Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Hi Jenny,

Well when it comes to blogs I am also green.

What I have figured out so far is when you start a blog you need to post regularly e.g. daily they nees to be good quality unique content articles.

As far as I know maybe a couple of small to medium sized pics would be ok but you would definatly need to have them with a titte or Alt tag in the url containg a description using key words.

When you have made the post then you need to go and ping it so the search engines pick it up and know to come and take a look because the content has changed.

The how is another question I am sure someone will be kind enough to come along and tell us
A If i have got it about figured out, and
B what the site to go to, to ping it as I cant put my hand on it right now.


Bj

May 30th 2007 10:30   

Nina Cleveland   
Nina here, I just started with MyBlogLog
which is pretty awesome program once you start with them you have the tools to ad widgets which is typepad that is where you make your blog and have comments come in from others sites

when you click this link click on the author my picture

http://www.mybloglog.com/buzz/community/WayToAweSome
this is not affiliate programs but you can grow a large community

Hope this helps
May 30th 2007 12:13   

Jenny Stewart   
Hi Bj

Thanks for your good avice But when Isaid I was a comuter Klutz i meant it - What on earth is a pinger when it is at home?

Saludos
Jenny
May 30th 2007 12:26   

Jenny Stewart   
Hi Nina,

Thanks for your help,

I have been to your blog site and signed up for a free trial and will see if I can find my way round this one!

Hugs
Jenny
May 30th 2007 12:43   

Angela Chen Shui   
Jenny,

Just saw your post.

I've been blogging with blogger.com since August, 2004. Although many professional bloggers use WordPress as their blogging platform, to this day I cannnnnot for the life of me figure it out.

IF you do not yet have a blog, I'd suggest you set one up using the new Google/Blogger platform that's super easy. No, really! ;-)

Setting up your blog that will be hosted by Google for free is as easy as 1-2-3 steps. You can set up categories and everything afterwards.

I believe since Google now owns blogger you may need a Gmail email account to set up your blogger blog, but that's easy enough if you go to gmail.com, Jenny.

Good luck and YELL if you're having trouble.


Angela.
May 30th 2007 18:56   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
I may be wrong but I think the question that was posed was

How do you set up your Blogs and advice about using the blogs HERE

Correct me if I am wrong.

All I am seeing is people promoting their pet blog not responding the the question asked. I would also like advice about the best way to use the blog facility HERE not else where.

Bj

May 30th 2007 19:25   

Jenny Stewart   
Bj

But you still havent told what piinging is!!!!

Saludos
Jenny



May 30th 2007 19:41   

Bj aka Bill Brown   Hosting and Backup Service provider
Gezzzzzzzzzzzzz patience patience lol

ok I had to get some assistance and out mutual friend Nan found the address for me.

Once the blog is written then go to

http://pingomatic.com/

and submit the blog.

Pinging in simple terms is telling the search engines that you have updated the site and they need to go look and update their records


Bj


May 30th 2007 21:33   

Carole   
I didn't know writing a blog was such a complicated thing. I just write in what the site provides me. Am I doing it wrong? For instance, my space has a place to blog. Free webs.com has a place to blog on my website. Am I not doing it right? About the pinger? How do you do that?

carole
May 30th 2007 22:07   

domestika  
That question is a great many questions all bundled together, I think! For someone just starting out and not comfortable with computers, you'll probably be happiest with setting up a free blog at Blogger.com - you'll see a lot of artists and craftspeople have them.

No $ investment, the option of free hosting for your blog at blogspot.com, a variety of ready-made templates to choose from, and sort of a drag-and-drop way of adding material to your blog.

Once you're more comfortable with the whole thing, there is no limit to how you can customize a standard template to make it your very own.

Another bonus is that because Blogger is so widely used, there's no shortage of people to give advice and help you out as needed. Plus, Blogger + Blogspot are owned by Google, so you're pretty much guaranteed to get a good fast listing in their search engine!

Hope this helps!

Jun 1st 2007 11:07   

Jenny Stewart   
Hi Everyone - and thanks for all your advice - the more the merrier.

I refuse to believe that i am the only one here who doesnt find promoting through the internet easier than breathing! lol Heck we didnt even have computers when i was at school!

It looks as Iif I will have to take the first baby steps to the various sites you have suggested and see how it goes. HMTL is terrifying!

Then it will have to be linked back to my beautiful and professionally produced web site where i sell the angels.

This could be fun. - and I am certainly fascinated by the "pinging"!

Take care and dont stop the advice

Jenny
Jun 1st 2007 14:45   

Marie Gervacio   Brilliant Body Success Coach
Hi Jenny,

Did you start your blog yet? I just found this post. Here are some learning videos. He makes it easy to start your blog on blogger.com. Here is the free zip file [url=http://www.mystarportfolio.com/dls/BloggerVideos.zip]BloggerVideos[/url]. I hope you get it in time to make a difference. I will also link to this post from my freebie treasure hunt post.


Aug 20th 2007 09:58   

Marie Gervacio   Brilliant Body Success Coach
oops forgot about the no ubb codes in this block

http://www.mystarportfolio.com/dls/BloggerVideos.zip

just copy and past above.

Enjoy!
Aug 20th 2007 10:01   

Jenny Stewart   
Hi Marie,

Thanks a lot for the file. I am downloading it and will study it hard! lol no it is not too late. It has given me the kick I needed to get on with the blogs!

Thanks
You're a star

Jenny
Aug 20th 2007 19:10   

Marie Gervacio   Brilliant Body Success Coach
Hi Jenny,

Lol, glad it came in time to give you a "kick"! ...now you have no excuse... enjoy!
Aug 21st 2007 15:13   

John Dilbeck   
Blogging is much easier than most people think. If you can send email, you can blog with no problem.

Pinging is not as important as it used to be. Most blogging platforms now ping the most important aggregators automatically when you post. If you want, you can go to Pingomatic.com or Pingoat.com, but if you blog using Blogger or WordPress, it isn't necessary.

I don't know if the blog here at Apsense automatically pings or not, but it would be easy enough to add it to your MyYahoo or custom Google page. Or, set up a lens at Squidoo and add your RSS or Atom feed to the lens.

To blog on Apsense, all you have to do is click on the Business Blogs tab and then click Create my own blog. On apsense, they use the word "blog" to mean a posting to a blog rather than the traditional usage where blog mean a website.

Either way, when you blog, it creates an RSS feed that you can find on your user profile page.

Go to your user page:

http://www.apsense.com/user/johndilbeck

(substitute your username)

At the bottom of the right column, you'll see the RSS chiclet:

http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

That's your RSS feed. Enter that (with your username) anywhere that syndicates feeds and you'll get into the system.

Continued...
Sep 7th 2007 23:43   

John Dilbeck   
Some places you want to enter your RSS feed for syndication:

In a Squidoo lens about yourself.
At bloglines.com
At Feedburner.com
www.google.com/reader

Set up your personal page at Google:

http://www.google.com/ig
Save whatever it has on the opening page - you can change it later.
After saving, on the right side of the page click on Add Stuff...

To the right of the search box, click the small link that says Add by URL

In the new text box, enter your Apsense RSS feed URL

i.e., http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

When you see the red check mark to the left of your feed URL, Google has successfully parsed and added the feed. You can click the stop button on your browser and go back to your home page at google.com/ig and you should see your blog added to the page.

Whenever you go to your iGoogle page, it will read your feed and that gets it into the Google universe.

Since Google recently bought Feedburner.com, syndicating your feed there also gets you into the system. It's better than pinging, in my opinion.

Of course, you can add the RSS feed for your friend's blogs or an Apsense group's feed and read them all at google.com/ig whenever you want. You can do the same thing by adding the feeds you want into any feedreader site or application.

I - being a full-time geek in my previous life - syndicate my most important blogs on the homepage at JohnDilbeck.com.

To get into Yahoo, which isn't as important as it used to be, go to:

http://my.yahoo.com/s/about/rss/index.html

Once you create an RSS or Atom feed, you become a publisher:

http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide

Now, go to http://my.yahoo.com/

On the left side of the page below the search box, click Add Content. A new page will load.
To the right of the Find button, click Add RSS by URL. Again put in the URL for your RSS or Atom feed.

This will open a new page that should be showing your headlines. If you see what you want, click the Add to My Yahoo button. Done.

JD

Sep 8th 2007 00:19   

John Dilbeck   
To add your feed to Feedburner, go to Feedburner.com

In the box below where it tells you to enter your feed URL, enter, well, uh, your feed URL.

(grin)

Remember: http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

(use your username)

Do not click the box about being a podcaster. Click the Next button.

The next page will tell you that the feed has been verified.

It will read your feed title and suggest that as the address.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnDilbecksBusinessBlogs

I didn't want that address, so, in the text box on that line, I changed it to

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnDilbecksApsenseBlog

Next, if you have an account already, log in. If not, create one.

Click Activate Feed.

At the bottom of the next page, where it says Step 2, click the text link that says Skip directly to feed management.

From here there are many features that I won't cover here. I will briefly mention four.

Click the Publicize tab...

1. Now, you can let people subscribe to your feed by email. See the Email Subscriptions link in the left column.

2. PingShot - click this link. Click Pingomatic and Newsgator, and from the drop down list, select Google Blog Search Pinging Service and Add it. If you see a check mark to the left of the six services, click the Activate button. Now you can forget pinging, because Feedburner will do it for you every time you publish to your blog. I think they scan every 30 minutes.

3. Click BuzzBoost. Select the choices you want - you can change them later as you learnn more. Click Activate. You'll see a text box with javascript code in it. You can copy that and paste it on any web page that allows javascript and it will syndicate your blog. Use it on one site or a thousand - it's up to you.

4. Click Headline Animator. Select the options you want - they can be changed. You can have multiple HAs in different sizes and styles. Click Activate. Your new HA will appear showing your last five headlines rotating. (continued)
Sep 8th 2007 00:51   

John Dilbeck   
Feedburner Step 4 (continued). Below your new headline Animator, in the drop down box, select Other (just gimme the code). Click Next.

For now, deselect the Include a "Grab This" link.

The text box has a paragraph of HTML code to display your new HA on any web page.

You can use this on any page, even pages that don't allow syndication using the javascript you previously created.

You can modify the HTML to work as BBcode if you want. I'll leave that as an exercise.

For instance, you can modify your Business Center. Go to Setup my Business Center, scroll to the bottom to where it allows you to add text to the page. We want to directly add HTML, so click the HTML button on the bottom right of the edit window.

Paste the HA HTML code wherever you want it. I chose to add a horizontal rule and center my headline animator at the bottom of my Business Center. When you have it where you want it, click the Design button to see how it looks.

I didn't like the horizontal rule, so I removed it.

Before you save, be sure to go up and select the Business Industries you want. Apsense doesn't properly populate these when you edit your business center.

Once you're ready, click the Save button.

You can go to http://johndilbeck.apsense.com/ and see it in action.

I happily accept testimonials. (*wink*)

Act on your dream!

JD

Sep 8th 2007 01:07   

John Dilbeck   
Finally, just to show you how easy it is to blog here at Apsense, if you've written or replied to this thread, you're blogging.

The group's RSS feed is:

http://www.apsense.com/feed/group.xml?id=100095

And it can be syndicated using the steps I outlined for a personal blog here.

As an example, see the Apsense lens I created at Squidoo:

APsense - A Free Business Social Network

http://www.squidoo.com/apsense-business-networking/

You can see that I syndicated my Apsense blog and the blogs for some groups I created.

Also, I just added a link to this group. If anyone wants to vote for it, just click the up arrow to the left off the name.

You're also invited to add a link to your Business Center there (not your profile).

If you visit the lens, I would appreciate it if you vote in the poll about Apsense.

And, finally, if you have a Squidoo lens about Apsense, you are invited to submit it to the group I created at:

http://www.squidoo.com/groups/apsense-business-networking

If you don't have an account at Squidoo, you can get one by going to the group URL, above, and click on the Make A New Lens button below my pic in the right column. It' free, and I get a (small) check every month for my efforts. You can, too.

If you visit the Apsense lens, I would appreciate it if you'd rank it and you're always welcome to leave a comment at the bottom of the page. You have to be a logged in Squidoo member to do either.

I'm done talking now. (grin)

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I hope this helped more than it confused.

Sep 8th 2007 01:25