Google Blog Search allows anyone to search blogs and only blogs. Just as you would want your site to be listed in Google search you also want to be listed in Google blog search.

Manual Ping
The quick and easy way to assure you are indexed in the Google blog search is to manually enter your sites URL, what they call a ping by going here and simply pasting your sites feed address. A feed address may appear as “yourblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml”, “yoursite.com/wp-rss.php” or “feeds.feedburner.com/yourfeedname”. Enter your feed and submit. While this is easy it would be ideal to alert Google and others automatically every time your feed is updated.

Automatic Ping
WordPress and others have this set up already, recent versions of WordPress already have the Google blog search set to be pinged. However if you are using an older version of WordPress and do not wish to upgrade or have another content management system that has an XML-RPC client then check to make sure it is set up. In WordPress you navigate to the settings –> writing or in older versions options –> writing, there you will find the Update Services section, check to see if this is listed http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2 and if so you are fine otherwise paste it in and save changes. If however you have a rest client the URL is http://blogsearch.google.com/ping.

More detail can be found on the Google Blog Search Pinging Service API page and Frequently Asked Questions about Google blog search.

When looking at sites that are well done, visually and from the perspective of obtaining new customers I came across DirectTV. Their site is an excellent example of a site focused on customer acquisition. Obviously a good service at a great price is important, however being able to convert a visitor into a customer with the proper messaging to get your offer across is an art form and Direct TV did it right.

Recently I came across the Direct TV site when I moved, purchased Direct TV and am very happy. I got two DVRs and hooked up the system to five TVs in the house.

Their Direct Satellite TV offer includes free DVR or HD upgrade, local channels are free and installation free. They have also decreased their monthly fees by $18 a month for 12 months and for three months you get HBO, Showtime and Starz. All of these offer points are front and center grabbing the attention of the visitor and I am guessing (as they convinced me) that their customer acquisition and conversion is very high.

This is a great site to use as an example when creating niche sites of your own to promote affiliate programs. Of course if you are in the market as I was for Directv Satellite take a look at their offers.

Aweber has a tool that allows you to create an email list and send broadcast emails to your list easily. Try their free 30 day trial here, they provide easy templates to create a newsletter, incredible reporting and manage multiple lists.

Aweber started as an auto-repsonder and has perfected their auto-responder. The newsletter feature is much like ConstantContact and others. However, with one tool you can have both email newsletter managment and delivery as well as an autoresponder. Their service also provides the sign up forms for your lists to simply copy and paste into your site.

My newsletter list and auto-responder is managed through Aweber for only $19.95 a month and it handles both flawlessly. Since I have been using the subscribe code I have signed up thousands to my list with no effort on my part once it was set up.

Retention
The auto-responder sends emails that I have set up after a set amount of days from their first joining the list. These are sent in regular time intervals automatically without my interaction. It is on auto pilot. I can even send a newsletter at any time to the entire list, or a portion of it.

These mailings keep your audience coming back to your site, as long as your content is useful, desired, and compelling to your audience. What great retention tool to keep your site and brand in front of your visitors.

Reporting
The reporting shows each newsletter or auto-reponse that was sent:

• the number it was sent to
• the number that opened it
• the number that did not make it to the recipient, and
• the number that clicked a link within the mailing

All of these statistics help you determine the success of any one particular mailing and your audiences retention.

Value
I have found that not having to manage a list and worry about un-subscribes, spam or blocking and dealing with the delivery, using a service to handle that for me is gold. Aweber provides both auto-responders and newsletter/list (multiple newsletter) management for only $19.95 a month.

Try the Aweber free 30 day trial here, you will be amazed.

Also read my previous post Use an Autoresponder for Automatic Profit.

As an example of a site in a niche area, here is one related to home loans. The site is getsmart and they focus on mortgage and refinance information and offers.

Their design is simple and easy to navigate, very straight forward and allows you to get to the content you want. They provide articles as well as a tool to assist their visitors with obtaining mortgage and refinance information and consequently offers.

As we have discussed in previous articles, when attempting to create a site that will rank well in search engines for key words it makes sense to provide a valuable site with not just offers but useful information that others will want to link to.

The main value of the GetSmart home loans site provides a home loan and refinance comparison tool so a visitor can obtain the best possible loan for their situation. When wanting to learn more check out their articles on refinance loans, cash out loans, home improvement loans and more.

Individuals looking for a home loan will certainly want to bookmark this site and may even share it with others. Repeat visitors and word of mouth which is the ultimate goal, and by providing a good service as getsmart does, will certainly achieve that goal. A result is a happy customer and affiliate fees for a job well done.

To get your site noticed you need to submit to search engines and/or directories that require it. Some, if not most, will find your site eventually if they crawl the web or pull results from another engine that does. Here is a quick way to get your site submitted fast and free to a handful of engines.

The above link will submit your site for you quickly and properly to 20 engines.

The below will submit you to 300 for one low price.

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Ever wonder how other sites rank highly for certain keywords, the keywords you want to rank highly for? There are many software packages out there, I have mentioned LINK SEO 8, which I like very much, and others to assist with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. Some tools are created with a very narrow focus and they do that one thing very well. Here is the Mantra for the SEO SpyGlass Tool:

Here’s A 100% Proven Way To Quickly And Easily Outrank ANY Site, For ANY Keyword,
And Get A Top Google Ranking

In order to obtain a high rank for any keyword you need to analyze the pages that current have the keyword spots. By determining how the high ranking pages got there you can duplicate that effort or a similar one and hopefully obtain a similar ranking.

The SEO SpyGlass Tool tells you who links to the page, where links come from whether it be other pages forums or social networks, the ranks of those other pages and much more.

Learn more about the SEO SpyGlass Tool here, or buy your copy now, or download a trial copy here.

In case you are wondering the tool is search engine safe and friendly. SEO SpyGlass is 100% safe and Google-friendly. SEO SpyGlass includes support for both Google and Yahoo! API keys to make sure you access these search engines safely. Plus, SEO SpyGlass supports Human Emulation, which makes the software appear to search engines as a living breathing human being with a Web browser — so search engine won’t tell the difference. SEO SpyGlass also fully supports working from behind a proxy, so you can still monitor your rankings without problems.

With regard to future updates, the program will download updates automatically as soon as you start it. Buy your copy here.

WebEx provides a trial of their popular software, see the WebEx Free Trial here.

You can meet online whenever you want with their on-demand web conferencing, schedule meetings in advance or start an instant meeting with the click of your mouse. Their software also allows you to send invitations via email or IM–you can even start the meeting from within our secure instant messenger.

If you are looking for collaborative software to have online meetings, presentations, even customer support, take a look at the two most popular solutions: WebEx and GoToMeeting. Each provide free trials, follow this link for a free WebEx trial, or also follow this link for a free GoToMeeting trial.

Agloco died a while ago, I am just now posting. It is interesting that they died a second death.

Years ago there was AllAdvantage that paid you to surf. They had a ViewBar and paid a flat rate per hour for your viewing. Ads were displayed as you let the bar sit on your desktop. There were three issues at the time. The first was fraud as people were setting up bots to move the mouse and occasionally click on banners so the program thought they were in front of the computer and credited them with the time.

However the larger issue was the fact that they decided to pay about 50 cents an hour before they had revenue to cover it.  The assumption was that they needed to pay to obtain users, then once they reached critical mass for advertisers to find their reach attractive.  Therefore there expenses grew substantially and exponentially as they registered more users before their advertising revenue took off.  This was also during a time that the banner prices, CPM, were falling and obtaining a 50 cent hourly rate became increasingly difficult.

Lastly was the issue of incentives.  Advertisers did not like the idea that they may pay per click, CPC, and the person may only be clicking because they know it will help them earn money.

Many other issues existed, but those were the main ones.

A group of individuals that were involved with the first AllAdvantage company started Agloco.  They started by limiting the number of hours you could receive credit for.  Although you could use the bar as much as you liked, and they provided text ads and search within the bar.

Reasons as to why Agloco closed were not stated, however you can no longer get to their website.

It remains a mystery as to why they closed, or does it?

No site yet? Here are two options to get started. You can begin with a free WordPress site (this site is WordPress powered). There are two versions, the first they host for you and the second you install or have installed at your own domain.

The latter, installing at a web host with your domain name allows you more options for expanding and adding functionality. Some may argue it also allows you to obtain better search engine results if the site is under your domain. If you decide to install yourself I also recommend a hosting company and if you would like the additional control of having WordPress installed under your own domain on your own host, I also list a resource for finding someone to install it for you. Options are listed below.

Option 1	Free Hosting & WordPress Site WordPress provides their publishing platform for free, fully hosted, all you do is sign up and you are up and running. You are able to get started immediately, however you will not have your own domain name. You may however upgrade and pay a fee to have your own domain name mapped to their site. You can sign up here for free at WordPress. (click here to sign up for WordPress).
Option 2	First Download Free WordPress Site Software WordPress also allows you to download their application and place it on your own server. You can maintain control which allows you to have more options as your site grows and you wish to add functionality. You can download the most recent version for free. (download WordPress here for free).
	One of my favorite sites to get any programming I need is Scriptlance. Scriptlance is a marketplace for programmers and those that need something programmed. I have used the site for years. Find a programmer her to install and set up WordPress exactly the way you want it. (click here to visit scriptlance)
	So you have the WordPress software, a developer to set it up for you, now you need hosting and a domain name. To get a year of hosting and your own domain name for only one payment of $42.40 go here to this site for instructions. This is an excellent price to cover a year of hosting and get a domain name. (full year of hosting and domain only $42.40) (follow these instructions for the promotion).