Blog and Ping and RSS

Posted on January 6, 2006

Today’s Q&A interaction…

“Laura,

How is business? What is your latest tip for the RSS blog scene?”

My new booklet (3 Steps to a Souped Up RSS Feed in WordPress) is more of a marketing test than anything (although the content will serve what is promised and the tone of the sales letter is true to my word). It’s a glib sales letter, no promotion other than press releases, no guarantees and no testimonials - it’s all marketing suicide but it will give me a sense of the power of press releases. I’ll be reporting about it to my list after the results are in. I actually want to run a similar test and record those results next week so I have something to compare it to before I release actual stats.

“You know what I was thinking about doing, posting 200 to 300 words per day in my new blog for about 30 days in a row. Having the blog set to auto ping and all directory submissions of course. And also set up a blogger blog, and post 1 post per day in there too, but only a sentence or two to point to the wordpress blog. Like a blip, pointing to the main blog.

Assuming quality content. Is this is common strategy? Or is there something I should add, or something I have totally missed?”

This is common and has been going on in blog RSS marketing for well over a year now. The strategy is called “blog and ping” and the beauty of it is that it automatically gives you incoming links from an off-site source.

Now it used to be wonderful to do on blogger (blogspot hosted blogs) because the google spider kept close watch on blogger sites - but now that the technique has been over-used I’m not convinced that it’s anywhere near as effective as it used to be. (Which is why I’m working with press releases for traffic now.)

You might try (and I’ve not heard anyone else speaking of this yet) to accomplish the same blog and ping strategy from a free MSN blog.

There are fewer spam blogs in MSN spaces - therefore they have a tad more credibility in google’s eyes - but you’d have to add an extra step to the process. You’d need to let google know that you’ve started a blog in MSN (either by linking to it from a third website that is well indexed and spidered often) or by going to google’s add URL page and announcing it. If you own RSS2BLOG you can use this same software to blog and ping to an MSN blog.

If anyone reading this has been blogging and pinging using other free blog accounts than blogger and have seen results please share your results with us by leaving a comment. Helping each other is what we’re all about…

“I also wanted to ask you about Joe Vitale. That was a powerful JV you did with him. Like a dream JV….”

Yes you are right! That was a dream JV! I was in a big tizzy for about 8 months after it. I was elated and scared all at the same time. I waffled back and forth from loving all the interaction with clients to freaking out because I was in the limelight and felt glued to my computer. I had emails from people loving me and a few nasty vicious ones as well. It was a roller coaster ride. Joe is the most fantastic friend to have in those situations - he helped me through it all. The business side as well as the emotional side…he’s a fine man.

That’s all for today! Have a great promotional day - whether you’re blogging and pinging, automating RSS feeds, or staying in touch with your list!

Until next time,

Laura Childs

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Read More Like It: Blogroll, Making Money with Blogs

5 Replies to “Blog and Ping and RSS”

  1. bea on May 22nd, 2006 1:59 pm

    Hi

    I’m seriously thinking of having my own web site. On one of your previous pages you mentioned a ‘Shared - Baby’ package. could you please provide me a link or any additional info.

    A reply would be much appreciated.

    Regards
    Bea

  2. Smartzville on May 22nd, 2006 5:05 pm

    Hi Bea!

    I sent you an email a few days ago where you asked this same question, but it must have been blocked by your email filters.

    Here’s what my message said:

    Bea, you don’t ever have to apologize for emailing me. Although sometimes I get out of my mind busy, I do my best to reply and help visitors as best I can…

    If you click the link at the bottom of this page, that says My Favorite Host, then click on Web Hosting, and then you’ll see the Baby account.

    It’s $9.95 month and you can host as many domains as you like with just that one account. It’s definately the best deal on the web, with great support and uptime.

    Now for $6.95 month you can get the hatchling, but only ever host one domain on the account. And I do believe, that once you get one site up, you’ll want more so you might as well spend the extra $3/month.

    At any rate, drop me a line whenever you need to ‘connect’ or ask a question about this business.

    However, you’ll probably get a faster reply if you leave a message on the site, on any post, here: http://www.smartzville.com/marketing-help

    Truly, Laura

  3. Bea on May 23rd, 2006 5:39 am

    Hi Laura

    Thanks for your reply. I’m glad I persevered there.

    I think I’m thoroughly confused now. You see I got the impression from your website that this was a website building package,ie it teaches me how to build a website rather like sitesell. I’m looking at as many options before I commit myself.

    Have I got it wrong or am I missing something here?

    Your reply is much appreciated.

    Regards
    Bea

  4. Laura on May 23rd, 2006 5:42 am

    Bea:

    You’ve got it right. I do promote some hosting accounts that provide you with templates and direction on building html websites and a hosting account that allows you to have multiple domains.

    I’ve been building websites myself for the past 10 years now, and helping others get their own businesses started, and I’m finding that people new to this have a much smaller learning curve and better chance of success when they don’t have to build the types of websites that sitesell style hosts teach.

    Sitesell, and most other hosts who provide templates and direction, teach people to build html driven websites with very little flexibility until you really learn the ropes of html design. Marketers make a healthy commission promoting these types of services to you because in the long run, you spend a lot more.

    On the other hand, cheaper hosting accounts are the way most people are going now. They’re registering their domain names, and with just a few clicks installing content management software (called blogs) and start building their sites easily without all the fuss of cross linking, html code, and a pile of promotion and advertising.

    This is too in depth to get into here, but blogs outperform html pages in the search engines, grow easily, and are far more visitor friendly. If you think a blog might be for you then make sure your new host is managed by something called cPanel (that allows for blog installs with just a few clicks). You also might like to see how easy blogging is by signing up for a free account over at wordpress.com. That free account won’t serve your needs in the long run, but you’ll learn the basics of WordPress (how to add an article, change page formats easily, make text bold, etc.) and you’ll also see how the site manages itself without having to learn html coding.

    I may have added to your confusion about your best course of action to take with your website, but I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t firmly believe that this is a much easier, more manageable way to get started online.

    Truly, Laura Childs

  5. JohnPearson on January 24th, 2007 11:57 pm

    Nice Post.

    That was well said. Always appreciate your indepth views. Keep up the great work!

    John