One of the more recent secrets people are using to get their

websites in the search engines, the last couple of years, is

with Blogs. Blogs are short for web logs and are like daily

dairies on the web.

Blogs started out as ways for Internet reality types to share

their lives with other people on the web, without having to

learn very complicated web design applications like Dreamweaver

or Microsoft FrontPage.

Dreamweaver, the standard professional web design program takes

a least 6 months to master. While FrontPage on the other hand

looks a lot like Microsoft Word, and therefore can be used a bit

more quickly by people just starting out.

Blogs are much easier to use than any web design software. They

can be used to change web content from a browser, email, and

even simple desk top software. Blogs are web pages created with

automated software that date stamps all changes to content.

One of the secrets the web marketers use to get their new

websites into the major search engines like (Google - Yahoo! and

MSN) is called blog and ping. So many Internet fortunes are

being built on this simple technique.

If you want your new website to be indexed (or included in the

search engine database) you shouldn't submit it to the search

engines -- instead you should blog and ping.

There is a new feature with Google and Yahoo! known as sitemaps,

which will also get your site indexed, but most of us will do

fine with learning first to blog and ping.

Blogs index and file your web pages automatically according to

the way you specify in advance.

Google loves blogs and has its own web based application called

Blogger. You can set up a Blogger account for free at

Blogger.com.

You should use Blogs for your business to give updates to your

customers and supporters every few days on your company's news

or inside information. You can also reflect on industry trends

with your business blog.

What's nice about blogs if you want to get your site in the

search engines or keep the search engines up to date with your

latest optimization or content efforts. You can post your new

website or page to your blog page and link to that page.

The search engines will visit the blog page more frequently and

index your new pages or web sites some times in a day or two.

Also make sure when you post a new blog in Blogger.com you set

up your account to ping (or notify) the other major blog

directories that your blog has been updated.

Or if you want to get your new site into Google go to a high

ranked blog listed in Google. If the Blog allows comments give a

good comment on the blog. Then link back to the page you want

indexed in the Blog.

Make sure you give a worth while or useful comment or it will be

considered blog spam by the website administrators. Sometimes

blog publishers disable the comment feature for this reason,

therefore it is important to have your own blogs especially if

you have more than one site.

This will get the Google spider to index your new sites or web

pages within a few days and consider your site for its database

given the criteria of its algorithm.

If you are looking for a fast, inexpensive and efficient way to

build a lot of content on your site, which the search engines

will pick up, go to Blogger and open up a free blogging account

and join the blogosphere.

• The Love Affair between the Search Engines, Blogs and RSS

I have been extolling the SEO benefits of Blogs since almost two

years ago. Although blogs and search engines don't seem to enjoy

the free for all love affair they once had, the search engines

and blogs seem to still be married "for better or for worst".

The romance and infatuation phase between search engines and

blogs has waned because of blog spam. However search engines

dare not divorce blogs because they tend to cook up regularly

updated content.

Blogs are also search engine friendly in design. As publishers

we love blogs because it is an easy way for us to update our

sites with new content.

Many top marketers are extolling about the power of blogs and

their natural extension RSS feeds. Almost every successful

Internet Marketers today is using some variation of blogs and

RSS feeds.

Everywhere you go the web gurus are talking about the great

upside potential of blogs and RSS. RSS for the purpose of

discussing this issue stands for Really Simple Syndication.

RSS is presently being used by Internet marketers to share their

blog headlines with websites and desktops all over the world.

Think of RSS as giving you the ability to blog without

boundaries.

People on other websites and with downloadable RSS newsreader

software can read your newest blog posts without visiting your

site. Sites that value your expertise will in a viral fashion

feature your RSS feeds and help generate traffic to your site.

This allows you to leverage traffic from other peoples sites who

feature your blog. Moreover, your subscribers who read your RSS

headlines on their desktop software will avoid email filters.

Before you explore or upgrade to RSS marketing experiment with

desktop newsreaders like Tristana or News Gator. If you prefer

to read RSS from your browser download and install Mozilla's

FireFox Browser.

RSS feeds will be the next phase in Internet marketing following

the search engines, email marketing, affiliate marketing, and

joint ventures.

By having people subscribe to your blog's RSS feeds, or having

them syndicated on other people's websites you will be getting a

running start on the explosion in blog and RSS marketing once

Internet Explorer integrates RSS into its browser.