The purpose of this post is to create an index of the free blogging platforms that are available on the Internet.

I have used many of these free blogging platforms to create quick and dirty affiliate marketing sites. I find that Google really likes several of these platforms, for example Sampa. Any time I create a Sampa page, I have very good luck in getting ranked very high in Google for the keywords that I am targeting.

While I don’t recommend that you use these platforms for your primaryblogs (always own your domain names), they are great for affiliate marketing and niche marketing sites.

Here is the Ultimate List of Free Blogging Platforms:

• Aeonity.com
• blog.com
• blogates.com
• blogetery.com
• blogger.com
• blogr.com
• blogsome.com
• blogster.com
• bravenet.com/webtools/journal/
• clearblogs.com
• ehow.com
• googlepages.com
• hubpages.com
• iseekblog.com
• myspace.com
• pbwiki.com
• quazen.com
• rticlz.com
• sampa.com
• squarespace.com
• squidoo.com
• stikipad.com
• thoughts.com
• tumblr.com
• wikispaces.com
• wordpress.com

I am sure that I have missed many. Please leave a comment with the name of any that I have missed and I will add them to the list. I will also give you credit by linking to your blog.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to guest blog on Jason Blanton’s blog Success For Your Blog.  The topic of my article is ways to say thank you to your readers.  Please go check it out.  Here is an excerpt from this article.

Since starting Newest on the Net, here are the ways I have thanked my reader.

1. MyBlogLog – Installing MyBlogLog is a great way to track who is visiting your blog. Whenever a new person shows up on MyBlogLog, I click their picture and leave a thank you message at the MyBlogLog site.
2. Bumpzee – Like MyBlogLog, I install the Bumpzee widget on my blog and thank my Bumpzee visitors.
3. BlogCatalog – This is another widget that you can use to track visitors and say thank you.
4. Reply to Commenters – Whenever someone leaves a comment on your blog, make sure that you reply to their comments. Even if you just make a small post acknowledging their posts, it will encourage future commenting.
5. Email Commenters – Send emails to your commenters telling them thank you for visiting your blog and leaving a comment. This presents another great opportunity for you to ask them to subscribe to your RSS feed.

The first part of this RSS subscriber series examines why RSS subscribers are the foundation for a successful blog. Many beginning and experienced bloggers spend too much time worrying about increasing traffic and not increasing the number of people subscribing to their blogs. This is very short sighted. RSS subscribers are the bedrock of a successful blog.

RSS Subscribers Are Your Most Loyal Readers:

People who subscribe to your blog are your most loyal readers. By subscribing they are saying that they do not want to miss any of your articles. They are saying that your work is important to them and they want to read more. This loyal base of readers needs to be established and cared for.

This is especially true for a blog like Newest on the Net. RSS subscribers are usually tech savvy and demanding of information. These are the perfect type of readers for a blog focused on the latest trends online, like blogging and social media.

RSS Subscribers Represent a Very Stable Source of Traffic:

All bloggers are focused on increasing traffic to their blogs. There are several sources of traffic, including direct referrals, social media sites, search engines and RSS subscribers. RSS subscribers are your most stable source of traffic. If Google would go out of business tomorrow, your RSS subscribers would still be able to find you.

RSS Subscribers Are More Likely to Link to Your Blog:

Next to increasing traffic, the second most important thing for bloggers is getting backlinks. A lot of RSS subscribers are bloggers themselves. These bloggers are more likely to link to your content because they are seeing each of your articles in their feed readers. This makes RSS subscribers extremely important.

RSS Subscribers Are More Likely to Submit Your Sites to Social Networking Sites like Digg and Sphinn:

In order to make the front page of Digg or Sphinn or to maximize the number of stumbles you get on StumbleUpon, you need a consistent group of readers who vote for your content. There is no better group of people than your RSS subscribers. These RSS subscribers have the power to make your articles go viral and without them you can have the best content in the world but your articles will go no where.

To summarize, RSS subscribers are so important because,

• They are your most loyal readers;

• They are a very stable traffic source;

• People who subscribe to your blogs are more likely to linkback to your articles; and

• RSS subscribers are great for submitting your articles to social media sites.

What are some other reasons that RSS subscribers are important?

Since creating Newest on the Net about thirty days ago, one of my main priorities has been increasing the number of people subscribing to my RSS feed. Due to this focus on increasing subscribers, I decided to write a series of articles dedicated to RSS subscriptions. In the following days and weeks, I will write a series of articles examining RSS feeds.

This series will include articles on,

· The importance of RSS subscribers

·  35 Tips to Increase RSS Subscribers

· Getting RSS subscribers to read your articles

· Monetization of RSS feeds

I hope that you will like this series. If there are any topics that you would like me to cover, please leave a comment or a question. I will incorporate your questions and comments into my articles. Anytime I incorporate your comments or questions into these articles, I will link to your blog. I really hope that in this way we will generate a lot of great conversation around these topics.

If you don’t want to miss any of these articles, please subscribe to my blog.

The following article is a guest article from Jason Blanton from Success For Your Blog. Please go check out his great blog.

I wrote a little homework list of things that Bloggers should do in addition to all the other things they are doing in order to be more successful in their blogging. As a follow up I thought another 20 tips would be good to keep the blogging rolling.

1. Thank people that leave comments with an email. Also encourage them to subscribe to your blogs feed.

2. Use MyBlogLog and thank people for stopping by and encourage them to join your community.

3. End your posts with a question or phrase that will make readers want to leave a comment.

4. Guest Blog on another blog in your Niche.

5. Write link bait articles to get other bloggers to link to you.

6. Comment on other blogs in your niche.

7. Submit your articles to Social Bookmark sites.

8. Submit your articles to social news sites.

9. Stumble your posts or ask a friend to Stumble it for you.

10. Encourage readers to subscribe to your blog and give them a couple good reasons why they should.

11. Hold a contest and give something away.

12. Ask readers to save your site to their Technorati Favorites. Provide the link or a button.

13. Write reviews of other great blogs in your niche.

14. Ask your readers what they want you to write about. And then write about that.

15. Write viral posts that get dugg, Stumbled, Reddit and linked to from other blogs. Easier said than done sometimes.

16. Use a lot of white space and bold your key points.

17. Create Top 20 lists. Or top 10 top 8 or whatever you like.

18. Posts a few times per day, every day.

19. Think you articles through and proof read them.

20. Just be yourself. People are interested in character just as much as they are interested in your niche.

Lets see if we can come up with another 20 Tips. Leave a tip you use for gaining and keeping readers on your blog in the comments.

This post was written by Jason Blanton from Success For Your Blog.