Improve Your Blog’s Authority

Yeah… that is what I want to do, improve and get some authority. Yesterday after reading the IReport tips from CNN and posing about them (link: iReport), well with my twist, New World Notes posts the top ten blogs and advice on how to improve your own blog’s ranking. This set of tips is specifically in relationship to blogs not just reporting. So cool.

I’ll paraphrase and add to their tips below. You can read the original tips in NWN’s “Five Ways To Increase Your Second Life Blog’s Authority“

• Get linked to by bigger bloggers… …that’s it? Well… actually yeah.
  
  • OK… How does one get them to do that? …wonder if that slave collar will come in handy now… anyway NWN came up with five tips with this one being the first. The next four of their tips are about how to get the big kids to notice you. Things that will improve your blog. The basic philosophy for getting links is in providing the ‘linkers’ with things that make them look good and that their readers will enjoy… and that they KNOW their readers will enjoy. You’re in the information age and how information flows and is handled is the key behind all this. Once one understands they can see more things they need to do to gain more authority. So, your post has to appeal to the owner/writer/editor of the blog you hope will link to you. They as much as your audience are a target for your writing.
  • What your blog posts need to be…
    • Concise – Laser’d – To the point… and am I rambling?
    • Have Succinct Titles – Something to grab attention and clearly describe the post.
    • Short… OMG… that is going to be a problem. I like to get into things. But, to get links it sounds as if one is going to have to have some short pithy posts that the bigger bloggers will want to link to. The limit NWN suggests is 1,000 words. I did a review for NWN and was asked to keep it to about 500 words, so they live by their advice.
      • Break up big stories into smaller post or use a summary or abstract at the beginning. NWN uses Gywn’s Home as an example of a writer doing long posts that could have been done better. I quote one of her 18 or 19 page posts on the Interoperability of virtual worlds. I loved it but would never have read it had I not been interested, very interested, in the subject. Breaking up long stories… whew that is my way out.
    • Create a Technorati Profile… (blank stare)… a what? /me goes of to find out. Ok, I’m back… Technorati seems to be the Neilson of blogs. So, getting register there is going to be a biggie. Here is New World Notes’ Profile. /me makes note to return here and add hers
    • Syndicate to RSS feeds… OMG… I worked so hard to stamp this out of my Outlook email client. Oh well, if it works and people use it that is what one has to do. /me note to explore WordPress for how to do that.
    • Write Lots of Original Posts or provide way more links to other’s original posts. I know search engines get involved in this too. NWN does go into it because they are striving to remain pity rather than provide in depth coverage. Search engines despise duplicate content. So, copying stories is out. Creating original content is in. I guess one can embellish content, sort of like this post. The search engines’ indexers won’t see this as a duplicate. Remember they just match up words, not ideas.

Writing well and getting noticed by the right people are a key to improving one’s blog and gaining authority. I work in RL getting companies into search engines. Now those talents are turning toward how I can use blogs to help existing clients and use prior skills to improve the presence and performance of my blogs.

Check back from time to time to see what I am learning.