The blog ping was developed to allow bloggers to let blog indexing services know they have made a new post in their blog. There are many services that can be pinged, Technorati probably being the most famous of these.
Usually your blog software can be configured to ping different services. To let your blogging software know about new sites to ping you need to supply it with the web address to ping. For example the Technorati addresss is
rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
The ping message will let the indexing service know that your blog has been updated. As a result your new post will be indexed by the service.
As a result of pinging a blog indexing service your new post or a summary of it will be added to the database of the service that you have pinged. This usually means that an entry will be added to their recent pings page where a link to your post will appear. Some services also index a history of pinged data so searches with such a service will generate search traffic.
If your software does not include a facility to send out pings then you can use a service such as Ping-o-matic that can do this for you. Ping-o-matic works by pinging the most popular services for you. All you need to do is supply your blog name and blog URL.