There’s no doubt about it … everybody’s website needs a good search engine ranking, especially if you’re trying to run a web-based business.  But when you’re running a blog, full of personal thoughts and random ideas, it can be a daunting task to figure out what niche your blog fits into.
     Hell, take us, for example … We’ve got tech articles.  We have “what’s going on in my life” articles.  We have political and current events articles.  And, past that, we have a lot of things with varying degrees of humor (I say varying degress because regardless of how funny the eight of us might find it, many people will have absolutely no clue what the Hell we’re on about).

     My favorites are the “What the hell?” articles.  The screwing-with-google-on-a-regular-basis (and especially Joseph Ferrante) articles, we’ve had some pretty decent results… especially since we’re traveled enough to get same-day-indexing. 
     These things work, ladies and gentlemen, and don’t let any wannabe SEO firm tell you otherwise.

     However … When you’re out of a specific niche, social rankings come heavily into play.

     Mybloglog has been given us a ton of traffic, for instance.  I was introduced to BlogCatalog last night, and that’s pretty cool.  Fuelmyblog has been freaking tremendous.  Linking to your site from a MySpace blog also helps.  And if you’ve got a lot of bloggers in your community (like we do here in Knoxville), reciprocating links with your neighbors is a Hell of a good way to bolster some new visitors.
     Digg, Tehcnorati, del.icio.us and such are useful, but unless you’re getting the traffic in there to start adding to those sites, they’re not gonna help all that much.  But what you can do is join any number of social organizations, such as Dosh Dosh’s Technorati Favorites Exchange, where you’ll actaully stand a chance of improving your Technorati rank — which definitely improves your readership and your ability to sell advertising.

     Actually, Dosh Dosh’s article made me take pause.  I’ve been pretty good about adding local blogs to my Favorites sections of those types of social networking sites.  As long as there’s some reciprocity, it can really help increase the rank of all of the sites involved.
     Now, if only us locals could organize and effort to reciprocate links, then, uh… Like I said, it only stands to help us all.  ;-)  [ *makes mental note to get Instapundit onboard ... heh* ]

     For a few weeks now, Fracas has been pointing out the fact that plenty of people are searching for Shyamali Malakar, and crotch shots, and ending up at her blog.
     Just a few minutes ago, she did a pretty decent post about the whole Shyamali hysteria… Seriously, the girl has attained a level of geek-obsession higher than anyone I can ever remember — even after livinh through the Sam Fox, Amy Weber, Teri Hatcher, Alicia Silverstone, Kate Moss, Gillian Anderson and Callista “Ally McBony” Flockheart years (those were prior obsessions, not my picks).

     Fracas is also doing the “FuelMyBlog” thing. She’s entered the Design a Widget competition over there, and done a helluva job, too, but they haven’t updated the competition page with it just yet.

     Nice job, Fracas!

      Now let’s see if we can channel teh Internets your way a little…

     Ya know, though, Fracas, I still think doing one with Shyamali and ALT’ing it “Shyamali Malakar Nude” would get some serious traffic headed in your direction…

     (God, after writing this, I feel so dirty…)

     Okay, it’s almost midnight … But it looks like, with just a few more clicks, we’ll be the #1 most voted blog on FuelMyBlog!

     Ok, well, as of 11:32PM, we’re now tied for #1 on the Top 100!  One more click, and we set a speed record:  from a lowly 13 votes to the #1 Blog in only 10 days!

     Whoop!  There it is!  At 11:36PM, we’re the #1 most voted blog on FuelMyBlog.

     So here’s where it started:

• On 11-Apr-2007, I put the FuelMyBlog button in the sidebar.  Over the course of a week, a total of 13 people clicked it — and that’s it.
• On 18-Apr-2007, I posted a blog about it.
• On 19-Apr-2007, I was amazed to see we had more than 60 votes due in no small part to the post.
• By 20-Apr-2007, we had around 130 votes.
• By 22-Apr-2007, we made it to #13, so I posted about it again.
• On 23-Apr-2007, I amazed to see us ranked #3.
• On 27-Apr-2007, I made yet another post about us being at #2, and hoped to hit #1 by Saturday.
• On 28-Apr-2007 at 11:36PM EDT, we hit #1.

     So that’s it … I consider this experiment concluded.  You don’t have to hit the button anymore.  We made it in 10 days, and that’s all I really care about. 

     The FuelMyBlog logo went away from the sidebar last week, but thanks to the wonders of Feeds, it appears that we’re still getting a crapload of clicks.  I figured making it to the Top 10 (of the Top 100) was good enough… but…

     You guys kept clicking!  We’re now #2 on the Top 100 and closing fast on #1.  Click it some more!  I wanna set a record:  from a lowly 13 votes to the #1 Blog in only 10 days!

     I put the FuelMyBlog logo up in the sidebar a week, maybe a week and a half ago, and nobody really clicked it — 13 votes.  So on Wednesday, I wrote the article about it.
     It took off like a rocket!  All of a sudden, we’re ranked #4 on the Top 100.

     That far exceeded my expectations.  I gotta give credit where credit is due — I asked, you clicked.  I thank you all for your participation.

[ Update - Monday, April 23, 2007 @ 10:33AM EDT ]

     And the forward momentum continues, with us at #3…

     I didn’t think anyone noticed the “Fuel My Blog” button on the right side.  I put it at the top with ”Vote Often, Vote Daily!” next to it, but it’s been relatively ineffective.

     Today, a couple of people have asked, “What is that?  I didn’t want to click it.”  Well, it’s a, uhh, well… I don’t know what it is.

     But I figured with the tens of thousands of sessions we get weekly, maybe it’d go over well… I did it as an experiment to see how much people will actually click something that might look new and exciting.

     Apparently, not much.

     This merely proves that we have some discerning readers who come here for text more than titillation. (*cough* *cough*  Sorry, I couldn’t say it with a straight face.)

     Anyway … I wanna get blogitude.com up there on the “popular” list.  So, uhhh … Click away!

[ UPDATE 19-Apr-2007, 9:31AM EDT ]

     “Ask and ye shall receive,” I guess — not only did you guys do it, but you got us up in the top third of the List.  And we’re blog of the day?  Sweet!
     I’m interested to see how long that can go on…

[ UPDATE 20-Apr-2007, 1:27AM EDT ]

     We’re actually in the 13th spot, approaching twelve pretty quickly!  If people keep clicking, I can see us actually making 10 before the day’s out.