How to Blog on APsense

I was on the Artists' and Artisans' Group on APsense this morning, when I saw a discussion topic, "Help! We Need Blogs to promote our work. But HOW do we do them!"

Since I know a little about this topic, I thought I'd give a simple overview, but I may have gotten carried away. Since the thread is shown in reverse order, it makes it a bit tricky to read what I wrote, so I decided to pop over here to Squidoo and see if I could put it on a lens where it would be a bit easier to read.

Squidoo only allows 2500 characters in a text module, so my thoughts will be spread over several of them.

This is just some quick-and-dirty information to help you get started, it's not meant to be a definitive and complete how to.

If you're confused about this whole news feed idea, here's a good explanation of RSS and how you may want to use it in your marketing efforts.

Blogging is much easier than most people think. If you can send email, you can blog with no problem.

Pinging is not as important as it used to be. Most blogging platforms now ping the most important aggregators automatically when you post. If you want, you can go to Pingomatic.com or Pingoat.com, but if you blog using Blogger or WordPress, it isn't necessary.

I don't know if the blog here at Apsense automatically pings or not, but it would be easy enough to add it to your MyYahoo or custom Google page. Or, set up a lens at Squidoo and add your RSS or Atom feed to the lens.

To blog on Apsense, all you have to do is click on the Business Blogs tab and then click Create my own blog. On APsense, they use the word "blog" to mean a posting to a blog rather than the traditional usage where blog mean a website.

Either way, when you blog, it creates an RSS feed that you can find on your user profile page.

Go to your user page:

http://www.apsense.com/user/johndilbeck

(substitute your username)

At the bottom of the right column, you'll see the RSS chiclet:

http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

That's your RSS feed. Enter that (with your username) anywhere that syndicates feeds and you'll get into the system.

Some places you want to enter your RSS feed for syndication:

In a Squidoo lens about yourself.
At bloglines.com
At Feedburner.com
www.google.com/reader

Set up your personal page at Google:

http://www.google.com/ig

Save whatever it has on the opening page - you can change it later.

After saving, on the right side of the page click on Add Stuff...

To the right of the search box, click the small link that says Add by URL

In the new text box, enter your Apsense RSS feed URL

i.e., http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

When you see the red check mark to the left of your feed URL, Google has successfully parsed and added the feed. You can click the stop button on your browser and go back to your home page at google.com/ig and you should see your blog added to the page.

Whenever you go to your iGoogle page, it will read your feed and that gets it into the Google universe.

Since Google recently bought Feedburner.com, syndicating your feed there also gets you into the system. It's better than pinging, in my opinion.

Of course, you can add the RSS feed for your friend's blogs or an Apsense group's feed and read them all at google.com/ig whenever you want. You can do the same thing by adding the feeds you want into any feedreader site or application.

I - being a full-time geek in my previous life - syndicate my most important blogs on the homepage at JohnDilbeck.com.

To get into Yahoo, which isn't as important as it used to be, go to:

http://my.yahoo.com/s/about/rss/index.html

This page provides a lot of information about RSS and topics related to it.

Once you create an RSS or Atom feed, you become a publisher:

http://publisher.yahoo.com/rssguide

That's more than enough background. Let's add your feed to My Yahoo!

Now, go to http://my.yahoo.com/

On the left side of the page below the search box, click Add Content. A new page will load.
To the right of the Find button, click Add RSS by URL. Again put in the URL for your RSS or Atom feed.

This will open a new page that should be showing your headlines. If you see what you want, click the Add to My Yahoo button. Done.

To add your feed to Feedburner, go to Feedburner.com

In the box below where it tells you to enter your feed URL, enter, well, uh, your feed URL.

(grin)

Remember: http://www.apsense.com/feed/blog.xml?id=johndilbeck

(use your username)

Do not click the box about being a podcaster. Click the Next button.

The next page will tell you that the feed has been verified.

It will read your feed title and suggest that as the address.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnDilbecksBusinessBlogs

I didn't want that address, so, in the text box on that line, I changed it to

http://feeds.feedburner.com/JohnDilbecksApsenseBlog

Next, if you have an account already, log in. If not, create one.

Click Activate Feed.

At the bottom of the next page, where it says Step 2, click the text link that says Skip directly to feed management.

From here there are many features that I won't cover here. I will briefly mention four.

Click the Publicize tab...

1. Now, you can let people subscribe to your feed by email. See the Email Subscriptions link in the left column.

2. PingShot - click this link. Click Pingomatic and Newsgator, and from the drop down list, select Google Blog Search Pinging Service and Add it. If you see a check mark to the left of the six services, click the Activate button. Now you can forget pinging, because Feedburner will do it for you every time you publish to your blog. I think they scan every 30 minutes.

3. Click BuzzBoost. Select the choices you want - you can change them later as you learnn more. Click Activate. You'll see a text box with javascript code in it. You can copy that and paste it on any web page that allows javascript and it will syndicate your blog. Use it on one site or a thousand - it's up to you.

4. Click Headline Animator. Select the options you want - they can be changed. You can have multiple HAs in different sizes and styles. Click Activate. Your new HA will appear showing your last five headlines rotating.
(continued...)

Feedburner Step 4 (continued). Below your new headline Animator, in the drop down box, select Other (just gimme the code). Click Next.

For now, deselect the Include a "Grab This" link.

The text box has a paragraph of HTML code to display your new HA on any web page.

You can use this on any page, even pages that don't allow syndication using the javascript you previously created.

You can modify the HTML to work as BBcode if you want. I'll leave that as an exercise.

For instance, you can modify your Business Center. Go to Setup my Business Center, scroll to the bottom to where it allows you to add text to the page. We want to directly add HTML, so click the HTML button on the bottom right of the edit window.

Paste the HA HTML code wherever you want it. I chose to add a horizontal rule and center my headline animator at the bottom of my Business Center. When you have it where you want it, click the Design button to see how it looks.

I didn't like the horizontal rule, so I removed it.

Before you save, be sure to go up and select the Business Industries you want. Apsense doesn't properly populate these when you edit your business center.

Once you're ready, click the Save button.

You can go to http://johndilbeck.apsense.com/ and see it in action.

I happily accept testimonials. (*wink*)

Finally, just to show you how easy it is to blog here at Apsense, if you've written or replied to this thread, you're blogging.

The group's RSS feed is:

http://www.apsense.com/feed/group.xml?id=100095

And it can be syndicated using the steps I outlined for a personal blog here.

As an example, see the Apsense lens I created at Squidoo:

APsense - A Free Business Social Network

http://www.squidoo.com/apsense-business-networking/

You can see that I syndicated my Apsense blog and the blogs for some groups I created.

Also, I just added a link to this group. If anyone wants to vote for it, just click the up arrow to the left off the name.

You're also invited to add a link to your Business Center there (not your profile).

If you visit the lens, I would appreciate it if you vote in the poll about Apsense.

And, finally, if you have a Squidoo lens about Apsense, you are invited to submit it to the group I created at:

http://www.squidoo.com/groups/apsense-business-networking

If you don't have an account at Squidoo, you can get one by going to the group URL, above, and click on the Make A New Lens button below my pic in the right column. It' free, and I get a (small) check every month for my efforts. You can, too.

If you visit the Apsense lens, I would appreciate it if you'd rank it and you're always welcome to leave a comment at the bottom of the page. You have to be a logged in Squidoo member to do either.

I'm done talking now. (grin)

Act on your dream!

JD

John L. Dilbeck
John Dilbeck And Friends