Blog Pinging-is it really useful?

Pining means you notify the search engines that your blog has been just updated with new content or a change in theme etc. This is now done automatically from your wordpress dashboard.

Blogs are keenly and frequently spidered by search engines and pining is said to be useful to get the blog post indexed quickly.

Here is a report by one of my blogging friends.

I have tested by only using a blog as the front page of a new information site I started. http://www.informationpagesonline.com has only been advertised by way of the blog to announce new content, and then pinged through http://www.pingoat.com which distributes the blog entries to several large ping sites.

Following a week of adding content, and then posting an announcement of the new content to the blog on the front page and pinging with pingoat, the site seems to be getting visitors to most of the sections, which I can see from the log files. I can also see some of the traffic is coming from search engines, and also a lot of spider activity can be seen on the site, where the search engines are crawling the content.

So I have to conclude that blogging and pinging  is a way of getting listed on search engines, or at least of getting noticed by them quickly.

Should you be blogging and pinging?

Of course that's up to you, but for the time it takes, it may be worth trying blog and ping for yourself and tracking the results. 

24 effective tips for Blog Marketing.

With thousands of blogs being launched on a daily basis, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog get found on the search engines.  I have compiled a list of most effective blog marketing strategies. Trust me; I have been blogging since 2005 and I have given you my best blog marketing tips below. I am sure these tips should benefit your blog and make it more user-friendly, more easily accessible, and more content-enabled.

There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them, so here is a -short- list of tips for marketing and optimizing a blog:

1. Decide on a stand alone domain name www.yourblog.com or directory of existing site www.mysite.com/blog. Sub domain is also an option blog.mysite.com. Avoid hosted services that do not allow you to use your own domain name!

2. Obtain and install customizable blog software - WordPress is the best out there.

3. Install a 100% responsive theme with 3 columns.

 4. Research keywords and develop a glossary - Keyword Discovery, WordTracker, SitePoint, SEOBook Keyword Research.

5. Optimize the blog:

 * Template optimization - RSS subscription options, social bookmark links, HTML code, Unique title tags, URLs, Sitemap

 * Add helper plugins specific to WordPress

 * Create keyword rich categories

6. Enable automatic trackback and ping functionality.

7. Create Feedburner Pro account and enable feed tracking.

8. Setup Google  Sitemap, validate and submit

9. Identify authoritative blogs, web sites and hubs for outbound resource links and blogroll.

10. Format archived posts, related posts.

11. Enable statistics for tracking - Performancing, Google Analytics, ClickTracks.

12. Submit RSS feed and Blog URL to prominent RSS and Blog directories / search engines.

13. Engage in an ongoing link building campaign.

14. If podcast or video content are available, submit to Podcast and Vlog directories.

15. Submit blog url to paid directories  Yahoo, BOTW, bCentral, WOW, JoeAnt.

16. Optimize and distribute a press release announcing blog.

17. Request feedback or reviews of your blog in relevant forums, discussion threads. If you have a resourceful post that will help others, point to it.

18. Research and comment on relevant industry related blogs and blogs with significant centers of influence.

19. Post regularly. If it’s a news oriented blog, 3-5 times per day. If it’s an authoritative blog, 3-5 times per week, but each post must be unique and high value.

20. Monitor inbound links, traffic, comments and mentions of your blog - Google Alerts,  Blogpulse, Yahoo News, Ask Blogs and Feeds.

21. Always respond to comments on your blog and when you detect a mention of your blog on another blog, thank that blogger in the comments of the post.

22. Make contact with related bloggers on & offline too if possible.

23. When making blog posts always cite the source with a link and don’t be afraid to mention popular bloggers by name. Use keywords in the blog post title, in the body of the post and use anchor text when you link to previous posts you’ve made.

24. Use social networking services, forums and discussion threads to connect with other bloggers. If they like your stuff, they will link to you.

Put these suggestions into action NOW!