The power of "pinging" was brought home to me in a big way tonight when this post on my Saskatoon blog appeared at the top of my Google Blog search results, just eighteen minutes after it was posted to my blog.

As a newcomer to the whole blogging scene, I've spent many hours reading various blogs.  Those with a "how to blog" component have been most interesting to me as I flounder around out here trying to get started.  I have appreciated the advice that Barry Hurd provides on Barry's Blog and I love Jim Cronin's Real Estate Tomato.  Of course, who could even touch on this topic without mentioning Mary McKnight of RSS Pieces?  It seems that all of her posts are packed with more good tips than a real agent could be expected to implement in a month.  I think it's actually part of her plan for Web 2.0 domination.  Let them know just how much they should be doing with their blogs, give them just enough time to realize that they can't possibly do it all themselves, and when their brains are swimming in technical mumbo jumbo, bang, your all hers!! 

A couple of weeks ago, overwhelmed by the task at hand and not really knowing where to start, I decided to pick up on just a few of Mary's recommendations.  By this time I'm realizing that thinking about how I'm going to do it all has me paralyzed.  So, I picked a couple of small tasks which I knew I could handle and decided to make them part of the whole routine. 

I registered my blog at Google's Blog search.  "Thank you for submitting your blog.  We will try to index your blog soon as possible." 

Ah, crap! 

My blog platform is still in beta and I haven't figured out how to automate the ping.  Each day, after I've completed my daily post I scurry over to Google Blog search and conduct the "ping."  Tonight, I finally found that Google love as my first listing appeared there in the number one spot for Saskatoon real estate.

Thanks to Mary, Jim, Barry and the many others who give so freely at activerain and elsewhere.  I hope to spend more time here making an actual contribution as a settle into a daily blogging routine and get more comfortable with the whole thing.

Now, where to next?