Thank you for making the Buzz Bin a top 20,000 ranked blog on Technorati, a measurement based on how many blogs link to you. The top 20k ranking has been a goal since March, when the blog changed its name from Diary of an Ad Man to the Buzz Bin. At the time we were ranked at 300K+.

Yesterday on Now Is Gone we examined whether this has any real impact (hint: not much). But several people have asked me how we did it. So I will try to lay-out the steps taken to achieve this benchmark in the hopes that maybe someone else can get some value out of it.

Keys to Success

Approach: Stopped writing for me (journal style), and started writing for you. You became much more interested.

Experience: Used my background as a wireless trade reporter to build a hybrid trade/blog format with serials like Blogs of Fire and a weekly interview. This continues the general trend of blurred lines between journalists and bloggers.

Participation: Actively reading my community’s blogs and interests. Further, industry leaders are recognized through interviews.

Service: Buzz Bin content is written to serve social-media friendly PR pros and marketers (particularly local ones), trying to offer a valuable viewpoint and analysis. We don’t always write up the lastest meme, and instead focusing on thought leadership. Every Monday article attempts to serve in this capacity.

Google Analytics: By letting the statistics tell me what you care about I can deliver content that better serves your interests.

Social Networks: Social network participation in Twitter, Facebook, Pownce and SpinThicket yielded significant increases in traffic over the past three to four months.

Risk: Taking stands distinguishes your point of view, but it also requires risk, and a willingness to accept that not everyone will see your point of view. We also used case studies - opening ourselves to criticism. You have to accept that and not care.

Help: We got some breaks with several A-Listers who shined kindly upon us. One of the great things they did was bring attention to successes like our GeoCommons Social Media Release. Thanks to the friends who helped out.

SEO: Over the past two months, we had our very successful Viget Labs experience, which expanded SEO and calls to action on the blog. This expanded readership and certainly visibility.

What’s Next

What’s next for the Buzz Bin? A new template is critical to our success. The current one is not helping growth, so we expect to unveil this in the next couple of weeks.

In addition, we are adding the company’s first full time social media consultant this week. Larissa Fair will take over back end maintenance on the blog, and will also be participating in the larger PR and marketing blogosphere. She will have a weekly Wednesday column on social media, and Michele Capots will focus on public relations issues on Friday.

Lastly, we hope to break the top twenty on the Friendly Ghost’s PR blog rankings in the next four to six months. Wish us luck!