How to use free blogs

[ozchris]

Hi.

I have just started a free blog at blogger.com.

The objective is to improve search engine positioning for it, and to flow on to some of my other sites.

The help screens at blogger do not match the actual site. Blogger asks you if you want to publish site feed, with yes/no the only options. In the help pages it implies a choice of ATOM vs RSS. And mentions BlogPlus etc, which it says is obsolete on other parts of the help system. So the help pages are useless.

When I place the (help page) suggested code to my page, i just comes up with the text, and a message saying it is atom-formatted feed, meant to be viewed in a newsreader, or syndicated to another site.

Q1. I want it syndicated to my other site. How do I get my blog titles onto my other site, for others to click on.

Q2. Do people offer toolbar-kind-of-things where they get notified when I update?

I guess I haven't understood the whole blog thing yet.

And I am trying to do it completely for free.

Is it possible for free?

ta Chris

[labeler2003]

There are a number of free blogging services available, all of which allow you to create excellent blogs free. So yes, you can have an outstanding blog free.

I always recommend my clients have a blog, and about half do. Some are hosted on Blogger.com, others are hosted on the client's site using Blogger.com to create them.

Blogger.com only supports Atom feeds. They used to provide a paid service that included an RSS formatted feed. After they were purchased by Google they made everything free and switched to offering just the Google ATOM format instead of RSS. However, those who signed up for the originial paid service can still use RSS instead of ATOM. That's why it is still included in the help file.

As far as syndication and notification is concerned, first get your blog set up and include an ATOM feed. Then add a post or two, so there is some content. Then go to http://www.bloglines.com/ and open an account there. On Bloglines you learn how blogs are monitored and how people are notified of new posts by actually doing it yourself (it's easy).

[ozchris]

Thanks for the tip about bloglines.
I found it good for logging on and viewing/finding other's blogs.

I ended up using http://www.bigbold.com/rssdigest to convert the atom feed into something I could add to my other sites.

I had heard that javascript display of blog entries, although handsome, would not give SEO benefits. So I had to go with Iframe to display it. Is there anyway of getting CSS to work with IFRAME in IE?

ta Chris

I used it at www.work-from-home-with-me.com on the far right. Any tips welcome.