To Blog, or not to Blog, that is the Question

[Larry Brauner]

About half the new members joining our site are bloggers and half not. It would be interesting to hear from the bloggers why they blog and from the non-bloggers why they don't.

Back in March I wrote an article, Top Reasons Why I Blog, that listed 27 reasons to blog. Commenters on my article added a few more.

My short answer today to why I blog is that it's an important part of my communication, branding and list building strategies. It also provides me with a great learning opportunity.

I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say and discussing the pros and cons of blogging as well as the obstacles you face.

[Denise]

Hi Larry, thanks for inviting me to your new site!

My personal reasons for blogging:

I like to share experiences and insights that may help others. I am forever grateful to all those that have helped me in my life and believe in paying things forward.

Love to meet others and very much believe in relationship building. In business, it has always been one of my strengths - because I truly enjoy it and the people I meet. Blogging is one way for me to do this.

Hoping that those drawn to the blog will also be drawn to the book when it's ready.

My biggest obstacle

Time. I work full time, have a family, will release ebook when I get back from vacation, participate in social networking, working on life story, volunteer when I am able. Sleep very little.... =)

The only con for me personally is self induced. I need to place it on a higher priority.

[Thomas Northrop]

Hello Larry

I blog because it gives me outside links to my website. Just started a few weeks ago. Iam still a little fuzzy on the whole ping thing, but I will figure out how it works pretty soon.

Thomas Northrop

[Sharon Taylor]

This is a great place to start learning and meeting new people. I blog to share ideas with, gain insight and information and make new friendships in and out of the business world. Successful businesses are filled with friends. I am new to blogging and have so much to learn. It is sometimes overwhelming and very confusing at other times. I hope to figure all of this out. Anyone want to be my mentor and help me learn? I'll trade you tutoring your kid in school for tutoring me on blogging...LOL
Sharon Taylor

[Larry Brauner]

Thomas, pinging basically works like this.

There are ping servers, computers that keep track of which blogs in the universe of blogs have been updated. Blogs notify these servers of changes by pinging them. Search engines rely on these servers to know which blogs to visit to look for new information.

So the ping servers serve as agents, go-betweens connecting the blogs to the search engines.

Here are the ping servers that my blog pings:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Technorati might be the most important ping server in the list.

If your blog doesn't have an automatic pinging mechanism, I suggest you join Technorati and follow their instructions, so that you can ping manually.

Thomas Northrop said:

Hello Larry

I blog because it gives me outside links to my website. Just started a few weeks ago. Iam still a little fuzzy on the whole ping thing, but I will figure out how it works pretty soon.

Thomas Northrop

[Sue T.]

I started a blog because I was told I needed to have one for exposure purposes and to share my thoughts with the world as to what I do and what I bring to the table. To me, with blogging comes a responsibility to the readers to recognize that what we say, people are reading. Meaning, I remember a time there was a young boy who read a blog that I made and he said I brought him hope... so what I'm saying here is that when we blog, we never know just who we are going to reach or help. Which I think is awesome...

So, while blogging was initially presented to me as a marketing tool, I think it's much more than that and carries with it a level of personal responsibility and integrity. Not to say anyone isn't coming from that place when they blog. Not at all... I'm more thinking out loud as to my thoughts on blogging.

I just changed up my blog and I may move it to wordpress because they have better features where I can have three blogs or more, on the one site and they can shift back and forth at will ... I have different areas that I like to write about, and I don't like them all mushed together helter skelter on one blog... I think different areas require different specific blogs. That's my thought process anyway...

I agree with Denise as well ... where she's saying she wants to pay it forward. I like that sentiment a lot and I agree. If I can help someone through something I've shared, that's ... wonderful ...

I'm getting tired now, so I hope I've made sense.

[Sue T.]

Hi Sharon... Hey I'm still learning about blogging even as I type this response! I could tutor you but it would be like the blind leading the blind! LOL :)

I think... one bite at a time Sharon. I just had the brain storm the other day about having more than one blog for specific topics. I didn't care for having thoughts, say about relationships and lumping that together with something for people regarding personal growth for the individual... I think they need to be seperate and then let the person chose where they'd like to go, and then I can link one blog to the other for different areas like a friend of mine has been doing. Which I think is a good idea. Course I'll have to learn codes but that's okay... I"ll get there. Nothing a little cut and paste couldn't solve.

Sharon Taylor said:

This is a great place to start learning and meeting new people. I blog to share ideas with, gain insight and information and make new friendships in and out of the business world. Successful businesses are filled with friends. I am new to blogging and have so much to learn. It is sometimes overwhelming and very confusing at other times. I hope to figure all of this out. Anyone want to be my mentor and help me learn? I'll trade you tutoring your kid in school for tutoring me on blogging...LOL
Sharon Taylor

[Sue T.]

Larry, I seem to remember something about pinging... course, I've forgotten the importance of it. So ... blogs notify the servers right? And then ... are you saying that by pinging every time we blog, we get more exposure? Is that right?

Larry Brauner said:

Thomas, pinging basically works like this.

There are ping servers, computers that keep track of which blogs in the universe of blogs have been updated. Blogs notify these servers of changes by pinging them. Search engines rely on these servers to know which blogs to visit to look for new information.

So the ping servers serve as agents, go-betweens connecting the blogs to the search engines.

Here are the ping servers that my blog pings:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Technorati might be the most important ping server in the list.

If your blog doesn't have an automatic pinging mechanism, I suggest you join Technorati and follow their instructions, so that you can ping manually.

Thomas Northrop said:

Hello Larry

I blog because it gives me outside links to my website. Just started a few weeks ago. Iam still a little fuzzy on the whole ping thing, but I will figure out how it works pretty soon.

Thomas Northrop

[Larry Brauner]

We get the search engines to notice us Sue. The more often we add new material, the more often they'll visit, and the more often they'll crawl and re-index our sites.

On the subject of multiple blogs for multiple subjects, ideally that's the way to go. But from a practical point of view, it's hard enough for most people to post consistently to even one blog.

Sue T. said:

Larry, I seem to remember something about pinging... course, I've forgotten the importance of it. So ... blogs notify the servers right? And then ... are you saying that by pinging every time we blog, we get more exposure? Is that right?

Larry Brauner said:

Thomas, pinging basically works like this.

There are ping servers, computers that keep track of which blogs in the universe of blogs have been updated. Blogs notify these servers of changes by pinging them. Search engines rely on these servers to know which blogs to visit to look for new information.

So the ping servers serve as agents, go-betweens connecting the blogs to the search engines.

Here are the ping servers that my blog pings:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Technorati might be the most important ping server in the list.

If your blog doesn't have an automatic pinging mechanism, I suggest you join Technorati and follow their instructions, so that you can ping manually.

Thomas Northrop said:

Hello Larry

I blog because it gives me outside links to my website. Just started a few weeks ago. Iam still a little fuzzy on the whole ping thing, but I will figure out how it works pretty soon.

Thomas Northrop

[JoAnn Donahue]

Hi Larry,

I blog because the best way to lead is to teach.

I use my blog platform as a way to share what I know, the new insights

I gain and I hope to empower folks with new found wisdom they once

did not have.

No one knows it all and I find it interesting and beneficial to write what is on my mind..

and read what is on the mind of others.

I am also blogging for some of the same reasons you blog.

To make my name a name by few and to generate leads

I'm looking for people I can serve and by serving them I to am served..

It's was written since the beginning of time..

Do unto others as you would like done unto you..

Cheers!
JoAnn

[Sue T.]

I was just talking to a friend of mine last night about this. There is a time frame every month where I have this surge of ideas and I want to write about all kinds of things. Which is why I have started to make different blogs. We were talking about Wordpress having features where, on those really creative times that I have, I can actually do several blogs and then mark them to be made hours, days or however long in advance. Which I think is awesome! I started linking up to myself on eBlogger which is fine ... I don't know if eBlogger has the capability to post on a specific date and time though. I haven't actually checked.

I have the time to post, however I've started to want my blogs to be set up seperately. While things can tend to be related, I still want the topics to be separated into different areas. I started feeling like I had things written out, however it seemed too all over the place to me. Thus you have the idea of simply having seperate blogs, having them connected, etc.,

If I have several blogs through one site that are linked together, do I have to register all the blogs seperately with one of these ping sites? Or can I enter the main site only and have that work.

Larry Brauner said:

We get the search engines to notice us Sue. The more often we add new material, the more often they'll visit, and the more often they'll crawl and re-index our sites.

On the subject of multiple blogs for multiple subjects, ideally that's the way to go. But from a practical point of view, it's hard enough for most people to post consistently to even one blog.

Sue T. said:

Larry, I seem to remember something about pinging... course, I've forgotten the importance of it. So ... blogs notify the servers right? And then ... are you saying that by pinging every time we blog, we get more exposure? Is that right?

Larry Brauner said:

Thomas, pinging basically works like this.

There are ping servers, computers that keep track of which blogs in the universe of blogs have been updated. Blogs notify these servers of changes by pinging them. Search engines rely on these servers to know which blogs to visit to look for new information.

So the ping servers serve as agents, go-betweens connecting the blogs to the search engines.

Here are the ping servers that my blog pings:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

Technorati might be the most important ping server in the list.

If your blog doesn't have an automatic pinging mechanism, I suggest you join Technorati and follow their instructions, so that you can ping manually.

Thomas Northrop said:

Hello Larry

I blog because it gives me outside links to my website. Just started a few weeks ago. Iam still a little fuzzy on the whole ping thing, but I will figure out how it works pretty soon.

Thomas Northrop

[Larry Brauner]

It sounds like your blogs are seperate entities, and that each needs to be pinged.

With what you're doing, Squidoo might be a good place for you.

[Sue T.]

I will certainly check it out. I want categories in my blog. They're all really related in some way, it depends on what the topic is the person is looking for that day ... :) Have a good night Larry, I'm off to sleep.

Larry Brauner said:

It sounds like your blogs are seperate entities, and that each needs to be pinged.

With what you're doing, Squidoo might be a good place for you.