Sires last blog post..Do You Want More People Commenting On Your Blog?

Have you been able to start your Squidoo lenses, yet?

Act on your dream!

JD

On occasions I will use twitter, and thanks to you I am looking at creating some Squidoo lenses.

I have noticed that if I spend a little time trying to use some good keywords that I also get a fair bit of traffic from the search engines.

Sires last blog post..Do You Want More People Commenting On Your Blog?

I just don’t see Squidoo as a form of blogging. I look at it as a free webpage with lots of features for adding interactivity with little effort.

Once I create a lens, I don’t put much work in updating it unless something changes. I do check new comments, but that’s pretty easy because I get an email when someone leaves one.

By syndicating the RSS feed of this blog, for instance, on a Squidoo lens, I don’t have to do anything there. All the work is here and the lens automatically updates itself.

As you know, WordPress automatically pings when you post, and I have my RSS feed run through another feed on Feedburner.com which also automatically pings.

I’ve not seen that problem with Technorati, but I’m going to take a look right now…

This is the first time I’ve been to Technorati in awhile. I did add this blog to my list of blogs there, a few weeks ago, but didn’t do any other exploring then.

I just noticed that ImJustSharing.com has an authority of 23 on Technorati. That’s outstanding! It’s the first blog I’ve added to my Technorati favorites.

Apparently pinging Technorati is working automatically for this blog, so it looks like I won’t have to do manually, but that’s a very good tip.

I’m starting to get more visitors from Twitter, too, so I’ll continue to tweet my latest posts. I’ve decided to do that automatically, using Alex King’s Twitter Tools plugin.

Thanks for your comments, Mitch. They’re most appreciated.

Act on your dream!

JD

Two things. One, personally I’m not feeling the love for Squidoo, and I can’t figure out why. To me, it seems like it’s basically another blog that I have to give a lot of time to. If I were only blogging as a career then doing something like that might be a good idea, but as I looked around at many of the other blogs, it just seems like, well, a lot of extra work.

Two, something you didn’t mention was pinging one’s own blog. Actually, I do that and I also make sure that at least Technorati has seen that I’ve updated my blogs. It works perfectly for one of my blogs, but for the other, Technorati seems to miss it many times, so I have to ping it directly. That helps a lot.

But the biggest driver of new traffic to my site does seem to be Twitter, though it dropped off drastically in June for some reason. So, I always put a link to my latest blog entries there.

This is another way in which Search It! can be very helpful.

It has a nice customized search for blogs that allow comments.

In step #1, select Blog/RSS search under the CTPM section. (CTPM stands for Content – Traffic – PREsell – Monetization. See the SBI! – CTPM Process page for more information, if you’re interested.)

In step #2, select Google blog search with comments.

Click the link below step #2 to learn more about this search, if you want.

In step #3, enter the topic you want to comment on.

Now, this sounds rather harsh, so don’t comment on all of the blogs you find unless what you have to say will add value to the discussion there. That would be an example of being a good member of the global blogosphere.

Adding a comment that is totally self-serving and/or which is full of ads for what you are promoting would be crass. That’s a good example of being a spammer.

In step #3, enter the topic. Even if you’re not interested in leaving a comment, this is a good way to find blog posts about the topic in which you are interested, and can be a good way to research it.

For instance, we’re talking about promoting your blog, so enter promote blog in the step #3 text box.

Click the Search It! button.

This will open a page with more information about this search function. At the bottom of that page is a link to take you to the search results.

These search results are provided by Google’s Blog Search (still in Beta). One of the great benefits of using this search is found towards the bottom of the page.

In addition to finding the top-ranked blogs that are talking about your topic, you can also get regular notifications from Google in your email, on your Google homepage, or in Google reader.

So, maybe you’re a work at home Mom and you’re wanting to keep up-to-date with birthday party ideas. This is a great way to find other people writing about the subject. You’ll have the opportunity to meet like-minded people, join in conversations, and learn more about your niche.

This applies to just about any niche – I can’t think of any examples that would not work.

Just remember to keep it real.

Yes, it’s a bit of work, but isn’t it worth it to increase your knowledge of your niche, to meet others who are interested in it, and to keep up to date with alerts from Google?

Act on your dream!

JD

I’m going to disagree with his Tip #30.

I think it would be a big mistake to put your RSS feed URL in your email or forum signature.

Never trick your readers.

Link to the most popular article on your blog, if you want to, or the home page of the blog, but not to the RSS feed.

Item #32 links to an article about RSS feed directories that may be useful, but quite a few of the directories in that list are outdated.

You may want to find a newer list, or discover individual sites to which you can submit your RSS feed.

When I want to find something like this, I turn to Sitesell’s free Search It utility.

You can use it for free and don’t have to register for anything.

Search It! comes with many pre-programmed searches that make it much easier for you to find what you’re looking for without having to know the specialized syntax and commands of the various search engines.

For example, if I were going to find sites to which I could submit my RSS feed, I’d go to Search It and then click the Search It link which will open a smaller window with the search utilities.

In step #1, select Straight Up under the Advanced Search section.

In step #2, select Google, with quotes.

If you’re new to Search It, click the link below the steps 1 and 2 boxes to learn more about the particular search combination you’ve chosen.

In this case, put submit RSS feed in the step #3 text box.

There is nothing to do with step #4 for this search.

Click the Search It! button to begin the search. Do not hit the Enter key on your keyboard – it won’t work.

In this case it would have been easier, if you knew exactly what you were doing, to just go to Google.com and enter the search terms in quotes, but for some of the other searches, Search It! makes it much easier for you.

Then, just go through the results and submit to the sites you want. Since you’re looking at the Google search results, you’ll probably get more value out of the sites listed on the first five pages than you will all the others.

Fred is right in saying that submitting your RSS feed to directories and aggregators is a very good thing and it will help get your articles out to a wider audience.

Do you have other ways of promoting your blog?

Act on your dream!

JD