blog, which might include the claim token. You have to be able to update the posts to be able to get it onto the RSS feed.

So what causes the claim problem? Well, lots of bloggers set the RSS feed to only display a summary, rather than the full post. If the claim token is too far down the post, then it won't be read by Technorati. Therefore, your site doesn't get listed properly.

So, when you receive your claim token, create a new post and put the token in the first sentence. I would recommend within the first 30 words at the most. Also, (in WordPress), go to settings, reading and ensure the RSS feed is giving the entire post. A belt and braces job, but better to be sure. Once you start to see a Authority appearing, you might reset your feed to summary only if you prefer.

After that, you should be ready to get listed. You just need to get other bloggers to mention you in their posts!

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6 Mar

There are several existing and emerging free methods of bringing traffic to your website as well as a few that have all but passed us by. Here are a few of them and the pros and cons of using each.

Search Engine Optimisation

Pros - Can be considered to be free, although you may end up paying someone to do it for you. Very rewarding to get search engine traffic.

Cons - Totally unreliable! One day you are getting tons of free visitors and the next you are not getting any visitors. Can be difficult to get to a reasonable position on suitable high traffic search terms and it can take a lot of work to stay there if other people are also competing.

Social Marketing

Pros - Because of the way that social marketing proliferates, it is possible that recipients of your marketing messages will actually partake of a bit of marketing for you and start to spread the marketing messages for you! Not only is this free marketing, but it is escalating!

Cons - Difficult to control and so many spamy marketing is now taking place through the social marketing networks that the success is now being diluted. Having said that, it is still in its infancy and can yet grow.

Blogging

Pros - Blogs are well rated in search engines and it can be quite refreshing to build up a list of followers. Not only does the blog generate search engine traffic, but if it is well read it can also help to build up the page rank on the entire site. Also, by writing a regular blog, especially if you post to the home page of your website, you are ensuring that the website is seen as regularly updated and fresh for the search engines.

Cons - Can take a lot of time to write a few new posts each week, let alone the time taken trying to think of the new subjects to write about!

Top Site Directories

Pros - Yes, these still exist! For a very limited number of website niches this sort of marketing can make an impact. These are generallty those websites that are associated with hobbies and interests, where people are hunting around for more websites to appease their thirst for more.

Cons - Not really relevant to many websites and probably a waste of time on the whole for the time it takes to register, set up a link and become part of the site.

Banner Exchanges

Pros - Other than being free, nothing much really.

Cons - Very little benefit for most sites on what is realistically, like top site directories, is a dieing trend of internet marketing. As with any banner advertising, you need a good quality banner in a high visibility position. Expect maybe 1% - 2% click through rate and after that apply your normal conversion rate. Needs thousands of visitors to even start to see the odd sale.

There are plenty of methods for getting a little free website traffic for your business and any free visitors can be rewarding. Any spare time spent gaining a few free visitors can be time well spent, so give as many different methods a go as you can.

Keith Lunt

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