… of the Year, is now online.

You have no idea how close it came to being the last one ever…

Whew!

In this Christmas Issue:

Five Seasons Freebies
Four Traffic Weapons
Three Blogger’s Resources
Two On-Going Contest
and a Funny Chirstmas Video of Me!

Can’t wait to see you there!

I know what you expect me to say. You expect me to say “oh, all that tag and ping stuff is rubbish, I taught you that already and if you buy that package it’s rubbish and you’re wasting your money.”

But that’s not what I was going to say at all. And I did teach you about tagging and pinging in 2004 and early 2005.

And I’ve been harping on responsible pinging since then, and I told you repeatedly that abusing pinging would not even bring quality short term traffic, and could get a site banned.

However, having bought the package so I could review it, and see what the fuss was about, I can’t bring myself to say it’s rubbish. Far from it. I actually think it would be useful for a beginner who just can’t wrap their mind around pinging. I couldn’t at first, and if I’d had it, it would have helped me. I think it’s overpriced, and I think that if you should try and figure it out on your own first.

But if you can’t, get the guide but Use It As Directed. If you have my book and you follow the directions in the pinging section, you’ll get great results, sure. But I don’t go into as much detail, at all.

Now if you’re an expert blogger and you’re expecting it to uncover some secret you don’t already know, it’s pretty much a waste of your money, unless, like me, $147 really isn’t a big deal to you. I won’t be totally gauche and say it’s not an expense to me or that I wipe my behind with wads of cash. But if I went on vacation and I didn’t stay in a timeshare property where there was a kitchen, I’d spend more than that eating during the course of a day. Not to mention the fact that if I use it in my business it’s a write-off. And here I am telling you about it, right?

What I feel the book was lacking that would make it a medium-level benefit for an expert blogger are all the sources you can use to tag a link, with or without pinging, and a really in-depth look at tagging from a search engine standpoint, with all the benefits it can bring if not abused.

So in Traffic Reality this week, the monthly Quick Report is going to be on Tagging and Pinging, and how I use it to get my blogging clients up to 43 no-guilt links any time I want, to any page, any time I like, without abusing any social bookmarking service.

Bottom Line Advice: If you’re a beginner and you need to be walked through the process, Tag and Ping will help you with that but it’s a bit pricey. Should you buy it? Weigh the cost of learning to do this right against lost traffic to your blog. If the free guides out there aren’t doing it for you, then it wouldn’t be a bad investment, though again, I feel it’s a little steep.

If you have my guide or package on blogging, turn to the ping section. That should do it for you. If you don’t have it, dude, don’t get it just for that.

If you’re an expert blogger, your money is best spent elsewhere unless the price tag doesn’t bother you. There are one or two tips in there that make it worth your while in that case, and the included software is kinda neat if you have a use for it.

Okay. Next I’m going to do a post about the teleseminar I’ll be at tomorrow, take a nap, then do a short series on article marketing, and then … do some other stuff that doesn’t concern you.

Nosy.