Why I've Changed My Stance On Publishing Full Feeds

I received a very nice email from one of my subscribers this evening asking why I had decided to publish only the links to my post rather than the entire article.  

My response was simple really … "I was experimenting" since I wasn't sure which format gave the biggest benefit.

In truth, I had noticed that whilst I received way more trackbacks from suspicious sources when publishing full feeds, my RSS subscriptions increased.

For those of you who read my blog via RSS reader, you'll be pleased to know that I'm going forward "Full Feed Ahead" from now on.

So, what changed my decision?

Two blog posts really, one from Marie Langer at http://www.marialanger.com/2007/01/31/full-text-vs-summary-feeds and of course, it wouldn't be right to make such an important decision before going and checking the site of the "Mighty Blogger," Darren Rowse.  I had already made up my mind prior to reading this blog post, but this was the clincher.

I'm satisfied that whilst there are some negatives to publishing full feeds, the benefits far outweigh them.  Since I don't sell ads on my site at the moment, it's not such a big deal to me to get people to the site but besides this, I'm of the opinion that when subscribers are ready, they will come!

Back in July, I wrote an article about link building and since that time I've done a lot of research but also had some negative results on my blog that has made me rethink the whole 3 way linking strategy.

I suppose the question isn's so much "Is Link Building Unethical" as much as it should be "Is It Acceptable To Google," and the other search engines for that matter?

First of all, let me go over my history of using a three way linking strategy on my blog:

I was one of the early adopters of 3WayLinks back in July 2007 and in a few months, my blog went up from a PageRank 5 to a PageRank 6 and, as you can imagine, I was ecstatic! 

Weeks later, it went back to a PageRank 5 and after weeks of scrathing my head, I discovered that having moved my blog to a new server, I had forgotten to add the resource link to the bottom of my blog which displays all the sites I was linking to in the 3 way links network and, without my knowledge, I was kicked out of the network.

If you read my rant earlier about Twitter and you're still new to this whole game, I have just found something that I think you'll love …

Joel Comm is giving away, for free, a 30 page "Twitter Secrets" report about the busines benefits of Twitter and how to use it.

You can go download it from http://www.joelcomm.com/free_twitter_report.html 

Thanks to this report from Joel, I can soon remove those learner plates and become more of a pro at twittering.

Thanks Joel!

I admit, I'm a late adopter to Twitter but I've noticed something I want to share with you.

I don't tweet nearly as much as I ought to, but so far I've connected with some great people, though not many.  Some of my Twitter contacts and I have offline chats too and so I'm really seeing the value of "twittering on" sometimes.

I'm not in the habit of connecting with everyone who tweets me though and here's why … visit the profile of the next person who tweets you and check out the number of people they're following compared to the number of people following them.  If there is a serious disproportion of those they're following compared to the number of people following them, you won't have to look far to see why there is a discrepancy …

All or most of their tweets are ads.  Even worse, they often sound like this …

"New Promotion and Offers."

And then check out their updates … they often have few of these too - and most or all relate to their promotions.

I really felt it necessary to answer this question in a blog post because it's a question I get asked so many times.  More specifically though, the question is:

"Do You Make Money From Your Blog or Do You Make Money Mainly From Your Services?"

Before I answer this question, I want to rewind back to 2005 when Derek Gehl and his team at The Internet Marketing Center (IMC) reviewed my website, TrishJones.com for their November edition of their subscription newsletter, Secrets of their Success.  This was just before I decided to turn my web site into a blog by the way.

The review was worth $5,000 and included a complete new website with graphics as well as step-by-step instructions on how to monetize my site.  But, there was one thing they pointed out to me in their feedback which caused me some concern … They said:

"It's Harder to Sell Your Services Online, Than it is to Sell a Product"

And, if you're a member of The Internet Marketing Center's "Secrets to their Success," you can go check out the review.