Posts tagged ‘Technorati’
Day 26: Tag, you’re it.
Today’s challenge revolves around one of those concepts in blogging that is often misunderstood: tags. Tagging is more of an art than a science, but it does serve a few very specific purposes. Not every blog employs tagging, nor would I say that it’s absolutely required, but understanding how tags work and what they can do for you is certainly knowledge that every blogger should possess.
At it’s most basic level, a tag is a keyword that you create that serves as an identifier or link for the purposes of searching and/or filtering. By strategically tagging your posts, you provide visitors yet another way to filter through your entries without creating 100′s of categories. For example, while you may put a blog post in the Web 2.0 category, you might tag it with each individual tool and technology mentioned or referred to. Categories are generally higher level and more strategic, tags are typically used in a ‘the more the merrier’ type of approach. You’d never get criticized for using too many tags, unless you’re applying tags that have nothing to do with your post.
One of my early experiences that really drove home the power of tags was when I was doing a search on technorati for “education” and found out that the related tags were Policies, News and…. Warlick? Yes, Warlick was clearly identified as a related tag whenever somebody did a search for “education”. Why? Because he was diligent about tagging every blog post of his with the keywords “education” and “Warlick”. Look up education and you’ll find Warlick. Makes sense, doesn’t it? If you blog regularly about mobile devices in education, by adding those tags along with your name and your blog name to your posts you create ways for you to be associated with those topics in searches.
Another purpose for tagging is to add in the keywords that you may not have mentioned in your post. For example, if you’re discussing a new report about social networking, it’s entirely possible that you may not have included some words which might be pertinent to people searching for such information. You may have mentioned that the report covered common social networking sites, but never mentioned any specifics. With this in mind, you might be interested in tagging the post with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo and other social sites. That way, if people search for “education” and “Facebook” they have a chance to find your post, even if you didn’t specifically mention Facebook in your text.
One last purpose that I’d mention is it has become common practice for people to use unique tags to track posts revolving around an event or topic. A perfect example of this is Warlick’s Hitchhikr site. Look up any conference there and you’ll find suggested tags to use. So long as everybody that posts about that conference includes that tag, then sites like Hitchhikr will be able to aggregate them together. It’s becoming increasingly common on microblogging sites, as more and more posts are being created with hashtags.
Some people have much more eloquent explanations of what a tag is and how it’s used. For example, Sue Waters (have I referred to her enough during this challenge?) has an excellent post comparing categories and tags. If you look at the comments on that post, you’lll also find a real gem there. Also, it seems a little cliche, but Wikipedia can always be counted on for some good information.
So what’s the challenge? Simply this, KNOW thy tagging system. Most blogging engines have a way to tag posts. Different versions of WordPress (and Edublogs) have a Tags field below the main content box. Other sites, have it off to the side or down near the bottom of the page. However, just because you add tags to a post, doesn’t mean that they’ll show up there. My current template was not set up to display the tags I added to a post through WordPress. When I realized that none of my tags were showing up, I went into the code of the template and added them in. Take a good close look at your blog engine, determine where the tags go, and start using them in your posts. Remember, you won’t get fined if you use too many tags. But if you use too few, then you may be preventing people from finding your content in searches.
One last related tip. Not all blog engines do have a way to add tags to a post. If not, that’s ok. Just type them in yourself:
Tags: toys, slinky, metal, spring, stairs, fun, cat
Technically, that’ll be enough for search engines to pick up on them. However, you can get bonus points by linking them up to Technorati searches for those keywords. It’s pretty easy to do and Technorati does have instructions. But basically, you put the tag into your post in the following format: <a href="http://technorati.com/tag/TAGNAME" rel="tag">TAGNAME</a> Copy that into your blog post as many times as you need, and then just substitute in your tags for the TAGNAME slots. Consider that the poor man’s tagging method!
Ok, one more idea, just because I thought it was pretty novel. While doing some searches on tagging, I found a post describing how he put a tag cloud onto his site’s 404 page. So whenever somebody found a dead link (we don’t have any of those anymore though, do we?), instead of just getting a “The page you are looking for could not be found” error, they get a little paragraph explaining things and a tag cloud of all the content on his blog. That encourages people to dig a little deeper to find your potentially missing content, instead of just getting turned away. Love the idea. Just may have to try that one myself!
Do you tag your posts? How do you decide what tags to use? Have you ever found particular benefit to tagging, or is it just a habit at this point? When you visit somebody’s blog and want to explore, do you head off to the categories or the tags first?
Tag image by Amergioland
Day 3: Write a thank you note
There’s more to the art of blogging than just the things that we see published on your blog. As many people assert, I believe blogging is at it’s heart a new type of conversation. The more people who are involved in the conversation, the greater the reach, the more diverse the group, the better the chance of something interesting coming of it. The first few months of blogging is always the most difficult because it largely feels like your talking to yourself. Every comment, note and email during that time is incredibly valuable and motivating. However, as time goes on, I haven’t found responses to lose any of their value. Several years later, I still get excited whenever I see a comment on my blog, or get a personal email from a reader who mentions that a post of mine made them think a bit.
SO, today’s challenge isn’t necessarily one that takes place publicly (although it could). There’s two directions you can take with this one. If your blog is well established already, find another blogger who has linked to you at some point and write them a brief thank you note. Let them know that you appreciate both their reading your blog, but also their linking back to you. Doing so exposes an entirely new set of readers to your own site, which really is quite a kindness. So let them know that you saw their response/comment/link, and that you appreciate their efforts.
If you are a relatively new blogger and don’t have any references to you just yet, then we’ll go in a different direction. You began blogging for a reason. More than likely, it wasn’t because you saw it mentioned on a Dateline special. Pick out a blogger who in some way influenced your decision to begin blogging and write them a thank you note. Trust me when I say, there is no greater compliment than to read an email from someone saying that you were an influence in their decision to begin blogging. So make sure that they know they were. They’ll appreciate it.
Whichever path you go down, be sure to include a link back to your blog so they know who you are. Often I know somebody’s blog rather well, but I forget the author’s name. This helps them make the connection between your note and your blog. It personalizes things. And, let’s be honest, I provides them with an incentive to follow the link back and visit your blog. I do have to admit, whenever someone sends me a personal note, I always follow back their link to see who they are and what they’re doing. Give them an opportunity to do the same.
If you’re going to write a person who has linked to you, Problogger has a few tips for finding who’s doing so:
- Technorati – type your URL in and hit search and you’ll find any blogs linking to you
- Google Blog Search – another good tool for real time link tracking
- Your Blog’s Metrics – any worthwhile stats package will give you a ‘referrals’ stat that shows incoming links. I use Google Analytics but you could also use Sitemeter, Mint, AW Stats or one of many other metrics tools.
- Search Engines – type in ‘link:http://www.yourblog.com’ at Yahoo or Google and you’ll find incoming links to your blog – note: this isn’t a quick or immediate method of finding recent links.
As I said at the beginning, you can choose to thank the person in the form of an email, a comment on their blog, or you can do so as a post on your own blog. However, if you do the latter, be sure to email them a personal note as well to ensure that they see the blog post. And of course, if you do create a post, leave a link to it here as well! That way other people can learn something from your own efforts.
I’ll update this post when I’ve decided who I’m going to send a thank you to!
UPDATE: Not gonna get all mushy and post the text of my thank you, but I thanked someone who had a profound influence on my early blogging, and continues to inspire me today… Alan Levine, CogDogBlog.