I read a good article by Scott Jangro on his blog entitled “Voices Carry. Watch the F-bomb!” with some words for the wise on carefully selecting your blog titles when you know you’re a member of these types of link exchange widgets. I was surprised that I was the first to Digg the story. It’s a good read, so I recommend it.

I digress. This particular article perked my interest because in the last week or so I’ve joined several link exchange engines, BlogRush, MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, and BumpZee to be exact, and understandably each one requires a reciprocal link on your blog to spread the word. It’s just how they work… others link to you, you link to them. You scratch my back, I scratch yours. Honestly it’s only fair.

So, I oblige. But as cool as widgets can be, they’re getting to be a bit overwhelming. I’ve come to notice that there’s a fine line between promoting one’s blog on all available channels and cluttering up the sidebar with a million widgets that your readers will most likely avoid anyway. Maybe if I had a wider format template… but I haven’t found a wider blog template that I like.

I know there are some people out there reading because Feed Burner tells me I have 6 subscribers…. this is your chance to tell me how to do my job! Any thoughts on which link exchange is best? Tips of the trade to share with me? Help me out!

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• MyBlogLog is totally addicting. Apparently I have three admirers already, which I’ll have to check out tomorrow as my work day is done. Hit me up and join my community!
  
• I’m still not 100% convinced that I should bother with Facebook yet. Someone convince me.
• BlogRush really has potential! I’m starting to love it.
• I really enjoy all these tools that tell me who’s viewing my blog. At least I know I’m not talking to myself (so much) anymore!
• Someone should create a website where you can submit your blog link and it automatically adds it to Digg, del.icio.us, Technorati, MyBlogLog, etc. Unfortunately I don’t have the engineering expertise to do this, so someone get on that for me and give me a free account forever please. Thanks.
• I could do this ALL DAY. Put aside the Affiliate Program and the Mailing Services and everything else I do here… I could blog and keep up on the social networking deals for 8 hours. I practically put 5 hours into this today.
• As much as I love my LG VX9800, I’m starting to think it might be time for a Treo or Blackberry so I can access the web from anywhere. Which is scary. Any suggestions on which is better?
• Die Coke doesn’t taste that bad after all. I guess I could get used to this.

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Since attending Search Engine Strategies in San Jose and listening to the intensely enthralling British/North Carolinian accent of founder Andy Beal, I’ve been hooked on Marketing Pilgrim. A good impression goes a long way with me, and I love that Andy seemed to read my mind in coming straight out and telling us in the audience the origins of his very unique speech accent. He was right… it would have bothered me the entire speech had I not been able to figure it out.

Hence, he made me laugh AND cleared the air and I was able to thoroughly enjoy his presentation and totally loved what he had to say and his take on Social Media Marketing and Reputation Management. I’ve since checked out the blog and find that it’s one of the best, most well written marketing blogs I’ve come across.

Andy and his staff are knowledgeable AND entertaining, two qualities that make a winning blog for me. They blog frequently and always have the latest tech news. I find myself getting most of my industry news from their website first, then seeking out other sources and clicking on their provided links for more in depth information. Although, they’re very thorough so it’s not often that I even have to look for a second source.

They’re also not afraid to give their opinion. The whole purpose of blogs that sets them apart from newspapers or websites strictly set up to deliver news is the take on that news. If I wanted to know what Blog Rush is, I could go almost anywhere to find a press release or their About Us page. But reading about BlogRush on Marketing Pilgrim gave me a very net savvy user’s opinion of the fledgling service and laid out some great food for thought.

Now, of course being new to the professional blogging kingdom I signed up anyway, BUT I learned about it on Marketing Pilgrim, and I think that’s the point here. All of the Pilgrim’s Picks are great sources for news and tools that are truly relevant, and I probably would never have found otherwise so kudos to the staff over there. Marketing Pilgrim has definitely overtaken my GoogleReader settings as one of my favorite blogs out there.

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