HOW-TO : Pimp and promote, culturekitchen-style

Membership at culturekitchen has its privileges. One of them is being a member of a blog that, as someone told me recently, "scares people because it's so brainy".

Yah.

We are the thinking woman's (and man's) blog. Welcome to the thinkidrome.

Heh.

I owe the blogs hard thinkitude to my sluttish attraction to good writing. I have always made it a point to drag into this here blog the bloggers I love to read elsewhere.

Call it blogmiscuity, but it works.

Hence the list of contributors and the growing list of excellent forum topics posted by members. It's almost impossible not to promote people to the front page. The blogging is good and people have taken notice.

So with that in mind, I'm urging you to make good use of some of our promotion features that come with your membership: the About The Author box, Comments footnote,Linking Services buttons, Invite a friend form and Send this post option.

FEATURE : "About this Author" box

A good way to promote yourself and your blog is by writing a short bio at the end of each article or post you write. We have added an entry form in your account settings to simplify the process. Once you fill it out, it will automatically update all your posts (even previously published ones) with your new mini-bio and information.

How to update your Author Box

1. On the left-side of the blog you will see a box with your name. That's your navigation block.

Click on "My Account" to go to your profile page.

2. Once on your profile page, click on the "Edit" tab to change your profile settings.

3. Scroll down the page until you find a closed tab that reads "Additional user info". Click on the little triangle or the words to open it.

4. Once opened, write in a one-line bio --please keep HTML to a bare minimum. If you don't, we reserve the right to edit and/or remove this feature from your membership privileges.

5. Click on "Submit" to save your new "Author box". Find one of your posts to check if it is to your liking.

That's it. You have completed the first step to culturekitchen pimpitude.

FEATURE : Comment Footnote

Another way to promote yourself and your blog is to write a short blurb at the end of each comment you post.

Spammers know this and that's why this blog has been under attack from them for years. What they don't know is that we have instituted a site-wide NOFOLLOW rule for all of our comments. What does it mean?

We get about 2000 comment spams a day. On a slow day. Many unethical SEO companies try to embed links in our blogs so they can poach and use for their splogs our reputation and high-ranking in search engines like Google.

So, I have taken the drastic measure to block all search engine traffic from our comments section. ALL OF IT. This means you will not get any search engine benefits from links in our comments, but you will get whatever traffic is generated when someone clicks on a link to your organization or blog.

With that clarified, let's get into the nitty gritty of creating a comments footer. We have added an entry form in your account settings to simplify the process.

How to update your Comments Settings

1. On the left-side of the blog you will see a box with your name. That's your navigation block.

Click on "My Account" to go to your profile page.

2. Once on your profile page, click on the "Edit" tab to change your profile settings.

3. Scroll down the page until you find the "Comments Settings".

4. Write in a short blurb with only one link to your blog --please keep HTML to a bare minimum. If you don't, we reserve the right to edit and/or remove this feature from your membership privileges.

5. Click on "Submit" to save your new "Comments Settings".

Previous comments will not be updated, but from now on all comment boxes will be pre-loaded with your footer --which, btw, you will be able to re-format however way you want.

That's it. You have completed the second step to culturekitchen pimpitude.