I'm very excited that this is my first edition of the Kikolani newsletter.  I hope that you enjoy it, and if there is anything you would like to see more or less of, please feel free to just reply to this message and let me know.  My goal is to make the mailings as informative and valuable to you as possible, so please do not hesitate to give me your feedback!

Famous Bloggers and ComLuv are running a huge guest blogging contest.  When I say huge, I mean over $3,500 in prizes going to contestants.  If you haven't entered, you have until July 7th to submit your post.  As it is a commenting contest, post popularity will be judged by number of contests, tweets, and a few other surprise factors which may include your support of other contestants.

My entry was an idea I have had for several months about alternative ways to use CommentLuv, and since I have been talking to Andy, creator of CommentLuv, I was able to verify, research, and test that this was going to work before I spread the word.

For those of you who also do article writing on sites like HubPages, Squidoo, Bukisa, EzineArticles, GoArticles, or other article networks, my post is about how to utilize CommentLuv enabled blogs to promote your articles on article directories and networks.  Basically, just like you register your blog and can get your latest 10 blog posts, you can also register your HubPages, for example, and get your latest 10 hubs.  Included in the article is specific guides for the above mentioned article directories, and the same basic steps from those can be applied to any network that allows you to have an author's feed.

If you are trying to generate income from those kinds of sites, or build backlinks to your blog, promoting your articles via blog commenting will help boost their traffic and position in search results which will help you achieve any of your article writing goals. 

So, as a small favor, since as you can imagine, I would love to win a piece of the contest pie, I would HIGHLY appreciate a retweet, comment, or both of this post.  And the more retweets the merrier! Of course, that is assuming that you like it, and I am almost positive that you will.  

In May, I wrote my first review post on Kikolani about the Income Blogging Guide Course.  I have never considered writing review posts about something I had not actually used yet, but between the fact that I interact with the creators of the course (Andrew of We Build Your Blog and Joel of Blog Tech Guy) often, and he gave me several sample chapters, I was not only convinced it was a great course, but I was also convinced to sign up myself.  

True to my word in the post, I am going to sign up tomorrow to start this 6 month course to learn how to make money blogging the right way.   If you have ever been interested in starting a program about making money through blogging, but did not know where to start, I would highly recommend this one as the one for the following reasons:

• You pay per month, not all up front. The course is $47 per month for 6 months.
• You have the option to cancel after 60 days, so you can get the first 2 months of coursework before you have to fully commit.
• You get a free premium WordPress theme (Headway or Flexx - or Thesis for an additional $40), and they will install it for you.  You get this before the 60 days, so even if you cancel, you keep the theme for free, which is a $80+ value in itself.
• You get access to a member's forum (included in the membership and free for life, even after you finish the course) to discuss your journey in the course and get support.

As most of you may or may not know, I have been blogging for almost two years now, and also working in the SEO field for half of that.  This gives me a unique perspective from both sides, especially when it comes to the popular link building technique of blog commenting for link building.  

This week, I posted probably my largest article to date - a comprehensive guide to blog commenting for link building.  Since this strategy isn't going away anytime soon, I think it's best to let people know how to do it in a way that is good for everyone involved - commenter and blog owner.

Why am I sharing this with you?  I want your thoughts, that's why.  I think that it is important for SEO's to get a blogger's point of view, so if you have a moment,  stop by and let this audience know what is acceptable and not in comments.  Hopefully, as bloggers, we can get people to understand that blog commenting isn't just link building - it's about interacting as well.  

Also, if you are looking for tips on how to get more out of blog commenting for exposure for your own blog, this post has that too, including how to find blogs in your niche, how to use certain commenting technologies, and the "roadblocks" that you may run into.