The Urban Link

Image via CrunchBase

If you have ever searched for related article links or pictures for your blog post, you know how time consuming it can get.  Searching the web for keywords and tags that can help your post become easily searchable is also a drag when you have to do it manually.  Until recently, I had been using a keyword application entering multiple search terms and taking the most popular with the least amount of competition and THEN creating my headline and sub-headline.  Well, now I use a tool called Zemanta which is a plug-in that totally increases my productivity by decreasing the amount of time spent searching and increasing the time spent actually creating an article.

Zemanta is a blogging tool that allows you to setup search resources including blogs and websites you would normally search manually and creates a “favorites” database for your search resources.  As you are writing your piece, Zemanta is analyzing your post and comparing it to content from YOUR favorite resources as well as the entire web, for content and photos related to your post. You end up with a selection of properly attributed list of related article links and photos which you may choose from to add strength to your post.  Photos have proper copyright attribution, perfect sizing for insertion into your post at a location you determine.

Benefits!

Aside from giving you a selection of related articles to choose from, the tool makes the process of creating natural back links much simpler.  When you add a related article to your post, the blog site from which the article was pulled is notified that there is a track back to their article from your blog/site.  This connection allows YOUR post to gain attention from someone new and perhaps, they will add your blog to THEIR resources list.  I personally have my blog set up so that when someone uses one of my articles, I get notified by e-mail of the track back and get the chance to approve or disapprove the link, which helps me avoid having back links from sites considered by search engines to be spammers and thus lowering my ranking.

Just imagine that some CNN or MTV contributor has posted an article that is related to yours, you OF COURSE select that article because the referrer is well respected by search engines.  Now that contributor know you have linked his article to your site AND you end up with a back link to CNN or MTV directly to your article.  Search engines seem to eat this up and in some magical way, your blog’s ranking begins to climb and gain a positive reputation.

Cost

Nothing but your time to download, install and connect the app to your blog and set it up with your favorite sites/blogs.  If you use wordpress, setup is very simple.  Go to your plug-in page, search Zemanta, install, activate, enter some basic data and boom!  All set.  Once it is set up, the benefits are immediate so your time outlay is paid back with just one blog post.  This tools is FREE.

Comparison to other applications

There is no comparison to be had, I have not found another tool like this and please trust that I have searched.  There are other SEO type applications but for those of us like me, this one is the simplest most comprehensive tool to analyze your post, suggest appropriate in-post tags AND keyword tags all based on the content of your post.

I have not been paid for this short review, I just wanted to share a great resource with others who may be looking for a great way to find related content and perhaps generate natural back links.  I am also a Yahoo! Voices Music Featured Contributor and there, I have to actually to enter search terms in a box to HELP the platform find related articles.  That is not a complaint, just a fact.

I HIGHLY recommend the Zemanta tool as an effective tool to increase your productivity, expose your blog to other bloggers, create natural back links to respected blogs/sites…you may even connect with new blogger friends.  I have met and engaged with quite a few very respected blogs and bloggers via this tool and have increased my subscriber base and readership exponentially just because I began using Zemanta with my blog.

Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think…I am interested in the experiences of others using this tool.

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