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What Is RSS?

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Do You Understand What RSS Is?

RSS can have more than one meaning behind it. Usually, RSS stands for “really simple syndication” but it can also mean “rich site summary” or “RDF site summary”.

The meaning behind, ’RDF’ is resource description framework. That should help explaining the meaning associated with RSS, now let’s look at what it can do.

Exactly what is RSS in the realm of really simple syndication? It is a tool that allows sites to give a quick summary of important links and descriptions in XML format. This essentially allows them to syndicate their content by allowing other blog owners and webmasters to use this summary as part of a list of summaries on a specific topic.

Webmasters and blogmasters will gather a number of these summaries using a feed aggregator or feed reader. Rather than asking, “what is RSS”, this tool will ask “where is RSS” and then find it.

The aggregator tool will locate RSS feeds and collect them from various sites such as, Yahoo and MSN, and will select smaller sites like a personal blog or a news sites.

The blogmasters and webmasters then take the script generated from the aggregator and insert it into their blogs. The RSS feed is then created in this way and will automatically start pulling news items and blog posts each time they come up. Whenever the blog or site page is refreshed, it will display the latest items.

Taking advantage of this tool is good for two reasons. By using your own RSS feed, you will be able to have your content distributed across the internet without having to pay each time you submit a press release, or contact other blog owners and webmasters.

If you have your own personal blog page, then by using an RSS feed you can add fresh content to it much easier and faster. This will allow you to constantly put new content links and summaries on your blog without spending the time to hunt around for related information. You just need to choose a feed aggregator to select the potential feeds you can use and these can be found on a list of news sites and authority blogs. Plus, you can create your own custom feeds by adding any of your own selections that you find.

Do you now understand the basics behind RSS? Simply put, using RSS is a very easy way to generate traffic to your blog and to display additional summaries you find on other blogs.




I’m not against website urls – I’m against comment spam

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This is in response to those who have left comments on my post “Spammy comments and Comment Abuse“. I think that some people have misunderstood what I’ve written there.

Website owners that do not have blogs are misreading what I’ve written. Please read the post again and this follow up.


I do not say anywhere in my spammy comment post that I will not accept a comment at face value from someone leaving a website url rather than blog url.

What I did say was that a few were spoiling it for the rest by abusing do follow blogs – leaving similar comments on all my blogs no matter what the post is about, adding extra links, leaving lame comments that don’t have much to do with the post or my blog.

Bloggers are doing this too, but for the most part it’s those with website urls that are the most abusive. This makes me a little more suspicious of links to websites.

However, having said that – if you haven’t gone around to all my blogs leaving deep links to your website or a different website url on each of my blogs and your comment is relevant to the post well – your comment will get posted and I’ll leave your link in.

I tend to visit all the urls that are left in my comments. By this I mean I visit blogs and websites alike. If you are leaving an url to a link farm, and your comment is not relevant or if it’s very spammy (full of links!) well I will likely mark your comment as spam.

Please don’t be offended that my guard is up.

There’s just a few rotten apples out there. I get so many comments on all my sites that it takes a while to approve the comments. When I see suspicious behavior across all my blogs my guard goes up.

I love getting comments. If you leave me a decent comment I have nothing against that. Period!

One commenter on my Spammy comment post thought I wasn’t getting the point. That comments mean an increase in site traffic and possibly that I’ve gained a regular reader.

I totally get the point.

Perhaps when you see examples of the comment spam that HUMANS are leaving you’ll get my point too.

Valid comments will never be discounted on any of my sites. Seeing comments on a post does help encourage others to stop and leave their opinion as well. It can get a conversation going and help draw interest in the blog as a whole. I know that.

However, the kind of comments that I’m calling spam will never add to my sites conversation or traffic. These people are just dropping in to get a link or to leave as many links as possible and they don’t really care what I’ve written or what other visitors have written either.

I think I’ll gather some examples of the abuse I’ve seen and make a post about it – just to make it clear why my guard is up.

Also, while I’m at it … Leave your name:

I do reply to most of my comments as well so when someone only leaves a business name or a SEO related term and doesn’t at least sign their comment it makes me feel a little weird replying.

“Good point lumberjack discount wood cutter” – now doesn’t that look strange?

I like to get to know my visitors.

I want to write about things that I’m interested in that also interest my readers.

Naturally I can only tell if I’ve written posts that interest my site visitors if they leave comments. I get it. Yes, leave comments. I love them! Just please be sure to leave a comment that is actually about the post and not an ad for your site. Oh and yes leave your name!

Not being able to put a name to a regular commenter is kind of weird. If you’d at least also leave a name in your comment I’d appreciate it. Please don’t add an extra link with your name though. I tend to edit out duplicate links.

Hopefully this clears things up.

I’m not against website owners urls. I’m against spammy comments that do nothing more than advertise another persons site rather than add to the dialog of my post.

BTW I’m not just a blogger I also have two websites. One sites been in existence since 1995 so yes I know about site promotion and I’ve been around long enough to spot people abusing a site. I don’t tend to leave my website urls in comments that I leave on blogs because my websites are about exotic pets and they’d look a little weird on most of the blogs I visit regularly.

Use Niche Secrets to boost your online earnings

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I was sent an eBook the other day. It’s called Niche Secrets, and you know what? I do believe I’ve learned a few things from this 29 page eBook.

Niche Secrets is a very well written and easy to understand booklet. It describes exactly what a Niche is, how to discover your own Niche and then how to begin writing articles, websites or eBooks about that particular Niche.

I actually learned a fair amount about Niches, marketing a niche product and how to write great articles and make money by creating product for a niche that I have a passion for, and I plan to use some of this information right away.

I’m excited about this. I’ve already got some niche blogs and since they’re already established it should be even easier for me to apply what I’ve learned from Niche Secrets and begin seeing results and having success quickly. I really believe that I could begin writing a Niche article this evening and see results by Monday – it really seems easy once you know how to do it.

I knew some of this information prior to reading the eBook, but you know how it is – you read some good information on one site, and something else on another and you try to remember all these good tips that you can apply to your own sites or to your writing techniques, but since these tips you’ve found are scattered across the internet and you’ve found them over time you never fully apply the techniques as you should right from the beginning.

That’s what’s great about this eBook and eBooks in general. You get all the information you need in one place and you can begin applying the tips and techniques right away.

If you want to learn more about making money by writing about and promoting Niche topics visit Niche Research and get a copy of Niche Secrets. This eBook is only $7 until July 31st so get your copy now.

“I need a new design” contest – Enter Now

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Are you tired of the look of your web site? Ready for a change?

Why not enter the “I need a new design” contest that’s being held by lifeBLUE Media.

LifeBLUE specializes in web design, graphic design, SEO, Internet marketing, application development, and web hosting. Visit the site and take a look at their portfolio. They are featuring some very nice web designs that they’ve done for past clients. You’ll be in good hands if you win the contest.

It’s easy to enter the I need a new design contest. Simply visit the LifeBlUE.com website and fill out the contest entry form. Unfortunately this contest is only open to US residents. Otherwise I’d probably enter this plain Jane site myself.

Once you enter the contest you can tell your friends, family and site visitors about the contest and ask them to vote for your site. As you’ll see by visiting the contest link above the site that’s in the lead is shown as a larger image in the collage of sites that have entered.

designcontest.jpg

The contest began and July 9th and submissions and votes will be collected until August 8th, 2007. There’s still plenty of time to take the lead and win a professionally designed web design.

The winner will receive a custom design that will be in both graphical format as well as html format. The design will be created by LifeBLUE’s experienced design team.

The winner will of course have the ability to provide feedback on the design and information about the goal and direction of the site so that the team will be able to create a suitable design that will take your site well into the future.

There are actually two ways to win this contest as two winners will be selected.

One way is to simply submit your site as described above and then to garner votes. The person who has the most votes, and likely the worst current design as determined by their voting friends, family and site visitors will win a free web design.

The second way to enter this contest is to enter the random draw. Write up a blog post and use the following anchor text to link to the main index page of LifeBLUE Media:

Link url – http://www.lifeblue.com/web_design_contest/

Text: web design, web designers, website design, web design company

I presume that the people at LifeBLUE will be keeping track of incoming links with any of those link phrases and that they will add those sites to the random draw.

Why are you still here?

Get going! Enter the contest! A free web design would be fantastic wouldn’t it?

Spammy comments and comment abuse?

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I run the do follow blogroll and lately I’ve seen a few trends going on. Over perhaps the last two weeks I’ve noticed more and more people leaving comments and using website urls when they sign the comment.

I do realize that not everyone has a blog, but prior to this, the majority of people that have left comments on my many blogs were bloggers and they would sign their comments with either their own name or the name of their blog and use their blog url when leaving their comment.

I’m suspicious since there’s been a steady increase in the amount of people leaving not just business related website urls, but they sign their comments with what could only be called a SEO term. I must suspect that they are doing this so that the links they leave will give them higher standing on the search engines.

For the most part the comments that are being left by these people are relevant to the post – but some are a little empty or seem to copy what someone before them said. Then these comments are signed with “cashmere sweaters” and a clothing business website url. That’s not a real example of what’s been left – but you know what I mean, who signs an url with a product name? Only someone practicing search engine optimization techniques.

I’m sorry, but this makes me feel a little used. That might not be the commenters intention but that’s the way I feel.

Considering that my husband and I have oh lets see 9 blogs on the do follow list and that I tend to approve all of the comments I see trends.

I see people signing their comments with different names and different deep pages within their site, people adding extra links into their comments, people using tiny url within their comments, and people that say pretty much the same thing on all of our websites that they visit.

When someone says pretty much the same thing on all of our sites I feel that the abuse is confirmed. Sure, they might actually comment on the post but then they’ll say something like “I’ve been following your site and visit it daily” on all the sites. Surely you didn’t become a fan overnight when I’ve never seen you here before?

For the most part the people on the do follow list are not abusing the list members although a few newbies need a talking to I think.

Unfortunately getting a link on a do follow blog seems to have gained popularity and people are copying the lists on to other sites and none do follow list members are going around commenting on all the sites.

Not all of these people are abusing our kindness but some are and few people abusing sites that are giving links away for free kind of spoils it for the rest.

I love getting comments on all of my sites. Especially if the comment is true feedback on my post. I just don’t like feeling used by those who are only commenting for a link. I’d prefer that people only comment if they truly got something out of my posts.

Oh yes, another thing making me suspicious of the comments I’ve been receiving lately is the fact that there’s a new company where an advertiser can hire this company to write comments on blogs to get their link out there. You can read the article that was posted on Problogger about comment spam to learn more. If I suspect that someone has left a paid comment I’ll be deleting the comment. Apparently they’ll be targeting bloggers who’s links follow.

Now that’s something to think about isn’t it?

Visitors leaving website links

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I’ve noticed that one of the newish frequent commenter’s on several of my blogs is a Las Vegas Real Estate agent. She signs her posts with her business name and I know after reading some discussions on a forum that this has thrown a few people off.

Why? Well, we all get spammers coming around trying to leave comments so they’ll get a link to their site. This isn’t the case with this lady though. Yes she is a real estate agent but she’s also a blogger and she leaves legitimate comments that relate to the post.

Hey, I’ve got blogs and websites and there’s been times when I’ve been on a site that related to one of my websites and I’ve left the address for my site when I signed up to leave the comment. I don’t mind when others do this from time to time … I mean, not everyone has a blog, yet they still might enjoy reading them.

It’s the people that leave multiple links in their comments – even in legitimate comments that bother me. If the link doesn’t really relate to the post or the comment I really don’t care for the extra links.

I’ve removed the nofollow tags from my sites and as a result I’m actually giving away a tiny bit of my sites PR for each outgoing link. I don’t like to give out extra if there’s no good reason for it.

Got a health or fitness blog?

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Last June a market research, well maybe it’s better to call them a Buzz Marketing company, got in touch with me and offered me a free Nokia smart multi-media phone.

All I had to do to get the phone was answer a survey a few months later, and just openly talk about the phone to people I encountered or on my blog. I could say whatever I wanted – whether I loved it or hated. The company was just trying to generate some buzz for Nokia and for the particular cell phone model.

I do like the phone btw, it’s a Nokia 6682. I’m still using it. Free is good. It always is!

Now, this same company has contacted me again.

They’d like to get in touch with people in the Toronto or Montreal area. If you have a health related blog where you discuss health matters, nutrition, weight loss etc and you live in Toronto or Montreal let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the company.

This is specifically what my contact is looking for:

I’m currently working on an interesting word of mouth marketing programme that involves a health food product, and I’m interested in speaking with individuals who are enthusiastic about fitness, eating well, and pursuing a healthy and active life style – and who host a blog on any of these topics.

Specifically, I’m looking for people who:

· are 25-54 years old
· live in Toronto or Montreal
· are actively pursuing a healthy lifestyle
· are very socially active and engaged within peer (personal and professional) social circles
· Prone to spreading new health information to friends and/or clients
· Host a blog that focuses on fitness and activity, healthy living, or nutrition

If you fall into this category let me know and I’ll put you in touch with the marketing coordinator.

Remove the no follow tag and become an I follow Blog

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I’ve always had some form of linkage on my sites that allowed my commenters to get a real link. By this I mean the links did not have the awful nofollow tag. Instead, the search engines were able to follow the link and index it.


Now, I’ve discovered that there’s a whole movement out there called the I follow movement. It’s caught on like wild lately and I actually started a blogroll on one of my other blogs for people who have removed the nofollow tags from their sites comment area. The blogroll is called the “Do follow blogroll” and anyone with a blog (not a website!) can join if they have removed the nofollow tags from their site, added the blogroll which I will supply the code for once I hear from interested parties, and preferably do not have their comments set to registered members only.

If you want to get rid of the nofollow tags from your blog you can use this WordPress plugin if you have a wordpress blog or this other do follow plugin. If your site is on blogger you can follow these easy step by step directions to remove the nofollow tags from your comment area.

Once you’ve removed those tags, and or comment on a site that has the nofollow tags removed you’ll find that the comment links left get indexed in the search engines, added to technorati thus raising the sites Technorati rank, and once all those links are counted by google as backlinks to your site you might even get higher PR.

Become a follower.

Bought some new domains

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I went on a domain buying spree! No I’m not about to create a bunch of new blogs. I purchased new domains so that I could move some of my existing blogs over to their own domains.

You see, my main blog related domain is feverishthoughts.com. I had originally started the blog that is currently located on that domain on another domain that I own. It was on a sub-directory. Last June I decided that I enjoyed blogging quite a bit and I wanted to start a few more blogs but I really didn’t want them to be on my original domain. The original domain that I was using was one that I’d set up for my reptile care website. A bunch of blogs about different topics on an exotic pet domain just didn’t seem right, so that’s how I began my mini network of blogs on Feverishthoughts.

Now all those new blogs that I started last summer have grown in popularity and since I use some of them to make money and I thought that it might be better to give each of them their own domain.

Unfortunately, for a little while at least, I’m going to have twice the amount of blogging to do. You see, I don’t want to just up and move my current blogs to their new homes. The new domains don’t have any page rank yet, or any links going to them. I haven’t even begun to promote the new sites yet either, let alone installed WordPress on each of them.

What I think I’ll do is spend the next three or so months blogging regularly on the new domains. I’ll make sure that whatever posts I make on the new domain are in keeping with the topic and style of posts that are on the blogs that will be moved over to these new sites. Blogging on each of the new domains as much as twice a week for three or so months, and promoting the sites as I build them should help them gain some page rank. Once they’ve attained some page rank I’ll make the move. Or at least I think I’ll be moving them.

The blogs that I plan to move to their own domains have decent ranks now. They range from PR3 to PR4 and have good Technorati and Alexa ranks as well. They also have rss subscribers. Gee this is getting more and more difficult the more I think about it. Within the next few weeks Google will begin it’s dance and there will be a page rank update. If my current blogs go up in rank it’s going to be really hard for me to move them to their new homes and lose that rank.

I really expect my gardening site, which is currently a PR4, to move up to a PR5 and if I’m lucky it won’t take long for it to become a PR6. It’s a popular niche blog so I think I’m being realistic in that hope and well, expectation.

The new domains don’t have anything on them yet but that will change in the next few days:

As the Garden Grows – homeandgardendiva.com
Celebrity Scoop – celebrityscoop.org
WebStyle – getwebstyle.com

My husbands sites
Guitar Licks – guitarlicksandtips.com
Odd Planet – trulyoddplanet.com

and, ok I lied, there’s one brand new site:
Shopping Maniac – shoppingmaniac.net

What do you think of those domain names? As you can see I had already named the sites in a way that describes what they are about to some degree, and luckily I managed to get domains that are very similar to the original name of the site. Well, As the Garden grows will become Home and Garden Diva, but that’s descriptive too.

Tips on how to get more comments on your site

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One great way to get more visitors to your site is to visit other sites. You have to give comments to get comments.

Over the last year I’ve spent at least an hour each day if not more going around to my favorite blogs and commenting on their posts. They in turn come back and visit my sites.

When people come to your site and leave a comment you should try to respond to them in someway. Whether you reply to their comment by email, or respond to their comment on your site – do respond. It helps keep the posts conversation flowing.

Think about it. When you go and visit a blog are you more likely to click and leave a comment if there’s already some comments there? Often that is the case. I know that I’ll sometimes click on a posts comment area specifically to read the other visitors comments. If I choose to leave a comment of my own it’s not always directly about the post as it might be in response to one of the comments that I read.

Another way to start to get some response to your posts is to make them interactive. Write in a way that your readers will be compelled to leave a comment.

Ask questions of your readers in your posts.

“Has that ever happened to you? Tell me about it.”

If you’re writing a post about an old friend ask your readers when the last time was that they bumped into an old friend on the street.

If you’re writing about something ask your readers their opinion.

-what would they do in that situation?
-What item would they have purchased?
-How would they have responded when someone said that to them?

In one post that I wrote recently on my other blog I was talking about a shopping trip to Walmart. It’s a new Superstore Walmart. It replaced the smaller Walmart that we used to shop at. The old one sold food – but only dried and canned goods and frozen foods. Nothing fresh. This new one has a true grocery store section with fresh meat, and produce. I checked out the meat while I was there but I was leary about purchasing meat because from past experience I know there’s some stores that it’s just better to not buy certain types of food from. In my post I decided to ask my readers if they ever purchased fresh meat at Walmart and if it was quality meat. Several people responded with the majority answering that the meat is really good.

I made my post interactive, got a question that I wanted answered and got a lot of great comments.

You can even throw a poll into your posts every now and then. Try to word the poll questions and answers in a way that your readers want to expand on their answer in your comment section.

Just keep trying different things like that and I’m sure you’re readers will start to respond and leave comments. When they do leave comments respond to what they say in your own comment area, through email and or by visiting their site.

It can be a lot of work but I guarantee that it will work.

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