PureBlogging

Want to take your blogging to the next level? The SOBCon07 will demonstrate to 250 bloggers how to take their existing blogs to the next level through interactive presentations on publishing, design and branding, tools, analytics, social networking, marketing, and coaching, from the perspectives of the blogger and the audience.

What is an SOB?

SOB is an acronym for Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. The program now boasts a directory of over 500 bloggers most of whom sport the SOB badge on their blog.

When is SOBCon07?

The seminar will be held Friday night, May 11th and Saturday, May 12th at the Chicago O’Hare Sofitel. May 11th is the launch party, starting at 6:00pm. May 12th, the event will begin at 8:30am and will end 4:30 with speakers available for 30-60 minutes after for questions and support.

Why You Should Attend!

• LEARN how to write compelling posts that draw readers in
• SEE how great blog design can make a difference
• DISCOVER how analytics and other tools can help you maximize your blog’s potential
• HEAR innovative and useful blog marketing techniques that will expand your reach and viewership
• GAIN valuable insights on ways to use blogging as a coaching tool
• CONNECT with other bloggers through our pre-launch activities and interactive presentations

Presenters with specialized expertise will get the conversation started, and together presenters and attendees will work interactively to get you where you need to go — to take your blogging to the next level.

Are you ready to take your blogging to the next level?

A few days ago I wrote an article about removing the NOFOLLOW tag from your blog comments. Well, it appears that many other bloggers feel the same way that I do… including Saman from Samanathon who just added me to the D List.

The D List was created by Colleen fron GeekySpeaky.com and it is a list of all the blogs that use the DoFollow plugin. That means you can gain some great traffic by joining the list and commenting on these blogs. If you do decide to join, be sure to visit Randa Clay because not only is she a member of The I Follow Movement, she put together some cool graphics for you to use to show your support.

Join the Revolution!

***Begin to copy here***

1. Write a short paragraph at the beginning of your post and link back to the blog that put you on the list in the paragraph. This isn’t a suggestion. You need to break up the duplicate content. Someone took the time to add you so the least you can do is give them an extra link back.

2. Copy the list of originals below COMPLETELY and add it to your blog. If you would like a different keyword for your blog then change it when you do your post and it should pass to most blogs with that keyword.

3. Take the adds from the blog that added you and place them in the “Originals” list.

4. Add at least 1 new blog that you KNOW us using the DO FOLLOW plugin to the list in the “My Adds” section. (Add no more than 5!) Let the people you’ve added know, so that they can keep the list going!

My Adds:

Blogging Tips

The Originals:

Pure Blogging
Samanathon
JMH Techtronics
ChaCha
Internet Serious Business
Don’t Fear the Truth
CoolAdzine for Marketers blog
Bucket O Bulletz
My Thoughts
Thoughts Out of my Head
Feeding Time at the Zoo
Fiber of Life
Tiptail - From Agility to Zen
Butterflies Are Free
Mom Gadget
Skeet’s Stuff
Ang’s Chicken Coop
And to Think
Mothering Many
Midlife Musings
Utterly Geek
Whatever I Feel Like
My Dandelion Patch
Surviving NJ
GeekySpeaky
Simple Kind Of Life
3DayMom
BuyMeBlog
The Hockey Dad

***Quit Copying Here***

As many of you already know, I am currently running a little contest. Unfortunately, the contest has not been as successful as I had hoped and while that maybe bad news for me, it is great news for you.

I have received lots of email and plenty of questions but as of today, only 10 reviews have been submitted. That means your odds of winning are extremely good.

Here are the current entries:

• Truth and Opinion: PureBlogging.com: BlogTips, News, & Tutorials
• Kelso’s Choices: Review
• esn studio: PureBlogging - The goods and the bads
• Elkaye: Pure Blogging Baby!
• Unknown: Smart Marketing
• The Designated Blogger: Blogging and you
• One Million Subscribers: PureBlogging Review
• ReformatThis: PureBlogging.com, A Review of
• Kill Sonic: Free Apple Ipod - Make Money Online
• Massive: The way ads should be displayed

There’s two weeks left to submit reviews so I’m hoping to see quite a few more entries but either way, someone is going to win an iPod! Click here to find out how you can enter to win an 8GB Apple iPod nano.

I had planned to write about the importance of your Alexa rank and discuss a few things that I am going to do to try and increase my rank. As I did my research for this post, I came across a post by Maki over at Dosh Dosh called “20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank“ and quickly realized that I could never top that post. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I will touch on few high points and send you over there to get the full story.

We all know that the Alexa ranking process has it’s limitations. It measures the traffic each website receives by keeping up with the number of people who visit a website with the Alexa toolbar installed. As a result, the Alexa rankings are biased towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience because this demographic is much more likely to have the Alexa toolbar installed.

Even though Alexa is a very poor way to judge a website’s traffic level, several ad networks, including ReviewMe, Text Link Ads and Sponsored Reviews, use your Alexa rank as a way to determine the potential value of a relationship with your site.

The following is a list of 10 ways to increase your Alexa rank:

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension and set your blog as your homepage.
2. Put an Alexa rank widget on your website.
3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar.
4. Write or Blog about Alexa. Webmaster and bloggers love to hear about ways to increase their Alexa rank.
5. Post in webmaster forums and include your URL in your signature.
6. Write content that is related to webmasters.
7. Use Alexa redirects on your website URL.
8. Create a webmaster tools section on your website.
9. Get Dugg or Stumbled.
10. Create an Alexa category on your blog and use it to include any articles or news about Alexa.

For detailed explanations of each of these techniques and many more ideas for increasing your Alexa rank be sure to check out Maki’s post at Dosh Dosh.

I ran across this over at Bobs [ReformatThis] and thought I would give it a try. I’m new to all this link train stuff but here goes…

Gary Lee has started another link train and he’s using the power of Technorati to help us all increase our rank! If you are looking to increase your rank and increase traffic to your blog, you should definitely get into it now while the list is short!

Also, once you favorite everyone, make sure you actually click the Add to my Favorites button!!

***Start Copying Here:***

Here are the rules:

1) Write a short introduction paragraph about what how you found the list and include a link to the blog that referred you to the list.

2) COPY the Rules and ENTIRE List below and post it to your blog. To avoid duplicate content and increase the amount of keywords your site can accessible for, go ahead and change the titles of the blog. Just don’t change the links of the blog.

3) Take “My New Faves” and move them into the “The Original Faves” list.

4) Add 3 Blogs that you’ve just added to your Technorati Favorites to the “My New Faves” section. Remember to also add the “Fave Me” link next to your new blogs. (i.e. http://technorati.com/faves?sub=addfavbtn&add=http://www.yourfavesdomain.com)

5) Add Everyone on this list to your Technorati Favorites List by clicking on “Fave the Site.” Those who want good kharma will fave you back. If not, you will for sure get the benefits of faves from the bloggers who continue this list after you.

My New Faves

BlogTalks - Fave the Site
Darin Carter - Fave the Site
HMTK - Fave the Site

The Original Faves

Kelly Cho - Fave the Site
Shawn Knight - Fave the Site
Tyler Ingram - Fave the Site
Bobs [ReformatThis] - Fave the Site
Everyday Weekender - Fave the Site
PureBlogging - Fave the Site
Armen’s Blog - Fave the Site
Gary Lee - Fave the Site
Dosh Dosh - Fave the Site
Nate Whitehill - Fave the Site
Ms. Danielle - Fave the Site
Jeff Kee - Fave the Site
Scribble on the Wall - Fave the Site
Jimi Morrisons Head - Fave the Site
Jon Lee - Fave the Site
Samanathon - Fave the Site
Eat Drink & Be Merry - Fave the Site
The Man of Silver - Fave the Site
Hannes Johnson - Fave the Site
My Dandelion Patch - Fave the Site
Nathan Drach - Fave the Site
SiteLogic - Fave the Site
Julies Journal - Fave the Site
Stephen Fung - Fave the Site
Ed Lau - Fave the Site
QMusings - Fave the Site

***End Copying Here***

Are you familiar with the NOFOLLOW tag? As I mentioned previously, comments are a great way to grow your blog but it could be even better. The NOFOLLOW tag basically tells Google not to count any links back to your site that contain the tag.

Unfortunately, by default Wordpress and other blogging platforms add the NOFOLLOW tag to all links to authors that appear in comments. This issue is being discussed at Weblog Tools Collection today:

NOFOLLOW is a tag that Google created as a means to fight back against spam on blogs. As of today, Google is the only search engine actively using the tag as an integral part of their algorithm. The NOFOLLOW tag simply tells Googlebot to not follow — aka don’t give any link love — to the link you have on your site with that tag. Yahoo! and MSN do not care whether a link has nofollow or not, they will follow the link you provide them.

Spam filtering and prevention has improved to the point where this is no longer an issue and bloggers are beginning to realize that sharing “link love” through the comments on your blog is a good thing. You should reward those who take the time to participate in your community.

There are several plugins that allow you to remove the NOFOLLOW tag already available. Andy Beard has put together the Ultimate List of DoFollow Plugins if you would like to begin sharing a little love.