If you have done anything with SEO on your web site or blog, you have heard about Links and link backs, and exchange links and the importance of linking to get a good SEO and hopefully a good page rank in the search engines.

There is nothing wrong with this.  I would suggest that if you exchange links you attempt to get one-way links as often as you can.  That simply means if  you have a blog you want someone to link to, offer to put a link from another one of your blogs to their blog.  That gives one-way links to both of you.

Here are some facts about linking I have learned:

1. One-way links give better credit than two-way
2. Links included in text, especially text that relates to the subject matter or keywords of your blog, give you more credit
3. Links in lists on a blog roll give you more credit than one listed in a blog post list of links simply because the blogroll usually appears on more than one page, thus count one for each page of the blog.
4. If you get a technorati account, technorati uses the incoming links to your blog to determine your authority.  Search engines pay attention to this.
5. Submitting posts to stumble upon, digg, redit, and a number of other high profile ‘news’ sites puts a link on that site to your site.  Can’t go wrong with that! And hopefully the submissions will bring traffic to your site also.

I have joined one group who suggested we all get technorati accounts and exchange ‘favs’ as well as links.  I have exchanged favs with some friends at technorati, but did nto think about item #4 above.  Thus, I have started a Link Luv page where I can put all my link exchanges.

Since I am a little picky, I do check out the links before putting them on my site.  I don’t need (and neither do you) to have a porn site linked to my blog – at least not from my site to theirs.  Search engines do notice that type of linking also.

That’s it for now.  And remember to give a little link luv through the day.

The phrase ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’ has shown up several times during my brief blogging career.  What does this mean?

Picture this.  You start a blog.  You go to numerous social networks and make friends.  You establish links to your blog through commenting, submitting stories/bookmarks, answering questions a yahoo answer, and everything else you have been told to do.  You even watch the google trends to find the buzz words or topics.  You experiment to find the right post that will catch every one’s attention.  All this just so people will know your blog exists.  So the person who can benefit from your blog finds it.

The post you right that flows from your fingers onto the page seems perfect.  It includes a popular topic, it has a bit of humor, yet contains valuable information.  You know it is well written – one of the best you have ever done.  But your traffic does not grow.  In fact, it seems everyone ignores the digg or the stumble.  Even the twitter or plurk you sent out doesn’t spark interest.  This is discouraging.

You remember the phrase ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’.  You remember all the work you have already put into your blog.  So you trudge on – making friends, writing posts, searching for more valid information to put on your blog.  You check out other blogs to see what they are doing.  You read posts by blog experts like problogger.com.  You continue to post and mingle.

The occasional comment you receive from others tell you that someone has found help in what you wrote.  Other bloggers that see your blog and say – this is a good blog.  So you go on.  Traffic decreases.  You get discouraged.

You go to a forum of friend you have made and voice your discouragement.  They tell you they understand, but you have a good blog and don’t give up.  Then you again remember ‘the only way to fail is  to quit’.

One day you check your traffic.  600 visits yesterday, and 300 already today?  What is going on?  You check back in a little bit – 700 today,  then 800.  You check to see what post is so interesting.  It is a post you wrote 6 months ago!  In fact, it wasn’t much of a post, but it did have a cute catch.  You look to see where it came from – stumbleupon.  But what happened?  You stumbled it yourself back when you wrote it?  And why so much traffic?  You end up with 1600 visits that day.  OK, for a pro, that is probably an average day or even a slow day, but for you, it is like a miracle.

‘The only way to fail is  to quit’ rings in your ears.  Then the next day, traffic slows to a bit higher than usual.  But does it end there?  Nope, a week later you get a higher volume of traffic (not near 1600 or even 1000), but much more than your usual.  What post is getting the attention?  The same one.  And the visitors are also checking out other posts and pages on the site.  Maybe you are making progress after all.

‘The only way to fail is  to quit’

OK – so if I want to really accomplish my goal, all I need to do is keep trying, keep posting, keep learning, keep making new friends, observe what works and what doesn’t, and DON’T QUIT.

I have read many opinions by many professional bloggers on this subject. One point that remains consistent is to publish at least 3 posts a week. The reason for this is to keep your readers interested. The other point consistent between all the opinions is to keep your posts at a regular interval – such as Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That way your readers know when to expect a new post.

I have heard many opinions that say to post at least once a day. This sounds difficult, but really isn’t. You can write several posts on one day and schedule them to be published in most blogging platforms. I would caution you that if you are going to write once a day (or more) that you ensure you have a topic to write on that will be beneficial to your readers. The very longest time interval even mentioned was once a week.

I find it helpful to have a calendar to schedule my post publications on. I now have 5 blogs (including this one) to keep up. I try to schedule them two on one day, two on the next, and the fifth my plan is to do one post a day (the blog reviews) as I have blogs to spotlight. I also use Google documents (spreadsheet) to list all the topics I can write on for each blog.

Recently I wrote a series on one blog. Since it was a series, I scheduled the posts to published every 2nd-3rd day. I didn’t want too much time to pass between so my readers wouldn’t lose interest. It was a really great idea, I thought. My traffic slowed tremendously – so maybe my readers didn’t think my idea was so hot. The month was July, and right around the 4th of July, so perhaps my readers were on vacation. Or maybe it is just that summer is not the time people focus on diets. What I learned from this was to not write a long series. In this case, I was stuck finishing the series even though it seemed to bomb.

As a final note – keep your blog focused. If your topics cover too wide an area, start a second blog that can contain some of the topics. For example: If your blog about food goes into decorating a kitchen, you might start another blog about kitchen designs. If your blog about dogs goes into cats, birds, and monkeys, you might want to split it into one for each type, or one for domestic pets, one for birds, and one for exotic pets. Your readers come because the are interested in the subject. They can loss interest if you stray too far.

How often do you post to your blog?

Happy Blogging!

These are exciting times online.  New opportunities are opening up for the social and the serious.  A new site -

HerProBlog.com is coming up soon for the professional blogging women with tips and discussions.  You can sign up for an email subscription now – don’t miss out on the opening!  Join the Women Bloggers Group now which is the social network for HerProBlog.com.  This is the opportunity to get in on the ground floor.  New members are being added daily.  And even though it is a women’s group, men are not banned.

The Women Bloggers Group is powered by Crowdvine.  You can interface with facebook to add your friends, and you can add your twitter stream.  Put your social bookmarking site or photo site to rss them.  And pick your favorite blog (we all have more than one, right  – OK, then put your one blog on it) to subscribe to.

Once you are settled in, go to HerProBlog.com and sign up for that subscription.  See ya’ll there!

]]> http://joyblogging.com/2008/07/a-new-woman-bloggers-community-herproblog/feed/ 2 http://joyblogging.com/2008/06/a-blogger-worth-knowing-and-following/ http://joyblogging.com/2008/06/a-blogger-worth-knowing-and-following/#comments Thu, 26 Jun 2008 20:43:40 +0000 joyntheir http://guru-sites.com/joy-of-blogging/?p=31

I want to introduce you to an online entrepreneur, Jared M Lee, who has a blog which has “Everything you need to develop a Business online. Tips, resources, and helpful information for at home entrepreneurs.”  This blog is entitled The Bloggers Destop.

I subscribe to his feed via email to ensure I get every post. He brings up details I would never even think about – such as the post “Never send out a partial feed”.

The difference between this blog and a lot of blogs online is that this gentleman knows what he is talking about. He not only knows the principals, but he has used them successfully. He coaches beginners on building websites/blogs and on how to earn money on line.  I subscribe to his feed via email to ensure I get every post.  He brings up details I would never think about – such as the post “Never send out a partial feed”.

If you think you cannot find the time to put into your online venture, take a look at Jared. Jared has a family – a wife and two children. He is also in seminary which takes tons of time outside of class to study and write. On top of this already full schedule, he coaches individuals in online business and web development which takes at least an hour a week per individual on the phone. He also maintains his websites and blogs, plus keeps up to date with the online happenings and new developments. Then he participates in the web 2.0 social networks. If he can find the time to do this, anyone can.

If you feel you are too inexperienced to set up a blog/website or keep it up, Jared not only does coaching over the phone, but he also is offering an email support where you can send questions via email to him at a very small monthly fee. If you just can’t understand the workings to set up a wordpress blog, Jared has a service where he can build the site for you. All you will have to do is keep adding the content (posts) every couple days.

Jared is also great at working with adwords. You might be able to hire him to run an adwords program for you. You would need to talk to him about that.

Let me end by saying you are missing out if you don’t go visit and read The Bloggers Destop.

I have worked on computers for years.  I know the one secret passed on from one computer worker to another is ‘be sure to keep your work backed up’.  I remember one day when a server crashed at work.  One of my friends had been working on a project for 3 months – and kept it all on the server since it was a shared application he was building.  Come to find out, the person in charge of backing up the server every night had not been checking it.  The automatic backup had quit working 3 months before.

Last night I decided to change the theme to one of my blogs Be The Weight You Want.  I had exported my posts and everything before when I moved it off the wordpress.com.  Then I had done an export once in a while to backup my work.  I had also been warned by others and by reading about blogging to keep my work backed-up.

Guess what?  I didn’t back it up.  I started running into problems and still didn’t make an export file.  Then I was locked out of the site admin – no way to do an export then.  And no recourse but to uninstall the wordpress, then re-install it.  Luckily, I decided to save it the hard way – go to every post and page and save the html.  At least that way I saved all my posts.

Do you back up your work regularly?  It is much easier to export your posts and comments, etc, and save them to your hard drive than it is to save every page.  And with the export file, you can import them back in when you re-install.  All the dates, tags, categories, comments – everything comes right back up.

Why should you backup your blog?  To protect your work – that you put time and effort into.  The work that made your blog’s ranking in the search engines.  The work that people come back to even months after you published it.  The work that goes out over your RSS feed.

Anyone else had to go through this?  Leave a comment and tell your experience, or any tips you have for safeguarding your work.

OK, so I am now addicted to social web networks? Well, yes and no. Some are better than others. I have found a couple I really like. One of them is Blog Catalog. The folks there have quality blogs on a full variety of interests. There are groups which are there for any interest or objective you want. There are groups that support each other in other networks, there are groups that share tips on how to make your blog better, there are groups that just share on any subject.

Rather than being a place to submit your sites and posts and articles, this is a listing of all of your blogs (they have to be reviewed and accepted). You find other blogs you like and joint the neighborhood. You can add friends. And most members list the other networks they are a part of. That way you can find them on mybloglog, stumble, digg, technorati, and even entrecard – and a lot more.

Best thing is, if you don’t find a group for your specific interest, you can start a group. And you can announce it on the broadcast. You can even let people know your article, post, etc, is available to stumble or digg or bookmark or whatever. No one has to digg or vote for it – it is just an announcement so they can go look at it. Hopefully, many will find it good enough to give you a point.

So head on over to Blog Catalog and join in the fun now.

Being curious, when I started seeing the entrecard symbols on people’s blogs (mine is on Be The Weight You Want), I went to the site and joined. I found many unexpected benefits after joining.

1. Go to the site Powerdropping.com where you will find a list of 300 sites you can drop cards on in a short amount of time. Guess what? You will find a lot of interesting blogs you probably didn’t even know existed!

2. Go and advertise on others sites – check out the sites you decide to advertise on and see if it is one you would want it on, and also if you think people interested in that blog might click to see your blog. For my blog, I advertise on other health sites and fashion sites mostly.

3. Go to your ‘in’ box to see who dropped cards on your site. Be sure to reciprecate – visit their sites and drop cards. NOTE: you are only allowed 300 cards a day.

This reminds me of a scavenger hunt and a game like monopoly. You earn a credit per card dropped. you have to go to other blogs to drop them, and then the credits you earn, you spend to buy ads to get people to come to your blog. You also earn credits as others ‘buy’ads on your site. When someone wants to put their ad on your site, you can go see their blog and decide whether to let them or not. As you drop more cards and purchase ads, the cost to advertise on your site goes up. That gives you more credits, so you can advertise more, or purchase the higher costing spots.

If you also enroll at Blog Catalog, you will meet a lot of the same bloggers who are on Entrecard. But that’s another story

I think I have mentioned that I started all this blogging because I was looking for a way to supplement my income, both to pay off bills so I could retire and to supplement my retirement income. I believe I am now an official web addict.
If anyone thinks that online business is a spare time project, forget it. Maybe after you have become rich and have a thousand sites out there, but even then you have to stay up with the times. Reading, socializing, revising, researching, writing. These all take time and a lot of it.

I am lucky. I really enjoy this. I am learning something new, plus to be a success, I have to learn even more. I was correct – my previous experience in web site building as a novice. my knowledge of the various PC applications, and my use of the internet searching for products and for information all gave me a basic knowledge. What I am learning now is overwhelming. I can only imagine what it is to people who don’t have that background – not that it cannot be done successfully.

What amazes me is the amount of knowledge of the Internet and its world to absorb. Each search engine, each social site, each bookmarking site, each feeder site, has its own personality. It’s like going from city to city or learning to ride a bike, drive a car, drive a tracker, etc.

If my blog starts to look more like an advertisement, this blog really isn’t. I do get excited and want to share things with other. Things that impress me, or things I think others will like. It’s a deviation from my original intent. Maybe not. This blog is an outlet for me about things I am interested in and things that matter to me.

If any of you are on the web 2.0 sites like Digg, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Mixx, BlogCatalog, redit, myplace, etc, look me up. I am usually under the handle of Joyntheir.

I have just discovered the full blessing of blogging. I started this particular blog for one reason. That reason has changed since I started it, but it is a better reason for me now.

This was my very first blogging ‘attempt’. I found it to be a ‘freeing’ experience. A chance to pour out part of my heart and soul that I normally would not do face to face with anyone in particular. It means getting a chance to express feelings, memories, etc. To put a voice to things you want to say, but never get the chance.

But today – well, my niece has started blogging. We have connected through our blogs. By sharing our blogs, we can get to know each other. You see, I have been physically several states away from her since she was very young. When she was small, we were great friends. Unfortunately, the last meeting her mother and I had before I left my home town for the last time we had a serious disagreement. While it was not a fight, we both said things that hurt the other. Her mother did not want me to have any contact with my niece or two nephews. My brother and I had sparce contact over the phone. 13 years later – the year my niece graduated from high school, I returned to see my mother. My sister-in-law and I met for lunch. We had a heart to heart talk and bridged the gap of many years, making up so to speak. But it was not a close relationship as our lives had parted those many years before.

Back to my niece. She is a wonderful person, a marvelous mother, and I am sure as close to the perfect wife as one can be. I am very honored to be one of her family. She has faced and was victorious over many many obstacles in her life. She is wise beyond her years. I hope every one who reads this blog has someone like her in their lives.

Here it is – Saturday evening. It is snowing and icing outside and the coldest we have been all winter. I am glad it snowed. Yesterday was like a spring or fall day – in the 60’s with a light cool breeze. Today the ‘breeze’ got up to 50 mph gusts. Talk about climate shock!

But it does look and feel a lot more like Christmas. And it is wonderful. I get 2 holidays this year (President Bush gave Monday, Christmas Eve, as a holiday. Big Shock – not really. See, it is election year and he has to make good marks for his party. Plus it costs more to open the facilities and heat it up for the few souls who would actually show up.) Nonetheless, I get a 4 day holiday which is rare.

I even got to do what I love to do; my daughter and I went shopping last night and this morning. I love going out and shopping. But I hate driving in the crowds. We went to ump-teen million stores trying to find a ‘baby alive’ doll for her eight year old. Of course no one had any left in stock.

And I had my little grand-daughter (3 1/2) for a few hours this afternoon. She is such a pill! I love being with her when I can just be with her. She loves the computer. I have an older one set up for the kids Cd’s – reader rabbit, Dora Dora, etc. It doesn’t hook up to the Internet, so no worries there.

In between, I managed to get not 1 but 2 Starbucks! Anyone who is a Starbucks junkie knows the value of that. And I got my first website up and running. It is on body building and muscle building – and a little for weight gain/loss since that normally goes with it. It is at http://bodybuildingmuscleshaping.com . Take a look and tell me what you think. I really would like the feedback.

Well, sometime I will get back to my cross stitch. I really have to get going on making the Christmas stockings for each of the grand-kids. Wish me luck – and if I don’t get back to write again before Christmas – Have a blessed Christmas and safe travel. JoyntHeir