Blogging and Pinging- Powerful Backdoor Into Major Search

Blogging and Pinging- Powerful Backdoor Into Major Search
Most of you know what a blog is. But have you ever had to ping a web site? Did you know that the two together, blog and ping have become the talk of the seo forums lately on how powerful these two techniques together can be at getting any web site no matter how small or large, indexed almost immediately by the major search engines and for free. If you're a webmaster then you know how frustrating it can be to be able to get your site listed and indexed in the major search engines in a reasonable amount of time. You spend countless hours creating your site, adding content, checking keyword density, etc... You then take the time to hand submit your site to all the major search engines like Yahoo, Google, AOL, MSN and then wait... and wait for the spiders to come index your web pages. If you're lucky they may come by this week, this month, or even this year. After spending all your time and money in the development of your site the last thing you want to do is wait forever for it to show you the fruits of your labor. You want to get it listed as fast as possible. Now there are some ways you can get the spiders to visit your site sooner. Like posting to similar high ranking forums, buying high PR rated links, or submitting articles on your subject and linking back to your site. All of these techniques work and work well, along with some other methods not mentioned here. But they all still take time. Some may work faster then others, but how would you like it if you could learn how get your site spidered and indexed by all of the major search engines in only 48 hours without spending a dime? By blogging and pinging you can do just that. You need to follow some simple steps in setting up this strategy. But once set up it can become a major tool to getting any of your sites listed quickly. Setting these steps up isn't hard you just need to do them in a proper sequence or all your work will be in vain. But with the proper research you could very well be on your way to getting your site indexed and listed in as little as a few days.

Blog It And They Will Come

Blog It And They Will Come.
If you're hoping for a "Blog it and they will come" field ofdreams, you can forget that. Recent statistics from blogsearch engine Technorati show that a new blog hits theInternet every 7.8 seconds! Sheesh, talk about having torise above the noise level to be heard, how in the world areyou going to get eyeballs glued to your blog when there isso much competition out there?Unlike e-zine subscriptions or autoresponder mailings, it'snot the quantity of visitors that counts, it's the qualityof the visitors as well as how often they return to continuereading your blog.Quality, in this case, refers to how often they click onrevenue-generating links in your blog and how often they buysomething that you're blogging about. Of course, if you'reoperating an altruistic blog that has no revenue-generatingfeatures, then you are only concerned about how often thereaders return to bask in the illumination of yourknowledge, expertise, biting sarcasm or humor.Either way, those are the two measurements of a successfulblog. Now don't get me wrong, the number of readers isimportant, of course, but it's better to have 1,000 faithfulreaders who return regularly than it is to have 5,000readers who come once and you never see them again afterthat.There is no free traffic!I love when bloggers say "I won't pay for traffic. I can getit for free". Nothing is "free" my friend. You will eitherpay for traffic with money or you will pay for traffic withyour time. Neither way is "free".So what you have to do is decide which of these situationsdescribe you best:A) You have more money than time.If you are so blessed, then you need to develop anadvertising plan to help you spend your money wisely. Anadvertising plan requires you to research the differentadvertising programs that are available, study thedemographics of the traffic that you'll be receiving, make abudget, set up test purchases and analyze the final results.Well, you don't HAVE to develop an advertising plan. You canalways just throw money at different potential solutions andhope for the best. If you do that enough times then you willautomatically end up in the "B" category of "more time thanmoney" because all of your money will be gone and you stillwon't have any traffic.B) You have more time than money.You've got a great blog going, the few people who show upalready absolutely love it, but you're in a financialcrunch. Is there any hope for you?Yep, there's plenty of hope. What you'll need though is alot on ingenuity and the time to turn your smarts intotraffic. Believe it or not, you should still develop anadvertising plan because even though you're not spendingcash, you are spending time. Time IS money and if you wastetime then you're wasting opportunities to get traffic toyour site.No matter which way you end up paying for your traffic, timeor money, you should first make an investment in buying some"knowledge" from people who have already been there, donethat and got the T-shirt. That way you can spend less andget more bang for your buck or your time.

Nobody Reading Your Blog?

Nobody Reading Your Blog?

So you got a your own weblog. Everything looks great, you have nice layout, some nice pictures and last but not least excellent articles.
You also update your blog on a regular basis but nobody seems to read it ! You start to think where did I go wrong. Well if your blog is really good you just need to be patient. Also make sure you submit your blog to directories specialized in blogs and search engines.But even if you did all this you might get not the amount of readers you wished for.
Get unlimited readers for you blog !
Smart people started to notice blogs are very popular so they came up with a great ideas. Blogexplosion.com is such great idea. The concept is simple, if you read other blogs then other people read your blog. So the more blogs you read the more people will be reading yours. Sounds good you might think. Well it actually is a very good concept. Just register your blog for free and login, then pick a category blogs you would like to read and start reading. You must read each blog for at least half a minute, after that you can select another blog. For each blog you have red you recieve a credit. This credit means one other member is going to read your blog. Again great concept. But there is a downside, first you have to spend of lot of time reading blogs in order to get other people to read yours. You can choose to read only blogs in a specific category (of your interest) but it is still really time consuming. Other people who are reading your blog might do this because they only want other people to read their blog. You can imagine these are not the most interested readers you wish for. But blogexplosion.com also offers non members to search their directory for blogs. These visitors are potenial quality readers for your blog! Other downside is that you can not only earn credits by reading other blogs, you can also buy them ! If everybody is going to do this then this concept doesn't do so well anymore.

Blog Marketing: Guerrillas stalk the Internet

Blog Marketing: Guerrillas stalk the Internet
Blogs, are often defined as frequent and ongoing publications of personal thoughts and opinions of the Internet or websites. And, of course - all of certainly know what Marketing is. We are constantly bombarded with every sort of Marketing ploy through almost all forms of electronic media and print media as well. Blog Marketing is an exploding tactical and strategic process on the Internet whereby personal opinion and marketing coalesce to advise, promote, guide, persuade or dissuade any or all of us in our purchasing decisions. The Blogger generally provides his/her expertise and opinion to "assist" the consumer in making all sorts of decisions. These Blogs cumulatively provide guidance on virtually every aspect of known existence. Blog Marketing is potentially a perfect platform for "guerrilla warfare" marketing as well - everyone from Joe Schmoe on the street to top politicians and corporate executives can use this method to promote a personal agenda or to sell something in the guise of authoritative and disinterested position. Caveat emptor is the watch phrase still as it will always be. Still, Blog Marketing offers many positive contributions as well. The future customer is able to obtain more information about positions, products, or services than in the traditional marketing format of advertisements. Opinion is what it is and everyone knows the old saying about opinions - it would behove the person being blogged to consider and the potential agendas of the Blogger. The promise of blogging is that more information about the subject may be obtained or that truly outside of the box thinking might emerge into public view

Blogging: Just How Much of a Phenomenon?

Blogging: Just How Much of a Phenomenon?
In a post in my blog, The Webquarters (www.webquarters.blogspot.com), I talked about blogging’s future. Here we will try and arrive at a “measure" for how successful blogging has become, and how much more it is capable of achieving.It is pertinent to note that we are not talking about measuring the success of a specific blog, but of blogging as a phenomenon.Before tackling the admittedly difficult question of measuring its success, let’s pause and ask, What is blogging? At one level, it is a tool which individuals use for communication and self-expression. Indeed, this was the only use conceived initially. As its usage soared, it also emerged as a tool for on-line 'communities' to interact and disseminate news or useful information. The most recent emerging use (completely unancticipated in the early years of blogging's existence) is for commercial organizations to interact with various stakeholders.Thus, a reasonably general definition of blogging would appear to be, a technology that lends itself for use by individuals, communities or organizations as a means of communication, information dissemination or interaction.How do we go about establishing a measure of the success of anything? One way is to identify its "potential", and measure what proportion of that potential has been achieved. For example, if your company sells flat-panel TVs, the potential market would probably be equal to the number of households in the world having a household income of more than a certain figure. If you are trying to popularize a new 'world language' that you have invented, the potential probably corresponds to every human in the world speaking the language. If you sell beer, the potential sales would probably correspond to each adult in the world drinking 150 liters a year!*However, it is frequently difficult to assess potential in this manner. A surrogate, more practical approach would be to identify the 'best' achieved by anybody so far. If you are an athlete, your 'best achievable' may be the current world record in your event. In the TV example above, the ‘best achievable’ may be the sales volume achieved by the market-leading company.Thus, the problem reduces to discovering the 'best achievable' usage of blogging. To do this, we must stretch our imagination a bit and ask, what are the "best" technologies** that meet roughly the same needs that blogging does, and what is the usage they have achieved? The “best” technologies we have that allow communication, information dissemination or interaction are probably telephones, email, and conventional web sites.The number of telephone lines (fixed and mobile) in the world is estimated at around 2.1 billion. Similarly, the number of email users is in the region of 600 million.How many websites exist in the world? Yahoo indexes 19 billion web pages, while Google indexes about 9 billion. Taking the smaller of the two, and assuming the average website has around 20 pages, the number of websites may be approximated as about 500 million.Let’s be conservative, taking the smallest of the 3 figures (for telephones, email users and websites) which is 500 million. To be play it even safer, let us assume that many websites represent uses that blogs just cannot. So let us say that the figure of 500 million overstates the figure we are looking for by 90%. This leaves 250 million (assuming many websites are defunct, etc.). It appears safe to say that this represents the usage that blogging must achieve. Thus, the “best achievable” number of blogs is, at the very least, 250 million. The current number of around 80 million thus suggests that blogging has covered about a third of the distance to its “best achievable” usage.Of course, we will be shortchanging blogging if we end this analysis without considering time frames. While telephones have taken 20+ years to reach their current usage (counting only from the time mobile phones were invented), email has taken 15+ years, and the web 10+ years, blogging has been around only 6 years or so.To dwell a bit on how technologies evolve over time, let us look at an elegant concept, the 'S' curve. What this says, very simply, is that every technology has an initial period during which it grows very slowly. As it improves and gains usage, it crosses an 'inflexion point', beyond which growth takes off rapidly***. Further down, the technology reaches a maturity stage where growth once again slackens. Metcalfe's Law, which holds that the usefulness of something goes up exponentially with the number of its users, applies during the high growth section.Thus, in S- curve terms, blogging can be thought of as having crossed the inflexion point, and being about 30% of the way to the peak. In other words, 70% of its potential is yet to be achieved.

Avoid "Bad" Manners While Blogging

Avoid "Bad" Manners While Blogging
Blogging, the hottest trend in online publishing right now,is currently spreading like wildfire across the Internet. A cross between an online journal and a bulletin board,everyone from rock starts, politicians, business leadersand your average "Joe" or "Jane" can instantly become acenter of influence online using blogs. But, as with any social interaction, certain rules apply(my grandma calls them manners) in order to be viewed asbehaving "properly."One of the things that gives blogging such strong appeal asan online publishing method revolves around "comments."Blogs that allow "comments" enable readers to respond andelaborate on the information posted by the blog owner.These comments and the free exchange of information,opinions, links, and new ideas creates the dynamic andgrowing content that makes blogging such a popular onlineactivity for both publishers and readers.However, rules and unwritten customs about the proper useof "comments" on a specific blog are also where most of theproblems and controversy will arise. Since a successful blog eventually becomes a community ofpeople (albeit in cyberspace), proper social behavior iscritical to be an effective and accepted member of thecommunity. Keep these basic rules in mind when approaching a new blogthat allows commenting by readers so you won't findyourself on the wrong end of a scolding by people whooperate with a different set of rules than you. As with any social circle, violating the group's rules andcustoms will instantly cause a negative backlash.** Keep It Relevant **Stay on topic with the post you're commenting about in ablog. Nothing will earn you the wrath and disdain of yourfellow posters and the blog owner faster than posting anoff-topic comment.** Watch What Others Do **Different blogs operate under different rules. What ratesacceptable in one blog would earn you a verbal thrashing inanother. Before posting (especially if you have not posted to aspecific blog before), look to see the types and quality ofposts others make regularly. Are they long or short? Do they contain a link to the person's website? Is there a "signature" under their name? ** Be Polite **It's fine to disagree with people when making a comment,whether it's the blog's author or a comment made by anotherreader. It is not, however, acceptable to launch a personal attackon anyone or make nasty comments in someone else's blog. If you feel the need to do so, do it in your own blog. It's the same principle of you can say whatever you want inyour own house, but when you're in someone else's house,you act right (and better than you do at home).** You Can't Respond To Everyone **If you operate a blog and someone asks a question, try torespond, but both sides should understand that you can'trespond 100% of the time. We all get busy and a blog, unless it maintains a paidmembership, is often supported as a labor of love.

Starting Your Own Blog

Starting Your Own Blog
I was sitting in my local Internet Cafe yesterday, I like to get away from my 'home office' from time to time and it's a great place to go for a cup of Espresso and to meet interesting people. The rather attractive lady sitting next to me was typing away furiously and, when she had finished, I asked her what she was writing - I'm interested in learning how other people use the Internet... some people call that being nosey!
It turns out she was a 'Blogger' and she was updating her web site through a web browser. She was really interested in vegetarian cookery and she was adding a new restaurant review to her blog.
If you spend any time at all online these days you simply can't avoid reading something about blogs, they are becoming increasingly more popular; and they are a great way of building an online presence without the need for any technical knowledge. A blog is an abbreviation of the term 'web log' which is a relatively simple content management system.
Quite a few years ago, web surfers began collecting information and interesting links that they encountered during their online travels. As time passed they started to create logs of the information that they collected and they soon started to develop their own web logs. These web logs enabled them to update the information and links as often as they wished.
Blogs are more permanent than posts to an online forum or to a discussion list, they are much more dynamic than the traditional style home pages. They are also more personal than standard journaling, and definitely more public than diaries. A blog is often a mixture of what is happening in a person's life and what is happening on the Web, a kind of hybrid diary site. So, there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people.
There are a few common characteristics of a blog, but there may be slight variations within the classification. Some blogs provide succinct descriptions of links within the chosen theme of the blog. Some others contain commentary and links to the news of the day. A few are endless stream of blurts about the writer’s day. Others are - political blogs, intellectual blogs, some are hilarious and some topic driven. They are all - Weblogs.
As mentioned earlier, blogs are posts that are short, informal and sometimes deeply personal no matter what the topic of discussion is. They can be characterized by their conversational tone.
If a person has a web presence but is disappointed with static homepage - if an elegant treatment of posts on a global platform is what they want, then ‘blogging’ provides an ideal platform. They may also consider blogging if they are seeking feedback from their chosen audience.
Weblogs are definitely the mavericks of the online world. Two of their greatest strengths are their ability to filter and disseminate information to a widely dispersed audience, and their position outside the mainstream of mass media.
There are many different options available to the new and seasoned blogger alike. Some blog scripts are available for you to install on your own domain and these require at least a basic understanding of FTP and HTML. There are many hosted blog services available some free and some paid. If you are serious about blogging then I would strongly recommend that you use the best system that you can afford and that meets your needs.
I personally have used the 'Moveable Type' stand-alone script and although quite complex to install, I found it very easy to use. My recommended choice of hosted blogging service would have to be the Blog4Cash.com system that includes a wide variety of high quality features and has a built in two tier affiliate scheme that enables you to generate a recurring income from all your referrals!