I’ve been working really hard on raising my technorati, and alexa score. As everyone whose been keeping an eyeball on it I’ve been doing really well I’m currently in the 84,000 and rising on technorati and 600,000 on Alexa in less then 2 weeks since trying to boost my Alexa! I’m doing everything I can but to let you know what I’ve been doing here are some steps I will be taking to improve my Page Rank!

- Archive Individual Posts with a wordpress plugin - currently searching for one until then i’m doing (#2)

- Outside Related links with link optimizer — installed and working…semi..

- Comment Subscribe Comment Subscription - status unknown as of yet

- Link a lot - and try to attract links .. when I do research on the web I found I hate hundreds of bookmarks so I am just going to start linking them in my entries and seeing out that works

- Tag cloud - installed not working!

- Top commentators - up and running!

There is also this really great post I found digging around finding out if your blog is google indexed

I have to say I’m disappointed in the plugins I wish they were tested before introduced into the plugin directory, I will be updating the plugins and finding ones that work today!

You might also like to check out Google: Is your blog indexed? which also has some good tips on getting your blog indexed on Google.

As for raising my rankings I’ve been commenting a lot trying to boost promotion. I know the Thursday Thirteen helped a lot. I’ve been using an Alexa redirect version of my URL to promote it as per getting credit where credit is deserved~

Randa Clay is a designer and marketing consultant providing a complete package of services that includes custom web site design, blog design and template customization, as well as custom logo design, print design and production. You can find her at any of these websites: randaclay.com , randaclay.com/lumps , printables4scrapbooking.com, freestuff4kids.net

5 ways to find out what your readers are interested in reading

There is a quote by Alice MacDougall that says “In business you get what you want by giving other people what they want.” I would say this goes for blogging as well. Bloggers want readers. The way to get and keep your readers is to consistently give them the information they’re interested in. How do you find out what they’re interested in? Here are 5 ways:

1. Do you have a search form on your page? (you should) What are readers searching for? For example, I have a kids site where I have coloring pages, word searches, etc., and when I see in my stats that someone has entered something like “play money” in the search form, I make some printable play money and post it at the next opportunity.

2. What are your most popular posts? What posts have gotten the most comments? Write more like that.

3. Do a WordTracker trial or a search on Overture’s keyword tool around your main keywords. What are people searching for the most? Write posts around the items you find that are within the scope of your site.

4. Install MyBlogLog on your site and use the member pages to find out what other blogs your readers frequent, along with other things about them such as what they’ve tagged on del.icio.us, for example.

5. Where does your target audience hang out? What forums do they participate in? What problems are being discussed there? What are the topic areas in the forum? These should give you ideas about what your readers are interested in and what problems they’re trying to solve.

Now, I’m not trying to say if your blog is about underwater basketweaving, that if you find out a large number of your readers are interested in claymation that you should suddenly write lots of posts about claymation (you could start another blog about claymation and cross-promote them though). What I am saying is that if you find out that your readers are most interested in the different materials to weave their baskets with, spend more time writing about that than methods of drying out the baskets when they’re complete!

Before I start, I put my blog in for voting at this site squidoo.com/bloggingblogs
Please vote for me by clicking the “^” symbol.

Web2.0 Is the increasing revamping of the WWW, we see the original look of yahoo.com and the new beta makeover look to keep up with the new flashier jazzier layout.

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As I’ve written about in the past, it is important to comment. Commenting gives you free publicity and raises your ratings on technorati. But it is hard to remember all the places you comment. I myself comment over 80 websites a day because I’m always searching for new things. I found this handy resource over at healthywebdesign.com Its conversation comment tracking, for if you want to start conversation on a blog these are the places to do it. I use it to track the places I’ve commented at. The websites are called cocomment.com and co.mments.com