Social Bookmarking as a Traffic Source - Part 3: Technorati's Where's the Fire?

This is the third article in the series that helps you drive visitors to your blog with the help of various Social Bookmarking services. Previously we have looked at Digg and StumbleUpon, and in this edition we will take a closer look at Technorati WTF. When Technorati, the world's biggest and most popular search engine for blogs, launched their Where's the Fire service, it caused quite a bit of confusion. People where asking WTF they were thinking when they decided on the name for the service, and what they actually wanted to achieve and provide with it.



The vision behind it is quite simple though. With WTF, Technorati wanted to assist those who use the search engine with user generated descriptions about the specific topic that people are searching for. The idea is that those writing the "blurb", which a WTF entry is called, will help the searchers explain what they are searching for is (just in case they don't know) and why it is hot (again, just in case they don't know), and then include links to relevant sources an articles that contain information about that specific topic.

Of course the good folks over at Technorati need to separate quality blurbs that contains information and links to resources that are actually useful from random blurbs like for instance "MySpace suxCKZS", and in true social bookmarking style, they have a full-fledged voting system that lets the users decide. Every person with a Technorati account can vote on the various blurbs, and as is true for every social bookmarking service, the entries that the majority prefers (and votes for) gets the most exposure.



As you can see from the screenshot above, a search for "myspace" will show a blurb above the rest of the results. Now if you still haven't realized how much of an opportunity this is for you to get free, targeted traffic to your blog, I will try to to spell it out for you. Imagine being able to have an article above the search results in Google that lists your blog or an article you wrote about MySpace every time someone searches for MySpace. Get it? Now I'm not saying Technorati's search engine is anywhere near as popular as Google, but it is more than popular enough to be worth the effort. In addition to being listed on the relevant searches, your blurbs, if they gain enough votes, will also be listed on the front page of WTF, where all the most popular blurbs are shown.

Now that you have understood the immense potential of WTF, it's time to get down to business and start writing blurbs to promote the articles on your blog. The first thing you will need is a Technorati account, but as a blogger chances are you already have one. The next step is to write the actual blurb that will promote your article.



Submitting a blurb is, as you can see from the screenshot, a pretty trivial task. Be careful not to rush it though! The most crucial element of succeeding with WTF when promoting your articles, is choosing the topic for your blurb. If you wrote an article about Apple's newest version of OS X, Leopard, the topic should be "Leopard", or should it? Those who search for "Apple" are probably as, if not even more likely to be interested in your article than those searching for "Leopard". Keyword research is an art in its own right, but we can't afford to become experts in the field. Just use your brain, and try to think about what people interested in your article are most likely to search for. A good place to start is the Technorati Popular Section, where the 15 current most popular searches are listed. If one of them can be applied to your article, go for it!

When you have found the most appropriate topic for your blurb, you will need to work on the headline and description. Now all those hours you spent practicing and fine-tuning your writing with your blog will finally come in handy. The trick with the headline is obviously to draw attention. The Technorati crew have already done most of the job for you, giving you a great spot on the relevant search results. You just need to write a headline that the people reading just can't avoid clicking on. Be creative!

When it comes to the description, you will want to do something more than just including a link to your article. Write a short introduction that prepares the readers for your article, and the topic it is on. If you are writing about a current event that has to do with MySpace, write a paragraph about what happened, and say that they can read the full story at your link. You want to get them interested in the story, but you don't want to give away the full scoop, so that they will have a good reason to click on the link to your site.



Once you've submitted your blurb, it will look something like the above screenshot, which is a blurb about the first article in this series that focused on using Digg to generate traffic for your blog. While I would like to say that the job is done, and that you can just sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor, we still have the most important thing to do. Just like with any other social bookmarking service, to succeed with WTF, you will need to leverage the help of your friends and contacts in order to get enough votes for your blurb to become popular and give you traffic.

It's a bit special with WTF however, because very few people actively use the service. This means that your blurb won't need too many votes to get some initial exposure, which is good. It also means that the blurb won't get many "natural votes" (votes from people who simply liked it), which isn't quite as good, because it means that you will keep seeding it with votes if you want it to stay popular and keep sending you traffic.

Directly after you submit your blurb, I would recommend trying to gain around 10 votes or so for it. This should not only be enough to send it at the top of the searches for your topic, but also send it to the very top of the WTF frontpage. If you want to stay at the top of the frontpage, you will need to keep bringing in at least a couple of votes every three hours or so. This is a good source for traffic, but in my opinion, the traffic from the searches is more valuable because it is so targeted.

With the current activity level over at WTF, you can literally keep sending targeted visitors to your blog for weeks, if not months, with very little effort. For most topics, all you need to do is to get a couple of votes every day, and that will be enough to ensure that your blurb stays at the top of the searches for its topic.



Next on the list is to wash, rinse and repeat. Technorati probably has hundreds of thousands of visitors every day, and by using this technique you can reach out to them and give them an incentive to come and read your blog. I would recommend that you focus on one blurb at the time however. This is easier, and it of course also helps us keep WTF enjoyable for all who use it. It's a powerful tool, but as Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. There are people who are afraid that by publishing this article, it will result in an increase of spam blurbs over at WTF, and an overall decrease in the quality. It's certainly a warranted concern, but I believe that the readers of Bloggst know better. I even believe that if more people start submitting quality blurbs that link to quality articles, it can help defeat the most obvious spam. It's a win-win situation!

Want to know even more about WTF, and how you can use it to your advantage? In that case, I would like to recommend the article Studying the Social Potential of Technorati’s WTF : A Statistical Analysis and Conclusion over at DoshDosh. It was written by the same person who opened my eyes to the power of WTF, and it contains some very good information!

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to subscribe to the Bloggst RSS Feed, which is the best way to stay updated about the latest news and articles from Bloggst. This series on Social Bookmarking as a Traffic Source isn't over just yet, and there are still other services that you can use to promote your blog with that we will cover. Additionally, the closing articles of the series will take a look at how you can better convert the visitors from these services into regular readers of your blog, and an analysis of which users of which of the services we've investigated converts best into regular readers.

PS: I've naturally written a blurb to help promote this article over at WTF. If you found it useful, and want to help make sure others can enjoy it as well, be sure to give it a vote!