Dreamsubmitting Blog

Tag and ping is the hot blog promotion method of the moment. You’ve probably heard about it, but may not know exactly what it is or how to do it. When done right, tagging can bring your site tons of targeted traffic from very active visitors.

The tag and ping concept has its roots in the social bookmarking explosion. More of these sites are being created every day, taking some of the market share away from search engines. The key difference is that social bookmarking sites organize their listings based on the votes of actual people while search engines organize their information automatically according to their own algorithm.

The first step is to sign up for a Technorati account, of course. Next, you need to login to your profile and claim your blog. After entering the blog URL, Technorati will verify that you are the blog’s real owner. They currently have two methods of doing this. You can place a small bit of code somewhere on your blog’s home page or simply input your blog login and password. (Because of privacy concerns, Technorati claims that they do not store this information anywhere.)

Once you’ve claimed your blog, you can set up your profile information, with a customized description and up to 20 tags of your choice. Your blog will be listed when people search for these tags. Like any search engine, you’ll probably be listed lower for the more competitive phrases until you get several incoming links for those keywords.

As you’re writing your blog posts, think about which keywords you would like to “tag” on that page. One of the major differences between tagging and regular SEO is that you can tag several keywords on the same page. Unlike search engines, social bookmarking sites will list your page under different keyword topics.

The goal of these social types of sites is to help surfers find quality sites that are relevant to their search terms, so you can get listed under many different tags. The tag word itself does not have to be used on the page, but you should try to stick with related terms so you don’t get flagged for spamming.

Now you need to add tags to your blog posts. Wordpress has a few useful plugins to help with the tag code and there is similar code available for Blogger as well. With the Wordpress plugin, you can add [tags]keyword, keyword[/tags] while you’re writing the post and you’ll get a list of tags at the bottom. You can also add the [tag] code to words inside your post and they will be added to the list of tags.

When publishing your posts, make sure Technorati is in your ping list and your posts will be automatically be listed under the tags you selected. When surfers search for those keywords, your blog will be listed in the results. If they like your blog, they can vote for it and increase its popularity. Try to focus your tags on the tightest niches possible to get the most narrowly targeted traffic.

As new alternatives to search engine traffic appear, they create new opportunities for clever marketers. Technorati is just one of the vast numbers of social bookmarking sites that have been launched in the past year. Keeping current with these new marketing avenues will help you stay a step ahead of your competitors.

Whether your blog is a space for political discussion or a gathering place for people who raise beta fish, you’ve already realized that the more traffic you can generate, the better! Not only will your blog have an active community, but if you have pay per click advertising on your blog, every visitor is a bit of extra cash in your pocket. There are many ways to generate traffic to your site, and it is just a matter of finding one that suits your site and your personal style.

One innovative way to get the clicks where you want them is take part in a social bookmarking site. If you have not yet heard of the phenomenon, there are sites where you can store your list of bookmarks online. This is convenient for the person who’s always hopping from computer to computer; you’ll always have all the information you need at your very fingertips. Even better, you can make your bookmarks public; you can share things like your favorite news sites, or your top ten favorite web comics. The big advantage to this sort of service comes when you realize that you are an expert. Make a list of bookmarks that feature other sites that are like yours and make it public.

Social bookmarking sites work because of the selection involved. As more people become wise to the concept of search engine optimization, they are a lot more wary of the first ten hits that come up when they check Google or Yahoo. Social bookmarking works because it has the endorsement of another real person. A real community can spring up around the idea of social bookmarking and it becomes a network of people who are trading information. With the right list of bookmarks made public, it will take a very small amount of time before your blog will be getting more hits than ever before.

To get started with social bookmarking, there are a number of sites that you can go to. http://www.technorati.com/ is one of the first sites to take advantage of this phenomenon and the interface is quite usable. You’ll find more technical bookmarked lists here, which is ideal if you have a blog on computers, televisions, or general gadgetry. At http://www.stumbleupon.com/ you will find a more social atmosphere, and there is more of a focus on entertainment. If you have a blog on the latest celebrity doings or even of your photography, this might be the place for you. Though it might look less polished than the other two, http://del.icio.us/ packs a lot punch with a history that goes back almost five years. Del.icio.us is a wonderful place for almost anything you might want to find and more and more people are using it to find the information they need. (more…)