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The following article is one of a series of articles which focus on Affiliate, Article and Internet Marketing. All of the
articles are based on real experiences and research done over twenty years as a personal and business coach. They
are also written in response to questions which I have been asked as well as address common challenges that people
have with affiliate marketing, article marketing, internet marketing or running an online business in general. I sincerely hope that
you find the following information of value. One idea, one tip, one clue can make all the difference.
What Do You Know About The Blog And Ping Combination?
You may have a new website you want to get indexed with the various search engines at the soonest possible time. Or you
may have an existing website which you want to position well in the search engine results. Or you may even have a good
performing website which you want to remain competitive. Whatever your reason may be, you’re sure to benefit from the
blog and ping combination.
You may have heard or read about this before, but do you understand fully how it works? This may be the first time
you have been acquainted with this technique. Regardless, much can be learned from this article as we look at the basics
and the mechanics of the blog and ping strategy.
It All Starts With A Blog
Web logs, or blogs as people popularly refer to them, were originally designed for social purposes. People used it as
online diaries where they could post their thoughts, the events of their days, their secret desires and the likes. But
blogs possessed some very special qualities that internet marketers found hard to ignore.
- Blogs figure prominently in search engine results. The first few pages of some queries would yield many blogs
occupying premium spots.
- Blogs are basically free web publishing tools. A little creativity and it becomes a website of its own.
- Blogs are easy to update. Just press EDIT or PUBLISH and you have a new content page.
- Blogs have their own communities. Bloggers often link with one another. This is a level of connectivity that is
sometimes hard to come by in other mediums.
Hence, online business people started using blogs for marketing purposes.
The strategy goes like this:
1. Create a blog dedicated to the theme or topic of your main website. I would recommend that you create an account with
www.blogger.com , because this service is owned by Google, the most widely used search engine on the 'net. Plus, it's totally free.
2. Post regularly, and include a link to your website in majority of your messages. Also include your links with popular
keywords as anchor texts.
3. Include a link to your own website on the navigation bar.
4. Just to emphasize – you have to post REGULARLY. This means at least every other day. No sweat, though. Short posts
of 200 words in length are enough.
It’s About RSS As Well
Blogs produce RSS feeds. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication, a technology that would allow you to broadcast any
changes on your blog to subscribed systems. This is actually the heart of the blog-ping combination. You need to learn
how to syndicate your RSS feeds.
If you’re using www.blogger.com, it’s easy. Take your blog’s URL. For example, let's say it is:
www.thisisyourblog.blogspot.com
Now, all you have to do is to add the extension atom.xml. So, it should now appear like this:
www.thisisyourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml
This is the URL of your RSS feeds.
Now you need an RSS aggregator - somewhere which could pick up your RSS feeds. Preferably, it is a website that can be
easily crawled by search engine spiders. The perfect spot for this is www.my.yahoo.com. Simply create a Yahoo account,
then go to the said page. Click on 'Add Content'. Then locate the 'ADD RSS' button, then press on the same. Now paste
the URL of your RSS feeds. You should then see the individual blog entries that Yahoo has added.
Every time you’d update your blog, RSS feeds would be generated and displayed in www.my.yahoo.com .
Now It’s 'The Ping'
There are various free 'pinging' services such as www.pingomatic.com. My favorite (at the moment) is www.pingoat.com
Once your www.my.yahoo.com is set up, every time you post a new entry on your blog, you also need to log on to
www.pingoat.com .
Fill in the appropriate fields, then submit. This will inform a lot of blog directories
including Yahoo that your blog has new entries. And this would drive the search engine spiders on a feeding frenzy.
It’s a reminder for them to check out your blog come the next relevant query.
Again, you have to do this every time you will post a new entry. No exceptions!
Now, how powerful do you think the blog-ping combination is?
Your new website will get indexed in Yahoo within 5 days. This is guaranteed! And with Yahoo picking up your website,
and with www.blogger.com being owned by Google, it wouldn’t be long until the world’s most widely used search engine
would index your new website as well.
And if the blog-ping combination can do this for new websites, just think of the possibilities it could provide for
older ones. Fantastic, isn’t it? I think so!
Start To Make Money Blogging Right Now And Click Here
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