Home Inspector Pro Forum

A lot of you guys have started blogging and that's great. Blogging increases your exposure in many ways. First blogs turn up on search engines. Blogs make your sites larger which search engines like (makes you look more authoritative), and it gives your clients and agents something to read and a way to know more about who you are.

One thing about blogging is that it's important to get your blog out there. Depending on how your blogging, your blog might be publishing a RSS Feed that others can subscribe to. People can add your RSS Feed so that when they open up their Google, Yahoo, etc home page, your latest blog entry comes up. More importantly you can tell search engines about your blog and they'll start scanning your site.

I'm going to use two examples here. The first is Active Rain. Everyone who blogs on Active Rain is actually producing an RSS News Feed. You'll see the RSS image which is an orange box with several white arcs inside it when InterNACHI Message Board - Post New Threadyou're on a page with a feed. The location in Firefox is in your address bar, in other browsers its on the status bar at the bottom of the browser.

So on Active Rain, my blog PAGE is: http://activerain.com/blogs/homeinspectionsoftware . When you go to the page, find the orange feed button (by the way NACHI has one up top too), and right click on it and click view feed, or subscribe to feed (depends on the browser), and you get shown this: http://activerain.com/blogs/homeinspectionsoftware/rss
This link IS the feed. Now, what can you do with this feed? You can use Tip 11,12 below to add the feed in to your website. If you host your site with us, or possibly other hosts, you can add this feed to your News Feed area.

You can also submit your feed to RSS Feed directories which will then get your blogs on out the web. The biggest one of these is called technorati. You can create an account on technorati, then submit your blog feeds from differents places you post blogs (your website, active rain, etc) and then they'll be indexed. When people search for info you'll come up, people can comment on your blogs and more. There's many other directories, just do a search on the web for rss feed directory or news feed directory and get your feeds listed.

The second example I'm going to use is from Brian Doles site as he's done a lot of blogging on his own site for Atlanta Home Inspectors . If you visit the page you'll see his first blog with arrows to view more, but you'll also see the RSS feed button towards the bottom which is http://www.homeinspectoratlanta.com/blog/20/feed . That feed can now be taken and added to directories to increase exposure, increase rankings, and increase business.

OK - I read everything, saw the sites, see the rss feed on your and Brian's blog.  I went to my AR blog and to all aspects of it and did not see an rss anywhere, particularly in the bar along the top of the page.  I assume that is the bar I would want to add to my News Feed.  Where do I go to get that address with the rss feed attached and how to I insert that onto my News Feed page?

Silly me...  I just found the rss feed for my AR blog site.  Even a blind pig sometimes ... well, never mind.  So I copy the bar across the top of the page, which includes the rss in it, onto my News Feed page exactly how?  Thanks Dom.

xxoo   The Blind Pig

Well, I'm not sure how much this will help someone who is blind so you might want to find a friend :D Here's the "animated" tutorial on adding ANY RSS news feed to your site, including your AR blogs. http://www.homeinspectorpro.com/Home-Inspection-Website-Tutorial/Add-a-news-feed-to-your-website.html

oh...

Sorry for the dumb questions - I did not realize the news feeds (obviously RSS) were the same as a RSS from my AR blog...

Which leads to this question - I already have a blog page on my site, which I link to the AR site by pasting the blogs from their site to mine.  So I should have a small block on a page or two of my site which zaps back to the AR site?  Same technique as linking to other inspectors' sites, therefore same benefits?

xxoo The Pig With Cataracts

P.s.  Since beginning the blogging, what, eight days (?), and apparently the RSS feed from the AR site, my site has moved from 3.2 million on Alexa to 2.4 million!  Doesn't sound like much, but that is a big jump!

Sounds like a big jump to me :) You have the Alexa toolbar installed too right?

Looks like you already added your AR feed back on your own site, which is perect and updates automatically.

Alexa installed.  I am looking at your number - 289,426.  Not bad!

Actually it was at 120,000 a few months ago. Our site traffic has doubled since then but the Alexa number has dropped, not exactly sure what's up with that.

Dominic,

I went to claim my blog at Technorati and they flagged it.  In other words, I was not able to set up my ActiveRain blog there.  It is as follows:

http://activerain.com/blogs/hspinnler

Any suggestions?

Hi Hank,

For some reason, some guys have been able to add AR blogs and some haven't. I've found no reason for this. The blogs on our users personal sites have always been able to be added though.

Thanks for the reply.  It's annoying since there's no specific reason provided for the rejection.

Yeah I know. Maybe send technorati an email and see if they respond.

Dominic, if I subscribe to the feed on my site for blogging is it a additional monthly charge?
It doesnt matter one way or the other. I just wasnt sure what would happen if I click on subscribe.

Thanks

Frank Phillips

Phillips Inspection Services
www.phillipsinspectionservices.com
Master Home Inspector serving Lancaster Ohio

Hey Frank,

No, technorati doesn't charge anything to add your site blog to their database.

I was wondering since we are adding links to each other sites why do we not go to technorati and sign up for each others blogs. according to Dominic this will also bring up our rankings.

Do we have to "ping" technorati each time we add a blog entry? They offer some html code, but where would we put that?

Go into edit
Click on "Source"
Put the code at the bottom of the blog
Click on "Source" again
Click "Submit"
Then Technorati should have a verify button for you click.

I have linked to the following blogs.

1. http://jaymarinspect.com/blog
2. http://www.oklahomahomeinspector.biz/John-Sopher-Navy-Days
3. http://www.denversbesthomeinspector.com/blog
4. http://www.coloradospremierhomeinspections.com/blog
5. http://www.bestinspector.com/Blog
6. http://www.chicagohomeinspectorsite.com/blog
7. http://www.halcyonhomeinspection.com/blog
8. http://www.idahohomeinspector.info/blog
9. http://www.longislandhomeinspection.org/blog
10.http://www.okeefeshomeinspection.com/blog
11.http://www.allpointinspection.com/blog
12.http://www.phillipsinspectionservices.com/blog
13.http://www.barriehomeinspector.ca/blog
14.http://www.safeathomeinspect.com/blog

Go here to get the link widget (favor it)
http://technorati.com/widgets/bbuttons

My blog page is here.
http://www.alotahomeinspect.ca/blog

Thanks

 
John, you could create a block that only appears on the blog pages, that would probably be the simplest.

I tried the block thing and it didn't work for me.  Also I have posted more that one blog and it required me to put the code on both blogs.  I have been meaning to talk to you about my blogs also.  I want to have a menu item named "HLC Blogs" and have all my blogs listed under that menu item.  This way I don't end up with 20 blogs on my main menu.  How do I do that?

John,

Looks like you disabled your original blogs link (just one link that has all your blogs). I re-enabled it (under menus) and renamed it there as well.

Dominic

Okay so now how do I make the menu read as follows:

HLC Blogs
     Navy Days Blog
     Golden Rules Blog

I want to be able to click on HLC Blogs and have it show a list of all the blogs I have posted.  Then I can click on the blog I want to view and comment on.  I don't want to have to go from page 1 to page 2 etc.

Also now that you fixed that problem my blogs are showing in two separate areas on my site.

HELP!!!  lol 

Only shows both when you're logged in ;)

Got it!  Thanks again!

Dominic,

I have the same question as John. Right now mine looks like this:

Inspection Blog
   My Blog

When Inspection blog is selected it has the same title, but if My Blog is selected, the title of the blog is Julian Benton's blog.  How do I change the name My Blog and the title Julian Benton's blog?

OK, I think I got a little confused.  The My Blog only shows up when I am logged into ADMIN.  So I guess what I am trying to figure out is how to set up sub-blogs with different topics so that they are not only accessible via the main menu item. I will look around for a tutorial......

Woohoo! no tutorial, but I did find the Recent Blog Posts block and enabled it; that will do for now.

Glad you got it. Sorry I didn't get to this sooner!

I haven't done the Technorati link but I have a question about my AR link that I made for this. I checked it out today and it is fubar. I probably wouldn't have checked this out, but was going to add technorati. Now, I need to fix this first. The link is there, but the page is.....don't even know how to describe that. Can someone look at it and take a guess for me, need some help thanks.

Hi Ian,

I need more info. Where did you put the AR link at? Were you trying to add AR to Technorati?

No, I had my AR blog fed in as a feed to my site, and now for some reason when I click on it it is all just a bunch of code. I deleted it and tried to redo it but got the same results. Right now I do not have it in there. I was going to do the technorati with the blog from my site when I noticed this. Operator error, but I don't know what, I almost have the whole news feed tutorial memorized now. ;D

OH BOY!! I kinda have it working now, but I still don't thinnk it is right. Check it out and let me know. So..........................hard...............all..................this................computer....................stuff........................makin............................me.......................crazy :o

I lied, I'm not even close!! :'(

I still have no idea what you're doing or where. What's the page? Is it in a block? What's going on ?!?!

I'm trying to make a change to my newsfeed page, here in WI ;D

I had my AR blog set up on MY site as a newsfeed, but it went haywire, so for now I have deleted it and can't get it back on there without the page just looking like code. Are we getting closer? ;D


Do I sometimes remind you of the guy that calls SUPPORT when the cup holder on his computer tower is broke Dom?

Nope, but maybe the guy with the broken foot pedal :D Actually you're doing fine. Let me look at what you're doing.

Oh, and remove the website grader from your site. It does NOT help you, it only helps them.

Looked at your blog page:
http://activerain.com/blogs/ianiquette

Found the RSS button on the right. Right clicked on it and selected copy link location.
http://activerain.com/blogs/ianiquette/rss

Went to News Feeds on your site and pasted the above as a new feed and was told you already had it added, doh.

Saw you had it added as your first feed, I clicked update feed and everything looks perfect. Where's the problem? Looks like you had it done!

OK. But I think you are pullin my leg. I just checked it and it looks great but 10 minutes ago it did not. Thanks.

You're too far away for me to pull on your leg :)

Dominic

I added my active rain blog rss feed to my site newsfeed. Can I get that to update to the blog on my site, or do I have to copy and paste to get it on my blog on site.

It'll automatically appear in the newsfeed area but not the blog area. You'd have to copy it there.

Dominic

When I added my rss from active rain, it did not have my blog in it. On my ar account it said for members only on the blog. I enquired about that, because I didn't see this tag on other of your members blog sites. I guess on Feb. 16, 2009 they started charging $29 mo. for all new members to have the same benifits as before with SEO, links and having your blogs open to the public. Anyone signed up before that is grandfathered in. Is it still worth the money for the added benifit.

No, just copy and paste your blogs from AR into your own sites blog and save the $30!

Technorati won't accept my AR or my web page blog. The AR one may be considered a social network, their site says social networks are not appropriate blogs.

They stopped accepting AR blogs. It'll definitely accept your website blog, just make sure you use the right page. For you this would be: http://www.orlandparkhomeinspections.com/blog/feed

What does the number in the Technorati box represent?  Mine had been showing "0", now it shows "1"....

It's your authority rating. Kind of like a Google Pagerank for blogs.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know if blog posts automatically post to Technorati, or if we have to manually submit all posts?

Mine appear to post there automatically once I added the widget to my block and or site....

Like Will said. You just add the code to a block on your blogs page and it'll automatically pick up all your blogs.

Don't get me started on this!  lol

John, email me your login info for Technorati so I can see what's going on.

On its way.

I tried but: "Blog claiming is temporarily unavailable."

It looks like they are changing servers.

Guess I'll have to wait until later.

LOL  Okay

Hi Dominic

Did you figure out Johns problem with linking his second site to technorati? It won't link to my second site either.

I haven't tried since it told me their server was down. I'm taking off shortly to my families for dinner ( I turn 30 tomorrow, ugh ) but will check it out later tonight.

Oh please.... such a genius at 30!! No problem, HAPPY 30th!!!

LOL. Thanks :D

Another birthday?

Take my advice - stop it...

I haven't written a program to stop it yet. I should do that, I could make a fortune.

Technorati will not accept my blog. It says the URL is invalid or it will say it is taking too long to verify.  http://www.orlandparkhomeinspections.com/blog

That's the same problem I'm having.  Dom is getting to it one of these days.  I hope!  lol   ;)

I am glad it is not just me.

He thinks the code might be messed up or something.

Technorati is still showing:


Blog claiming is temporarily unavailable.

Sorry, Technorati’s claim service is down for the moment. We’ll have it back up and running as soon as possible.

John, I logged into your account and it shows 3 blogs. I'd try adding http://www.normanhomeinspections.biz/blog/feed when it starts working.

Anyone get Technorati to accept their blogs yet?  Mike & John, I've been getting the same response (Error: 603, time exceeded 5 minutes, etc.)...haven't had any luck getting it to work so far.

No I haven't tried in a while.  I was waiting for Dom to try it for me.  Last I heard from him, the site was down or something.

I think Dom jacked up the Technorati site :). Yes, he has that much power on the internet!!

Dom is the web!  We should be calling him the matrix.  lol

I think you just did. The question we now face; is he real, or part of the matrix? I know I met him, but he may not have been real. Hmmmm, intriguing!  :o

Hey I ate the pizza. At least you think I did. I could have just made you think I did (especially since it wasn't deep dish, sigh...). I'll try technorati again tomorrow, I tried it last week.

See this explains everything.  That's how Dom can do so much and be in 20 places at the same time!

Wow...I had no idea we were dealing with the most powerful entity on the web...or is the web...or whatever...:)  Blue pill or red pill...hmmmmmmmm :o

I get the same result each time I have tried.

"It is people, soylent green is people"

Alright, been a little behind here, but I see that Technorati is going to accept my blog; now where does that crazy code go in your blog?  Or did I miss something in the previous posts?  Feeling a little Charlie Brown-ish...

Put it in a block on your web site and post it there.

As Davin said ;) You might also want to restrict the block to your blog pages as there's not much reason for it to be on the other pages. You can try checking 'show on only' at the bottom of the block and type in blog/* for it to appear on all blog pages.

Thanks guys; says it's working on my claim, so I'm sure I'll find out if it worked soon enough! 

Hey Casey, nice job. Let us know how it goes.

It goes poorly...here's what they came back with:
We have identified a problem with the URL submitted for claiming:
http://arochestermnhomeinspector.com/blog

This may be for a number of reasons. Please review possible reasons below.

Please check and make sure the URL you are trying to claim is the front page of your blog as a browser would link to it. If the URL submitted was different, please try updating the URL and submitting the claim again.

If you\'ve verified the claim URL is correct and your blog is reachable by browser, it may be that our crawler is unable to recognize your page as a blog or your blog software being used is not recognized by Technorati\'s web crawler. In this case we ask you contact technorati support and supply the following info:

Please include the following error code: 500
URL you are claiming
The name of your blog
Your contact info
A short description of your blog and the type of content you like to write about.
Does your blog have a RSS feed? Please see if you can supply us with an example URL of your feed.

I know it's not the first suggestion, already looked at that.  And the last time I emailed them, I never heard back!  Any ideas?

First, I would make sure you add the www in the front of your domain name. Since the site automatically redirects to the www, it might not recognize the site address without it. The RSS feed is being published properly. Try it again and let me know if that works.

Something's fishy; I did delete my first claim, and tried to reenter http://www.arochestermnhomeinspector.com/blog
When I did and proceeded to the next page, it shows as http://arochestermnhomeinspector.com/blog in the entry box and won't allow me to edit it.  Weird...

Hmm, try deleting it, then logging out and back into their system and see if it works ok. Let me know what happens.

Tried that again this morning, and every time it reverts back to http://arochestermnhomeinspector.com/blog
Have no idea what's going on; maybe I need to close this account and open a new one? 

You can try that , and emailing them. Without the www, it would explain why it doesn't work. Mine shows the www on there.

I wonder if this has anything to do with why I can not claim my blogs. The following is from Technorati.

Check that you are attempting to claim a blog. Technorati does not support claiming a feed; please claim the URL of the blog the feed is associated with. Technorati also does not support claiming a static webpage. Example: If you are attempting to claim a front page that contains a collection of blogs, you will need to claim each blog individually.

Note that a blog is indicated by:

    * Posts listed in historical chronological order
    * Permalinks for each post
    * Original Content
    * Posts structured with date, title, body, and footer that includes author and usually comments

Please refer to the Blog Quality Guidelines to see if your blog qualifies for indexing.

If you think that your blog has been flagged in error, please submit a support ticket from our Support Contact Form with Support Type "Claiming" and Concerning "I cannot claim my blog, it gives me an error message immediately" so that we may be able to review your blog.

Note: We are unable to index or allow claim for blogs that require a login or other user action to view content.

Which page are you trying to claim?

http://www.orlandparkhomeinspections.com/blog

I tried the AR blog but they do not accept AR anymore.

That's the right page. They could be rejecting it because you only have 1 blog entry.

I think Technorati sucks eggs, IMHO. I think they see it as a front page, and want us to claim each blog individually as stated above. Total BS.

No, the front page is the main page of your site. You only have one blog. I think you've only made ONE blog so it looks like a single page. Try adding 3 or 4 more then try adding it.

I have to agree with Michael...I still can't get Technorati to do anything but piss me off! 

LOL  You too?!?!

Yes!  I mean, how ridiculous can something like that be?!?!?  Why offer a service that you can't make good on...gah...I didn't come home from vacation to have to deal with this...I'm going back!

LOL

Take me with you!!

It was great, best week we've had there in a long time; highs 75-80, lows in the low 50's, only rained a short part of one day.  Lots of good water time for the kids and fishing for me!

Sure rub it in.

Add 2 or 3 more blogs and then try to add http://www.arochestermnhomeinspector.com/blog and see if they take it.

Yep, I'm planning on trying that; read your post from earlier and was busy linking yesterday.  Figure if I stay ahead on that (or at least catch up) I'll be sitting better too. 

Yeah the more links the better. Just make sure to contact via email and post on the boards those that you link to so they know to link back.

I'd also change this: home-inspector-rochester-winona-austin-red-wing-albert-lea-minnesota.html and knock out 2 cities, it's too long.

I did wonder about that...will that goof anyone up that has already linked to me?

Nope, that's just the link on their page, doesn't affect your site or people linking to you at all.

Cool...I was wondering that as I fiddled with that stupid home page this weekend!

Ok Dom, I added a few blogs to my site and I placed the Technorati code inside one of the blogs. I will let you know if they approve my blog, if they don't; THEY SHOULD CHANGE THEIR NAME TO HOOVER, CUZ THEY SUCK!!!!

LMAO

HAHAHA.

Michael, you should tell us how you REALLY feel...I mean, come on, don't hold back now...:)

Technorati is bullcrap. It still wont verify the blog. I get that freakin 500 error code. I am going to write a blog about how crappy Technorati is. Maybe they will approve my blog after that!!??

Casey, I will try not to hold back. I am just too darn nice.

500 error code? What's the exact error?

500 error: Technorati suction to great!

Here is what I get Dominic. Every time it is the same thing, about 6 tries now.


We have identified a problem with the URL submitted for claiming:

http://orlandparkhomeinspections.com/blog

This may be for a number of reasons. Please review possible reasons below.

   1. Please check and make sure the URL you are trying to claim is the front page of your blog as a browser would link to it. If the URL submitted was different, please try updating the URL and submitting the claim again.

   2. If you\'ve verified the claim URL is correct and your blog is reachable by browser, it may be that our crawler is unable to recognize your page as a blog or your blog software being used is not recognized by Technorati\'s web crawler. In this case we ask you contact technorati support and supply the following info:

          * Please include the following error code: 500
          * URL you are claiming
          * The name of your blog
          * Your contact info
          * A short description of your blog and the type of content you like to write       about.
          * Does your blog have a RSS feed? Please see if you can supply us with an example URL of your feed.

Go ahead and contact them like the say. I'm guessing the problem might be that your site is www.orlandparkhomeinspections.com (note the missing www).

I entered it with the www. They are morons.

Email them and let us know how it goes.

Has anyone gotten this thing to work yet?  I sure would like to get my working for me.

I emailed the...I want to be mean, but I will say, "the folks" and am waiting for a response.

When you search there support forum it says this. Can you believe it.??

Dom, how do we do this?

From Technorati:

Automatic Ping

If your blog platform doesn’t already ping Technorati, you can configure your blog software to ping Technorati automatically by entering http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping into your blog’s configuration.

Quite a few guys got their sites added until you guys started having problems a few months ago. Not sure if something changed on their side as they were giving errors for awhile saying they weren't taking new listings.

Mike, pinging them won't help as it's not done until after you're connected.

It seems to be getting technical, and I am not a computer whiz, so maybe someone else should figure this out.

any other site you would suggest we submit our blog?

The main thing is that the search engines have already picked up your blog. There are some other blog directories but technorati is by far the largest.

Will just doing our blogs get them picked up or noted on other directories?

Yes it'll get you on some, but there's also a whole bunch of directories that you can add your blog to manually.

This list will keep you busy awhile :) http://www.toprankblog.com/rss-blog-directories/

dang thats a long list.

It's like that old joke, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.....

Yup. Or the alternative if you have teenage kids. You teach them how and pay them 10 cents a submission :)

What if we don't have kids yet?  Do I still have to eat an elephant?

I hear it tastes like chicken

I have not been able to figure out what URL to use at techorati that will work

Mark, no one else can either!

Ditto

What URL do we use to hook up with techorati? I haven't been able to come up with anything that will work

Mark, you don't have any blogs going yet to hook up with them.

John, you should be using: http://www.oklahomahomeinspector.biz/blog/feed
Louie, you should be using: http://www.southwesthomeinspect.com/blog/feed

Dom thank you.

Dominic hmm I must be doing something wrong cause I created a blog

You must have the link disabled as I can't see it on your site. Click on Menus and go down to blog and click Enable.

OK I enabled it can you see it now? My blog?

If you want to copy and paste an RSS to your blog where do you copy it to?

I don't see the blog yet.

well I enabled it so I am not sure what the deal is with the blog not showing up

It was still disabled. I just enabled it for you.

I lost my password and user name to technorati now I can't get in been waiting for a email from them for 2 days..

Louie I didn't even lose mine and I couldn't get back in and I had them send me a new password 2 times but it never has come, I think that site is all messed up

That sounds about right.. :-X

Looks like their problems are just going on and on. Time to find some more sites that spread blogs ;)

I did that and I enabled it the other day

The only choice is edit and disable so it must be enabled

I enabled it back in post 147. Maybe you didn't save when you did it the first time. But I don't know!

Thanks but I sure don't understand what the deal is with it here, like I said I kept checking it, I enabled it and each time you said you didn't see it I went back but my only choices were disable and what ever the other was but no enable so there was nothing more I could do with it to enable it

Mark, make sure that when you check or disable items, or even update items that you click the submit button. If you do not the changes may not take affect.

I read all 8 pages of this thread and page one again.  The answer to the question I have must be so simple that it doesn't need discussing because I can't find it.  :)
In the first post Dominic said I created an account but I can't find anything that tells me where or how to submit my blog feed.  Help please?
Thank you.

Edit: I hope it is Okay to resurrect an old thread.  Actually this one was not that old so it only needed to be revived, not resurrected.

Technorati has been having problems for awhile and no one has been able to successfully submit a blog to them for quite awhile. I'll try to find some alternative sites.