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How Zemanta Pushes Blogger Link Love

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Image via CrunchBase

A little-known blogger content curation and link-love plug in has taken me by storm, and since sharing is what I do, I want to let you in on the Zemanta secret.

Sign up is free for bloggers who use a variety of platforms to write. When you add your post to the WordPress dashboard, Zemanta populates suggested other posts from bloggers world-wide with content similar to yours.

In addition, you can use its image curation tool, too, although I’m less enthused about the quality/breadth of images that are free and without copyright issues.

 

Also part of the Zemanta suite are in-blog links and tags. I turned off the in-blog links — Zemanta was providing live links for words like Apple and Wikipedia and other general word choices and this didn’t appeal.

The tags, though, are usually spot on, and I welcome help on how to tag a blog post as I generally don’t put enough of them with the story.

Once you join the Zemanta network and add your blog(s) to your profile, then your own blog content will populate across the ‘sphere and other bloggers can include your posts in their work, too.

The very first day I used this service, I had no idea what to expect. I found someone’s bicycle-sharing post in NYC and included it; lo, the gentleman came over and actually stayed to comment awhile!  That was very cool.

You’ll see how Zemanta populates your blog with relevant stories YOU CHOOSE at the bottom of the story. It’s like adding another resource section to your writings and expanding peoples’ reading pleasure beyond your own material.

Customization 

Last night, I added about 15 bloggers I don’t like to miss to my Zemanta network. When this network writes on the topic I’m writing about, Zemanta will pull from these archives and curate content into “My Sources” in my dashboard.

I also looped my Instagram and Flickr accounts here, so my images are populating in the dashboard, too! Talk about efficient…love that, as I spend more time hunting for a decent image and get awfully lazy about it, too.

The good thing about Zemanta (beyond what I’ve already said) is that it’s all about choice; you can select what, when, if you’d like to use anyone else’s stuff. The best thing for me, is that it takes time away from finding links beyond the blogs I already hit to add link love. So, I’m jazzed right there about new sources populating right in my dashboard.

So, give it a whirl…What can go wrong?

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Give A Little Love; Get A Little (Link Love)

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Summer is a time for most moms to scream for help. You’ll see my hashtag frequently: #MomInSummer and others are already on board to feel my pain. There are some moms who love summer; perhaps they don’t run their own business or try to blog three times weekly plus be a mom taxi back and forth to camp.

Because I’m already affected by a serious strain on my time for my blog, I decided to give a little love to my community by compiling a categorical description of bloggers with various bloggers LISTED in each category. That became a spur-of-the-moment blog post,

My goal was pure; my naiveté embarrassing! I knew that recently I had neglected my community as well as visits to bloggers’ houses to comment. I thought this a good way to accomplish several purposes — give a little, get a little.

Alas. Lists are a no-no for bloggers. In comments, Shonali of and Shelly Kramer of each mentioned that lists are a tad offensive due to various and sundry reasons. I didn’t know. The good news is the way I presented the bloggers in the lists was different than just weakly attempting to earn attention; it was a more thoughtful approach oriented to types of writing.

Get A Little

At the same time, when you do put a blog post together with outbound link love, you get some wonderful support in return. In fact, it’s awesome. I was surprised with the number of folks who did, in fact, come on over to share thoughts and ask which category they should be in. That was way cool and felt good because I have been neglectful.

I have to call out here, too. She suggested a new category of bloggers as curators, and I gave her a triple hmmm on that one. What say you? Is curating blogging? I really want to know!

So, here is my take on lists, based on feedback from doing one this week:

1. Do not just list every blogger you know in a blog post. It comes across smarmy and offensive.

2. If you are going to list a bunch of bloggers in a post, ensure there’s a creative way to do that.

3. Understand that people will see right through you if you are only out to get attention.

4. Meanwhile, if the mood strikes you, test it out!

Yes, no, maybe?

 

Do You Give Good Link Love?

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There’s an aspect of blogging rarely spoken about, and it’s a pretty influential component. It’s link love. You can have a blog, but when your links to other sites, sources, and blogs fall short, the content may be sub par in the eyes of a few.

One person stands out in my book as being tops. She shares link love all the time, and moreover, she hunts for the best complementary content to push her message. It’s guaranteed that her fastidiousness will produce extra citations you’ve likely never seen before. Davina Brewer at 3 Hats Communications, is about whom I speak. Check out her blog here, here, and here.

Neicole Crepeau recently launched Friday Fives; a series during which she interviews people on a topic, and they offer five tips. The link love is high-end for all involved, and Neicole is ensured of more traffic to her blog.

To be consistent with links, it takes time. I know I’m guilty when I’m strapped and sometimes will just put the main domain name of a site rather than dive into a blog. That’s just my laziness, too. Or, I’ll easily ad the Twitter ID because I don’t have to go and hunt.

I’ve noticed, however, that when I do take the time to seek out other sites to enhance my message, then people who comment often acknowledge with a “thanks for all the back links.”

My friend John Akerson is good for that; I know when he’s reading he’s all about what’s behind those links. Ray Andrews challenges me, too, when I’m writing, and my readers are always creeping around in my mind when I produce an article.

Earning that recognition for your content (when it’s linked to from others’ blogs) takes time, consistency, cadence, voice, relevance, and confidence.

Have you ever considered how cool it is when someone takes time to search your blog looking for just the right content to add to theirs? It makes me beam, and I vow to do more of that for you.

(Now, how long did that take me? 90 minutes to add all the links and 20 minutes to write the post.)