What I’d really like for you to be able to take away from MamaBlogga is a sense of accomplishment and fulfillment in motherhood. But on a more superficial level, I can also help to improve your blogging skills—and give you some links, too.
What does it take to get link love from MamaBlogga? Not a lot, actually—and you don’t even have to e-mail me begging for a link. Once you’ve made 10 (approved) comments on MamaBlogga, the “nofollow” tag is removed from your name (and, I think, any links you put in your comments).
Naturally, we wouldn’t want that to be abused, but I do want you to be able to take full advantage of (“leverage,” if you like buzz words) this.
Make the most of your comments
Once you’ve made your 10 comments, every comment you make on MamaBlogga is a real link back to your post. And as long as you use the same e-mail address, you can change the URL you’re linking to—which is handy if you have a post on the same topic that you’d like to share. Some guidelines for doing this:
- Add value to the conversation. No, I’m not asking for you to link only to PhD level posts, but if this is an opportunity to get visitors to your site, do pick a good post that’s on the same or similar topic as the post you’re commenting on. And say something in your comment other than just dropping a link.
- Brand yourself. Put the name of your blog in the “name” box. You can put it along with your real name (I usually comment as “Jordan (MamaBlogga)”) if you want. This builds up recognition for your site.
- Please don’t stuff the “name” box with keywords. Thanks.
Make the most of other opportunities
Of course, the easier way to get a link from MamaBlogga would be to enter the Group Writing Project next week!
To take full advantage of the Group Writing Project:
- Think about your post title carefully. Is there a term you’d like to rank better in search engines for? Does it work in the title and text of your post? Use it!
- Republish the final list—you have my permission. This helps to spread the link love to all the participants. The more people that republish the list, the more links we all get!
- Barring that, link to your favorite entries. Again, spreading the link love often comes back to help you.
- Pass the word along. During the project, tell your blogging friends about it. Ask them to participate (or at least mention it on their blogs), and maybe republished the final list. (Plus, especially for July’s topic, I’d love to see lots of responses to this universal theme!)
- Comment like crazy. I’m still impressed by Karen of PediaScribe, who created a Google Alert about the MamaBlogga Group Writing Project and commented on many of the entries before I could! Comments can get people checking out your blog and eventually maybe even linking to you (as I mentioned earlier this week).
Hope to see your entries next week!
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One of the changes is that they no longer list the number of blogs linking in, number of links and authority numbers separately. Your Technorati Authority is the number of different blogs that link back to yours. Your Technorati Rank is based on your authority. UPDATE (Oct 2009): Technorati now uses a scale of 1-1000 to indicate authority, rather than a direct number of blogs linking in.
As part of a blog tour, I read Lost and Found by Carolyn Parkhurst. The novel follows the adventures of the contestants in a reality television show somewhat along the lines of The Amazing Race. The two main characters are a mother and daughter team, but the book is also narrated from the view points of several other characters, including the “ex-gay” Christian couple (who are using the show to promote their “ex-gay” ministry).