Readers may have noticed that I've recently subscribed to various Blog directories in a narcissistic attempt to drive more traffic to my website, boost my page rank and generally solicit more feedback on my postings. I wanted to create a bigger audience for my material beyond my own networks in Facebook and Linkedin.
Causailty:
Anyone who designs or uses webpages will be familiar with Google's pagerank formula, and therefore if you are looking for an effective method of boosting your rank, you need to incorporate that into how you seek links to build your organic ranking. However, there are more metrics for success on the web. For instance, the number of hits, comments and the "quality" of said metrics. Keeping these goals in mind, I've been evaluating some of the tools I use to promote traffic to my website, particularly focusing on blog directories using a framework which cointains these elements and their relationships.
Architechture:
Among these blog category services, my favourite would have to be YPBlogs (Young Professional Blogs). The reason? I get good quality hits from the site is the short answer. But it's because of the subtle differences in how the site is structured (to match my goals). Let's look at the details:
- By virtue of the site's writers / target audience, it attracts a certain crowd - energetic, exuberant, intelligent and technology proficient young professionals
- You are listed on the front homepage - Unlike some of the other categories where you are listed on the 97th page among 50 other blogs on that page alone
- They enjoy a decent page rank
- It's a free service
- They aggregate most recent blog posts on their homepage making it easier for you to immediately hit the latest news (and conversely for people to hit your recent posts)
- They have dynamic content which refreshes *constantly* attracting people to return often
- Bottom line - You get good hits and comments - I have two blogs posted on their service and I swear that my traffic has doubled (Ok. Maybe my blogs are relatively new, and "doubled" isn't really that impressive, but it is certainly way more traffic than I'm getting from the other services - a more "apples to apples" comparison).
I think the most interesting point here though isn't what YPblogs has been able to do for my Blog, but rather, what it's been able to do for my blog reading habit. I've found it surprisingly difficult to find interesting blogs to read (that aren't major publications by writers who blog as a full time job). What I was looking for was independent blogs of individuals who simply wanted to express themselves or ideas and this was a great place to find material.
In the interest of full disclosure, I'm hoping to become a featured site on YPBlogs by writing this post, however, the outcome of that is uncertain as this is a post they have not solicited and I would have (or rather, have just) written anyways.
No comments:
Post a Comment