This is 1Offs, a weblog about niche web marketing, online entrepreneurship, web design, user monetization experience, SEO, niche websites we like, and more.

Traditionally, site promotion has been about getting your pages to rank high on SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) at all cost. Google has maintained its grip on webmasters and bloggers by dangling this quest like a reachable oasis in front of us. Well, not anymore! Bloggers now have alternative SEO methods and new philosophies in their quest to reach a wider audience.

The last post about Squidoo ended with a suggestion for Squidoo to focus on being a lens search engine. Aaron Wall also interviewed Seth Godin, and Seth explained that

[...] Squidoo for the lensmaster is a place to point to your blog or your company or your organization. [....] For a surfer, it’s more direct, more trusted and easier than a search engine in some ways. It’s a place to start, a place to leave, and easy directory. [...]

In the same vein that Squidoo is a search engine for lenses, Technorati has become the benchmark search engine for blogs. There are different benefits to optimizing for Technorati, and the process can be easier than optimizing for traditional search engines like Google.

No More Searching! Information Comes To You!
Everyone talks about how how blogs have changed the media and how information distribution has transformed. But the argument can be made that the transformation is more profound due to the syndication feeds like RSS. RSS is Google’s achilles heel in this comparison. Blog readers monitoring 100+ feeds are not uncommon. In addition, new Technorati search results can be fed to readers long after their initial search via RSS. Finally, Technorati also gets a tremendous amount of search queries on their site. Technorati search has transcended the traditional search engine confines.

Before we go further, this post assumes that

1. You are optimizing for a blog, not a traditional website.
2. You blog is being indexed by Technorati regularly and correctly.

How To Optimize For Technorati
The Technorati SEO game is simple with no mysterious algorithm to worry about. In fact, Technorati tells you how to win the game! Technorati’s search page tells you the top search terms every hour. If you are able to write posts containing those keywords, your blog will be instantly exposed to perspective quality readers yearning for a different point of view.

You don’t have to worry about getting on the result pages because if you blog it, and Technorati picks it up, it WILL show up! If the search term is an addictive topic, blog readers may navigate many pages of results just to read your post! A negative aspect is the fact that showing up on this search is a short-term exposure versus the length of time you might enjoy on the first page of a Google SERP.

After The Click-through
The challenge is on writing quality posts containing the popular search terms to get readers to subscribe to your blog. This essentially breaks the cardinal content rule of “writing for humans vs. writing for computers” but if done properly can achieve results expanding your readership.

Blog readers are a finicky bunch. Unfortunately, if your blog looks like the thousands of blogs out there with the same template, that content you spent an hour perfecting will often be dismissed without hesistation in most cases. Enhancing your content with a unique blog design / layout is a key trigger to retaining new readers.

What About Monetization?
Blog readers typically are not the type of visitors who click on advertisements, but don’t worry! The more important battle is to build a loyal community, because right behind that community comes a bunch of good will, link love (or link leaks), and track-backs that inevitably will help with your SEO efforts on traditional search engines! Yes, you noticed that eventually you are going back to Google, but this time around, you’ll be armed with a readership community and the links to back it up!