RSS Directories and SubmitemNow [ 3:17 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Todays question comes from the comments on the previours post about “What Blogging Directories Do You Prefer?”. It refers to the Submitem Now plugin for Firefox.

Hey, I just installed this program… is there any documentation on it?

Why wouldn’t I just add the links into my WP Update Services?”

First I would have them in my update services. The problem is that not all will add your feed if it does not match a subscriber or member blog.

As to using SN I don’t know of any tutorials on it other than what I have in my coaching course. There may be some but not that I have run across.

It is relatively easy to use. The first time will take the longest because you have to set up an account at each place. Some have to be verified so I usually start with two open tabs – one for Submitem Now and one for my Gmail account.

If you click the project butoon it will drop down a page where you will fill in the various information on the project such as your url, feed, keywords, descriptions etc. The second page of that is for your user name, name etc.

Once you have saved that click the data base button and you will see the various sites that are available. If you stop or want to skip any of the sites you can edit them there.

Click the next url button and it will start loading the various sites each time. Once they load click the fill form and it will load with the information you added into the project. This willcover most of the input fields and once you have either registered or filled in and submitted the forms click to the next one.

You may have to stop and verify your account before you can fill the form and that is when you go check your mail and click the verification link. This is why I opened the Gmail in the other tab.

Once you have done this the first time you can go through and do a new blog in less than an hour. The first time will take a bit longer because of signing up and verification processes.

If you stop halfway it will keep track and you can do this in 10 minute pieces if you need to and start right back where you left off.

Technorati Tags: submitem-now-rss-directories

WordPress 2.3 review [ 2:43 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well a day or two late but have been playing with the latest version on a test blog. Lots of new features and I really like the plugin update.

As usual the problem is not with the new version but the fact that things change and some of the plugins don’t play nice.

The most important one for me is Google Sitemaps. Until this gets updated or someone creates a similar one that will work with it I will stay with the old series myself.

Ultimate Tag Warrior has a note on their download page that it wasn’t compliant but it seems to work on the test blog. I don’t use the cloud functions though so it may have trouble with those as I haven’t tested that part of it.

Overall as with most of the new total version changes I would recommend a wait and see. Allow the plugins to catch up with the new version then take advantage of the new features.

Have a few questions to answer and now that vacation is over will be back much more regularly. Can always use more questions though so if you have one use the survey form or leave a comment.

Technorati Tags: wordpress, wordpress2.3

If you missed the live question and answer session last night you can now here the replay.

==> Listen to replay

Please leave your comments and questions here and I hope you enjoy it.

Technorati Tags: blog, questions, wordpress

Actually late this month but I have scheduled my monthly blog questions and answer session for tomorrow evening.

EVENT: WordPress and Blogging Questions
DATE & TIME: Tuesday, September 18th at 9:00pm Eastern
FORMAT: Simulcast! (Attend via Phone or Webcast — it’s your choice)
TO ATTEND THIS EVENT, CLICK THIS LINK NOW…

Stop and ask your questions then come back Tuesday evening to hear the answers.

Hope to see you there.

Technorati Tags: blog q and a

Blog Rush [ 3:27 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

My I have seen a lot of email in my indox about Blog Rush. Most of the buzz comes from the fact that it is John Reese behind the launch.

Now I have been involved with blogs and blog exchanges for a few years. I was the admin at Blogazoo for most of those.

One thing that I know is that there are really a couple schools of bloggers.

The bloggers that blog out of passion. Usually the Mommy blogs, political blogs, literary blogs and things along those lines.

Then you have the bloggers that are primarily using blogging as an adjunct to their marketing.

Now that doesn’t mean that the two sides don’t cross and intermingle because most people are looking for a way to generate extra income from their blogs. It is one of the biggest most common questions I get here.

Blog Rush has the potential to be huge because it is quick and easy to add. I am testing it on this blogg and a few other blogs also. How it will finally work is yet to be determined.

The big thing for me is to not be caught up in the hype of it as a traffic generator and leave sound marketing parctices ignored.

On the blogs I have that are targeted to presell specific items this is definitely not an item I want to add. If you are using blogs to market in niches primarily as a pre sell to a product or products think carefully before jumping in to this.

I am not a big fan of allowing leaks in a blog that is set up for a purpose such as this. My niche blogs have one primary purpose and that is to capture email addresses. If I miss there then the idea is to have them get to a product page.

Any other links are a leak in my sales process. It is like have Adsense on a pre sell page. Google is good at what they do and matches the topics quite well most of the time. Why would I want to get paid a few cents for a click for the same product that I am trying to pre sell at a much higher commission.

This will have the same effect on these types of blogs. If they get the targeting right and looking at the people that are behind it I think they will. Maybe not from the start but it will get better and better. Do I want to compete on headlines with others to lose a potential customer?

Adding this can make my job harder and definitely adds a distraction I don’t want in my niche sales process. If you decide to use this make sure that you are tracking your visitors and know what you are losing per visitor and what you are gaining. Okay to test but do keep track and see if this really is a plus or a minus for your business.

You can check out Blog Rush here.

Yes those are affiliate links of mine to Blog Rush.

Have questions or comments let me know. Leave a comment or use the survey form at the top to ask your questions.

Technorati Tags: blog-rush, john-reese

Host blog [ 3:10 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Well back to normal or at least as normal as this Old Bald Guy gets. Back to doing questions and recovering from yesterday’s blogathon.

Here is a question that came from a comment on what I wrote during the blogathon.

I’ve recently begun a blog using WordPress. For me, this is an incredibly difficult and tedious thing. There is so much I don’t know, I don’t even know the questions to ask. Except for one.

As you say, you don’t want to spend your time and effort creating a blog that you don’t control. I don’t either. I believe I should get my blog hosted by a blog hosting service. Would you agree?

I have nothing but praise and thanks for all the assistance WordPress offers. Even though it’s almost indecipherably “techie.” And I would still hope to be able to use it even though my blog is hosted by others. I suppose I can. Right?

And I’ve heard that a blog on WordPress is not optimizable for search engines. But the same WordPress blog hosted by a blog host is optimizable for the search engines. Is this correct? Since I may have my facts wrong (Ha, what facts?), would you be kind enough to ’splain to me if there are some blogs that cannot be found by search engines. And if so, is the answer to have a blog host: i.e., one not controlled by WordPress?

Just an old dumb guy’s question.

Who better to answer a question from an old dumb guy (and obviously you aren’ t or you wouldn’t ask questions) than an Old Bald Guy.

Okay first a bit of background. I believe you have started a blog with WordPress.com and they are not the most search engine friendly set up. They are free and relatively point and click simple to get set up.

You can get the same basic software and host it on your own domain. the difference is that if you host it you can add some things and make alterations that you can’t with any of the free services. The most important thing for me is to be able to edit the title tags for each post.

You can do that when you host your own blog in a few different ways. My personal choice is usually to use SEO Title Tag and Ultimate Tag Warrior plugins. This gives me a lot of flexibility in how my title tags are done.

I am testing the All in one SEO plugin and initially it looks like it may be even more powerful. If so I will probably change my recommendations but haven’t as of yet.

One of the nice things about WordPress on your domain is he wide range of plugins and ways that you can adapt your blog. I spend a few hours each week just testing and trying new plugins to see if there are better ways than what I use now. Everyday I find new plugins that have been released. (Gotta love Google Alerts.)

The other problem that most people have is that like was stated in the question that most of the help tends to be a bit on the techie side. Now this is to be expected because the people that create these are by nature techies.

That is part of what I do here and with some of my products is to try and play the interpreter and test out some of these new toys. One of the things I have learned over the years is that just because you can do something doesn’t always mean you should.

Now you can get results using WordPress.com blogs but I feel you could get better results if you used your own domain and made the additional changes. The big bonus is that you would have total control over the blog if you host it yourself.

Hope that answers the question. If not ask for clarification. As always your comments and additional questions are always welcomed and solicited. Oops gotta watch my language with words like solicited or may lose my plain talking reputation.

Technorati Tags: hist-blog

These posts are my part of the mini-blogathon to support the Dr Mani Children Foundation and Dr Mani’s 24 hour Blogathon. Check it out and donate if you can.

Well the prize should go to Dr Mani. I have made my donation and hope that any readers that can afford it will donate too. I give him props because doing this for 4 hours took a bit of planning and rearranging of my schedule. To do it for 24 hours is more than I would care to try.

The purpose of this whole exercise has been to raise awareness and funds for children with heart defects. I am glad that I can help and hope that I was able to get a few others to help. That is the real treat in this.

Anyone that arrives here after the blogathon, Dr Mani raises funds year round so you can follow the links and make a donation at any time.

At the end of the day it is all about the kids.

Technorati Tags: Blogathon, Heart-Kids-Blogathon

These posts are my part of the mini-blogathon to support the Dr Mani Children Foundation and Dr Mani’s 24 hour Blogathon. Check it out and donate if you can.

Probably the easiest way to create a blog is through WordPress.com or Blogger. Either one takes just a sign up then make a few choices and you have a blog ready to post to.

Personally I prefer to have any blog I am going to invest my time and effort into on a domain I own and control. It can become an asset I can sell. I also don’t like having anything that I am putting as much time and effort into as a blog takes in someone elses control.

Did you catch that part that having a blog takes some time and effort? Well it does but the payoff can be huge if you put the effort in.

Just an Old Bald Guy’s opinion.

Technorati Tags: start-blog

These posts are my part of the mini-blogathon to support the Dr Mani Children Foundation and Dr Mani’s 24 hour Blogathon. Check it out and donate if you can.

I use a Firefox plugin called Submitem Now. This has a sizable list built in and they update it regularly.

It takes a bit to use it the first time and I usually open up two tabs. One for the directories and one for my Gmail so I can confirm the ones that require it.

Usually takes a few hours the first time and any subsequent blogs take about an hour.

Technorati Tags: blogging-directories, submitem-now

These posts are my part of the mini-blogathon to support the Dr Mani Children Foundation and Dr Mani’s 24 hour Blogathon. Check it out and donate if you can.

Well in this case Dr Mani sent out an email and I responded.

Basically you just need to get other people to agree if you are going to run one. It is just a matter of networking with others.

Amazing how everything always comes back to the relationships you build.

Technorati Tags: blog-carnival