What is technorati?
Technorati basically is a service tracking, what is popular on blog. They are tracking more than 100.000.000 blogs. Go to technorati and register for an account for free, if you don´t have one yet. After that, you can claim your blog and see, which other blogs do mention your posts and who put a link to your blog.

How to start
First, you have to register for a free account with technorati.com. After your free account has been created, you can claim your blog. Technorati is going to ask you to put a small piece of code into a post on your blog to verify this blog is really yours. Simply copy and paste that code to a new blog post an publish it. Then click the button release the spiders on the claim page and they will crawl your blog immediately.
After the code has been found successfully on your blog and technorati therefore validated your ownership, you can delete the post with the code again.

Next step is to enter some information about you. Technorati displays some information on your account page, so use this to let your readers know, who you are and what you are blogging about. Maybe add a photograph too, I recommend this to apply a personal touch to your account. Nobody want´s to read from some quiet anonymous who hasn´t even a face, would you?

Final step is to enter some keywords - or better tags to your ablog information. Technorati´s whole system is based on tags, so enter some that describe, what your blog is about in general.

What are tags?
Technorati tags are basically like keywords helping technorati to categorize your blog post. Putting a tag on your post will get it directly into the search results on technorati. Look at my tags on this post which are being shown automatically at the end of the post. They look like this:

Next time, anyone will search for traffic on technorati, this post will be included in the results. Of course, this cannot guarantee you a #1 position, it´s only for making sure, your post is listed on the results pages.

How to add tags to your posts
To be found on technorati, you have to tag your post with relevant tags. Just put this line of code at the end of your blog posts:

<a href="http://technorati.com/tag/YOURTAG” rel=”tag”>YOURTAG</a>

(Replace YOURTAG with anything fitting to your post.)

Make your life easier and use a plugin for doing this. I am using Bunny’s Technorati Tags here on my blog which makes it really easy. Just put the tags you wish to add to your post into the tags-field in the editor. That´s it, all done.
This doen´t take more than 20 - 30 seconds- Half a minute of your life being spent very well.

Did you find this useful and do you like this blog? Please consider adding my blog to your list of favorite blogs on technorati. Just click this button. I will see you add, and will definitely visit your blog in return.

This article is part of my series:
The 25 best ways to increase traffic to your blog. Please read the other 24 articles and you will definitely increase your blog traffic.

Don´t want to miss a part of this series: Subscribe to my RSS-Feed

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I started this blog on August 31^st, 2007 but I had a blog before on fitforfreedom.com. I had to shut down that for some reasons, but I sticked to blogging so I decided to come back having my own name as a domain for this blog. So, although marcorichter.net is 2 months old now, I have been blogging since February 2007.

Rishiraj, over at rishiraj.info is just celebrating his first blogging by holding a contest. He asks the question How I see my blog after one year from today and I want to answer this with this post.
First prize is $111 in cash and additional prizes worth $100 dollars are in there for second and third place. Maybe you want to join in?

How I see my blog after one year from today

As you might have already noticed, this blog is free of advertising. Though, I put an affiliate link to my hoster in my article about How to start blogging, there are no further ads on this blog.
I´m not here to make money with it. I am blogging for fun and I want to try to help others to become successful with their blogs.

What do I expect this blog to look like in October 2008?
Hey, did you see? I have a PageRank now. marcorichter.net has a PR 2 since last weekend. It doesn´t really help me, because we all know, that PR is not affecting a sites ranking in results. I reached #1 positions on Google with this blog having even NO PageRank. So I don´t really feel bothered with PageRanks and updates and all this, but I want to see this blog having a PR 5 next year.

What can I expect from blogging? The last 2 month running this blog was so much fun, and I met so many nice people coming and reading it, leaving comments and writing eMails. Some reviewed my blog and participated in projects or contributed in other ways.

There is so much I have already learned within these 2 months, I will have enough to write about so others could maybe find useful advice for their own blogs. My 25 post series about increasing blog traffic is almost half-way through now and it´s doing so good, I see many more of this kind happening within the next year. Already announced the very next series here, please have a look.

Also, I´d like to get even more in touch with my readers in future. Did you know, I have a Reader´s Question section? Why not dropping me a question on blogging an get a free backlink with the answer?

Last, but not least, I am planning to enter the Top-50 in Mark´s Top-100 Ranking on 45n5.com where I am now on #141 (see the small widget in my sidebar for my current rank.). I have been moving up from #189 to #141 in just 2 weeks now, so this seems to be an achievable goal.

The even more important question
Is it really important, how I see my blog in 1-years-time? Isn´t it far more important, what YOU - my readers - expect this blog to be next year? I think it is.
So, please let me know, where you would like to see my blog going to in the future!

My first Group Writing Project is over now and some really nice ideas for WordPress-Plugins have been issued.

Please go through them all and see, what bloggers want to plugged into WordPress:

• gratemedia.com wants an eMail plugin.
• techzilo.com wants help with SEO.
• myweightlossforlife.com wants better relation between posts.
• thewritersmanifesto.com wants a social plugin.
• itlife.escrito.info wants help with insulters.

Participants:
Please vote for your favorite post. Go through them and publish a post with a vote for your favorite entry.
I will go through the votes next weekend and will announce the final winners on Nov. 10^th.

I would like to say thank you very much for you participation. This is my very first own GWP and was much fun to see the entries and getting all the feedback on the project.

Blog carnivals can be a really good source of additional traffic. There hundreds of carnivals being held on a regular basis and some of them get read by many people. Here is how you can benefit from blog carnivals.

What are blog carnivals
A blog carnival basically is a post featuring a list of links to other blog posts focused on a certain topic. Bloggers can submit their post to the carnival and get it linked in the next issue of the carnival. Some of these carnivals are being hosted on more than one blog, but typically there is a certain blog hosting a certain carnival.
Blog carnivals are very much like a magazine being issued on a regular basis (e.g., every monday or every 2^nd friday of the month). Each new issue provides a new lists of links to blog posts related to the carnival´s topic.

How to find a blog carnival
Finding a blog carnival for you to participate in, is very easy. I am using blogcarnival.com for this.

You can register with blogcarnival.com and use your login next time you get back, but it is not really necessary. You can use the site without a login too.
Just go ahead clicking on the index-link in the top right corner of the homepage:

You can now browse the list of blog carnivals coming up soon. For easier use you should sort the list by the date of the next issue of each carnival. Just click the sort-link which I marked with a red circle:

You can now browse through the list of carnivals having the next issue coming up in the next days. As there are carnivals on nearly every topic you could think of, finding one fit your blog´s topic should be very easy.
As soon as you have found a carnival related to your topic click on its name to get to the carnivals main page with additional information on it.

Scroll down a bit to find the submit-link and click on it.

At this point, you are almost done. Just fill out the form and enter your name, the link to your post and its title.
Sometimes there is a drop-down list of categories to choose from. Choose the best category for your post and click submit. That´s all.

This article is part of my series:
The 25 best ways to increase traffic to your blog. Please read the other 24 articles and you will definitely increase your blog traffic.

Don´t want to miss a part of this series: Subscribe to my RSS-Feed

Remember it folks, the deadline for my Group Writing Project comes near. It is ending on Oct. 28^th 12:00pm EST. I have also added another feature to it. As the whole project is about WordPress plugins, I thought about taking the chance and use my more than 8 years of PHP coding experience. Tell us, what WordPress plugin you have always dreamed of, and I will try my very best to make it real.

Still waiting? What for? Be part of my first Group Writing Project and win some cold hard cash or some advertising. (Or have the plugin of your dreams getting to life)