It's official -- according to Technorati, and to Kineda's cool A-List Bloglebrity tool which uses it, I am now an A-List blogger:

Now, that might not be all that interesting to you, except that I'm about to tell you exactly how I did it, and without working at it nearly as hard as Technorati suggests you might have to.

Technorati described their authority groupings in last October's State of the Blogosphere:

The Very High Authority Group (500 or more blogs linking in the last 6 months) [aka, "The A-List"]

In the final group we see what might be considered the blogging elite. This group, which represents more than 4,000 blogs, exhibits a radical shift in post frequency as well as blog age. Bloggers of this type have been at it longer – a year and a half on average – and post nearly twice a day, an increase in posting volume of over 100% from the previous group. Many of the blogs in this category, in fact, are about as old as Technorati and we’ve grown up together. Some of these are full-fledge professional enterprises that post many, many times per day and behave increasingly like our friends in the mainstream media. As has been widely reported, the impact of these bloggers on our cultures and democracies is increasingly dramatic.

Guess what... I don't post anywhere near twice a day. Sometimes I barely manage twice a week. Posting volume certainly helps, but as and of itself, it's not enough. And based on my own experience, I would say that several other things are far more important. While this is certainly not meant to be a comprehensive list of everything you can do (or that I have done) to market a blog, these are the things that, based on my analysis of both my own blogs (I write three others, in addition to this one, and they're all doing pretty well too - 2 of the 3 are "B-list", and the other is brand new) and those of others, will do the most to legitimately boost your Technorati ranking (no link exchanges just for the sake of link exchanges here). I will, however, tell you one "trick" at the end. :-)

1. The Basics - Write well, write often. Link to other bloggers. Comment on their blogs. These are the fundamentals. I'm going to assume that if you're shooting for the A-list, you're already past that, but I thought it still worth saying. And no... I'm not as convinced on the frequency thing. I see a lot of people who post more frequently than I do but have much lower rankings, and people ranked higher who post less frequently. There may statistically be a correlation, but it's just not an absolute requirement. Post frequently if you can, but don't think that you have to post once or twice a day to make the A-List. You don't.
    
2. A Blog Network Helps - Look, I'd be lying to both you and myself if I didn't admit that the fact that I'm on one of the top 10 web sites in the world with some 40 million readers and more Google juice than you can swallow didn't play a huge part in my success. And while many of the top blogs are independent, many are also part of blog networks such as Weblogs, Inc., b5media, 9rules, Creative Weblogging, Know More Media, All Business, 451 Press, et al. They can be especially helpful to new bloggers to gain additional exposure and links. And many of them will allow you to move your existing blog into the network. (Disclosure: I write a blog for b5media)
    
3. Link List Posts - People love lists. Finding a good list beats the heck out of grinding through search engine results, especially for things that aren't easily searchable. For example, my post, Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs was written almost two years ago, and yet it still has 50 links showing in Technorati. That's 10% of my "authority" in one post. And people are still linking to it. In fact, blogging consultant (and A-list blogger herself) Liz Strauss just linked to it in her post, The Key to Link Lists, in which she highlighted 15 examples of excellent list posts.
   
   Personally, I prefer "quality over quantity" lists, because I know that busy entrepreneurs are looking to me to be an information filter more than a comprehensive source, and that tends to be our approach on About.com. The other works, too, though. For example, Mashable is one of the highest-authority blogs, and their roundup lists are among their very most popular posts. For a great example, see their recent post: Make Money Online: 100+ Tools and Resources. I even learned about a few new ones, even as closely as I follow that topic.
    
4. Unique Content - Good content is good, unique content is even better. For example, considering the link lists above... the blogosphere doesn't need another "Top 10 Business Blogs" list. Who cares? On the other hand "Top 10 Most Practical Blogs for Entrepreneurs" is unique, targeted, and compelling. Know your niche and write about things that aren't easily found on Wikipedia or Google. That is what people will link to - stuff they know they'd have a hard time finding again.
    
5. Blog Carnivals - I can't say enough about the value of blog carnivals. In case you're not familiar with them, blog carnivals are weekly roundups of the best posts from around the blogosphere on a particular topic. In some cases, the carnival is hosted by the same blog every week, but I prefer the ones that move from host to host every week. I estimate that most people can find about 5 carnivals for which at least one of their recent posts is a fit. Just do the math and you'll see why these are so valuable:
   
   1 post x 5 carnivals/week x 25 weeks = 125 links
   
   Now the actual numbers may end up a little lower, since you may not submit every week, and some of the carnivals don't switch hosts, but still... even, say, a fraction of that could put you 15% of the way to the A-List. To learn more about blog carnivals, check out BlogCarnival.com, a one-stop resource for finding and submitting to blog carnivals (as well as managing them, if you're interested in starting your own).
    
6. The One Trick I Promised - OK... here it is... my blog is my home page. "So what?" See, with my blog as my home page, when anyone links to anything on my site -- my non-blog articles or even the home page -- it counts as a link. Of course, of your blog is pretty much your whole website already, that's not as much of an issue, but if it's not, consider making the blog the home page.
   
   Doing that doesn't mean your home page has to look like a blog. It's completely possible to have the main page of your blog look like a conventional web page and have, say, just the headlines and excerpts displayed in a sidebar. Explaining how to do that is way beyond the scope of this article, but talk to your web designer - it's entirely possible, and it will definitely increase the number of links that get "credited" by Technorati (and others) to your "blog".

So there you have it... again, not intended to be a comprehensive list of ways to promote your blog (for that, see our Weblogs Guide's "Building Traffic to Your Blog"), but rather a short list of the specific things I have done that help build links to your blog from other bloggers and increase your authority.

Now... let's not stop here. I've set up a thread on the forum to help you make the blog A-list. Come post your current authority ranking, ask any questions, share any tips, and...most of all...share your progress! Come back every couple of weeks and let us know how you're doing, ask more questions, share your experiences, etc. We may not be able to get everyone on the A-list, but we should at least be able to move everybody up a notch or two. And you'll get to meet some other cool entrepreneurial bloggers as you grow your blog traffic.