As you know, getting links back to your blog from highly ranked web sites is a great way to both promote your blog to new potential readers and raise your blog’s ranking in Google and other search engines (so more people can find it.)

A good source of information on blog promotion and making money on line is a guy named Matt Garrett. I’ve got his ebook Lazy Git Marketing, and I like it.

So I joined his email list. You should, too. There is no cost to subscribe, and he offers some gems of advice.

Although Matt prefers to use html sites, everything he says about promoting web sites and making money with them applies equally to blogs. And he’s a pretty clever guy.

Today, just one valuable piece of information (out of several) from a recent blog post of Matt’s made the whole subscription worthwhile. He has developed a no-cost Facebook application (if you haven’t yet joined Facebook, do) that lets you add links to all your blogs and websites.

If you do not belong to Facebook, you are missing out on an opportunity to promote yourself and your blogs. Nowadays more and more employers and clients expect to be able to find you on Facebook. It is your face to the world.

Matt’s new Facebook application lets you link back to your own and others’ blogs and web sites. It also does several other things. Here’s a quote from Matt’s email newsletter:

Did you know it’s possible to get links to your sites from your
Facebook Profile page?

There’s a new facebook app called TagK that allows you to add links
to all your social site profiles, like MySpace and Flickr, to your
profile page, but the REAL neat feature of this app is if you
invite a few friends to use it as well then you get bespoke links
that you can use for linking to your own sites/blogs…

You might recognise one of the people behind this new app…

you can visit the blog for the app, which includes the link to add
the app, here:

http://clicks.aweber.com/y/ct/?l=MPDTl&m=1f5hYlCNd9JiQr&b=U7kaeRwm7s_KT67hRxfBPQ

So, you might want to take a look. This one application has so many possibilities that it makes Facebook a great place for promoting your blog.

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I just discovered this site where you can make a widget of your own blog posts. They call it a “blidget.”

This widget, or blidget, automatically picks up and displays your last few blog posts. It is your very own private BlogRush-type widget, featuring only your own blog!

Others can then get your blidget and put it on their blogs if they want to keep up with your posts (sort of like putting the Digg widget on your blog). Or you can put your blidget on other blogs and/or websites that you own.

Not only that, but when you create a blidget, you can then easily add it to your Facebook, MySpace, LiveJournal, or other site by clicking a button. It’s all very automated and easy.

Here is an example that I made for this blog:

You can customize your widget, and others who get your widget to put on their blog can customize it to suit their site.

Register, and you can store your widgets and have them listed in a blog directory for others to see (and maybe post on their blogs).

Also, by registering your blog, you get a free link back to your site from what is sure to be a highly Google-ranked site as it catches on. (That’s great for getting traffic and helping raise your blog’s ranking).

This is really fun stuff! Go see for yourself at Widgetbox.com.

If you do a lot of blog design (or web design), you know what a pain it is when your PC seems to get slower and slower. That is not your imagination—or too much caffeine.

PCs really do get slower and slower after you have used them for awhile. The more you use them, the sooner that happens.

While there are software programs that claim to clean up (and speed up) your PC for you, they only do a partial job. But a young guy named Kris Maineri has a better way. For $10 he’ll sell you an ebook with videos to walk you step-by-step through cleaning up your PC to make it faster.

It’s called PC Secret Formula. It really is only ten bucks, including the videos. It’s easy and effective, and it works.

Even better, he will show you how to keep your PC from slowing to a crawl again. It takes just a little more time than installing and running one of those pricey programs, and it does a lot more good.

Your PC will run faster than it has in a long time. And at $10, it’s way cheaper than buying a new one.

How does this relate to blog design? When you are sick and tired of working on your blog design because you are tired of fighting a slow PC, you tend to skip things, cut corners, and sacrifice quality. (Ask me how I know?)

We never have as much time to spend on design as we would like anyway. That is, there is never time to really perfect the design as much as you could. Why waste time needlessly waiting on a slow PC?

Instead, try the PC Secret Formula. Speeding up your PC will leave you more time for designing blogs.

If you think blog design does not matter much, or if you think it’s about looking hip or cool, you need to see the scientific proof that design can make or break your blog or web site.

If you have not taken professional courses in publication design, this video may blow your mind. It explains how eye-tracking devices and software are used to find out exactly where visitors look at your pages, how long their eyes stay on each part, and the path the eyes take an your page. You may be shocked.

If you have studied publication design, it is still a good reminder. You may still be surprised.

Go watch this amazing video at Stompernet.

While there, you can download a free program to help you check the layout of your own site. Plus, there are many other videos you will want to see.

Incidentally, the speaker is a guest blogger on the site. Clearly he did not have any input in the Stompernet site design, because the lack of contrast between the light yellow-green links and the white background makes small type illegible and medium type criminally hard on the eyes.

But the video is top notch, so please take a look. Good design is not about great graphics and trendy colors. After viewing this video, I don’t think you’ll ever look at a blog or web design the same way again.