Why Bloggers Need to Join Blogsvine

Get voted, get traffic, and get income. Those three reasons should sum it all I guess. I found this site through Entrecard. Yes, they’re really using entrecard. Blogsvine is a new social media site which gives you free blog promotion by submitting stories which its users vote on. The voting system is very much like Digg where your news gets more exposure when you’re voted more; just like its tagline: submit your blogs and start climbing. Currently, the site is still in its beta stage so there will still be more room for changes and further improvements.

So what’s in it for you? Like in other social media sites, votes here count. From my experience in using it, the theory is very much the same with the rest of them socializin’ sites: cook up a good headline and a good post and it will definitely catch other users’ attention. A good post, I believe, always has a potential for good traffic, you just have to send it out there for others to see and that’s what Blogsvine is for. When you submit your blog post here, you’ll get free promotion plus an extra back link to your post page which can help you in your SEO. Regarding traffic, if you’re barely getting any from StumbleUpon, Digg, or Delicious, you’re definitely going to get more here everytime you post. I’m not sure why, but it seems it’s easier to get attention here since most or all of its users are bloggers.

Regarding the earning stuff, Blogsvine shares with you 65% of the earnings produced by Google Adsense Ads shown on your submitted pages. You just have to enter your Adsense publisher id in your profile page, click “save”, and that’s it. It might not be that much but it’s good to have some extra streams in your adsense coming from other sources besides your site/s.

One of its features that caught my attention is the Top Users section where you can see its most active users and the not so active ones.

What’s good about this is that you are able to sort the listed users alphabetically, the total of their submitted posts, their total votes, and comments. I just want to emphasize this one because I believe this is an important feature to get the active users rewarded.

Joining Blogsvine is free. You just have to register, provide your profile information, and get the “Blogsvine bookmarklet” to be able to submit your posts. Currently, there is an available wordpress plugin which enables one to vote externally and maybe submit their posts too. I don’t know. I’m a Blogspot user so I have no idea about this one.

Basically, the best way to get exposure here is to get a link from the front page. And there are four ways to get it:

The best way. Get your post voted.

The entrecard. Be ready to spend 256 - 512 credits here.

Get some comments in your submitted page.

Or, get your self featured.

A nicely written and interesting post always get high votes in here. I’ll get one of my fingers cut if it ain’t true. Regarding entrecard, well, prepare your credits. The more Blogsvine gets popular the more its credit cost will soar up.

Here comes the interesting part. When your submitted article receives a comment, a link to it appears here.
The link lands in your submitted page where the link to your blog lies. How do you get comment you may ask? Submit something really interesting. Or maybe, something really outrageous that it will rouse Blogsvine members to say something about it (or maybe get you out of Blogsvine for good, LOLz). Or, if you’re willing to trade your reputation for it, comment on your own submitted page (good luck to you).

Another interesting way to get great exposure from the site is to have your profile displayed on the upper banner. How? Do what I’m doing. Make a nice review of Blogsvine and if it’s good enough you’re getting your slot up there. And after publishing your post, submit it to Blogsvine immediately to get their attention which I’ll also be doing right after I finish this.

Lastly, if you truly want to benefit from Blogsvine, spread the word and get more people to join it. The more users there are, the more visitors you’ll receive from Blogsvine.



technorati tags: blogsvine, social media

Promote Your Feeds with rssHugger

I’m joining rssHugger today to promote my blog’s feed. And I believe you should do the same to get more visitors and readers to your blog. The idea is simple, get your blog’s feed and URL someplace for an exposure to get other bloggers and non-bloggers attention, and rssHugger is one such place. By getting your blog’s feed in rssHugger, you don’t only get visitors and loyal readers to your blog; you’re also going to get a free back link to your blog and some deep links to your recent posts which could greatly benefit your search engine ranking. Remember what I told you about deep links last time?

RssHugger was created by Collin LaHay, an experienced entrepreneur, search engine optimizer, and internet marketer looking to expand his portfolio. His goal is to get as many blogs signed up as possible to bring blog writers and blog readers closer together through the power of internet and viral marketing. He will use the money from this project to pay off college expenses, invest in his other internet startup companies, sponsor like-minded business folk, and continue to support Kiva, who supports entrepreneurs in the developing world.

It’s easy to join, actually. Just sign-up for free then from here, you have two options to get your blog’s feed listed in rssHugger. Either pay for the one-time review fee of $20 or write an honest review of the site on the blog you’re registering. Your pending review should appear within 48 hours. So what are you waiting for, I believe this is the right time to join start-up sites like this, while they are still free. Join rssHugger now and get more exposure for your blog.

To know more about rssHugger and how to get better exposure in their listings, please see their About Page.



technorati tags: SEO, rss

Top 8 Techniques to Unlock Entrecard’s Full Potential

Entrecard has been proven many times over that it produces more traffic compared to other free traffic and free link exchange services and widgets in the internet. But, sad to say, some of its users find the traffic it produces as lacking quality; solely because they believe many of entrecard users are just after dropping their cards for credits, most of which resort to chain dropping and employing techniques to increase the frequency of their drops in a short period of time. Although there is some truth to it, I believe the majority of entrecard users don’t necessarily employ chain dropping without the attempt to take a moment and scan through what the blog in front of them is all about. The problem perhaps lies not in the intention of entrecard users but, with such a short attention span to jump from one blog to another, in the capacity of one’s blog to capture the interest of its visitor.

How then do you convert this constantly bouncing traffic from entrecard to the benefit of your blog? Here are the techniques I found through some hours of searches to help in taming entrecard and unlocking its full potential.


1. Lessen entrecard traffic’s high bounce rate – This is the primary problem why some discontented entrecard users leave entrecard. Entrecard traffic are just bouncing like balls without the slightest sign that people are reading anything you wrote at all. There are reasons why entrecard users are doing that, which might also be true for the search engine traffic you’re getting. Your site design and layout must be giving them a hard time to focus on your content or it’s taking an eternity to load including your most valuable post. Your topics must be either too boring, or too old news that they don’t want to read at all. Or, your headings or post title is so plain that nobody takes the time to read even how interesting its content might be.

Address the problem by taking the time to look at your site’s design. Don’t make your sidebar look more important than your post section. Also, arrange your blog’s template so that your posts load first than your sidebar’s “too interactive” features. Find your widgets or design elements that aren’t responsive or are too large taking a long time to load-up in browsers and remove it. Write about what’s the buzz in your niche; or if you can’t avoid recycling old topics, learn how to make catchy titles and headings and easy to read posts; you can head to copyblogger and learn just that.

Another trick I see working most of the time is to contradict what most entrecard users are expecting of your blog. Put your entrecard widget somewhere in the middle or the last part of your blog’s sidebar instead of the top fold so that it will take some time to load after all your blog’s nice features load up. That way, they will have some time to look around while waiting and looking for your entrecard. Even if they didn’t take interest in your blog’s content, at least they stayed for something like a minute or so. Additionally, Felex Tan dot com has a write-up on How to Reduce Entrecard’s High Bounce rate.


2. Learn how to advertise on entrecard efficiently – I believe there are three types of entrecard advertisers. There is the cheap one who goes after the cheapest and the newest blogs around. Then, there’s the opportunist who looks for high priced and well trafficked blogs to advertise in while supporting his efforts with massive chain drops. And, then there’s the smart one who knows how to efficiently spend his credits on blogs by researching on the blogs they advertise in and doing some cost / benefit assessments. Although it has little to do with fixing your blog’s internal problems about reining the wild traffic it’s getting, this will influence greatly in managing your credits without wasting too much in exchange of poor traffic.

Are you advertising in the right blog; is the price too much for the actual benefit you’ll be getting; is the blog strict about the advertisements it runs; these are just some of the questions that a smart advertiser should think about before spending their credit for an advertisement slot. In theory, an advertisement in blogs within the same or relevant niche will yield visitors who’ll be interested in what your blog’s about. So if you have a cat blog, you’ll have to advertise in pet, animal, or nature oriented blogs right? If the blog has a price range of 500 to 1000+ credits, are you willing to spend that much for that blog to advertise, or maybe you’ll come back later to see if its price goes down? Or maybe you can assess if the price is just right or is over inflated by the false demand for its ad slot which really has nothing for you in it.

Turnip of Power has an article about the proper strategies on Entrecard Advertising.


3. Create Attention Grabbing 125 x 125 banners – Are your cards too flat and boring. It might not directly affect how long people will stay in your blog, but it will play an essential part in people’s expectations of your blog and the number of drops you’ll receive. When your ad says little about what people will see in your blog or presents little punch to grab their attention, don’t expect them to click to it either. It should be an eye catcher. What’s great about it is when it’s really an attention getter, not only will entrecard users want to click it but other non-entrecard users as well.

Take these banners as an example. I believe they best explain what an attention grabber should look like.

I find a banner interesting if its one of the following: it calls you to action, it has a thought provoking concept be it image or words, it’s funny, or it offers something you really want. Also, like it or not, even how moralists condone it, sex sells. Beautiful girls in bikinis like it or not, will always get more clicks than other conventional images.

If you want a real guide on how to build banners with higher click-through rates, please read this article from BANNERDESIGNBLOG.COM about
10 Effective Ways to Boost Banner Click-through.


4. Run EC Contests – People always like the idea of winning. Running contests and placing it in your card or somewhere in your blog where your visitors will immediately see it will hold them back from changing page. Give them something where they can greatly benefit even if they don’t win the contest at all such as a link by mentioning their entries for example. A successful contest will give you more than entrecard attention. Tons of back links, increased traffic, increased readership, and definitely increased search engine, alexa, and technorati rankings; who wouldn’t want it. Always make sure though that your prize isn’t so insignificant that nobody would want to participate either.

Problogger has a must read guide about running blog contests, and don’t forget WaywardGirls.org’s Your Secret Weapon – Contests.


5. Feature Your Droppers – Droppers will be consistent with their drops to your widget, stop for a while to look for something, and perhaps leave comments as well - that is if they see something favorable for them in your blog. Take Entrecard Favorites for example. Although I wasn’t able to see any Google pagerank yet, look at its Alexa (299,276) and Technorati (186,136) stats. And it’s all because the blog is devoted to entrecard and those that frequently drops to the site. Although you can do just that, there are also simple ways to reward your droppers. You can install a recent droppers widget in your blog (see how in entrecard’s help section). Or install a Top Dropper Widget which you can learn via Turnip of Power.

Additionally, maybe you can spare a piece of your time to write about your frequent droppers or perhaps your favorite entrecard blogs. Don’t forget to tell them about it and watch your comment section for a thank you note, which I consider reward enough, or maybe, if they’re kind enough, a link back to your post of them.


6. Participate in EC contests – It’s not only in making contests that a blogger benefits. Joining them will also give you something. Besides the prize, more often than not, simply participating in contests will give you a link back to your blog. It’s that simple. What, don’t you want an extra inbound link? What more if you win, you’ll get tons of credits to use for advertising and getting other bloggers to do something for you (which I’ll tackle next) or maybe real bucks plus links coming from the blog holding the contest and several other partner or sponsor blogs. The possibilities are endless and it’s just joining contests.


7. Offer credits in exchange for something – I believe most of you are aware of the power of credits today as compared to when entrecard first started. People are offering services and goods in exchange for credits now. You can do the same. Offer credits for a stumble, dig, review, subscribers or anything possible that would help your blog grow and get traffic in exchange for credits. Yes these things are simply against some TOAs and Google’s guidelines, but I believe that it depends on how often and how strongly you rely on this form of popularity building. If your goal is to get a bit of an exposure that’s fine but if it’s the rule of your game to game the system then that’s certainly contemptible.


8. Network with Your Fellow Entrecarders – It’s possible with forums and social networking medias, I don’t see a reason why not in entrecard. Form interesting partnerships with your fellow entrecard users especially when conducting contests, gimmicks, advertising, or you need help on certain things about your blog. Send them messages if you’re launching something new for their participation or assistance, or whatever it is that you have to network with them for. You can also join the entrecard forums and bond with other entrecard users to learn something new from them.


Do you think my article can be of any help to improving your entrecard experience? Please leave your comments or suggestions below. Thanks.



technorati tags: entrecard, boost traffic, quality traffic

Soge Shirts

Are you getting tired of those same old shirts you’re wearing, you know, those signature shirts without a life? Do you want something that stimulates the brain and stuff, you know, those thought provoking ideas and jokes? I believe you’re not getting what I’m trying to impart to you. Okay, just put it this way; if you want shirts that rock and kick ass, this is for you. Visit Soge Shirts and look around. There are many unique and funny designs you won’t get anywhere else. Wear it and people will not see you the same way again. If you want people to start noticing you or maybe just get a good laugh, dude this is for you. Buy Soge Shirts. Available in different colors and sizes.

Like that one? Actually I’m supposed to do a review of this site but I thought it’s a lot better if I sort of sell it through copywriting. This is my 6th time to do it actually (the others are in my other blog) and, I believe, it still needs a lot more practice. Anyways, if you really want funny and unique shirts I think you should give this one a try. I believe there’s something for everybody in it. I particularly liked the designs in “Shirts that Offend” category. There are also other available merchandises besides shirts where the designs are printed like caps, bags, and even mugs. The prices range below $20 to something around $42. Also, this site has a blog in Blogger and Myspace where you’ll get to know the guys behind these shirts a lot better.



technorati tags: shirts, shirt design, copywriting

Why Deep Linking is better than Simple Reciprocal Linking

Deep Linking means linking to a specific page or image of a website instead of that site’s index or home page. On the contrary, reciprocal linking is done by exchanging links which are only pointing to the sites’ index or home page. Both links count to search engines most especially if the back link or referring link is coming from a relevant blog, post, or keyword. But what’s great about deep linking is that, when you have lots of it, it helps in your overall page rank which is reflected in your index page.

From how I understand it, besides the link popularity of your index page, search engines reward you for the incoming deep links to your site. It’s another way of showing them that your site has relevant content and not a spam site that’s why you’re getting all these deep links. Links pointing only to your index page can be viewed by search engine algorithms as a product of schemes meant to trick them; whereas deep links are less subject to that. Additionally, it doesn’t take that many links to get a specific deep page ranked as compared to the index page.

From what I noticed also, this blog of mine produces organic search engine traffic (search engine users) through my deep pages as compared to my front page. With this observation, I believe it’s a lot easier to build page rank for your blog through your deep pages as compared to your front page; because, to put it simply, I haven’t done any deep linking technique yet and I’m already getting visibility through my old posts, what more if I employ deep linking? I am not saying that you withdraw from promoting your site via the index page and shift to deep linking; but you should give both strategies equal importance. That way, your SEO strategy will have a more long-term and stronger effect.

And now the bulleted part!!! :) Here are the reasons why you should give more weight to deep linking as compared to simple generic linking to your homepage:

• It has the potential to rank your blog higher in search engines when partnered with other linking strategies as compared to linking to your home page alone.
• Your older posts will get more exposure, especially if they are really valuable content-wise and have good headlines or post titles.
• You’ll get more subscribers if they find your post really helpful. Just make sure that you’ll make follow-up posts on your most visited deep pages.
• If your front page quickly dropped from the ranking, your deep pages might still save your traffic since it is ranked differently, although there might be some minor effects.
• All your pages link back to your main page, so it’s just another jump before your visitors know what you’re recently up to and decide to participate.
• I said it earlier, but I won’t mind stating it again. If Google sees 1000 links to your homepage and 0 links to the rest of your site; it is very likely they will sense that something is amiss. You know, a black hat scheme maybe.

Now, how do you get deep links?

Basically, if your blog posts are well-written, good headlines, clear and well thought out content, etc, these deep links will just come in naturally. But take note that simply waiting isn’t going to guarantee how long you’ll have to wait or if it’s going to be seen at all. So you’ll have to actively promote and market your posts out there. Here are the easy ways I could think of for you to get your needed deep links:

1. Comment on a blog post similar to your post, place the link to your related post and state how it’s relevant or something to that effect. From here, just hope that the author of the blog can either add a link to your post in his post or on the following posts he’ll make, or perhaps the readers will decide to link to it if they find it equally or more interesting. Theoretically, though, it’s a deep link in itself except if the blog is using a no follow plug-in in the comment section.
2. Drop your deep page’s URL here (don’t spam please) if you think it can help in the conversation. The idea is similar to “leaving your comment” above.
3. Submit your post to social bookmarking sites and get one temporary deep-link, plus more permanent ones (if people rate your post well) and more traffic.
4. You can ask your fellow bloggers if you can swap deep-links, of course don’t expect many to respond positively.
5. Find online syndication services that will display an RSS feed as a web page. These will typically contain deep links to pages on to the originating website, which is a valuable source of backlinks.
6. Find blogs that let you contribute to its content even if it’s just summaries of your original post. Sign-up and write a summary or a teaser which will link to your intended post.
7. Submit your post to blog carnivals.
8. Guest blog and write an article that links to your old posts as references.
9. There are deep link directories around the net. Google it and try at your own risk.

And finally, here are some articles I’ve found which could help you to understand deep linking more. I have to admit that I’m fairly new to the concept so there might be some things about it that I barely or haven’t touched at all.

Deep Linking – Wikipedia
Deep Linking is Good Linking
Deep Linking Strategy for Content Sites
Deep Linking, Or Rethink Your Site Promotion Strategy
Increase Your Search Engine Rankings by Deep Linking (internal deep-linking)
Why You Should Deep-Link Your Blog (internal deep-linking)
Deep Links and the Power of Anchor Text!



technorati tags: deep linking, SEO

ReviewBack

Today I’m getting my hands on reviewback.com as part of my quest to improve this blog’s search engine ranking. This site or swap review service has been around since April 2007 by Nick Maza and Kyle Johnson (see their About Page for more info). Basically, it’s free to join and signing-up is, as they say, a snap. The idea is to do reciprocal reviews and benefit from it. It’s a nice idea but I’m not sure if the blogs here are all active. I tried to browse through and I see quite a number of blogs that have not been updated since December last year. But persistent with what I have in mind, which is to get as many inbound links to my blog as possible, I still pushed my luck and tried to include my blog in the said review exchange site. I sent several trade requests to some blogs to see if they will react to my humble messages. I guess I’ll just have to wait until maybe one of them will reply and say ‘yes’, although I’m still confused about how they’ll contact me back (I mean there’s no FAQ page about it).

Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to check the site everyday and see if there will be some changes or signs that the review swapping is a success. And to those whom I’ve made trade requests in reviewback, if in case you happen to read this post, please leave your comment here if you’d like to trade reviews with me. And to those who’d like to give this review swapping thing a try please visit here: www.reviewback.com. And yes, if in case you have any experience or any ideas about reviewback.com, please leave your comments here also so that we could learn from each other. Thanks.



technorati tags: review back, review exchange

Formula for Effective Commenting

In my two years of experience as a blogger, leaving comments in other people’s blogs is a very important part of blogging, especially if you’re just starting your blog. Comments, as all of us bloggers know, are the life and blood of a blog besides traffic and subscriber count. It’s a sign that there’s activity going on inside your blog. Without it, people will easily think that your blog is already dead. Take this blog for example. When my post doesn’t have any comment at all, it just means one thing. I didn’t make my usual rounds of leaving comments to my favorite blogs (which is becoming quite often these hectic days).

For bloggers, the habit of leaving comments was designed to convey any or all of the following: your interest in the written article, your interest in the blogger who wrote the article, your point of view about the article, your desire to be noticed by the writer of the article, your desire to get your blog noticed and get a reciprocal comment or get linked to, and as a requirement for something (like a competition). Either these or they’re spam. But for me which I think is also true for other bloggers, I usually drop my comments because I use them to also get comments and visitors to my blog. Search for tips on how to boost your blog’s traffic and I’m very sure that almost all of them will tell you that making lots of comments is part of it.

But not just any comments will get you what you want. Although it’s possible to get some reaction from other bloggers with just a simple hi or hello, it’s definitely going to fail to convert into any reasonable traffic or comment to your blog. How then do you form a comment that will get you traffic and reciprocal comments? There are several things that you must observe when making your comments. Although it’s not always guaranteed to draw in lots of visitors, it’s always guaranteed to get you a comment or two. At least your blog doesn’t look sorry with “0 comments” staring blankly at your face.

1. Add to the conversation – Don’t just leave a “hi” or “hello”. Bloggers won’t hate you for doing so but you’re not going to get any attention either. Usually, sharing examples are the best way to do it but if you think adding an item or two which you think the author forgot to mention is equally fine then go ahead.

2. Link to your blog or post only when necessary – Bloggers hate spammers and sploggers. When you constantly leave your blog’s URL with your comment text, you are one. Do so only if it has something to do with the post and state in your comment why it’s relevant. Most bloggers delete comments with too much self-promotion involved so beware of that unnecessary signature in your comments which link to your blog.

3. Be different or intelligent – Although impossible from time to time, try to stand-out from the rest. You want attention right? Say something intelligent. Say something different. Sometimes the conversation gets too monotonous that readers just scroll down to the bottom of it. Break the repetition and strike a new chord. Sometimes a really insightful and/or unusual (but relevant) comment can do lots of great stuff.

4. Ask a question – When you ask, people answer. When it’s not the blogger who’ll answer you, maybe it’ll be your fellow commenters. Asking is one of the best ways to solicit attention. But when everyone’s asking, maybe it won’t help asking too but providing some answer or clarification just might do.

5. Object appropriately – Trolling around won’t lead to anything but getting your comment removed. If you find something objectionable about somebody else’s post, state it civilly and don’t forget your reason why. Sometimes objecting or disagreeing can also guarantee attention from the readers only if you state your case calmly and intelligently.

6. Join the conversation – Besides adding to the topic of the conversation, be part of the community. Don’t forget about what the rest are talking about. Evaluate or highlight the good points in their comment too. By doing this, the other commenters might also develop an interest in visiting your blog as well.

7. Too long comments – Don’t write comments that are as long as the post themselves. If you’re going to do that, why not just post it in your blog and trackback or link back to the original post. When comments get too long, even how important you might think it is, people will just scan through it because it’s simply boring and too much.

8. Be early – When you’re the first guy to ever make the comment, it’s hard to miss what you have to say. What more if it’s really important? This is especially true with popular blogs that gets 100 comments per post. People hardly read the comments below the 20th.

9. Add humor – A good laugh will not only capture people’s attention but their hearts as well. But be careful about your jokes, sometimes people easily get offended without you being aware of it. I think the safest way to use it is to make fun of your self. But then again, be careful with this as to much can affect your reputation as well.

10. Be genuine – Don’t pretend what you are not. Don’t comment if you don’t feel that you can add to the conversation (there are still other blogs waiting for your precious words – he he he). Faking will always reflect in your comments.

And lastly, please feel free to leave your insights about making comments if they are effective on driving traffic to your blogs or not.

By the way, before I forget, here are the resources where I get several of the ideas that I wrote here. Please feel free to read them as they also touch some topics that I didn't include here.

The Power of Commenting on Blogs
11 Tips for Getting Your Comments Noticed on a Popular Blog
How To: Leave Quality Comments
How NOT to Comment on Comments
How to comment like a king (or queen!)
Blog Comments Still Matter


technorati tags: commenting, formula

I'm in Million Blog List

I'm number 398 in Million Blog List. If you want a free backlink to your site, and a free promotion as well, join this fast growing project and help its developer reach the millionth mark of blog listing.

Click below:

Million Blog List

technorati tags: million blog, miscellaneous

Top 5 Reasons Why Exchanging Links Is Good for You

Have you given up on exchanging links lately? It’s hard work, I know but I believe you should reconsider. If your site is barely making any traffic or it’s just a new kid on the block, doing exchange links properly will benefit you more than give you harm. Here are the 5 reasons why:

1. It will improve your search engine ranking immediately. Besides traffic, keywords, and content, search engines also look at your site’s link popularity or the amount of sites linking to you. The theory is: the more there is, the better you will rank. Of course, there are other things associated with the sources of links that must also be weighed before the whole thing adds to your pagerank. Always exchange links with blogs within your niche or at least more with them than others. That’s because SEO experts all agree that links coming from a site dealing with a completely different topic is considered useless by search engines.

2. It will generate traffic. Your high pagerank will yield more traffic compared to what you had previously. Additionally, the sites that link to you will also drive traffic to your site.

3. You will gain more authority. The more sites point to you, the more your content gets an exposure, and the more you become an authority to what you’re talking about. Your visitors will start returning once they understand that your blog is a valuable resource for something that they are looking for, especially if you’re also linking to other sites that are valuable resources as well.

4. More popularity means more opportunities. I’ve said this in my previous post but I believe it’s still worth mentioning. When you get more exposure and popularity because of your higher pagerank, the more opportunities will come to you. Advertisers willing to be your blog’s sponsor will find you. Most importantly, other bloggers will also start approaching you for proposals which can further your blogging career. And if you get big enough, A-list bloggers will also start noticing you, in case they haven’t. There will be links coming from them which could lead to an even better search engine ranking and higher traffic.

5. More earnings. If you’re running ads, obviously, the traffic you’re producing will lead to more clicks to them, or more impressions which means more generated earnings. It’s that simple.

So, if you’re not interested with what I’ve stated above, or you simply don’t believe me, then you could forget about exchanging links.


technorati tags: link exchange, boost traffic, link popularity

Rave-Up Your Traffic with Reviews

If you haven’t noticed yet, writing reviews have been too prevalent in the blogosphere these days. Companies are spending bucks to get a lot of reviews, and bloggers on the other hand get involved with these paid reviews to earn money. Why is it that companies are willing to pay just to have their reviews? Simple, it generates buzz, it generates traffic, and it improves their ranking in the search engines. The very same reason why you should opt getting reviews as much as possible.

From how I see it, I believe there are 4 reasons why you need to have your blog reviewed a lot:

• It will improve your blog’s Google Pagerank – Basically, if all else fails, I believe this would be the last one to go down the drain. The theory is, if your blog is making buzz around the web, even the slightest hint of it, links will start converging and point to you. Of course, this will generate traffic. But most importantly, these links will make Google think that your site is valuable at the moment because of the buzz it’s generating. And so to make the news get to people faster, you’ll get higher page rank and better search engine results, the very same reason why spammers try to replicate the idea by automating their link production and targeting forums, social networking sites, technorati, and comment sections of your blog. How is this related to you, you may ask? By getting reviewed by a bunch of review making blogs, your inbound links increases hence, you better your chance of getting search engines indexi you better leading to a higher pagerank. It’s like making your own buzz yourself.


• It will boost your traffic – Same as the above explanation; but this time, your better visibility in the search engines will get you more visitors plus the traffic referred by these sites that made your review.


• It will boost your readership – If the review is done to your advantage, highlighting your blog’s best points and tells exactly what your blog is about; it’s possible that people who share the same interest will decide to check you out, browse through your articles, and subscribe to your feed


• You will learn a great deal about your blog from a different perspective – Often times, even how much we hate to admit it, we fall in love with our blogs much too quickly that we often overlook or be blinded to see the weaknesses of the different aspects of our blog. Again, if the blog review is done correctly, we’ll be able to see what’s wrong with what we thought as perfect. This way, we could optimize our blogs better for our readers and visitors.

Compared to being in the front page of social networking sites such as Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Reddit and several others, blog reviews usually don’t have the same potential to produce huge traffic unless the review comes from a prominent and highly trafficked blog such as Problogger. But in some ways, blog reviews can be a lot better than links coming from social networking sites. When your blog gets reviewed, the inbound link coming from it will not be easily dismissed as spam by most search engines (unless the site making the review is somewhat spammy). Social networking sites can easily be manipulated by spammers. Blog reviews are permanent and have the ability to continually refer traffic to you unlike the social networking sites which are often times a one shot deal. Also, the links contained in these blog reviews, when they age, are given more weight by search engines which kinda help your page ranking too.

So, have I changed your mind about giving that extra effort to get a blog review for your blog? But before heading out there and start submitting your blogs for blog review like raving mad, always remember that it helps to do it politely. Do what they’re requesting you in exchange of a free review or a paid review (if you’re willing to spend for it). And always do a little favor for them such as Stumbling, Digging, leaving a comment, and/or writing about them and their service to leave a better impression or as a token of appreciation.


technorati tags: boost traffic, blog review

Why you need blog networking in your blogging career

I’m happy today. It’s because our blog has just been reviewed in Our Blog Review and in Free Blog Reviews. It might not be obvious for now but these links coming from outside will do its magic later on when they start pulling-in visitors and changing our page rank status. In case you don’t know, this is related to our topic which is all about networking your blog.

As it is called, blog networking has something to do with connections. And those connections are with your fellow bloggers. Linking with other blogs, visiting and dropping comments, guest blogging, getting and making reviews, exchanging favors with fellow bloggers, etc, it’s all part of building networks. It’s like creating a community wherein you interact and benefit from each other. The idea behind networking is to let others discover us and gain audience to whom we shall write for which is the very idea of blogs these days.

What are the benefits of blog networking?

If you think blogging as if you’re in isolation like what other top-bloggers claimed they have been doing all these time will get you to success, think again. If you don’t write as good as they do and if nobody took notice and spread the word that you’re producing quality content, do you think Google’s indexing alone will save you? I don’t think so. In truth it will be easier to elevate your visibility in Google’s search results if you resort to a good networking strategy, which is an equivalent or perhaps SEO in itself, rather than relying on Google’s indexing capability.

With that said, here are the possible benefits you could get out of blog networking:

• More visitors – With all the links from blogs you have connected to it’s only logical that there will be referral traffic from their site to yours.
• More readers – And with all those visitors, certainly there would be those who’d want to hear more from you.
• More comments – Of course, if you’re able to catch their attention, they’ll most certainly comment.
• Higher Pagerank – Those referral traffic and inbound links only mean one thing: Good SEO technique.
• Learn something new – Your connections and the community you’re building will teach you a thing or two. It’s almost impossible to not learn anything from them.
• More opportunities – The more connections you have, the more possibility of getting opportunities to further your blogging cause.
• More earnings – The traffic, the SEO, the readers, and you still doubt that you’ll earn anything.

If you’re really dedicated in boosting your blog’s overall performance, then by all means give networking a try.

How to do blog networking?

If you’ve been blogging for sometime now, blog networking is nothing new. If you look from one blogging tip to another you’d instantly recognize that it’s nothing different, it might be a “boost your traffic” topic, or “how to start blogging” tip. But, if you’re new to blogging, or perhaps you want to refresh what you’ve learned before, then read on.

• Link prodigiously. Blog about other’s blog or post and link to it, create a blogroll of your favorite blogs, ask for link exchanges, it’s all about linking to others to get links from them in return, but don’t expect too much too quick. There will be some who’ll be more than willing to link to you while others won’t. If you really think a particular blog deserves to get linked to, it doesn’t matter if that blog links to you or not. Just link to it and perhaps that blog will also link back later.


• Get reviewed. Having the opportunity to be reviewed by other sites is a great idea. More than having a link from the reviewing site, it’s also a form of recommendation that your blog can benefit from. Additionally, you’ll know how other people see your blog. If there’s any negative feedback, than you’ll be able to spot and change it. Don’t forget to link to the reviewing site also, or maybe write about how great they reviewed you so that others will know where to get the same raving reviews you’ve had.


• Visit blogs and leave a comment. If you want to get comments flooding your comment section, don’t you think other bloggers desire the same? Leave comments if you find interesting blogs or if you wish to share your knowledge on a certain topic. Don’t spam. Comment from one blog to another and, surely, you’ll also get comments in your blog. Who knows, they might decide to link or write about your blog as well. Confucius said; “Do unto others what you want others to do to you” (or something like that); so don’t forget to answer their comments and/or comment back to their blog.


• Interact with people in your niche. This is the best way to get to know new friends who could perhaps help you on a particular topic that you don’t understand. You could also learn new things from them or, maybe, they could help you promote your blog. Try to subscribe to their feeds; this will keep you updated on what’s the buzz in your niche for the moment.


• Socialize within communities. Join and participate in social networks and forums relevant to your niche where you can pitch your ideas or get new ideas from your fellow bloggers. There’s blog catalog where you could get additional traffic to your blog depending on how active you participate in the forums. Additionally, you could boost your subscriber count or your technorati faves or perhaps get as many link exchanges here. There are many things in store for you here depending on the groups you join inside. There’s also twitter where many bloggers get a lot of traffic and exposure by twitting their ideas or answering the twits of others. I personally haven’t tried it yet; but with all the reviews and buzz about its highly addictive features and power to considerably improve your traffic, I believe it’s worth giving a try.


• Guest blog. I’m giving this a try next time. Why? It’s because doing guest blogging will greatly affect your traffic, readership, and reputation as a blogger. By guest blogging you’re showcasing your talent and giving your blog an exposure outside your blog. Bloggers do this to boost their traffic and to build alliance with the blogger or the blog to whom they guest blog.


• Offer your service. If you have skills which you could offer to others, why not voluntarily offer your service. It always makes a good impression from others if you could help them out of their quick sands. Are you good at graphic design? Offer your help to entrecarders who are in need of 125x125 designs or to bloggers who are in need of a good banner or graphic icon. Offer free reviews if you’re good at it. Offer free consultations when you have the time. Simply offering help when needed will get you a lot of network connection in no time.

For my last comment about blog networking, if possible give more attention to smaller bloggers than the A-listers. Everyday, these big time bloggers get all forms of requests to connect, as attested by the A-listers themselves. It will therefore be difficult for them to notice your plead for connection and they will also often times be choosy about to whom they’ll be connecting with. These smaller bloggers might not be able to match the prestige and the amount of traffic these A-listers can provide but where do you think these hard-working small bloggers will be heading in the future? They might be on their way to becoming A-listers and won’t it be sweet to be the one of the first to register on their blogrolls when that day finally comes?

These are just the easiest ways to do blog networking that I could think of. I am sure there are a lot of other ways to network your way to success. You may leave it in the comment section if you have more ideas about blog networking. For now, I’ll be leaving you with great resources that I found and where I based my article from. Enjoy.

How to Promote Your Blog through Networking
Networking within your Blog Niche: 7 Essential Tips for Bloggers
9 keys to networking via blogs for introverts
How to Blog: 4. Blog Networking
Benefits of Offline Blog Networking



technorati tags: blogging tips, networking

Blogging Made Easy, My New Catch Phrase

I changed my entrecard widget in a hope that the cards I approved will finally show up (but they still don’t). I contacted entrecard about it but I guess the reply will be available some hours or a day later, or none at all. I also installed a “top commenters widget” which I found here (Blogger Buster) and the “recent comments widget” here (Blogger Templates). Yes, those are basically the things I did before writing this post.

Anyway, have you noticed the new catch phrase and image I used to replace the old “sidebar-header”? It looks simple and straight to the point. ULUPONGDOTCOM, Blogging made easy, or perhaps, monetized-blogging made easy. After all, if you’re just going to blog just for the sake of making an online diary without any motives of earning from it or anything, blogging will be simply easy. I’m sure there are other blogs who have made the same “blogging made easy” line but haven’t made anything easy for most pro-blogger wannabes. I wonder how many of us are competing for the idea that monetized blogging can be made easy through us?

When you’re blogging to earn money online, it’s true that it has its fair share of rewards but the process will definitely not be easy. It needs a lot of effort to turn your blog into a money maker. All those techniques to promote and drive traffic to your blog, boost the readership, enhance its keyword performance, etc are simply nothing like a walk in a park. I’m not sure about others, but running a monetized blog is something like a full-time job and nothing like what most online marketers are presenting as easy-pickings even if you buy this and that e-book. Of course you learn and gain insights about blogging, but you’re not going to earn anything from your blog immediately. That’s why it’s really amazing how fast the population of blogs with adsense and other affiliate programs grow these days. A lot of people want to get in but only a few will really get something decent out of what they’ve started.

I guess the only way you could make things easy about monetized blogging is to give them tips that won’t enumerate endless steps they have to accomplish but make them understand how many of those steps are easy to accomplish. Inspiring them to continue refining their actions is a lot better than just drawing them with false promises to take action. If you make them feel that monetized blogging is difficult but fun instead of telling them to buzz off if they can’t bear the hardship, then I guess you’re successful at making blogging easy.

Tough words from someone who’s barely making any income online don’t you think? Maybe it is, but I already set this as my goal when we started this blog. It’s finding ways to make readers understand things easily. I just wish I’ll be able to live up to it for the rest of my blogging life.



technorati tags: ramblings, tagline

Tips in Running Project Wonderful Ads on Your Blog

It’s been 4 days since I’ve started advertising in Project Wonderful and I’d say it’s proving quite effective. I haven’t spent more than $1 but to date, I’m getting at least 2 clicks everyday from the blogs where I made my bids. And there’s about 8 or so blogs where my ad for this blog is currently the highest bidder.

As an advertiser though, I’m somewhat compelled to check whether my ads will get enough exposure from site to site since some Project Wonderful users will just throw their ad boxes in places where their visitors barely look at. Also, there are some who price their minimum bids so high but the benefit you’ll be getting from them doesn’t match the price they’re setting. And so, I came up with these tips on how you could set-up your Project Wonderful ads to make it advertiser-friendly and get the most out of it at the same time.

1. Set your ad format to 125x125. I guess this is the ad format that’s just the right size but not too small that people will tend to ignore. Banners, leaderboard, and sky-scraper formats are fine also but I don’t think pricing it below 1$ is a good idea since it occupies a lot of space and people tend to shy away from sites that looks ugly because of huge ads floating everywhere they look at.

2. Don’t place more than 6 squares. Yes they are just the right size, but once you put them together they manage to occupy a lot of space also. Additionally, Project Wonderful is about economy. If you place too many, there won’t be much competition in the bidding, and the price of your ad space might take a long time to take-off.

3. Place relevant tags. When setting up your ad boxes, Project Wonderful usually asks for tags or keywords of your site. Place all relevant keywords you could think of so it’ll be easier to find you via tags. There are some bloggers who recommends putting the word “entrecard” in your tags to be seen easily. Although I haven’t tried it personally yet, it makes sense because there are a lot of entrecard users who are also using Project Wonderful.

4. Make an accurate description. Along with the tags, they will also ask you to describe the site where your ad box will be seen. Provide the exact place where you plan to put the ad box. Also, tell what your site is about so that they will have a basic idea of what your visitors and readers look for in your site.

5. Give a minimum bid amount other than $0. It’s okay to have a 0 minimum bid, but if you’re looking to get something decent out of Project Wonderful you must at least place a realistic value of how much your ad space should cost per day. But be sure that you don’t over-price since it’s really difficult to get “blogger-advertisers” with a starting amount of 1$ or more.

6. Auto-approve your ads. It’s not recommended to approve each ad that comes your way manually. Besides losing money from potential ads that could have started early on and the bidding that will soon follow, it will really deter most advertisers from ever placing a bid without knowing when and if their ads will ever appear on your site.

7. Place your ad box where your visitors will immediately see them. Advertisers hate it when they can’t see their ads after a few scrolls from the top. Unless people read your comments, it’s not a good idea to place your ad box in your blog’s footer. Place your ad box on the top fold or somewhere near to get more paying advertisers.



technorati tags: blog tips, ads, monetization

Low-cost Advertising Using Project Wonderful

I’ve been a Project Wonderful user for about a month and 8 days already. I used it first in my other blog to test if it can compete with adsense when it comes to monetizing your site. Unfortunately, it barely scratched the amount which adsense manage to squeeze out of my blog. One thing to note though, is that you can use your small earnings from it (instead of just taking it) to advertise on other blogs, after all it doesn’t usually take that much to advertise in this ad network. But before I go on spending my hard-earned bucks to bid for an advertising spot, I decided to do some research first.

Basically, the whole concept of advertising in Project Wonderful is to bid for an ad spot in a blog running Project Wonderful in one of its available space. (For more information about this, click here.) There are blogs that cost more than a dollar and a lot more that costs less for a day. If you’re lucky enough, you can run an ad here for $0.30 in a month. The usual ad formats advertisers use are 125x125 squares since most of its advertisers are bloggers like me who might also be using entrecard at the same time, but other size formats are also available.

From my observations of the ads running in my Project Wonderful boxes, most of them are only bidding for a daily basis which means they expire after one day. Also, a lot of bloggers I’ve come across get their ads in the network via bidding instead of the other advertising feature which is through campaigns where there will be more money involved since you’ll be spreading your ads across the network based on certain criteria (tags, maximum bid, page views, etc.)

From what I’ve read, it seems that campaigns take lesser time to set up and monitor and yields a far better result as compared to manual bidding from site to site. Of course, it all depends on the amount you’re willing to dish out which is additionally true for manual bidding. Take EZMoneyOn.Net as an example:

We advertised for about 3 weeks through Project Wonderful. We’ve manually chosen 22 sites, with ads above the fold, with enough visitors. We’ve spent about $75. Our ads were displayed for 16,387 times and our ads were clicked for 187 times. That’s a CTR of 1.14%.

Yesterday, because we had another $15 in our PW account, we decided to setup a campaign. So we’ve chosen all sites with 125×125 ads, tagged with money, with a current bid between $0 and $0.2. Our ad was displayed on about 188 sites, was viewed for about 45795 times and was clicked for about 128 times. Our campaign last until our money ended, about 13 hours. Although the CTR was only 0.3%, much smaller than in the first case, the cost per visit was much better: $0.12, compared to $0.40 in the first case.

Statistics show that is better to setup a campaign instead of choosing sites manually. But for a campaign you must have some budget, because there are many sites involved, so you can easily spend about $20/day. Between those sites there are also sites with ads below the fold, so you will not receive any click, or very few…

For the moment, I don’t think I can afford running campaigns. Perhaps, I’ll be sticking to manual bidding for now until I earn enough from running Project Wonderful ads. After some Googling for answers, I’m not able to find any tips on how to effectively spread the advertising potential of something like 10$ or less through manual bidding in Project Wonderful. In that case, I guess it’s all up to me to test if I’ll be able to get something good out of a few dollars.

Now, how to do it? I guess the strategy should be very much similar to EZMoneyOn.Net’s approach in campaign bidding. I’ll just have to do it manually with a much shorter budget. Start hunting for blogs within the $0.01 – $0.03 max bid and run my ad for 3 to 4 days perhaps and see if there will be any favorable result. Of course, I’ll have to make sure also that the blog is producing favorable page views per day and the ad box should be above the fold. I’m not sure if I’ll manage to get it done because I’ve read of some guy warning about getting a carpal tunnel’s syndrome if you do it manually due to its over tedious nature. Maybe he’s just exaggerating things.

Anyways, if you guys have any experience about Project Wonderful and running advertisements in it that you’d like to share, please leave your comment so that we can learn from each other.

By the way, here are some links to the great resources I found about running Project Wonderful ads in your blog and advertising using it which I hope will be of help to you.


4 Tips for use with Project Wonderful
Project Wonderful Review and Tips
Tips For Project Wonderful Publishers
Project Wonderful Provides Cheap, Targeted Advertising!
Does Project Wonderful Live Up to the Hype?
Project Wonderful Advertising Campaigns
Advertising Through Project Wonderful
ProjectWonderful: Advertise and make some bucks
Getting Targeted Traffic At 1 Cent Per Visitor



technorati tags: advertising, marketing, traffic

Get the most out of entrecard in a short period of time

If you’re one of the bloggers who barely get the time to spend on using entrecard, you’re not alone. There are many of us around who can barely use entrecard except for approving the advertisement requests and reciprocating a few drops here and there and that’s it. But you should also be aware that being in this stage all the time won’t get you what you’re expecting out of entrecard. You might as well remove entrecard out of your blog since, obviously, it’s not going to help you by leaving it stagnant all the time.

If you truly want entrecard to work for you, then you must at least do something, even how little, to expand your reach within the system from time to time. Now, how do we do it? Basically, I have here a few notes of my own on how I plan to change the direction of my entrecard utilization. If you’re looking for hack solutions then I’m sorry to disappoint you but I’m not very well versed in such. Basically what I’m proposing to solve the dilemma we’re under is through the prioritization of our actions in entrecard. You must prioritize which actions you must do first, do together, or do without in order to get the most out of your time.


Step # 1 (Reciprocate)
See your drop inbox all the time and your advertisers too. Reciprocate or drop them back. It’s a mutual activity where the guy who gave you 1 ec should also get one from you. Also, you might’ve dropped to some people before and the cards in your inbox were the rest of them who decided to drop back. That means it’s ok to drop them back again and again; and one drop to them will give you 2ec. Why? It’s because they’ll almost always reciprocate back when you do. Oh yeah, don’t ever forget opening each link in tabs so that you’ll be able to deal with them simultaneously. Close the tabs when you’re through.


Step # 2 (Advertise)
You’ll get more drops back to you once you advertise. You’ll get more opportunities for traffic when your card is not just in somebody else’s inbox. Now, where to advertise? Basically, try advertising on blogs related to your niche since you’ll seldom get denied with them compared to others. Try to also advertise in blogs advertising in yours if you can afford them. Well, they have the guts to advertise in your “flower” blog. Why the hell can’t you advertise in their “sports” blog? I can’t recommend advertising in the newcomers nowadays since there’s so many who’s after the cheaper ones that it often gets difficult to spot a newcomer without having a “spot full” or an “ad queue full”. You can also try to spot blogs not related to your niche but is willing to have your card shown in their sidebar which will be discussed next.


Step # 3 (Pay attention)
There are many ways to drop plenty of your cards and get 300 or more entrecredits out of it in a short period of time. But if you’re just going to do some “hit and run” where you just visit the site and drop your card without even bothering to get the slightest idea what it’s all about then you’re just firing aimlessly to the sky. Try to at least see what’s going on in there and if it’s worthwhile. Of course, you are in a limited time so try to look for some key features that should determine if you’re staying or not. It should be something that should benefit your entrecard activity, or your interests. Here’s what I look at when I get to a blog from entrecard:

• The position of entrecard widget – It should be in a place where it’s easy to spot so that your card will be easily noticed if you decide to advertise in it.
• What is currently running in it – When the blog’s about health and it features a make-money-online blog in its EC widget, you’ll have more chances of getting your advertisement accepted.
• It talks about something that captures my interest – makes me want to comment and read more from it so I’ll subscribe.
• Link Exchange – Are there any mention of link exchange anywhere? Some say it’s spam to do reciprocal links. I don’t care. As long as it’s a real blog, not a splog and related to my niche then I’ll definitely exchange links.
• EC contests – Not that often but if it’s really easy and my chances of winning is high what should keep me from joining. More ec more advertising power.
• Other programs – there are blogs who are promoting some form of program or cause that could help boost your blog’s performance in some arena such as technorati or StumbleUpon. If it doesn’t feel like over-rated cheating, then I might consider joining.
• Pagerank – I won’t be a hypocrite, one important factor that I take into consideration when to be active in a blog is its pagerank. I have a google toolbar installed so I know. If it’s 3 and above, I know my blog will benefit from it in some way even outside the entrecard system.

Step # 4 (Bookmark)
Bookmark blogs that drop back and the ones that keep on returning drops. Bookmark your advertisers. Bookmark your entrecard friends. Bookmark your commenters (if they are entrecard users). Organize them in folder groups according to niche, their loading speed, position of EC widget, etc, depending on your own volition so that you could open a group in tabs to save you time instead of hunting your drop inbox forever. Then drop your card to all of them and so on and so forth. Just keep on bookmarking those that does something back. This is all about saving time and effort in dropping your precious cards.


Step # 5 (Organize your action)
Your priority is to drop your entrecard on the right places and see if it’s possible to advertise. Everything else follows while you’re dropping your cards. If you can manage to squeeze-in a few things right there and then, it’s always up to you.

You can do these steps in an hour or perhaps less since it only focuses on the efficient use of card dropping and advertising power. Everything else is omitted. I didn’t include exploring other blogs that you haven’t seen and haven’t seen you since, I myself can’t find the time to do it except when I’m researching for a topic to write, in which case I frequently forget to sign-in to my entrecard account to be able do some drops. Any how, I still manage to get new cards in my inbox despite it.

Eventually, as you progress, you’ll need more time to attend to your growing list of bookmarks and entrecard droppers, the time which you don’t have. I haven’t come to this situation yet but I think when this time occurs you might want to schedule your card dropping activity in batches.

Finally, I will not say that this is the perfect plan for you since it’s what I plan to do myself after all which I’m sharing to you. Maybe you might have some working tips yourself on how you manage using entrecard efficiently, in which case you can share in the comments below.



technorati tags: entrecard tips, efficient techniques