Posts tagged blogs
Blog Building Using Pinging for One Way Links
Sep 17th
Getting traffic, lots of traffic, to your websites is necessary for you to build your online home based business. Without traffic you are not going to make money and if you do not make money with your online business you do not have a real business only an expensive hobby.
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
How To Use Newsletters In Your Online Business
Sep 16th
Most of us are bombarded with more emails than we could possibly handle or ever take an interest in. Thus, companies such as home based businesses that transmit electronic newsletters (e-newsletters) should avoid the all too commonly used messages that say “SALE� or “Buy me.� Instead, e-newsletters should be limited to providing useful information about their products, directions which speak about usage of these products, expert advice about the products, product reviews, latest trends led by their products and tips about their products. E-newsletters should also put the company’s products in the spotlight by stressing the fact that they are exactly what the market has been looking forward to and explain the reasons. This will arouse the readers’ interests and they will invest more time learning about the products which will eventually lead them to spending more money on these products.
E-newsletters should engage their readers by actively clicking on various links and by creatively leading them from one valuable resource to another. Whether the targeted market of the e-newsletter is a list of current customers or prospects, to be fully effective it should contain interactive contents, should be entertaining and should prove to be valuable to its readers. E-newsletters are perceived as worthwhile reading when they disclose the latest company news, tell human interest stories, recount the history of the company, declare company’s achievements such as inclusion among Fortune 500 companies or its rapid growth rate, share fun facts, discuss employee benefits and perks, address personnel changes, announce money saving sales, broadcast research and production goals and so on. Transactional emails that include updates and general information such as registrations, subscriptions, shipping notifications and order confirmations can also be very effective.
Every emailed communication with current and with potential customers must include website links, contact email addresses, telephone numbers and physical addresses for receiving of, responding to and collecting recipient feedback on the company’s products or services, about the e-newsletters and about the company’s website.
Quick single-question surveys in the form of pop quizzes or other kinds of games can also prove to be extremely effective. Results of quizzes and the surveys can be published on the company website as well as in its e-newsletter. In addition, positive feedback, good customer reviews and stories which talk about how this company’s products improved someone’s life are good ways to attract new customers and retain old ones. Features such as “Frequently Asked Questions� within the website as well as in the e-newsletter tend to be appealing and capture reader’s attention and interest.
Building blogs that link directly to the e-newsletters are effective means of getting subscribers’ and customers’ to help improve company’s products and customer services by collecting useful comments and feedback. The most constructive comments and problem solving feedback can then be published for all to see. Videos that can ultimately lead to video blogs can be used to promote the company, its e-newsletters as well as its products.
Personifying the company’s e-newsletters adds an element of fun, charm, warmth and charisma, all of which will attract more and more readers. And finally, a personal note from the editor of the e-newsletter will strengthen the bond between the e-newsletter and its readers which will in turn lead to a stronger connection to the company and its products.
