If you’re going to do it, do it right, right from the start by Andy Bailey of CommentLuv

When it comes to starting a blog there are a number of resources and tools that you will need to consider. There are literally thousands of tutorials and blog posts out there that will take you through the top ten plugins or the seven things you absolutely must do when you start a new site, even down to the way you arrange your home office to get the best productivity.

Some of these things you can just ponder about for a while until the mood takes you like plugins to enhance your site or choosing an East facing computer desk but, there is one thing that you will want to get right if you are at all serious about this thing called blogging.

All you need is love subs

It doesn't matter if you want to write a blog right now for pleasure or for business, you will almost definitely need one and if you leave it too long or got the wrong one in the beginning and then change your mind later on then it's going to feel like you have to start all over again.

You'll see it on those "must do" lists and read the dilemmas on forums where people debate which is the best or when to get one. What is it? It's what is sometimes called, “The List” and sometime in your blogging career it's a certainty that you are going to want your own one and ask people to subscribe to it.

What, why, when, where and how much?

What

A product that will handle your feed for feed readers, send out your feed for feed by email subscribers AND send out emails on demand.

Why

Without a way to notify your readers of what your news/products/services are then how will they know to come back and read/buy/hire them?

When

Right now! Strict anti spam laws requires a double opt in for email subscribers. If you start off using a free service or an inferior one that doesn't allow emails related to marketing then moving to a new provider means that you will have resubscribe everyone again, probably losing half of your subscribers!

Where

Feedblitz.com. That's it, one site does it all.

How Much

From as little as $1.49 per month. That's affordable right now and you don't need to put the pressure of having to pay (for some sites) up to $30 every month right from the start even before you have any subscribers.

3 little words

I run The ComLuv Network for over 30,000 registered users of the widely used CommentLuv blog plugin and I've been using FeedBlitz services for over a year to send out RSS feeds, subscribe to feed by emails and on demand newsletter services (something you can't do with FeedBurner).

I recommend FeedBlitz to all bloggers old and new because of 3 little words:

1. Reliability – it sends out thousands of emails in one shot in literally minutes and works every time
2. Value – you pay on a sliding scale which is perfect for smaller blogs who don’t need a fully $30 a month service.
3. Support – Phil Hollows, its founder, listens to users. You can send him emails, tweets or even shout loud enough and he’ll respond! (He worked with me to ensure CommentLuv users links were given special treatment in comments)

Try it and see for yourself

If you are at all serious about publishing content online, it doesn't matter if it's stock market news or pet food recipes, you'll want to let people know about it. When you do, you should use something that is going to be reliable from day one. Phil offers a free 30 day trial and it takes just a moment to set up. This applies to all bloggers, young, old, new or seasoned - You NEED FeedBlitz!

About the Author

Andy Bailey is the creator of the CommentLuv plugin and ComLuv Network. CommentLuv rewards your readers by automatically placing a link to their last blog post at the end of their comment. It encourages your community and helps vsitors discover new posts.

Follow Andy on Twitter (@CommentLuv) or visit his blog at comluv.com

About FeedBlitz Guest Posts

Guest posts at FeedBlitz are a weekly series from bloggers about email marketing and social media. You do not have to be a FeedBlitz user to guest post here, nor do you have to promote FeedBlitz (but we sure like it if you do!). If you would like to guest post at FeedBlitz News click to find out more here.

   

Service Provider Partnerships - Embed and Earn!

FeedBlitz is now welcoming service provider partners into our new affiliate program. The program enables service providers to:

• Differentiate their offerings by automatically offering FeedBlitz email newsletters and RSS stats tracking to their client web sites;
• Earn recurring revenue (up to 40%) from upgrading referrals.

Our first integration is already up and running at comluv.com, where new comluv blogs have FeedBlitz email and RSS services embedded from the get go (comluv is the hosting side of the WordPress CommentLuv plugin we integrated with last week).  ComLuv.com users start a free, embedded, ad-funded FeedBlitz trial, and comluv benefits from the revenue share as and when these upgrades convert.  The email subscription widget just shows up once enabled; there's no fretting with HTML code for comluv end users.  Woot indeed!

Here's the really good news for service providers: it's truly easy to implement.  A single URL sets up your client. You can easily roll it out to existing users or add it as an option to your bundles or control panels.

This program is perfect for services such as registrars, hosting services, industry-specific providers and web site management firms.  If your service can make a single URL call on the back end, you can do this! Write to me or to FeedBlitz tech support for more information and how to start earning.

   

Comment Luv and RSS Stats: You CAN have Both.

Bloggers using Comment Luv to help boost their SEO (search engine optimization) results have long had a dilemma when it cam to RSS feed stats tracking services like FeedBurner.  If they wanted the best search engine results for the link included by CommentLuv in their comment, they had to disable RSS item tracking, because link tracking redirected the link through FeedBurner and reduced the power of the backlink. 

In other words, bloggers had to choose between knowing how feeds were being consumed and improving their blog's position in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

That was a crummy choice to have to make.

And FeedBlitz has fixed it.

I'm happy to announce that we have worked with Comment Luv (Twitter: @commentluv) to ensure that bloggers using FeedBlitz's RSS services (the leading and fully-supported alternative to FeedBurner) and CommentLuv together will:

• Have their native links served when CommentLuv adds their links to a comment so all the "google juice" ends up where it belongs; AND
• Track RSS subscribers and other detailed feed usage activity using FeedBlitz's RSS stats / metrics / item tracking service.

So with FeedBlitz (and only with FeedBlitz), bloggers can both track comprehensive RSS subscriber activity AND get all the SEO / SEM (search engine marketing) benefits which are properly theirs when using CommentLuv. No more crummy either / or decisions.

How to Start

• Register with FeedBlitz.
• Set up your CommentLuv-friendly feed via RSS / New (start a trial if necessary);
• Tell CommentLuv how to find your FeedBlitz feed, by either:
• Updating your blog's feed autodiscovery settings to use the FeedBlitz version of your feed, OR
• Changing / defining the URL CommentLuv uses to be your FeedBlitzed feed in your CommentLuv account settings.

That's it!  CommentLuv will then pick up your SEO-friendly links automatically.

And one more thing...

It's been great fun working with Andy at Comment Luv; there's more to come in the not too distant future.  Stay tuned...

More on FeedBlitz's RSS Feed Services

• Automatic Category Feeds for Everyone
• RSS Metrics: The Good, the Bad and the Invisible
• RSS Google Analytics Integration
• Own Your RSS
• RSS Feed Merging
• FeedBurner Compatibility Mode for Easier Feed Migration
• How to Migrate your FeedBurner Feeds 
• Blitz Your RSS