I was just on Mybloglog, and the page layout has changed. According to the Mybloglog Blog, they revamped the page to make room for the Whats New With You? section.

This change reminds me of Facebook were all your peeps friends can see what you have been up to. From what I can tell you can set the What’s New With You? section so that it shows either your updates to include blog posts,Tweets, or any other services you may have added to be displayed. You can also opt to show either your updates or your entire communities updates, which is what I currently have the PixelHead Buzz page set to.

Looking at the comments in the Update post on the Mybloglog blog, the responses to the change by the Mybloglog User community are both good and bad. For me, the new layout gets a thumbs up.

How do You Like the New Mybloglog Layout?

Tags: Mybloglog

A new SEO client asked me for some suggestions for building traffic using the Social Media. So I have decided rather than giving the client a huge report, I would write a series of posts here that give some suggestions. I will also be linking out to other sites that can act as resources as well.

To begin with, I am going to suggest joining four of my favorite social marketing sites to start and focus on building networks on these four sites. The four sites I am going to suggest starting with are Digg, Stumbleupon, Blogcatalog and the subject of this post, Mybloglog. See my Networks page for more of the sites I use.
Joining Mybloglog.com

Mybloglog, which is now part of Yahoo is a great site for developing a network of bloggers.

Join by visiting the the Mybloglog homepage, and clicking the “sign up” link. This will require you to create a Yahoo ID, for which you can use on all the Yahoo Internet properties if you so choose.

After creating your Yahoo Id or using an old Yahoo Id, you will then need to add information to your profile such as personal data if you so choose. I would also add a picture for your avatar, which does not need to be a picture of you, but can be if you so desire. Unique eye catching avatars are always a good thing, but stay away from the sexy lady type avatar.

Next after updating your profile information, it is time to add the sites/ blogs that you author. Feel free to add a non-blog site as well, but I would suggest adding a blog as your first site. To add your blog, when you are on your profile home page, click the green box under “account tools” that says “Add site/blog that I author”.

In the Blog/site Name, type in the name of your site, this can be a keyword title or the actual title.

Next put in the url of the mybloglog page, which should be a keyword title. Use dashes between multiple words of th url, don’t jumble all the words together.

Fill in the other items and click the “Add Blog/Site” button.

Adding A Mybloglog Widget

Next, I recommend adding a Mybloglog widget to your sidebar, which can be obtained by clicking the “widgets link”. I like using the Recent Readers widget, but you can use a different one. Using the Recent Readers widget, and probably the others, will enable you to receive some traffic stats that are pretty handy. Not nearly as good as Google analytics, but they provide some nice traffic stats such as page views, where visitors came from etc.

Additionally, you can also sign up for a premium Mybloglog account which will enable you to receive stats over a longer period of time as well as up to the minute stats. For the free account you will only be able to see the previous days results and the past 10 days I believe.

If you use a WordPress platform, depending upon the template and WordPress version, their is a widget that you can add that allows easy installation of the Mybloglog widget.

If you have a free WordPress.com here is a post that could help you with adding the Mybloglog widget to your blog. Its a bit tricky with the free ones, but it can be done.

Additionally, if neither of these can help you, after you have the widget made to fit your site(adjust colors, size, text) you can get the code and copy it into your sidebar template manually via your blogs dashboard.

Getting Traffic Using Mybloglog

First, in the search bar at the top of the Mybloglog page, type in your keywords or related keywords. Sites that are competing or closely related to yours should show up for these phrases, then:

• Click on the profile avatars of members that show up and add them as contacts after you visit their sites and determine they are a good match to network.
• Click on the communities that show up for the search term, and join the communities. Visit the sites and join in the conversation on these blogs by making meaningful comments. This will result in visits to your blog from both the site owner and visitors to the site that may like your comments.

When someone visits your blog, what do you do?

If the person leaves a comment, return the favor and visit their site if they leave a site url in the comments field.(most do).

If the person does not leave a comment, but shows up on your widget, click on their avatar and either: leave them a message on Mybloglog or visit their site and leave a comment. Mybloglog requires you to add them as a contact before you can leave them a message on their profile page. In the message thank them for visiting your site and I would suggest making a comment about their site after you have visited it of course.

Other Mybloglog Resources:

• The Mybloglog Blog
• Got any Mybloglog resources or tips to add?

Tags: Mybloglog, Social Media, Blogging, Networking

I was going through Mybloglog a bit this morning, and found two sites that I remember being on that I would consider adding to my favorites.

	Paulathesurfmom has a blog, Queen of the Surf Pirates, which is a surfing website for this 3rd grade teacher/ mom of twin girls. Some very interesting posts to say the least. I have never seen a blogspot blog set up quite like this one.
	Another Internet marketing community, PlugIm I had been on the site before, and meant to get back to browse, because I noticed that the Plugim pretty cool use of Feeds on the site. Bloggers can submit there feed, and interesting posts can appear on the front page of the site. I got an email this morning telling me about a text-link-contest that the site has going.

If you are so inclined, check out these additional two sites as well as my other favorites, which I have also bookmarked to my del.icio.us favorites.

Mybloglog Favorites for the Week. I visited quite a few sites, but only two stick out in my memory. (I am getting quite old and Alzheimer’s does run in my family)

The first Pixelopera is a really groovy picture blog by Tamar Weinberg. I found my self browsing through the site for quite a while. Her photos are stunning. With her assistance, I am sure I will be making a new camera purchase in the near future. Oh, thanks for telling me what the EXIF file is and how to locate it.

One Million Love Messages is a blog that has a goal to post as it name indicates, one million love messages. Visitors to the site, email a love message that they would like to post. I myself helped them out a little. Lizzie was very delighted. Stop by and read some messages of love, and if you are so inclined, email them a message for the one you love. Here is the link to one of my love notes about or to Lizzy.

I know that there were more sites that I visited, but these were two great sites that I really thought had promise not only for myself, but also for others. I owe you one next week.