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BlogExplosion- 2 new Features: PingmyBlog and BE Forums! Back to archive
In this BlogExplosion update: BIG UPDATES READ ON....
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1. New Feature - Ping My Blog!
2. New Feature - BlogExplosion Member Forums
3. Sneak Peak at the new Battle of the Blogs!
4. Re-Organizing content and layout on BE
5. Podcasting Update
6. New reward module in the works
7. Projects on the go for September
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1. New Feature - Ping My Blog!
One of the things we want to really focus on moving forward is to create better quality traffic both in the types of features BE offers and the ability to create blogging relationships with other members that actually read your blog.
Probably one of the most effective ways to get your blog noticed by the people you want to be interested in your blog is to PING all of the blog search engines like Technorati, Ice Rocket, PubSub each time you post to your blog.
By pinging all of the blog search engines you notify them that you have fresh content to index. That means you have instructed them to spider your latest entry. Getting noticed by the big search engines means much more outside traffic to you.
We are pleased to bring to you our latest new feature Ping MY Blog.
http://www.blogexplosion.com/pingmyblog/
Here after you make a new entry on your blog you can use our ping service to automatically notify all of the major blog search engines that you have new content on your blog. Doing this consistently and keeping your blog active means real results for you. Blogging is a long-term project and getting noticed on the search engines will go a long way.
A big suggestion.
Ping my Blog works very well with our other recently released feature Blog Headlines. Here are some steps to take to maximize each post on your blog.
a) Make a post as often as you can to your blog and keep it active as not updating your blog can see a decrease in return visitors (so keep them interested!).
b) After you have posted to your blog use Blog Headlines
http://www.blogexplosion.com/headlines/
Create a headline and watch other members coming to read the post on your blog. Your old headlines are also saved as well for members going back using the calendar to find what happened on specific days in the past.
NOTE : We look to further integrate headlines feature into BE so keep that in mind as more people will be checking them out.
c) Ping your blog.
http://www.blogexplosion.com/pingmyblog/
After you have created your headline go ahead and ping your post on your blog.
This way you are maximizing exposure for yourself on BlogExplosion and also using the ping service to notify the rest of the Blogosphere that new posts have been made. This is encourage by the blog search engines so they know to come and find the new post.
Beyond surfing for traffic we strongly suggest using these other BlogExplosion features to get people reading your blog and that with consistency you will see more outside search traffic coming to your blog! You have the tool so we hope you use it....
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2. New Feature - BlogExplosion Member Forums
BlogExplosion continues to grow quickly with over 30,000 members.
Beyond manually approving new blogs and banners (some days over 300 new blogs to approve) takes up time. Getting to support tickets gets even more challenging and time consuming stopping on us being to deliver new BE features.
Forums -- Why not use Member Forums to help with support...
http://forum.blogexplosion.com/
But we think the BE forums can be a much valuable resource for members but we need your help. This is a great resource of knowledge with a community of 30,000 bloggers. There is a wealth of experience and talent spanning all categories (not only technical) that can be shared by all.
We have added several categories for the BlogExplosion forums including member-created tutorials. Things like how the surfbar works, how auto-assign works, how to add a banner .. Things like that can be confusing for new members.
I have seen on some of your blogs you have got screenshots of how certain things work and explain how that BE feature is designed. Any member created tutorials would really help us out. Check out below to see how posting to the forum can mean more traffic coming back to your blog as well.
We need your energy and knowledge to provide a helpful resource for new and existing members!!
Note: The BlogExplosion Forums will be as good as you make them....
DONATE -- We are looking to add a donate feature if we can to forums where if a member finds your post valuable then can donate 1-5 credits to you for your time and effort spent on your forum post. Kinda neat reward maybe ?
--- Avatars, Picures -----
We are still customizing the Blog Explosion Forums and will be improved on over the next week to allows pictures or avatars plus links to your blogs etc.
I see a couple of members already answering questions about problems with IE on their blog and helping other members. Good stuff!
DO NOT SPAM THE FORUMS!! THAT CAN RESULT IN YOUR ACCOUNT BEING SUSPENDED!
We will need moderators for the forum as well. We will start a post perhaps on the forum itself (makes sense no?) to see how members want to handle this.
Great new way to make connections with other members, think outside of just surfing for traffic to make BlogExplosion work for you.
http://forum.blogexplosion.com/
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3. Sneak Peak at the new Battle of the Blogs!
The new Battle of the Blogs is being designed still and we want to make it good for you. A little sneak for people that keep asking :-)
Take a look at a mockup we did some time (mind the typo on Accept)
http://www.blogexplosion.com/battle_temp.html
Pretty old screenshot there and the good news is that we are close to final code there for Battle of the Blog.
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4. Re-Organizing content and layout on BE
With all of the new features we are working to improve the user experience on BlogExplosion by redesigning the main members page and to re-work the left navigation bar headers. This will hopefully make the site easier to use.
We apologize for the clutter but we promise to continue organizing new features by properly intregrating them into the rest of the site.
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5. Podcasting Update
With all the different podcast feedtypes out there we have found it hard to find a good solution in terms of getting podcasts played correctly. The podcast industry is so young that stadards are still being established which makes podcasting frustrating and exciting at the same time.
Podcasters. Be patient with us as we are looking at a new player and software right now that we think can be a really big help here. As early as next week.
More to come soon as we hope to negotiate this deal in the best interest of members. Again thanks for your patience and Podcasting will continue to play a major role in BlogExplosion moving forward.
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6. New reward module in the works
As part of the re-launching of Blog Rocket and Battle of the Blogs along with surfing in general BlogExplosion will be featuring a new rewards incentive that will work together with the current Mystery Credits program.
Once all of the moving parts are in place things will be organized properly and members will be able to win even more traffic using BE across the site.
Should be fun so make sure you look out for updates!
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7. Projects on the go for September
All of the above is on the go but we still want to get :Rent My Blog: out by the end of September. We want to keep on schedule here. With 4 new features out in the last couple of weeks alone we want to continue making good progress and appreciate all the feedback we have received from you.
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If you have not visited BlogExplosion for a while you might be surprised with all of the updates that have taken place over the last month. Take a look around and even if you are not the -clicking type- there may be something of value that can help your blogging needs.
Thanks everyone!
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