Technorati, Digg and StumbleUpon

This goes out to Linda Sellers over at Short Pump Preppy because she had some questions about how I handle my blog posts with Technorati, Digg and similar sites such as StumbleUpon. Thanks Linda for your questions and the idea for this weekly series! Hope you are getting some good tips, and if you have more please feel free to share!

If you are reading this and do not have an account with Technorati, Digg, or StumbleUpon please click on the links above to visit and sign up for free! Also be sure you have your profile complete and on Technorati be certain to set up your blog so you can gain Technorati authority (shows new sites that link back to you).

I update my blog daily, that way I know fresh content is always here for my readers. Not everyone will update daily, but when you do update your content on your blog it is important to share the new content with the world. Whether it be a funny, informative, serious post or a giveaway the content must be shared virtually in order to get your blog seen!

My practice is to share my own posts on Technorati and Digg IF (and here’s the catch), only IF I feel they are a good fit to share. I don’t mind offering my own posts through the websites, even though having someone else do this for you may rank higher, because it has worked to help me reach a wider audience than if I had just written the post, added some SEO to it and waited for the robots to index my site on Google.

If I have a good post I want Stumbled, that’s a different story; I have the StumbleUpon toolbar in my Firefox browser which includes a drop down menu called “share” and I have a few friends there who are all too often happy to stumble a blog post. My two main bloggy friends who will happily stumble any great post are Jessica from It’s My Life and Erin who blogs at From Son Up To Son Down. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t simply ask them to Stumble MY stuff all the time, I visit their site or they send me special links too and I leave a comment and return the favor with a Stumble of their post.

The best way to help promote your blog and use services such as StumbleUpon, Digg and Technorati is to search out some friends on those sites and connect with a few bloggy friends who would be willing to share your blog posts in exchange for you sharing their great posts. This is not to say you can’t do it yourself, but it certainly looks better and accounts for more “points” if you have someone else submit your blog post to these book marking sites.

Next is Delicious, again be sure to sign up for them and add your great blog posts to this, you can do giveaways under that particular tag and others can find your giveaways. Meet friends there and have them add your new blog post to their bookmarks, only if they are your close bloggy buds and are willing to assist you in doing this.

As always remember KARMA … don’t expect others to assist you in promoting your blog if you can’t help them promote theirs. It is a give and take situation in this bloggy world not just take … take … take.

Make it a Happy Day!