Ping Juiced By Networking

Stating upfront that Digg is my networking site of choice, here are a couple of other sites that are good as well. However, before I go into those sites, here is a new tool I discovered that is a companion to Digg that I thought I'd share with you... DuggTrends: mirror. Just check it out. If you want to see a great review regarding the basics on DuggTrends: mirror, click here.

Adding the StumbleUpon toolbar, makes it easy to submit articles and add to my profile (to keep articles on-file) that I have interest in. That's a pretty cool feature. However, word-to-the-wise when you're adding the toolbar...be sure that you don't have any tabs up that you are in need of keeping track of because you'll lose those as your Internet will re-boot (not your complete computer system...just the Internet, i.e., Internet Explorer). StumbleUpon has sent me many-a-visitor to my blogs and I abundantly enjoy my interaction with my readers.

del.icio.us seems, thus far, to be fairly easy to use. Interaction with my del.icio.us network seems to be the most difficult part. Posting items on their site is fairly easy. Adding people to your network is fairly easy. I have not received as many visitors through their site with my networking efforts as other sites.

Networking is a necessity in marketing your blog, increasing its traffic and attractiveness to advertisers. Additionally, there is not a "one-size-fits-all" networking site. Try a few sites to feel out which one(s) work best for your blog topic and traffic. It may take time to analyze which site(s) will be most beneficial and therefore I recommend using Google Analytics or Feedburner to analyze where your traffic is coming from.




What is the definition of "Ping (Blogging)"? This comes from Wikipedia...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ping_blog

"Many blog authoring tools automatically ping one or more servers each time the blogger creates a new post (or updates an old one.) That is, the tool sends an XML-RPC signal to one or more "ping servers," which can then generate a list of blogs that have new material.

Open ping servers, like VeriSign's Weblogs.com and Yahoo!'s blo.gs, let other web-services subscribe to a list of blogs that have recently pinged them.

Blog search engines can provide fresh results very quickly by polling only the newly-updated blogs. Similarly, aggregators use results from ping servers to tell subscribers which items on their subscription lists have fresh material. A few of the blog aggregators that can be pinged directly include:

BulkFeeds, FeedBurner, Google Blog Search, IceRocket, Technorati, and Yahoo

In addition to open ping servers, there are an increasing number of proprietary ping servers that gather information only for their own applications. Most of the major blog search engines operate such ping servers.

There is a conflict of interest here between the blogger--who wants his new post to get the widest possible publicity as fast as possible--and the web-service owner--who wants his search engine or aggregator to have new blog posts long before anyone else. As a result, bloggers have turned to services such as Ping-o-matic, which pings multiple proprietary ping servers. As the blogosphere has grown, other ping "services" have cropped up, such as Pingoat and BlogFlux Pinger."

Each time you post a new article, be sure to use at least one of the ping sites to register your new post. This will drive traffic to your site and increase your rating on Technorati and Alexa.

Sources:
www.technorati.com
www.alexa.com
www.del.icio.us.com
www.stumbleupon.com
www.digg.com
www.duggtrends.com
www.feedburner.com
www.google.com/analytics/
en.wikipedia.org

New Stuff, New Tweaks

As you can see, I've decided to change to a different template.

I hope that it is agreeable with my readers.

The reasoning behind the change is my disappointment with the inability of the previous template's flexibility with regards to widget size and placement. Additionally, the previous template caused my blog archive list to stretch extremely far down the sidebar, as well as any other text that I added to that area of the template.

I'm not sure that I love this template because there is not as clear a division between posts, however, I do feel it is an improvement from the past template.

I may change my template at Issues On Call as well, as I am not extremely pleased with its appearance. However, I have been working with the colors and layout over the past week, as well as the ad layout.

I feel that learning, based on the option of these templates, gives me a greater understanding of the details I will desire to develop on my own web domain, when the time comes.

I hope that viewing my learning process helps others in their blogging journey and that it doesn't annoy those who subscribe to my blog.

Thank you for your patience.

With regard to Feedburner...I have been able to integrate AdSense with Feedburner and that allows for additional ads to appear at the end of each "newest" post. This location is supposedly a prime location for readers to view and curiously click, however, my results have still been minimal, which is frustrating.

If you look at my Issues On Call site, at the end of each post, Feedburner has placed the ads there as well, however, with the FeedFlare option (where the ad option was first located), there is an option to include things such as, technorati, sphere, digg, etc. This shows up on my Issues On Call site but somehow doesn't show up on my Max Your Ping site. So, this will be something that I'll need to troubleshoot...Ahhh the frustration of inconsistency...probably something I did or didn't do correctly.

Additionally, my Headline Animator from Feedburner continues to circulate the titles and dates of my posts, which in turn interests my viewers in clicking on the widget. From clicking on the widget the viewer can subscribe to my post...an additional subscription option. Within the Headline Animator section, you can choose to advertise your site through Headline Animator, however, the budgets begin at $25 per month...something most bloggers are not in the blogging business for. Certainly, right now, I'd love to see my $25.00 in a check to me...lol

I have added my name to another location as well...Newsvine.com. I'm just getting the hang of it, but it seems to be a pretty serious site...not one made for match-making, but for serious article writing...right up my alley (not that you can tell from the tidbits I write here).

Here is my link so that you can see what it begins to look like
Click Here

I am still getting to know the ropes. They are pretty strict. I'm trying to find out if I can actually add any ads to my articles through Google Analytics or Feedburner, as Newsvine uses different rules which include the longevity of the user and the amount and quality of your articles and interaction.

It is an interesting site. I suggest reading up on it as another option in networking, however...let me tell you that these are serious WORK, serious ARTICLE, serious EVERYTHING networking groups and it isn't like Digg. You really have to work hard to get people into your networking group.

My StumbleUpon Tool Bar doesn't seem to work half the time, so I have a hard time integrating with that site. Plus, it seems that it is not quite the serious networking site that I'd like to be involved with, however, from time to time I still visit it and check on my friends there and network a bit. It is somewhat between Digg and MySpace. You can have some people that want you to see their work and others that want you to SEE their work...if you know what I mean. So...just an FYI.

The Yahoo networking site is one that I have not figured out AT ALL yet. It is still in Beta and I think it has a long way to go. However, I have to say that I have given the others a better try so I will cut it some slack...for now.

Digg seems to be good sometimes, and then sometimes it seems to be too much work. I get Digg burn out. I feel that there is a lot of junk that gets "shouts" to my login, mixed in with some selectively "real" news, tech, interest, etc. type stuff. However, the catch is that if you don't respond to most of the people sending you shouts in some way, you may not get the response that you want when you want something publicized. Kind of crazy. I guess it is representative of the globe, however, and I take the interesting ideas that come over as, just that...interesting.

I had one day following the writing of an article Issues On Call - Article
where I suddenly earned $13.00 on adsense from a bunch of clicks and have no idea how they came about, since I have been doing the same procedure of sending out my pings and promoting my articles this whole time. That is the most I have earned.

The earning is becoming a great deal of frustration, as I am sure it is for many bloggers. I ask myself what I am doing wrong, what I am doing right, if my articles are good enough, if my articles are the right topic, if my production is sufficient, etc.

What else can I do? If someone who is reading this has suggestions and has seen my other sites, please let me know. I am in this for the long-haul and would love some tidbits of advice on earning.

I did receive some emails tonight from affiliate groups who I sent applications to showing that I am approved, however, it may take me a couple of days to go through all of their information to make sure they are legit. I will update you and let you know the sources once I find out the results.

I find myself staying up until all hours of the night (actually into the morning) working on this investment into mine and my family's future and so, since it is now close to 1am I must sign off, hoping that this is good feedback, based on my recent experiences and frustrations.

Let me tell you something about the frustrations...they only drive me more, knowing that I can succeed because I have the drive, ambition, and best of all the TECHNOLOGY :-)

Happy Blogging!