John A Simpson » Blogging

SocialSpark.com creates new linkbuilding opportunities

John — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 03:35:55 +0000

I didn’t think of this one. Someone else did. I’m talking about using Social Spark, which I thought was specifically for paid blogging, etc., to promote one’s blog…without having to pay anyone.

I logged onto socialspark.com and after adding all of my blogs, I started looking through the offers. Since my blogs are not approved, I can only accept the offers that do not involve money. I figured it would be a good exercise, so I settled on one to try. It actually was not related to posting. It was a request for an RSS subscribe exchange. I did it. I’ll have to see if the other part reciprocates. I found another offer, which involved writing a post about a site, then leaving a comment on that site. The payment is supposed to be the addition of my blog to his blogroll. The site is a PR3. The problem is, it won’t help me if I cannot somehow tie that site’s subject to the subject of my blog. It just so happens that it is related. In fact, you can check out http://lepixelshoppe.com/scrap4dollars yourself. I will also be adding this blog to my blogroll.

If you enjoyed this post, please make sure you register to receive these posts via email. You can also follow me on Twitter, link to me on LinkedIn, or visit my other blog, at www.spendingless101.com.

Starting A Blog

John — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 06:05:00 +0000

This post contains FREE ADVICE for those of you wanting to start a blog. Some of the information can also pertain to starting a new web site.

Yes, it does take a while to get a site going, but I believe it’s just a startup thing. I think that once it catches, it will take off…like a virus, hence the term Viral.

This is a comprehensive and detailed list of site promotion tasks:

Load the Alexa Toolbar into Firefox and visit your site using Firefox: Alexa rankings are driven by the users of the toolbar visiting web sites. As you visit your site periodically, your ranking will go up. That goes for anyone else visiting your site so it might even make sense for you to write a post encouraging your readers to use the Alexa toolbar.

Comment on related blogs: This will give you an immediate incoming link, which is what you want. Leaving comments of substance on other people’s blogs is one of the primary ways of getting incoming links. You may want to set up a schedule for this one. Without a schedule, I’ll get caught up reading other people’s sites and I will end up not finishing my comments. 3 times a week (maybe Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) might work. I put things like this on Outlook’s calendar. You might be able to use Google Calendar.

When creating posts, refer to other blogs (blog posts), and use the trackback link from that blog for the link to that blog. A lot of times, when you are reading a post, at the bottom of that post, there is a link with the text “trackback”. Right-click on that, and click “copy link location”. This is what you want to use when pointing to that blog. This will guarantee that their system will know you are pointing to them. Doing this also creates a link on their site indicating that you are pointing to them.

Read, read, read: This one is not directly related to site promotion, but reading will give you other ideas. I suggest reading the RSS feeds of some SEO pros out there, such as www.cshel.com, www.mattcutts.com (although this gets a lot technical), www.seomoz.org, etc. Do a Google search for SEO export blog and subscribe to their RSS feeds using Google Reader. Google Reader is awesome for keeping track of RSS feeds. You can also listen to the podcasts of the big SEO and Internet Marketing people.

Generate your own content as frequently and consistently as possible. If you are blogging in advance, you can set the publish date on the post in the future and it won’t show up on your blog until that day. I am currently 12 days ahead in posting on Spending Less 101.

Save future ideas as draft posts: If you have blog ideas, but have not developed them into posts, put the title and any notes you have in WordPress and click “save” instead of “publish”. This will create a draft. Now the idea is in a safe place where you can expand on it or finish it anytime you want and it won’t be lost or forgotten.

Set up automated social bookmarking on WordPress: I have only been able to find plug-ins to post to 3 of the many social bookmarking sites automatically. I have them on my blog and they post to delicious, Simpy, and Twitter. I continue to look for this.

Submit your posts to social bookmarking sites: A good way to do this is to use SocialPoster.com or SocialMarker.com. I am playing with the idea of purchasing Auto Social Poster. This will do all of that automatically.

Monetize Your Blog: Place ad zones on your site. You can do this using OpenAds or similar products.

Use EntreCard: You know this one. Drop, drop, drop… 300 per day, per site. They use the credits to buy ads on other sites. This will get you links on other related sites…even if it is temporary. You can even use the credits to get people to comment on your blog through the EntreCard Shop.

Use various forms of media on your blog. You need video. You can find something on YouTube and embed the code.

Submit your RSS feed to feed directories: Do a Google search on RSS feed directory and submit your RSS feed to as many as you can stand to.

Submit your blog to blog directories: Do a Google search on blog directories and submit your site to as many of those as possible.

Write Articles: If you can write an article on a subject that is also related to your blog, do that. The article should be at least 2000 words. Don’t post this to your blog. If you do and others also post it, it will get flagged as duplicate content. Do a Google search for article directories and post to as many of those as you can stand. You will include with your article, a resource box at the bottom, which contains a little information about you and a link to your blog. When people use your content on their site, they have to include the resource box, which will link bank to your site. Check out my articles on EzineArticles.

Enlist the help of others: This includes all of your friends. You can ask them to do things like:
- Adding the Alexa toolbar to IE or Firefox (there is one for IE now).
- Having them comment on posts that relate to them.
- Promote your site by adding a link to their Facebook, MySpace, or other social networking account.
- Subscribe to your RSS feed
- Link to your site from their site(s), if they have a site
Install a plug-in on your blog that will link to other posts within your blog: This is basically the “If you liked this post, take a look at these” post. There is a plug-in like that, but it only does it in random posts. I found another one that does it in all posts. I can show you the results and how to install it.

Use Social Networking heavily: The reason all of my networks are large is because I see the value in networking with as many people as possible. You should get as many people in your Facebook, LinkedIn, Stumble, etc., networks as possible.

Work less on the design and more on the content.

Submit your site to DMOZ.org: This is big because this directory is used on tons of web sites.

Create A Site t-shirt: Make a t-shirt with your site name on it and wear it often. There are several places you can get this done, including http://www.customink.com/services/cheap-t-shirt-printing.htm.

Once your site starts to go Viral, you won’t have to do as much promotion, but you will need to have consistent content.

AutoPosting

John — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:00:00 +0000

In order to help your site promotion and blogging efforts, you need to find ways to automate what you do. One particular area that really needs help with automation is posting to social network sites. I’ve come across several FREE applications that allow you to automatically submit your blog posts to social networks when they are posted to your blog. Some of these are:

Learn about a FREE way to snazz-up your blog posts…

John — Mon, 26 May 2008 06:04:15 +0000

All of the blog experts say that if you include a photo in your blog post, it will make it more attractive and users are more likely to read it. Now, you could go out and take all of the pictures you need, but unless you are a professional photographer, or you have an $800 digital camera (or both), you may or may not get good shots. Also, this takes up a lot of time. Another way to get the photos is to steal them from other web sites. In most cases, you’d probably get away with it, however, when that one web site owner notices their pics on your site (at the end of a really bad day), you could find yourself on the business end of a lawsuit for copyright infringement. I’m sure you don’t want that. The quickest legal way to acquire photos is to get them from a free stock photo site. There are many of them on the internet. Donna Fontenot of DazzlinDonna.com listed 10 of them in her blog post entitled, Favorite 10 Free Stock Photo Download Sites. Check it out.

The Little-Known Secrets of Changing Blog Engines

John — Fri, 23 May 2008 00:53:00 +0000

I thought this post would be timely because I am planning to move this blog from BlogEngine.NET over to WordPress. All of my other blogs are on WordPress and it has some plug-in-based features that I like.

If you change blog engines, make sure you 301-redirect your posts to their new location, or you will lose users when they get continual 404s.

Posts About Changing Blog Engines

Here is a method that is helping bloggers jump-start their social bookmarking…

John — Wed, 21 May 2008 04:31:00 +0000

You are at the do or die point in your blogging career. You have decided that if you don’t get things going with your blog and start making some money real soon, you are going to swear off blogging, burn your laptop, and start reading the newspaper again. You even have thoughts of going to the library.

Bonsai is your answer.

Here is the Bonsai attack method for posting to social media sites:

Find some social media sites and register for an account. We will call this account, the master account. You will use these account to submit your stories to the social media sites. Make sure that, from this point on, you submit all of your posts. Can’t find any social media sites? If not, you need to open your eyes and look in the direction of the computer. You could also go to the post that DoshDosh did on the subject. If I were you, I would register for all of the sites listed in the DoshDosh post.
Go back through the list and register for a posting/user account. You will use these accounts to rate, comment on, and hype the posts submitted in step #1.
Make sure some sort of social bookmarking widget is installed on your blog(s) so your users can also do you the favor of submitting your posts.

That method should give your social bookmarking efforts a kick-start.

Bonus Tip: I also have my friends submit my posts to social bookmarking sites. I make things easy on them, however, by sending them the exact link they need, which includes the title, description, URL, and tags. This way, all they need to do is click on the link, log in, select a category…and they are done.

What everyone should know about linkbait…

John — Tue, 20 May 2008 19:10:00 +0000

When it comes to linkbaiting, CopyBlogger is king. Here are his 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work. If you want to know the details of WHY each one works, you will have to visit the 10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work post on hist blog.

Copyblogger’s title cheat sheet:

Who Else Wants [blank]?
The Secret of [blank]
Here is a Method That is Helping [blank] to [blank]
Little Known Ways to [blank]
Get Rid of [problem] Once and For All
Here’s a Quick Way to [solve a problem]
Now You Can Have [something desirable] [great circumstance]
[Do something] like [world-class example]
Have a [or] Build a [blank] You Can Be Proud Of
What Everybody Ought to Know About [blank]

Driving Traffic Using ANY Subject

John — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:56:00 +0000

Any subject can be used to drive traffic. In the midwest, we recently had an earthquake. In California, that may be a daily occurance, but in the midwest, it rarely happens, so it’s big news. All you have to do is connect the dots for the reader.

I just wrote a post on my SpendingLess101.com blog about the midwest earthquake. You are probably wondering how an earthquake could be related to spending less money. When attempting to tie subjects together, you have to open your mind; thing broadly. You may even need to ask some friends to give you some ideas. As I said in the title, any subject can be used to drive traffic (and, anything can be tied to anything else). Here are some examples of tying two seemingly-unrelated subjects together:

Pizza / Bubbles: Although the .com bubble has burst, a lot of pizza companies are finding additional business through online orders.
Lawn Mower / Baseball: The LawnBoy SuperMax Mower is a revolution to the lawn mowing industry, much like the original lawn mower was to the baseball field.

Just use a little creativity and you can ties subjects together.

Based on what I’ve said, you can now see how earthquakes and spending less money can go together. While it took a while for me to put the two together, once the idea hit, it was so obvious.

Getting to the point, you can see for yourself how I was able to tie these two together.

10 tips to drive massive traffic to a new blog

John — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 12:23:00 +0000

I have a process that I go through when setting up a new blog. I tried to get it all down on paper, but there are so many things. Here are 10 of the things I do…

Write your blog posts as if they were articles, then post them to article directories: This can drive a lot of traffic and can also get your work out to the public because your articles will be used as content on multiple blogs…all linking back to you.
Social bookmark your posts. SocialPoster.com is the best tool for doing this that I’ve come across.
List your blog in blog and site directories.
Add your blog to DMOZ.org, which is syndicated on quite a lot of sites.
Comment on other people’s blogs.
Join social networks, like Facebook, Friendster, MySpace, etc… #2 will drive this one because, most of the time, you have to be a member in order to post links on these sites.
Set up your RSS feed in FeedBurner.
Answer questions on Yahoo and LinkedIn. This will help establish you as an expert in the field of your choosing.
Add a link to your site in your email signature.
Write as much content as you can without forming blisters on your fingers. The more content you write, the more often the bots visit.

Good luck…

Related Posts:

Turn your blog posts into articles

John — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 00:24:00 +0000

Your blog posts, if they have some meat to them, are basically articles. If you make a blog post and you don’t turn it into an article, you are leaving money on the table. Making a few small modifications to some of your better posts will turn them into articles. Since submitting articles to article directories is one of the big ways to promote your site, any re-use you can do will help you reach your goal much faster.

I have taken two of my blog posts and converted them to article.

- http://ezinearticles.com/?How-Important-is-SEO-To-Your-Company?&id=974080
- http://ezinearticles.com/?What-Does-the-Term-SERPS-Mean?&id=948682

Here are some of the things to modify:

1. Make a copy of the HTML version of the post and remove all links.
2. Add a {resource box} to the bottom of the post that includes some information about you and a linke to your web site. Generating in-bound links is one of the main reasons for submitting articles to article directories…unless you get your joy from the writing alone. I like writing, but a little more money would be nice too.
3. Make sure the post does not sound like a promo ad for your blog.

If you are not already a member, here are a few article sites:

- www.articlebiz.com
- www.articlecity.com
- www.articlegeek.com
- www.ezinearticles.com
- www.easyarticles.com

This is really easy and you get a lot of bang for the buck. Oh, and don’t worry if your article is rejected the first time, or second time, or third time… The {article publisher} wants to maintain the integrity of their site. Can you blame them for that? Keep correcting and submitting until the draft is accepted.

Also, don’t stop at one article publisher. Submit your article to as many publishers as you can. Here are some more:

- www.isnare.com
- www.myarticlezine.com
- www.articlesbase.com
- www.articlesnatch.com
- www.content4reprint.com

According to John Chow, at one time he was a member of 1xx affiliate programs. I am currently a member of 12 programs and I plan on joining more. The whole point is to pick the best ad deals out of the ones presented to you.

Challenge

Let’s help each other. If you are a member of an affiliate program, leave a comment indicating how well (or badly) the program has done for you.

Submit Articles for Free
Authors can submit copyright free articles and enjoy the many benefits provided by ArticleGeek.com.

Blog Top Sites from BlogFlux

John — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:35:00 +0000

Do you have one of these. If so, what is it? What does it do? What is 357?

Don’t be alarmed. If you click on it, you are taken to the BlogFlux site. What is BlogFlux? According to their About page, BlogFlux is described as follows:

Blog Flux was created as the spiritual successor to the Eatonweb Portal. The Portal, in its heyday, had been the best blog directory – lots of information, and a whole lot of user reviews. Unfortunately, as the site grew, the original webmaster was unable to keep the site up and running properly.

So we came into the picture. As we worked on the site, our original vision grew larger and larger. To that end we decided that the scope of the site required a fresh start. Due to our agreement with the previous owner, the www. site would always be blank. As such, BlogFlux.com was created. Blog Flux aims to be a portal from which all your blogging needs can be handled – directory, button maker, and lots more.

BlogFlux is a blog portal, a directory, a tool and theme catalog, and an assistance center all rolled up into one. Aside from the tools that are available to help the blogger promote their blog, there is also a directory to which you can submit your blog. Basically, as a blogger, you can do everything you need to do from BlogFlux.

I found another blog post that does a pretty thorough job in describing all of the features of the site.

Thanks to the Commenters

John — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 17:23:00 +0000

Always thank the people that leave comments on your blog. They do not have to do it (unless you’ve paid them). They have plenty of other things to be doing at the time they are leaving you a comment, like wash dishes, wash clothes, put kids to bed, or one of a million other things that we in today’s world have to do. If the person took the time to leave you a comment, continuing the conversation, the least you can do is thank them for it.

One of the reasons for writing a blog is to build relationships. You want to build relationships with others interested in the same subjects. Think about the interactions you have with your actual friends (especially the ones in the same industry). You bounce ideas off each other, call each other for help, have something to talk about when out for drinks, and you have someone who understands what you have to deal with on a daily basis. I would say that you should build relationships through blogging for the same purposes…and maybe you can have that drink face to face some day.

Although there are those in the SEO industry that say the search engines don’t care about reciprocal linking, I believe it is still important. Maybe that blogger you have just started a blogging relationship with will link to your blog from his/her blog. Every little bit helps.

Finally, you don’t know everything. You never will, but it’s good to know that you can learn from others, including those that comment on your blog. Thanks them sincerely.

I will send each of my commenters a personal note of thanks.

Releated Information:

How I made $1000/day on Adsense and Affiliate Ads

John — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 12:53:00 +0000

OK, so I am not yet making that amount. I’m not even making $100/day or $10/day. So far, I am making about .50/day. So far, the ads are paying for the hosting space and the domains, so I’ve broken even. WooHoo!!! Now for the new goal.

My goal is to make $10/day by the end of March

I’m sure I can do it. I have been promoting the blog on a daily basis. This goal is not limited to this blog. I plan on purchasing some more domains and parking them. I also plan on adding more affiliate accounts. I think I currently have 5 or 6. John Chow said he had 170 affiliate accounts at one point. If that is what it takes, I’m on it.

Here are the affiliates I am currently using:

I’m on my way and I’m not alone. My friend Adam is also going along for the ride. Should be fun, if nothing else.

The next time you see this blog title here, it will be for real.

6 Ways To Speed Up Your Site

John — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 21:37:00 +0000

One of the things that can turn a person off quickly is a slow web site. Here are 6 things that can be done to speed up your site:

Optimize images to optimal sizes
Use the right image formats
Optimize CSS
Use a slash on your links
Use the height and width tags
Reduce the HTTP requests

In order to get a more detailed description of each of these speed-up tips, visit www.DailyBlogTips.com.

200 Blog Review Questions You Should Ask

John — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 16:07:00 +0000

For you small business owners that have discovered that having a blog is a great way to drive traffic to your business web site, your blog may need a checkup. Have you done a blog review of your site? Do you know how many visits and page views does the blog receive each month? What about how many published posts are there? these things are important. You should do a blog review periodically. Here are 200 blog review questions you should ask in order to find out if your blog is in tip-top shape, or if it needs some work.

125 Ways To Promote Your Blog

John — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 00:49:00 +0000

Web Site Promotion For The Small Business v2
January 25, 2008

You probably think 125 ways is too much to grasp, but hold on. This one is easy.

1. Write the most excellent blog post you have ever written.

2-125. Ping the following ping services:

http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping.php
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bblog.comping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogbot.dk
http://blogbot.dk/io/xml-rpc.php
http://blogdb.jp
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogoole.com/ping
http://blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2nd
http://blogsnow.com/ping
http://bulkfeeds.net
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping
http://effbot.org/rpc/ping.cgi
http://godesigngroup.com
http://godesigngroup.com/blog/feed
http://imblogs.net/ping
http://lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://mod-pubsub.org
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://ping.amagle.com
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs
http://ping.blogg.de
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se
http://ping.wordblog.de
http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://pingqueue.com/rpc
http://popdex.com/addsite.php
http://rcs.datashed.net
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger
http://rpc.britblog.com
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080
http://rpc.newsgator.com
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://rpc.wpkeys.com
http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx
http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz
http://snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://thingamablog.sourceforge.net/ping.php
http://topicexchange.com
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://weblogues.com/RPC
http://www.a2b.cc
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping
http://www.blogoon.net/ping
http://www.blogpeople.net
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogsdominicanos.com/ping
http://www.blogshares.com
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.catapings.com/ping.php
http://www.chriselliottcopywriting.com
http://www.feedsky.com/api/RPC2
http://www.focuslook.com/ping.htm
http://www.focuslook.com/ping.php
http://www.godesigngroup.com
http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping
http://www.imblogs.net/ping
http://www.lasermemory.com
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc
http://www.lovepeaceproject.com
http://www.marketingrush.com
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.wasalive.com/ping
http://www.weblogues.com
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC
http://www.xianguo.com/xmlrpc/ping.php
http://www.zhuaxia.com/rpc/server.php
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping
http://zing.zingfast.com

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast

See. Easy, just like I said.

SEO/Site Promotion Experiment: Day 1

John — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 07:59:00 +0000

This is day #1 of my week-long SEO/site promotion experiment. My goal is to track what I actually do in a week to promote various sites and see if I am living up to the level of promotion that I should to put my sites on top. At the end of the experiment, I’ll provide a daily tasks list for download so newbies will have something to follow on their path to high search engine rankings. By the way, I split SEO and Site Promotion up because they are actually two different things. SEO is keyword tweaking, filling in ALTs on IMG tags, etc.; things you do to your site to optimize it in the eyes of the search engines. I consider Site Promotion to be things like blogging, posting comments on the blogs of others, link exchanges, etc.

Today is Monday, January 14th, 2008.

I performed the following SEO tasks today:

None…

I performed the following Site Promotion tasks today:

Posted article on new st louis self defense and fitness seminar/class.
Added newly posted article to to StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, Facebook, Google Bookmarks, reddit, St. Louis Self Defense & Fitness Seminars page and all other related blogs.
Registered for an account at www.podcastalley.com.

Hopefully, tomorrow will be more productive.

Stop following me, or else…

John — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 21:53:00 +0000

Web Site Promotion For The Small Business v2
January 7, 2008

Do other website/blog owners try to use your web site to boost their site, without actually contributing something? This happening a lot. It's called Blog Comment Spamming. Just like any other nuisance you want to get rid of, this scourge on blogging has to go. What can be don about this, you ask? The benefit these freeloaders get is the passing of link juice from your site to theirs. Why not pull the rug out from under them and take the juice away.

Stop those dirty spammers dead in their tracks like roaches in a mouse trap…or something like that…with NOFOLLOW. Put the handy NOFOLLOW attribute on their links and no more link juice for you, buck-o. Here's how it works. Just place rel=”NOFOLLOW” as an additional parameter on the link they've been so nice to leave on your site. That's it. You can do this manually, or you can usually set up your blog service to do this automatically. Regardless, you probably want to do it anywhere a user can post a link on your site and have it go live without your intervention.

Get your NOFOLLOW…TODAY!!!!

3 Reasons Why You Should PrePost Your Blog Entries

John — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 21:48:00 +0000

Web Site Promotion For The Small Business v2
December 31, 2007

It's the last day of the year and I thought I would get in a few final posts before 2008 starts. This one is about preposting your blog entries.

Reason #1 to prepost your blog entries: If you are in the IT field, you may have heard this one from a project manager in the past. What if you get hit by a bus? What is going to happen to your blog. Will it get stale and cause your PageRank to wither away while you recover in a hospital with no WiFi connection? Preposting is kind of like saving up for a rainy day.

Reason #2 to prepost your blog entries: It gives you time to ponder the post and change your mind about posting it. If you compose a blog entry, then hit {Publish}, that's it. You can't bring it back. Within seconds RSS-readers and Feed Burners around the world have picked it up. I remember someone once saying that once something is on the Internet, it's on there, in some form, forever.

Reason #3 to prepost your blog entries: During times where your ideas start to dry up, if you have some preposted blogs available, you can continue to meet your daily blog entry quota (3 to 5 posts per day and call me in the morning). Preposting also comes in handy when you go on vacation, or you are on a shuttle mission. I think, however, that the shuttle has wifi.

On a side note, as I get ideas, instead of writing them down, then losing the piece of paper, I post a draft entry with a working title and notes within the body of the blog. This way, I never lose the information and I also have extra blog ideas for those times when I can't think of anything to say (keep the jokes to yourself).

I prepost several at a time so I can take a break. Most blog systems allow you to post an entry and set the post date and time. I just set my posts to sometime in the future and they don't show up until that date/time.

The drawback to preposting blog entries is that you may neglect the other aspects of maintaining a highly-ranked up-to-date blog/web site. These aspects are covers in an article on BlogHerald.com.

Related Information:

Free Reports Increase Blog Readership

John — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 16:59:00 +0000

Written by Dane Morgan

If you are a blogger you write a lot of content. This content is the life blood of your blog's traffic. Your posts are the main element that brings visitors in and turns visitors into readers.

Since you write all of those posts In the natural process of blogging, it would be marvelous to find ways to reuse it to get even more use from it.

That's where free reports come into play. By offering free reports on the ideas your blog covers you can allow the report to be distributed from other web sites and lead those who read it back to your blog.

The best part with this method is that you already have written all of the content you could ever need to write free short reports. You won't have to actually create a bunch of new posts to make your short reports, you can just use past blog posts.

You just need to select three to seven past posts from your blog on a single subject and combine them into a new short report. Use a pdf maker tool to compile the articles into a complete short report and make it available for readers to download. Be sure to add something that informs people that they can make your report available from their blog to let others download it too.

Now when other bloggers read this report some of them will decide they want to put your report on their site for their readers to download. This will advertise your blog to many visitors who might not have known about your blog otherwise. And some of these people will choose to link to your free short reports from their sites too, which will promote your blog even more in an ever widening circle of targeted readers.

About the Author

Learn more about promoting your blog from Dane at his blog. Also be sure to visit Dane's Blog Strokes Blog to learn how to master WordPress blogging.