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.

Having a blog on the Internet is great.  It is enjoyable.  But why do you have a blog on the Internet?  If it is your personal diary, why would you have it out there for everyone to see?

If you have a blog on the Internet, it is because you want people to see the blog, read it, and get something from it.  You may share your personal life experiences so others can find hope and help through reading it.  If you are selling something, you want them to read about what you are selling, see that it would be a help  in their life, and buy it.  If you are very knowledgeable in an area – an expert – you want to present this information and share it with others.

Your goal cannot be reached if the traffic, the other people on the Internet, can’t find your blog.  And to find your blog, they have to be looking for it.  So, if no one knows that your blog exists, why is it there?  That defeats your purpose.

In the brick and mortar world, how would you let people know your new store exists?  Signs, talking to people, leaving your business card, ads in the newspaper, on the radio, on the TV – these are some of the ways.

How can you do that on the Internet?  One way is to work your way up through the search engines.  If you do a search on the main point of your blog, you will find there are hundreds, even thousands, of sites listed there.  This is a little hard to climb through.  You could spend hundreds of dollars trying to purchase a more visible position and then still not get traffic.

One way to drop business cards on the Internet is to comment on other blogs with subjects that relate to yours.  Leave a link to  your blog – but don’t try to sell your blog.  Instead, make the link part of your signature.  Go into forums and do the same.

Another way is to make friends on the Internet.  Join Stumbleupon, Digg, Mixx, Delicious, Technorati, Twitter, Plurk, Blogcatalog – these are just a few of the social networks on the web.  Join in discussions, vote up others submissions, gather friends.  If you don’t believe this is powerful, try googling your name or online nickname after you  have been doing this a few months.  You will be surprised how many links you will find.

The more your name and URL is on the Internet, the more visible your site becomes.  The more trust you get from others and recognition of knowing what you are talking about, the more people will want to go to your site.

Just jump in and start joining.  A word of caution – watch what you disclosed about yourself personally.  And about what you leave as comments.  I guarantee there are things you don’t want published in a search engine when your name is googled.  Also bookmark your site URL where-ever you can.  Good luck!

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/where-should-i-live-on-the-internet/ http://joyblogging.com/2008/06/where-should-i-live-on-the-internet/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:37:10 +0000 joyntheir http://guru-sites.com/joy-of-blogging/?p=28

There are about as many web hosting sites and web hosting plans out there as there are web sites.  Have you ever thought about it?  Do you know what to consider when deciding where to ‘buy’ your property?  This can be as important as choosing your address (URL).

When building a site on the Web or starting a blog, the first decision you have to make is where to put it. Where – well on the web of course – NOT.

I have been tinkering with websites for about . . . going on 10 years. With each new thing I try I learn something new. It would be nice to know these things at the very first.

The first site I ever put out there on the web was for my church. I was trying to keep costs down, so I found all the free stuff I could use.  The only trouble with most of the ‘free’ stuff, especially web hosting, is that they put whatever ads they want on your site. With a church, it isn’t good to have gambling, drinking, etc, advertised on your site.

Then I found out there is a thing called bandwidth. If you want to put audio sermons out there, you have to get the right bandwidth to broadcast them. The software can be gotten for free, but the bandwidth can’t.  I found ministries.com which gives churches and other non-profit organizations half price.   This hosting service provides the bandwidth to put audio sermons and a lot of other accessories – including a secure shopping cart and a blogging platform.  I have a good experience at there and recommend it to everyone with a non-profitable organization.

Which brings us to email programs. I found some hosts do not offer any and some only give you mail forwarding. Then if you get into e-Commerce and want more than one site, you need to know if your hosting plan will support more than one site. For instance – if you like to blog. Usually a blog revolves around one subject – say starting an online business. If you want to blog about another subject – say raising children – it would not fit on an online business blog. If you get the correct web host, you can create all the blogs you want.

Now, with blogs, there are 2 large blog sites I know about – Blogger.com and Wordpress.com. You can make multiple blogs on both of them. They do have their rules to abide by and you have to adhere to the rules. On the other hand, wordpress.org will let you get a copy of the wordpress ’software’ to put on your ‘web property’. When you do that, you can add extra plug-ins and widgets to use on your blog.

That brings up another point. Some hosts will let you get to the ‘back end’ of the site – that is straight into the files either with an FTP program or through the control panel. If you have access to the ‘back end’, then you can add the plug-ins to a wordpress blog sitting at your site.

Another item to consider is if the web host will allow you to use your own domain name (your address), or make it a sub-domain of their domain. An example of this is again word press. The domain is www.wordpress.com while the sub-domain would be like joyntheir.wordpress.com. You may have a difficult time finding a URL you like that is available. Some sites will give you suggestions of similar URL’s that are available – the dot portion of which may be the only difference; i.e., bodybuilding.com, bodybuilding.org, bodybuilding.net, bodybuilding.us, bodybuilding.uk, etc, etc. If you are concerned about your URL – like including keywords in it – then you may want to buy all or several versions of the URL if just to keep others from using them.

Some hosting plans will let you use purchased URL’s for your sub-domains, and some will not. You can also use a .php file to make sub-domain names – for example: your domain is fitness.com and you add a blog. The URL is www.fitness.com/blog. To make it simpler, you can build a php file that says ‘http://www.fitness.com/blog’ = ‘http://blog.fitness.com’/ Cool trick?

I was pointed to a good place to ‘purchase’ domain names:  StartLogic. The price for a URL is the lowest I have seen. And you can ‘park’ your URLs there. They also give a decent hosting plan which include also has Free setup/domain, Web builder, unlimited emails, PHP, mySQL, CGI, and FrontPage.  You can host as many domains as you want under one account, or get a reseller program.

Another good spot is  Webhostingpad.com which has plans for a little over $5 per month.  With their fantastico program, you can put many program platforms on a site, including wordpress, b2evolution, and drupal to name a few.  You can purchase as many URL’s as you wish and set them up as add on domains so each blog or site has its own URL.  It also has a good email program.

Other good hosting sites are:

Host Gater
Blue Host
IX Web Hosting

I know there are probably a lot of other details to look at.  Are there any other considerations you are concerned with in choosing an online host?

Have you heard of Plurk?  I did and I joined.  It is really fun.  It is different enough to be confusing when you first join.  Start plurking, and you will see how fun it is!  A lot of tweeters, diggers, and stumblers are showing up, along with the blogcatalog members.

What makes plurk different is the time line.  It runs horizontally, appearing on a time line defined in 12 hour or 24 hour times.  The days are marked also.  The discussions can be read by clicking on a plurk.  The responses drop down with a space for you to add a plurk – with many fun emotions.  In fact, the more you plurk (without spamming) and the more friends you acquire, the more emotions and abilities you achieve.

If that isn’t enough, you can follow a person’s plurks without being their ‘friend’.  Thus you can join in the discussions and meet more people.  There is a link box on the left that shows how many response and plurks have been added since you last looked.  If you click on the ‘unread only’ you can find all the plurks with new responses.  Then you can click on mark all as read when you have viewed the ones you are interested in.

There is also a site that has a ‘Karma’ watcher, a plurktionary, and other fun things.  The plurk IM is non-functional at the moment until the bugs are worked out.  Remember, this is a new site.

Are you ready to join yet?  You don’t have to be a blogger or entrepreneur to join.

Help me get my dancing banana and my  guy hitting the other with a chair.  Click on this link and join me at plurk. You have nothing to lose, and you can be my plurk buddy!