Watch and Listen to Peaceful Music Videos of Japanese Water Gardens

About three years ago I created a website called Great Garden Ponds as one of my niche sites for affiliate income. A couple weeks ago I had my WordPress Admin Jayson change the site from the old static HTML site into a WordPress blog. I have several other old static websites that need this same “face lift” to upgrade to WordPress.

If you have been following me for any length of time you know that I really like WordPress as a tool for building websites. Most clients of mine are people that are just getting started with doing business online and they don’t know how to create websites themselves.

With WordPress, you don’t need to learn all the techie stuff of using HTML editors and FTP’ing files up to the server and all. After the initial installation of WordPress, which takes about 5 minutes, and the configuration of WordPress plugins, about another 5 minutes, you are ready to start adding pages or posts to your website.

Another great thing about WordPress is that you can change the look of the site in about 5-10 seconds by switching themes. Themes are the templates that the site uses… many are free to download and install.

WordPress includes tools within the programing to help with SEO (Search Engine Optimization) so that your website gets found and indexed by Google and other search engines and web directories. You can install other WordPress plugins, many are free to download and install, to increase your chances of being found and indexed on a regular basis.

OK, enough techie talk about WordPress. If you have not already clicked a link to visit my Great Garden Ponds blog… do it now. Turn up your computer speakers and watch and listen to some of the videos showing garden ponds and Japanese Water Gardens that others have built.

WordPress blogs are wonderful tools for building your home based business for many reasons. One of the reasons that blogs work so well is something called pinging. No, it’s not the pinging of sonar in those submarine movies but, in the same way that sonar helps to locate other vessels in the ocean, blog pinging helps to let others know that your website is there.

Blog Building Using Pinging for One Way Links

What is pinging?

Pinging is a way of letting search engines know that you’ve created a new post, or updated an existing post on your blog. A ‘ping’ is a message sent to a ‘ping server’ notifying it that the blog has been updated with new content.

What is a ping server?

A ping server is a web-based service that accepts messages in the XML-RPC format. It uses the information in these XML-RPC messages to publish a list of blogs which have updated content. Some of these ping servers run their own blog search engines, and some propagate the information to a number of other ping servers and search engines.

How does pinging work?

Many blog publishing platforms, such as WordPress, have a built-in pinging tool. In the case of WordPress, pinging is turned on by default and pings go out to one ping server which updates several search engines.

You can also notify a ping server that you have updated content manually by going to their website and submitting your blog’s name and URL.

One popular ping server is PingOMatic, found at http://pingomatic.com/. When your blog pings PingOMatic it then notifies a number of search engines that your blog has been updated. Many of these search engines also have their own ping server as well.

These search engines can then update their listings with new content almost instantly. This of course will give you one-way backlinks to your blog from these search engines, many of which have a high Google PageRank.

Four things you should know about pinging

1. Only ping when you have updated content. Otherwise, your site might be blacklisted as a spam blog, also known as a splog.

2. If you tend to post to your blog and then re-write the post frequently you might want to make sure you only ping when you actually post new content, not on updates. If you are using WordPress there are a few plugins that make sure that pings are only sent when a post is created.

3. It’s a good idea to ping several ping services, especially the ones that notify several search engines. Don’t overdo it though. Make sure that if you are pinging a niche search engine that your blog falls into the relevant niche.

4. Make sure that if a search engine is notified by a ping server you are already using that you don’t add that search engines own ping service to your list of servers to ping. Because blog spammers have abused ping servers if you are pinging a search engine multiple times your site might end up being blacklisted, and not appear in the search engines at all.

Popular ping servers

Finally, here’s a list of popular ping servers you might try to get you started.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.blo.gs

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

Blogging With WordPress Blogs Are The Future For Online Business

If you conduct any business online or maintain a website to compliment your offline business, then blogging is quickly becoming a mandatory part of your future. And if you are not currently blogging, chances are after realizing the potential of these traffic-enhancing goldmines, you soon will be!

Blogs, derived from the words “web log” were originally thought of as simply online diaries a place for people to record their thoughts and inspirations. At first, no one took blogging very seriously and these collections of online thoughts were simply passed off by many as hobbies or creative outlets and nothing more.

But then Google came along and started to recognize the unique and original content that these trite little sites presented and the rules of the game suddenly changed. After all, unique content is what makes the Google world go round, and what better way to command the attention of Google than by creating a dynamic environment with content that is solely your own.

At this stage, a whole new SEO world emerged and in the process, brought with it traffic opportunities like never before. People began blogging on more than what they had for dinner last night. They started to blog about new products, exciting travel adventures and all things related to online commerce.

The evolution quickly continued and today, with RSS feeds, sites like pingoat.com and many other content clearinghouses, blogging is big business and not to be overlooked by hungry entrepreneurs looking to establish a web presence.

What currently makes blogging so attractive is the sheer speed with which blogs and blog posts are able to get indexed in the search engines. It is a simple matter of static versus dynamic and the search engines love the dynamic.

Let’s take two different scenarios to see how traditional websites and blogs differ in their index-ability:

Scenario One:

One person creates a website to advertise gardening products and services. Each page of the site contains the traditional information about the company; it’s founders, the services they offer and the products they sell. Maybe, at best, the site has articles and content that is updated with some small frequency that are relevant to the avid gardener. When visitors arrive at the site, they have the option of signing up for the company newsletter and receiving valuable tips and new offerings.

In this scenario, the Webmaster or business owner will need to tend to many SEO related tasks in order to get and maintain high search engine ranking for a tight list of selected keywords related to the gardening niche. Not only will this activity require great skill, it will also involve many hours to achieve the intended results.

Scenario Two:

The same business owner as above also creates a WordPress blog to supplement their company website. Now, instead of focusing on simply one set of tightly selected keywords, the blog itself remains a broad overview of the gardening niche, while each individual post reflects a drilled down topic within that same niche.

So when the business owner writes a blog post about the benefits of “organic vegetable gardening in backyard containers,” this individual post becomes a keyword rich, targeted wonder and when indexed by the search engines has a far greater opportunity to bringing highly targeted traffic to the blog based upon that single post.

Through time, the blog expands with many similar posts that are targeted to sub niches within the broader gardening niche and can even be categorized from inside the blog structure itself. What has now been created in Google’s eyes is an extremely dynamic, naturally evolving site that is content rich and niche specific.

When properly constructed and promoted, each time the business owner posts to the blog, that individual post can get indexed in anywhere from two to twenty four hours on average. Indexing happens within less than one hour if you include a video embeded in the blog. This opportunity is far greater than any options available at the static website.

Additionally, when the business owner endeavors to have a visitor signup for a newsletter, further segmenting can occur and subscriber lists can be refined and targeted. And because the blog is the front-end showcase to the original website, each blog post has the opportunity to link back to specific and relevant products at the main site.

When properly structured, WordPress blogs are the biggest SEO asset to a website that currently exists. The WordPress Dream Theme by Ben Cope is a great theme package for any online marketer.

The wise online business owner will recognize these benefits and when implemented, will enjoy many opportunities that do not currently exist with traditional websites alone.

One of my favorite Sunday afternoon pastimes is watching NASCAR racing and, when not taking a Sunday nap, reading blog postings by some of the master bloggers like Yaro Starak, Darren Rowse and Chris Brogan.

If you want to learn how to make money by Blogging using WordPress I highly recommend that you find and follow successful Bloggers who have already learned the techniques and tricks.

Of course the main “trick� to building a successful business in blogging is content. When you post content that is useful to your readers you will attract not only the search engines but also real “eyeballs� to your website.

When you build a following to your blog you can then begin to monetize your website by adding affiliate links, ad banners and product reviews. You can also market your own products and services using your blog.

To be successful with any form of Internet Marketing and particularly with blogging, you need to stay focused on your goal and post good content often. Today I read a post from Darren Rowse where he talks about the, “16 Important but Potentially Distracting Blogging Tasks.�

Another great post by Chris Brogan gives us, “50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level� which I have reposted before by permission from Chris. Be sure to add to his list by posting your comments on his blog at www.chrisbrogan.com

[BTW, Jimmie Johnson can in second today in the first Race to The Sprint Cup, oh well]

50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

Blogging is as varied in its applications as using the telephone or taking a picture. The tool doesn’t predict the output. You might be using your blog to post recipes, or to inform the local community about information you find elsewhere on the web. Maybe you’re just trying your hand at writing, and the web is as good a place as any.

If you’re looking to go beyond that, however, you’ll need to take steps to improve your blog from at least five different perspectives. In 50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level, I wanted to share my thoughts on how you should consider your goal, your design, your content, how you promote it, and the business aspects of your blog. Please add to these ideas in the comments, and let’s grow the list out.

50 Ways to Take Your Blog to the Next Level

Make Your Goal and Target Audience Crystal Clear

My point with this entire post, but most especially this section is to ask you to admit what your real goals are with your blog. If you’re not sure, that’s fine. You might not really want to take your blog to the next level just yet. But if you’re feeling as if you want to get serious (in whatever direction that takes your efforts), give strong consideration to the following.

1. If your goal is to be an entertainment or news blog, be very clear that it’s that and not a “fun� blog. Consider splitting off your personal or fun blog.
2. If your blog is to be your business, treat it like that. Get into stats. Get into building audience. Get into delivering something unique. Don’t straddle back and forth on this.
3. If the goal is to be a great community resource, mix your blogging time with time spent reaching out to the community you propose to serve. If that’s an offline opportunity, like something local, be there. Be active. Be a connector.
4. If you’re going to be a professional about your blog, carve out the time to do it right. Never, ever, ever post a “sorry I haven’t posted lately� blog post again. Ever.
5. Up the ante on delivering original material. Get outside the echo chamber. Writing a me-too blog isn’t the way to build your blog to the levels you seek to attain.
6. It’s okay to use a personal voice. In fact, there’s no point blogging if you’re going to write like a cold robot. But keep personal and useful in balance.
7. If you are attempting to do real business via your blog, look for ways to convert readers into customers.
8. If it’s just an ad revenue business, compete, and be honest about that. Compete with others in your space for audience, value, and better deals. My point in this regard is that going halfway into the water doesn’t make you less wet.
9. If your blog is the premier source of information for nonprofits, for photographers, for whatever, then be sure you’re scouring news feeds and finding information outside the blogosphere to keep that relationship informed.
10. Make a point of engaging your community often in the comments section, on their blogs, on the other social networks where you cross paths.

Beauty Is More Than Skin Deep

Consider the design elements of your blog. They do change the way people perceive your work. And, they can help you improve your potential business opportunities.

1. Get your own unique URL. It matters in the long run, especially should you choose to change hosts. For instance, if you move off a blogger account at *.blogspot.com , you lose all link equity and page rank for that domain. This means you’d have to start again from scratch. Already in that position? Make the switch now.
2. Consider moving to a hosted blog. You can get a hosted WordPress blog set up and running for only $10 USD a year at Bloghost.me. (Note: if you use code “brogan,� you can get it for $9 a year. Andy’s a friend.)
3. Consider using a professional theme. I am an advocate for Thesis by Chris Pearson. There are other premium themes out there, as well.
4. Consider getting a customized WordPress theme. That link goes to Nico Pin, who designed [chrisbrogan.com]. There are others who do this kind of work, obviously.
5. Are there several unnecessary widgets on your blog? Review them and decide which add value to your audience.
6. Is your layout readable? Are your fonts clean and easy to read? Are your color choices all they can be? A little time with your stylesheet goes a long way.
7. If you have ads, are you choking your community with them? Do you actually endorse the products on them? How effective have they been?
8. Is your blog design and layout configured well for SEO? Several blogging platforms now have SEO plug-ins/add-ons to help with this. That doesn’t beat having a professional take a swing at improving your blog’s SEO, but it’s a good first step.
9. A logo and matching favicon doesn’t hurt. You can find various price points for this, and many different people offering the service. Mine was created by Justin Evans and his team at StressLimit Design. I also have friends in California that I highly recommend, as well.
10. Consider the graphics you post on your site. Do they add to the story you’re trying to tell? If not, seek upgrades. There are many freely available graphics at Flickr, if you search by the appropriate Creative Commons license level.

Make Your Content Top Notch

Growing quality blog posts isn’t magic. We don’t sprinkle cookies all over the house and hope that the Blogging Fairy comes along and writes us posts in exchange for the cookies. It takes lots of work, and a strong commitment. And if it doesn’t come naturally, you CAN learn how to improve.

1. Put your blog posts on a diet. Read them with your audience in mind. Can you thin them out? Remove unnecessary words. Make them tight.
2. Lead with the main point. If you’re attempting to be a quality news or opinion blog, make your main point at the top of the post. Don’t make us dig.
3. Link. If you’re writing about another person, post, or website, link appropriately and thread the web. It fleshes out the story, gives us places to explore, and shows a “good neighbor� practice.
4. Vary up post lengths. If you write a “feature length� post, have something brief come next to avoid reader fatigue. (Unless you’re writing an essay-length blog all the time, and hey, good luck.)
5. Read. Read. Read. Get outside the blogosphere. Find sources of information that span far beyond what your competitors are covering.
6. Get on a regular writing/posting schedule. Extra points for writing a few posts ahead of time for those days when you can’t get to it right away.
7. Work on your titles. A great title drives visits, but also informs us as to what we’re going to learn.
8. Refrain from “me too� posts. If you’ve got something to add, do that and link to the original post, but if you’re moving up to the next level, lose the “pointer� posts. (Your mileage may vary on this one).
9. Consider video, audio, and rich media. If you’re doing a text-mostly blog, consider mixing it up from time to time. It might find you new audience, and it might also give people a more dimensional sense of who you are.
10. Review your blog posts monthly to see if you’re covering the same ground. If you are, consider building an editorial calendar to post from, so that you don’t overlap and repeat topics too often.

Promoting Your Blog

No one loves someone who talks about themselves all the time, but if you’re going to work on bringing your blog up a few notches, make sure your efforts aren’t for nothing.

1. Use a social bookmarking plugin like AddThis or Share This on your blog posts so that people who like your work can share it easily.
2. Make a very prominent option to subscribe by email available on your site. More than 50% of my readers do so via email.
3. Add your blog URL to your email signature.
4. Make sure your blog URL is on your twitter profile, your facebook profile, added into Friendfeed, and several other outposts. This helps people discover you who might not have noticed your work before. (Note: Steve Rubel said that to me many months back. He told me that he “discovered� my blog via Facebook. I’ve been a believer ever since.)
5. If you’re going to promote your blog via places like Twitter, be sure to do it tastefully instead of just dumping links into the stream. Consider asking a question, or pointing out a rather insightful comment.
6. Make sure you’re doing the basics, like listing your site in Yahoo!, Google, DMOZ, and claiming it in Technorati.com (each of those sites shows you how via the help function).
7. Commenting on other well-known blogs in your same space in a not-spammy way is a great way for people who might like your work to discover you. Don’t put blatant links or otherwise be rude. Just be thoughtful and helpful to the community at that site, and leave a useful comment. They’ll come, if they like what you said.
8. Don’t forget posting the occasional blog post in LinkedIn’s status message. It reaches some interesting people from time to time.
9. Is it fair to Digg or Stumble your own posts? There are mixed opinions on this. I’ve had little to no success with Digg in this regard. StumbleUpon is a different story. Decide for yourself if you think this is okay to do. I’ve heard it called “patting yourself on the back in public.�
10. Write the occasional post that’s worthy of bookmarking. When someone adds a blog post of mine to Delicious, I often get lots more traffic than from other promotional angles.

Building Business From Your Blog

You might be trying to make money from your blog directly, perhaps through advertising or affiliate marketing. Or you might be seeking to establish thought leadership and promote consulting opportunities. You might be simply looking to drive even better awareness of a social cause or have a nonprofit or educational motive in mind. In any case, think of “business� to mean “value beyond the blogging itself.�

1. Build conversion opportunities. If you’re selling something directly, think of clever ways to post about it that educate, inform, and encourage a call to action.
2. Make sure your blog design points people towards the action you want them to take. (See Financial Aid Podcast for an easy example).
3. Ask for the sale. If you’re selling something, don’t be shy. Ask for it. Do so in a blog post, or in an ad of your own creation. Be direct and honest about this.
4. Mix free value and additional opportunities. If you’re selling something that’s not unlike what’s available on your blog for free, demonstrate the dividing line. Even consider giving a hint of what’s on the other side.
5. Make it easy to opt in. Like asking for the sale, make sure you help your prospective customers/cleints/partners know how to get into your sales funnel, should they be interested.
6. Make content that sells. If you’re blogging or posting video to promote a business objective, work at building the content such that it drives that end decision. Too 1.0 for you? At least open conversations up about what you’re trying to accomplish.
7. Make it very easy to contact you. Make your About page very clean and easy to read. Put some real human names on the website, and even consider adding a photo, so that people know who they’re addressing. (I say this all the time, but I see so many examples daily of people who could use this advice.)
8. Build relationships with similar blogs and share opportunities. If you’re blogging about real estate, get to know the other real estate bloggers and learn from each other.
9. Give “serving suggestions� on your blog. If you’re blogging a particular kind of offering, is there a way to share what it does, or how you want to be involved?
10. Remember: even if your blog’s main goal is selling, be human, be interesting, be involved. This isn’t the old Internet. We have these nifty social tools that remind us to be human. Let’s use them that way.

My goal in writing this was to offer advice and suggestions for how one might transform their blog from “another one in the pack� to something of a destination on the web. It’s not my opinion that we should all be following this advice. There are several blogs that I love exactly the way they are, and I’m sure their respective owners do, too.

We all do this for different reasons, and one size does not fit all. For those of you who DO intend their blog to be an authoritative, professional-minded presence on the web, I hope this helps.

Do you have something more to add? What’s your take? What have I missed completely? What other questions to you have?

]]> http://whoishenry.com/watching-nascar-cup-race-studying-some-master-bloggers.htm/feed 0 http://whoishenry.com/results-of-reader-survey-who-are-the-bloggers-and-who-are-reading-blogs.htm http://whoishenry.com/results-of-reader-survey-who-are-the-bloggers-and-who-are-reading-blogs.htm#comments Wed, 10 Sep 2008 17:25:38 +0000 Henry http://whoishenry.com/?p=232 Continue reading →]]>

Do you have your own blog?

Over the Labor Day weekend here in the USA I did a survey of one of my reader lists regarding Blogging. I wanted to find out who those are that are reading blogs and how many on my list are blogers themselves.

I have been blogging, discovering how WordPress works and the cool tools that are available for WordPress for the past year or so. Many of my clients are now using WordPress blogs themselves and finding out how easy it is to build a business, and earn income, blogging.

My survey is not very scientific but it does confirm some things that I have been seeing and what Internet Marketers are telling me… Blogging with WordPress is great.

In a resent interview I did with my friend Willie Crawford, who at last count has over 2000 websites, he said that over 90% of the new websites he is building are WordPress blogs. If Willie Crawford, who has been doing Internet Marketing since about 1996, thinks that blogs are the way to go… well, I think it is always a good idea to copy success.

Below are a few of the questions that I asked in the survey and images of the pie charts of the replies. I will provide more about this in a future posting but I wanted to get this out before any more time goes by.
Thanks to all who replied to this survey. I hope you have taken time to download the free gift and read it over. Lot’s of interesting information in the Blogging Cash Method eBook.

For anyone in need of website hosting or help with setting up your own WordPress blog, please click on the contact link and get in touch with me. If you are not already blogging and using your blog to build you home based or online business… Get Started Now.

If you answered Yes to having your own blog, how often do you post to it?

Do you leave comments on blogs you visit?

Ben Cope

Ben Cope, the Internet Genius behind the great WordPress Dream Theme, will be a guest presenter Thursday evening August 14th at 9PM Eastern time for the Midwest Internet Marketing Super Conference, pre-conference calls.

THE WEBINAR IS OVER – REPLAY LINK FOR AUDIO HERE!

Ben Cope is a DotComPreneur, Web Designer, and Internet Marketing Consultant whose goal is to help people understand how to make the web work for them. As the creator of numerous high-end, profitable websites for clients all over the world, Ben’s work has earned him the title of “Internet Genius.”

Ben is the founder of Epic Web Strategies, an internet marketing blog providing tips, techniques, and strategies for success on the internet. Additionally, he is also the creator of WordPress University, a site dedicated to teaching people how to use WordPress more effectively. He also works behind the scenes for several other well-known internet marketing experts.

Jeff Mills is host for the conference which takes place in Minneapolis, Minnesota September 19-21, 2008. This is the third year for this conference which has drawn attendees from across the United States and other countries.

Each year Jeff Mills invites his conference speakers to join him on a pre-conference call or webinar to share some of their secrets to success and introduce themselves to those interested in attending the fall conference. Jeff also invites a few “bonus experts” to these calls each year. Jeff has asked Henry Griner to interview Ben Cope and share with his list members how they can use the Magic of WordPress to explode their online businesses.

No matter what your topic or niche in the online business world there is one tool that everyone needs… a WordPress Blog! This one simple to use software tool can build your online marketing empire quickly and easily without you needing to become an “html code-head.”

WordPress blogging software is sometimes referred to as a Content Management System (CMS). It is fast to install, easy to learn and is often provided as a FREE tool with most web hosting companies. Themes or template designs are found free all over the Internet but you may wish to purchase a custom design including installation such as the WordPress Dream Theme designed by Ben Cope.

If you are already online with your own Internet marketing business or, you are planning to start your own home based business using the Internet, you must listen along Thursday night, August 14th at 9PM EDT, 8PM CDT, 7PM MDT and 6PM PDT when Ben Cope and Henry Griner discuss how you can turn on a flood of traffic to your own blog using WordPress and the WordPress Dream Theme.

Ben’s SPECIAL OFFER from the Webinar of both his WordPress Dream Theme + Video Sales Letter Theme is only available when you use this SPECIAL OFFER LINK! Save $297 TODAY… This link may not be active for much longer.

Are you doing Internet Marketing and looking to using a Blog as a traffic building system?

Can you Make Money by blogging?

Ken Evoy thinks you are wasting your time with Blogging. What do you think?

Rosiland Gardner, along with many others, just wrote a reply to this on her Blog. I just posted a comment on her blog as a reply.

I think Ken is wrong. What do you think?