Get More Comments, Technoratti Love, and StumbleUpon Exposure with these Links

Recently, I just installed the SezWho script for Entrecard. The adoption of this new entrecard program is basically to give my commenters, especially the entrecard users, a way to get some precious credits while commenting here. I’ll be ranking your comments, of course. I think using SezWho on your blog (through entrecard) will guarantee that you’ll get a comment or two for your blog (depends on how interesting your post is). I’m saying “a comment or two” because it’s not really the best way to get comments for your blog. If you really want to get comments, you have to focus on strategies and proven methods to make your readers speak up. I have a post just for that: How to Get Comments on Your New Blog.


One thing I don’t like about SezWho comment rating tool though is that it doesn’t provide any way for blogspot users to manipulate where exactly the ratings will nest in their blog. And it certainly affects how my blog template looks. Yes, you can customize how your stars and your profile size appear, but that’s just it. You can also manipulate its overall look through a long list of CSS codes which I have no idea where to start. I wish they can offer more ways for us to manipulate this tool much better. But if nothing changes within a month or two, I guess it’ll be bye-bye SezWho. For those who are not aware of it yet, here’s entrecard’s post about the SezWho and Entrecard Partnership.

Next in line is a blog carnival on recommendations for new and experienced bloggers about how they could increase the amount of visitors to their blogs with no financial investments. It’s Bringing More Traffic to Your Blog - July 18, 2008 - 6th Ed. There are about 43 articles for you to learn from about getting more traffic to your blog and an article from yours truly is one of it.

About the Technorati love, here’s Link Back Project. It’s basically a viral link train of the sort but it’s a whole blog dedicated for it (well, not so much now). You’ll get lots of backlinks to your blog when you participate which could fuel your Technorati ranking and authority. I’m just not sure about Alexa and Google; but theoretically all those incoming links should be able to make some significant changes in your blog stats, seriously. For more info about it just check out the project.

And then, here’s another Digg tool. It’s TINC. What it does is basically to show you who are digging your submissions and whose submissions you’re digging too. All you have to do is type your digg username in the search box provided and press enter. Results, which also include your latest ten submissions, will appear instantly. If you’re one of those who like to clean up their friends list if they’re digging your submissions or not, this tool is for you. But more than that, there’s another use for it which I’ll mention next.


You’ll be using TINC to integrate your Digg campaign to your StumbleUpon activity. Basically, what you’ll do is to find your digg friends in SU (StumbleUpon) then befriend them and/or vice versa. After that, use TINC to view your digg username’s results which you’ll then send to your SU friends via the send function of your SU toolbar. Your SU friends can then digg your post by clicking on the link from your TINC page and then head to your actual post and stumble it. It’s advisable to do this after you’ve submitted your/others’ content to Digg. Also, be sure to send it to your friends who know how Digg-TINC-StumbleUpon method works. Do you find my instructions hard to follow, maybe it’s best to get it straight from where I originally got the concept: Stumble Upon Digg Traffic.


technorati tags: technorati, stumbleupon, digg, comments

Naruto Shippuden – The Five Types of Blogging Chakra

In Naruto, ninjas were able to perform amazing feats that are beyond human because of their chakra. It’s something like a chi, or spiritual energy which ninjas can tap into to do special techniques. According to the story, a chakra is the resulting form of energy produced when Physical and Spiritual energies are mixed together within the body. Then to use it, Hand Seals are performed. This allows the user to expel it out the body in the form of an attack, and requires different Hand Seals for different attacks. Everyone is born with their chakra; but no body is born with the knowledge to use it to perform special attacks; except for a select few who can wield it through instinct or sheer will alone. To be able to use it, one should undergo rigorous and intensive ninja training.

Not all ninjas share the same type of chakra. There are five different types of chakra: Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, and Lighting. It’s like an affinity to the elements sort of thing. When you have the Fire type, you’ll be able to manipulate the fire element and everything associated with it with ease. The same goes with water type and the water element; and so on and so forth. Here comes the interesting part. Although subject to one’s ideas about blogging, I’d like to believe that your blogging energies share the same type of affinities as the chakras used in Naruto. Your blogging chakra separates you from the others and at the same time helps you execute blogging techniques that keep your blog alive. It’s very much debatable or discreditable depending on your discretion; but let’s just assume. What if it’s so?

The Five Types of Blogging Chakra:

Fire type – This chakra is associated with the fire element, hot, burning, and spreads easily. Bloggers using this type of energy are fond of creating conflagrations in the blogging world, also termed as “VIRAL”. They like their ideas to be the center of attention or at least gather up as much attention as possible so that it spreads and makes its mark. Bloggers who have fire type chakras have a very dominant character and/or likes to initiate things. They often spend their blogging time crafting ideas that will get people to participate thus resulting to popularity and more profit. Their schemes involve contests, memes, viral link trains, viral social media campaigns and other programs that require mass participation and link building. These bloggers can be seen at the forefront of the marketing and promotional end of the blogosphere. Although effective at making buzzes, they often run short at making in-depth analysis and evaluation of the things they’ve started.

Water type – Water is associated with calmness, free flowing force and change. Bloggers with this type of energy are resourceful and knowledgeable at what they do. They have an analytical sense of things and are gifted with the ability to purge deep into a subject matter like water that can carve canyons and polish rocks. They blog with direction and often excel in their niche. They don’t easily catch attention but are always found meandering here and there. They can easily adapt to change because they know their way around most of the time. Their power lies in observation, analysis, and quick intuition or feel of things. These types of bloggers are better at tweaking things and using their tools to their advantage. They make better SEO and SMO experts. They are great in terms of information but can easily be drowned out by hype and new things.

Earth type – Earth chakra can’t only be found in soil but includes everything that grows and walks on it such as the flora and fauna. Bloggers with earth chakra can be categorized as good writers as they have a very unique and colorful content. They have the ability to inspire other people to start new things. They can also be informative but not as specific and complete as the water types. Although not as detailed, they seem to impress and enchant people because of the richness of their descriptions and the way they talk to them. People can easily relate to them and are always approachable. They are humble and they fuel their blogs with their desire to maintain connection with their followers/friends and share their achievements. They make perfect nurturers of start-up bloggers and most bloggers find their blogs filled with opportunities such as guest posting, rewards, and contests where it’s always a win-win situation for all the participants (unlike the fire types which conducts competition in the very real sense of the term).

Wind type – Always playful and violent at times, that’s the rule of their game. The wind element can be as pleasant as summer breeze and as destructive as a storm. You can see lots of these wind type bloggers doing tech, humor and celebrity blogs. They are quick at catching buzzes and gossips that they are newsy at times. They appear less committed to their blogs but many of them are serious about it (it’s just hard to understand them). They like things to have a touch of humor or something fresh all the time which makes it light and easy to understand. They are not fund of making analysis and quick observations always pass as good information. They are good journalists and comedians. They are also good at making judgments based on popular sentiments. Bloggers with wind type chakra draw their powers from quick conversations and scoop information. They can manipulate the information they produce to make or break others. Often, they can be found dwelling among the top ranks of social bookmarking communities.

Lightning type – The most difficult type of chakra to possess. It’s fast like the wind and searing like fire. They are electrifying in some sense. They are highly unstable and it’s hard to predict a pattern out of them as they appear random at times. They’re always updated like the wind types when it comes to the new things about blogging, especially social medias. They appear newsy too but the only difference is that they are more willing to try what they’re looking into. They are keen to bite all forms of opportunity and will experiment all the time to come up with a result that’s somewhat viral in nature which resembles that of the fire types. They are hard workers but they value quantity over quality. They are good at making experiments and gathering information in a short period of time but their problem is they spread themselves too thinly in what they do resulting in poor quality. A lot of spammers and blog spams in social bookmarking sites are lightning types; they are remarkable at gaming things and doing black hat techniques because of their bold determination and quick thinking. The best lightning types are effective at making huge improvements in their stats in a short period of time. Common characteristics of lightning types are having many domains and multiple accounts in several social media sites.

Most ninjas in Naruto can only control one type of chakra but some possess two types of it while the legendary ones can possess more than two. In the blogging world, I think we’re capable of possessing up to three types but, more often than not, there’s always that dominant chakra that will really stand out above the rest. I’m also in a position to believe that the more experience you acquire in blogging, the better you are able to manipulate several of your chakras to your advantage hence better blogging techniques.

Admittedly, I see myself as a water type but not a lot of you know that I’m also maintaining other blogs where I use other types of chakra as well. Sometimes, I could see myself using wind chakra as I’m trying to keep myself updated with several things but I guess it’s not that significant to make me a wind type. How about you? What type/s of chakra do you think you possess?

If you find this post interesting, how about reading another of my post related to this: Naruto Games.

technorati tags: naruto, shippuden, chakra, blogging

How to Generate StumbleUpon Traffic to Your Site

Today I’m setting my eyes on StumbleUpon. I’ve been using it ever since I started this blog; but it hasn’t turned out any spectacular changes to my stats yet. One reason, perhaps, is my lack of activity in using it. But one thing I’m sure of is that it has the potential to benefit your site with lots of traffic if taken seriously. I’ve been receiving a trickle of visits from it (you can see it in my referral widget in the sidebar) by simply submitting my content and a few reviews and thumbs up of my favorite digests in my Google Reader. What more if I actively use it just like in Digg? For one thing I was able to get traffic via Digg whenever I submit my content and then employ the techniques I’ve been blabbing about sometime ago. It’s not great traffic like I said but it is steady traffic nonetheless.

A lot of articles have been published over the net about StumbleUpon traffic, and all of them agree on one thing; Digg traffic is nothing compared to StumbleUpon. I haven’t been a witness of that but the data they’ve gathered and the observations they were pointing out all make sense. StumbleUpon traffic lasts longer. StumbleUpon visitors browse more. StumbleUpon traffic has more potential to be converted into subscribers and more backlinks. Of course, how this traffic will react depends on how you present your content and appearance to them. The less crappy your content the more it will be appreciated, a given fact for every social media sites out there.

I think StumbleUpon presents a better platform for bloggers to market their content effectively without being too brutal about it like in Digg. I mean, if you want some good results from Digg, you have to spoon feed all your friends with requests to digg your submission before you can get it. In StumbleUpon, I think it doesn’t work too much like that. Also, SEO articles considered spam in Digg are well received and praised in StumbleUpon. To better understand what I’m talking about, we need to make a certain perspective on how StumbleUpon’s system works. After reading several resources about StumbleUpon, I came up with these:

1) StumbleUpon is not so much of a timely news site like Digg and Reddit. So even if your content is old as long as people can still appreciate it, it’s still going to be stumbled.
2) As long as people are still thumbing up your submission, even after it became popular, it still has the potential to make a comeback or generate further traffic at least.
3) StumbleUpon community is diverse, so more or less you’ll get people who’ll vote for your content besides your friends.
4) Votes and reviews count as recommendations for your submission. The more you receive the better exposure your submission will receive within the community.
5) Unique, useful, and appealing content gets more votes than ordinary ones.
6) Stumblers usually stumble through their toolbar which is affected in part by their network’s stumbles.
7) Top stumblers have more weight in their votes compared to the rest.

From here you’ll have a better view on how to strategize your way on making StumbleUpon traffic. I’m not sure if you’re seeing it the same way I do but for me everything boils down to your network and content, very much like Digg. The only difference is that there’re more opportunities for you to get exposure rather than in a one way system of voting.

How to get better exposure hence traffic from StumbleUpon?

There are four areas that you must focus on in order for your content to get better reception from Stumblers; the first impression, your content, your network, and your activity.

1) First Impression – Stumblers tend to look more than they read. So always make sure that you have a nice web design that doesn’t look too amateurish. Secondly, it shouldn’t be filled with all sorts of ads which is an eyesore for most web-savvy users. Always organize your layout so that your ads, widgets, and other web design features don’t intrude with the reading experience. Additionally, your site should load fast enough. Nobody wants to wait to see what you have to offer when they could get far better content by just skipping your eternally loading page. Another thing to give better emphasis is your headlines or post titles. I guess when it comes to social media sites; a catchy title is always catchy. Cleverly put titles that are good link baits work well in capturing attention.

2) Your Content – Well crafted content which shows how much effort has been placed in producing it are very much appreciated in SU. Write clearly and avoid too much rambling. Create articles with unique insights where people can learn something. Resource list and how to articles always get positive reactions. I have an article which deals about creating a great blog post to help you write one. Alternatively, contests and free stuffs, videos, humor, and bizarre things are also well received in SU.

3) Your Network – Basically, even how great your content is, it will have little exposure unless you have an effective network to back it up. Add friends to your profile. Of course, don’t just befriend people randomly. You can only have a maximum of 200 friends in SU so be careful about it. Get those people who share the same interest as yours. It will ensure that you get better response from them. You can start by befriending your fellow bloggers who are already in SU. Also, try looking at the reviews in SU of articles that you liked. You can access it through your toolbar (if you have one). Try befriending those who made their reviews or those who just voted. Whenever you submit your post to SU, you can send it to your SU friends to give it more votes and reviews (the send function is found in your toolbar as well). Of course, you don’t have to do this all the time because the more you do it the more it’ll be considered as spamming.

4) Your Activity – This will affect your authority as a stumbler and the exposure of your stumbles as well. When you’re active at stumbling and making reviews, more stumblers will recognize you and, perhaps, decide to follow you inside SU. Another benefit of being an active stumbler, although still improbable, is that it affects the weight of your stumbles. It’s like climbing the ladder to being a top stumbler, but of course that’s a very long way ahead. Ultimately, being active in SU will give you a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t inside the system which can be considered an edge when submitting your stuff. It’s like learning the right balance of these and those to get this and that.

These are the things that got me into rethinking my usage and traffic strategy in StumbleUpon. You can either believe me or not, but I believe it will not hurt you to give StumbleUpon a try. It’s a great tool to increase your traffic and could also help in your blog’s seo. The only factor that you need to add is your part as an active stumbler. By the way, if you’re looking for an SU friend who’d stumble your submission, you can start by befriending me. Here’s my SU profile: http://nepspeed82.stumbleupon.com/

Finally, here are some articles which you could read to help you incorporate StumbleUpon to your blogging:

The Beginner’s Guide to Getting Massive Traffic from StumbleUpon
A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon: How to Build Massive Traffic to Your Website
How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide
A Definitive StumbleUpon Guide: Driving Traffic To Websites
StumbleUpon Optimization: Leveraging Photo Stumbles for More Web Traffic
UnOfficial StumbleUpon guide on how to get traffic


technorati tags: stumbleupon, boost traffic, social media

10 Simple Steps to Increase Your RSS Subscribers

1) Write quality content – People will not subscribe if all they’ll find in your blog are rants, the food you ate and more of your rants. Provide useful information that they could use for whatever it is they’re doing. The more they find your voice helpful, the more they will subscribe.

2) Write interesting content – Similarly, people will also subscribe if they could relate to your content and find it unique and interesting. People don’t only flock on useful things. They also tend to gather on things that appeal to them even if it’s not as useful.

3) Make catchy headlines – This is your article’s introduction. It’s the first impression that they’ll make of your post before they read it. If your titles are boring, that would instantly affect how they’ll receive the following lines of words you make. What do you think make girls buy glossy magazines just by looking at its cover? The same should also apply to your blog. Just convert buying into subscribing.

4) Make it easy to read – Make sure that your posts are easy on the eyes. Don’t publish research articles and blocks upon blocks of words that will intimidate the usual internet user suffering from attention deficit disorder. Use bullets to enumerate ideas. Use subheadings to break your train of thought in parts. And most importantly, use white spaces effectively. Don’t make one huge block of paragraph that’s hardly pleasing and difficult to read. It’s all about making it easy for the brain to digest your information quickly.

5) Get a clean and organized template – Imagine a non web-savvy internet user searching for answers in Google landing in your messy blog. How do you think he’ll browse what you have to offer and subscribe to your blog if you don’t have any links to your previous posts or it is buried 100 feet below your pile of useless widgets? Before anything else, your blog must serve its primary function which is to “SERVE YOUR CONTENT” and not to forecast your city’s weather or watch your neon ads. Emphasize your content, subscribe widgets, search box, categories, archives and anything else that will point to what your blog has to offer. Throw the rest away, or put them someplace where they can’t distract your potential subscribers.

6) Post regularly – Don’t write just when you feel like it. Also, don’t write like there’s no tomorrow (unless you’re a huge blogging institution). Determine your posting frequency like once or twice a day, thrice or twice a week, but never once a month. People hate it when you’re slacking; they also hate it when you’re too hyperactive that they can’t keep up with you. Just get the right blend. By posting regularly, the more people will know what they could expect from you. You’ll be keeping your current readers plus you’ll be pulling in new ones.

7) Stick to your niche – Keep posting relevant articles about your theme or topic. Your readers are expecting you to write more about it. By writing more about it, the more you become an expert on that field which leads to better posts which will lead further to more subscribers.

8) Make it easy to subscribe – Place your subscribe buttons where people can see them immediately. Offer email subscription for those who are not using feed readers. Additionally, ask your readers to subscribe to your blog through messages at the end of every post that tells them to consider subscribing to your updates. I’m not using it yet but I’m beginning to believe that they really work.

9) Tell the rest of the blogosphere about your blog – Tell more people about your blog not just your circle of friends. Make “useful” comments in other blogs to pull in readers from that blog. Join social bookmarking sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Reddit, Mixx, etc and submit your posts. Join forums and use your blog url as your footer signature. Submit your rss feed to rss directories. Submit your blog to blog directories. It’s all about exposing your blog to a greater audience.

10) Use entrecard – I’m not sure if everyone will agree with me but by using entrecard you’re guaranteed to get your blog exposed to a lot of bloggers. And if you do the rest of the outlined tips from 1 to 8, it’s not impossible to convert a dropper into a subscriber. Just do your regular drops, and make “insightful comments” on the blogs you find interesting or relevant to your niche.

11) This is an extra tip which you might consider taking if you really want to boost your rss readers. Join blogcatalog and look for groups with threads that involve feed exchanges. Participate in the discussion and you’ll be guaranteed 20 or more new subscribers in a day. Of course, we all know that this is only for short term gratification. But it always depends on how you present your content to these people. If you’re proving yourself worth their attention, then by all means, why can’t they be your long term subscribers?

This post is my entry for

technorati tags: rss, subscribe, blog tips, group project

What It Takes to Create a Not so Killer but Highly Participated Blog Contest

These days, a lot of blogs are holding contests. It’s a trend that bloggers are quick to adopt because of the benefits they could get out of it. That’s because a blog contest is a powerful marketing tool to get blogs better exposure. Get more traffic, backlinks, readers, Technorati ranking, etc; it’s all about increasing blog stats to improve your blog’s authority.

What’s a blog contest?

A blog contest is just your usual online contest that is conducted by blogs to build publicity, recognition, and/or networks. A blog contest cannot be a contest without prizes. These prizes range from entrecard credits to real cash, gadgets, advertising spots, reviews, and other valuable online merchandise and services you could think of. Getting entries to win usually requires a participant to do some things that will benefit the contest host and his/her blog.

How do you benefit from holding blog contests?

Your blog can benefit from a contest in a lot of ways depending on your contest’s rules/mechanics and how well you promoted it; but generally, these are the areas where you’ll see much improvement and what most contest runners hope to improve after conducting it:

• More backlinks
• Increased Google, Technorati, and Alexa rankings
• More readers (subscribers and return visits)
• More traffic

How to Setup a Blog Contest?

Running a contest is not as easy as it looks. It requires a lot of effort to coordinate with everyone you want to get involved from its conception to the handing-over of prizes to the winners. If you’re planning of running one, here’s a guide which could help you.

There are 4 aspects to keep in mind when you decide to run a blog contest:

1. Your goals
2. The prizes
3. The game mechanics
4. Promotion

Goals

You don’t just hold a contest with nothing in mind. Think first of what you hope to achieve after conducting the contest, which will determine the competition’s success. It could be increasing your RSS subscribers, increasing your backlinks, increasing your stats, and any blog related increase you have in mind. Once you have your goals, you can then make better decisions around the competition format, prizes, promotion etc.

Prizes

Generally, the bigger your prizes are, the more buzz you’ll potentially make but it all depends on how much you’re willing to spend for your contest and how many sponsors you’ll get. If you’re not very experienced when it comes to marketing your ideas or is fairly new to blogging, it’s best to keep your prizes simple but useful.

Don’t give prizes that your contestants have no use for or you’ll end up with few or no participants at all. The best prizes are those relevant to your niche to hook up contestants that will better appreciate them. For many blogger contestants, entrecard credits are always a way to go, but you have to put the non-entrecarders into consideration as well. Cash is often the best form of prize but always try to come up with a considerably better value since a mere $10 will brand your contest as cheap. Regarding blogging tools, e-books, services, and other products; it’s best to put their monetary value as well so everyone will see how much they’re worth.

Besides the prizes for winners, a contest will get better reception if it has incentives for all the participants. Something like a free e-book, 10ec, or a linkback in the form of daily or weekly round up of participants for every contestant can be a start.

Before going all out with your prizes, always remember that giving away big ones is not a sure way to get your competition successful without knowing what sort of and how many response you might get. Also, if there’s shipping involved for the delivery of your prize, consider also the geographic constraints of such a medium. Try offering a prize equivalent like a PayPal deposit to encourage others to participate.

Rules of the game

Like said earlier, the mechanics on how to enter your competition always depend on what your goals are for holding one. You could require participants to comment in your post, subscribe to your feed through email, favorite your blog in Technorati, write about your contest, Stumble, or Digg before they could join your competition. It all depends on you. But more often than not, your participants are also as busy (or lazy) as you in their blogging careers, and if you make it hard for everyone to enter your competition, you’ll get less response from them. Keeping your contest requirements simple and quick will ensure more participation from your potential contestants.

From what I’ve been reading lately, contests that require people to write about it and its sponsors are getting less and less popularity unless it’s conducted by popular blogs with prizes that’s highly sought after. In most contests that I’ve seen so far, usually, the time consuming requirements to enter end up as optional means to get more entries to better a contestant’s odds of winning. Maybe it’s a better contest model that’s why more people do it, don’t you think?

Make your rules easy for you too. When you get a lot of entries that require you to sift through them all, moderate them, judge them etc. It can take a lot of time. Sometimes you might give them too many options to get entries that it becomes difficult for you to track their activities down. Think about things first like if there’s any way for you to automate processes or find others to help you with the logistics. Make it easy for both you and your contestants so everyone will benefit from it.
Another idea which you might want to incorporate in your contest is making it work around a certain theme or concept. Most of the successful and popular contests used unique ideas that presented something new or challenging to their readers. It adds a particular viral quality to your contest which let those participating spread the word in some way.

A reasonable time frame in which your contest will run is also important for your contest to be successful. Running a competition for a very long time often loses its momentum and presents problems especially to those who joined first. People believe that the longer your contest run, the more participants it will get. It’s wrong simply because there’s no guarantee that you’ll be getting interested parties to your contest through time alone. If you set the deadline to more than a month, within two to three weeks, your contest will start to get stale. What’s more is that your participants will start forgetting about your contest losing its element of fun and excitement. The ideal timeframe for you to conduct your contest, I believe, is within two to three weeks only; enough for the word to spread, for participants to join, and for sponsors to get their money’s worth.

Finally, write your rules clearly. Enumerate them and spell out the parameters to be qualified in the draw. It’s difficult when your contestants can’t understand what you want them to do. Inform them also about what they can expect from your contest if your winners will be picked subjectively (best submissions), or randomly (through some randomizer tool).

Promotion

For a contest to be successful, it needs many participants. And you’re in no way to get as many when you’re not promoting your contest effectively. Another purpose of your contest promotion is to pull in as many sponsors as possible to provide more and better prizes. Of course, it’s always up to you if you would require the help of sponsors or not.

If you’re interested in getting sponsors, try contacting your fellow bloggers first if they would be interested in becoming your contest sponsors. Tell them what’s in store for them if they become your sponsors like a free review, lots of backlinks, a month long spot in your ad spaces, etc. There’s no one who’ll better understand and relate to what you’re going through than them.

If your contest is really big or if it’s really promising (depends on how you see it), you can try contacting companies if they are willing to be sponsors. You have to put extra effort here in selling your blog’s nice stats and what your blog and your contest can offer to them. If you’re lucky, maybe you’ll get some of them to answer your plea.

When looking for sponsors, it’s best to conduct the search early on before you announce the call for contestants itself so that you can plan ahead how you’d run the contest based on the prizes you’ve managed to collect. You can start by making a post about your desire to find sponsors to grab the attention of those interested to offer their hand but you have no contact to. You can also try entrecard’s messaging system, as I’ve received countless offers of being a contest sponsor through it. And then there’s the traditional email, forums, and IM. Then there’s a tip I got from a blog contest article where “you can publish your request on sites like ProfNet” to find suitable sponsors for your contest.

To get more participants for your blog, you have to promote your contest to as many venues as possible. Start by promoting it in social media sites like Digg, Stumble Upon, Twitter, BlogCatalog, etc. Invite your blogger contacts if they could join or help you spread the word, or try posting in forums, and commenting in other blogs. If your contest mechanics were made in such a way that your contest will be promoted easily across the blogosphere, then expect your call for participants to spread fast enough.

If you’ve noticed also, there are blogs and sites dedicated to announcing ongoing contests across the blogosphere. All you need to do is submit your contest to them. Sites like Contest Blogger, The Prize Blog, A.B.C. - About Blog Contests, and A Contest Blog are just a few examples. Please note that some contest submission sites require fees to get your contest listed or be featured.

Some bloggers resort to modifying their entrecard effectively to announce their ongoing contests. They create their 125 x 125 ads to do the announcing of their ongoing contest by including their best prize in big letters for everyone to see. Then they do frequent rounds of relentless dropping and relentless buying of advertising slots as well. Sometimes, also, they match it with changing their landing pages to the contest post they made. Others maximize what entrecard can offer by frequenting the entrecard forums and announce their contest there once a day.

These efforts you made to link back to your contest to promote it will not only get you your much needed participants but could also serve as backlinks that could help you in improving your rankings. So, don’t hesitate to make lots of them.

Other things to consider

When you’re expecting huge submissions for your contest, always make sure that you employ some form of system or methodology to track down your contestants activity. There’s nothing that could ruin your competition than having your contestants boycott you for being unfair just because you were unable to account for all of their submissions to enter the contest effectively.

Always correct the mistakes when you see one. Even how minimal it may appear, it has the potential to cause troubles in the flow of the contest especially if it accumulates.

Send your prizes as soon as possible. Don’t make your winners wait for half a year before they get their prize.

Live up to your word. If your deadline is after three weeks and the draw date on the next day, then make sure that when it comes your contestants will be able to see the results of your draws not later than two days after the draw date. Don’t change the rules all the time especially after the contest has already been started. That’s part of keeping up to your word. You should have overseen things right before you launched your contest.

Lastly, don’t raise your hopes up too much. Although there have been successful contests, there have also been failures. Don’t expect your blog to perform better afterwards. Although they have the capacity, running contests is not the only and perfect way to increase your blog’s stats and RSS feed count. Nonetheless, blog contests bring more fun and personality to your site and help build friendly relationships with your readers.

Oh yeah, one more thing. In case you're not that interested in holding contests yet, how about joining two of my recently sponsored contests:

• Pinay Mommy's Birthday Bash
• TheGermz.com's Birthday Contest

There's also another contest which I could've promoted along with these two but, unfortunately, this post didn't quite make it in time before its deadline. Anyways, here's it's link: Blog Me The Money's Summer Kickoff Contest.

technorati tags: blog contest, blog promotion, blog tips

Quick Links for Better Blogging

I haven’t finished my next post yet so I came up with these quick useful links which you could try. I hope you like it.

Comment Hunt – A Shareminer like customized Google search that helps you find High Page Rank DoFollow Blogs to get some quick links using blog comments.

A blogging and traffic tips carnival - July 2, 2008 – A carnival about blogging tips and generating more traffic. My post is included in the list. :)

Internet Marketing Carnival - Edition 6 – Another carnival about internet marketing and SEO. Same as the above. :) :)

Pinay Mommy’s Birthday Bash – Join Pinay Mommy’s Contest and get lots of entrecard credits and cash prizes.

Graham’s Entre-Digg – Graham Langdon, the founder of Entrecard, gives all entrecarders an opportunity to promote their blogs in entrecard. Hop in the “digg-train” and get more exposure from digg.



technorati tags: quick, links, blogging

Life is Colorful with $3,000 Worth of Prizes and 6000 ECs in Colourful Blog Anniversary Contest

I know this post is long overdue because Life is Colourful invited me to join this contest about 15 to 20 days ago (I can’t remember exactly as I’ve already deleted the message). Anyways, I guess it’s not yet too late to join since the deadline for submission of entries will still be on the 14th of July.

Life is Colourful is a blog about making money online with very diverse topics about blogging ranging from affiliate marketing, article writing, blogging tips, health, to life. Lately, they’ve decided to hold a contest as part of their blog’s first anniversary with prizes worth $3,000 and 6000 entrecard credits. That’s one hefty amount of prize if you ask me. It’s still the 2nd of July so you still have some more time to join if you’re interested.

Here’s the list of prizes Life is Colourful promises to give its contest winners:

Colourful Blog Anniversary Contest - Win Over $3000 in Cash and Prizes
Blogging Tools & Products, Webmaster Resources, Memberships

- A product to help you making money: Super Affiliate Blogger and Wordpress Adsense Theme by Easywordpress ($194 value - 2 x $97)
- Two-year subscription to GoStats Pro [One of the web’s leading traffic stats providers] by GoStats ($180 value - 2 x $90)
- Five One-Year VIP Memberships to CreateBanner.com by Xavier Media ($175 value - 5 x $35)
- 100,000 [One hundred thousand] Tnx points by Tnx.net ($125 value)
- Two One-Hour Consultation Sessions by TheUniversiryKid ($100 value - 2 x $50)
- "Building An Internet Business From Scratch - Making $1,000 After 24 Hours" DVD by Marcus Hochstadt ($100 value)
- Two copies of Direct Response Templates for Salesletters and Salesstickies by Carl "Kidblogger" ($74 - 2 x $37)
- Two Copies of "TO DO List Software" by Fruitfultime ($60 value - 2 x $30)
- One 30 minutes of blog consultation by The Net Fool ($40 value)
- Blog Bundle Pack 2 [Specially designed for Bloggers] by 1 Cool File ($20 value)

Cash Prizes

- $30 cash prize by Capitalist Guide ($30 value)
- $25 cash prize by Autoline Reviews ($25 value)
- $25 cash prize by Health and Fitness Center ($25 value)
- $20 cash prize by Leisa Watkins ($20 value)
- $20 cash prize by Travel Tips ($20 value)
- $20 cash prize by New Homes Section ($20 value)
- $20 cash prize by Social Networking Sites ($20 value)
- $20 cash prize by Quality Vista ($20 value)

All prizes shall be given through Paypal

Books and eBooks

- Three copies of "Work Smart, Get Rich!" eBook Donated by The Net Fool ($45 value - 3 x $15)
- Autographed Copy of "The 5 Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me About Life and Wealth" book by Leisa Watkins

Each participant of this contest will get dollar eBook from TheUniversiryKid along with his consultation time.

Advertising Space

- Four 3-months textlink at Life is Colourful ($360 value - 4 x $90)
- Four 3-months textlink at Finance Blog ($180 value - 4 x $45)
- One Greenland Country Ad Space at Buy a Nation ($125 value)
- Full Set of Advertising Space by Roman Dock ($125 value)
Two 125 x 125 ($20 value - 2 x $10)
Three 468x60 ($30 value - 3 x $10)
Five Textlinks ($50 value - 5 x $10)
One Full Review ($25 value)
- Four 3-months 125 x 125 banner slots at Article Rewrite ($120 value)
- Ten Featured Links at Piggy Web Directory ($100 value)
- Ten Textlinks worth $10 bid each at BYDY Link Bid Directory ($100 value)
- Four Express Link Submissions Forever at Mad Mouse Directory ($51.80 value - 4 x $12.95)
- Two Featured Link Submissions for One year at Mad Mouse Directory ($49.90 value - 2 x $24.95)
- One 125 x 125 at Winning the Web by Gyutae Park ($50 value)
- One Full Blog Review at Life is Colourful ($50 value)
- Five Featured Links at Directories.bz ($50 value) * These apply to directory submissions only, Flippable.
- Three Featured Links for Six Months at Massive Net Links Directory ($30 value)
- Three Featured Links for Six Months at Internet Stromer Directory ($30 value)
- Three Featured Links for Six Months at Internet Ahead Directory ($30 value)
- One 125 x 125 at Blogging Fingers ($30 value)
- One 125 x 125 at New Homes Section ($30 value)
- One 125 x 125 at Sueblimely ($30 value)
- One 125 x 125 at Life is Colourful ($30 value)
- One Full Blog Review at Finance Blog ($30 value) * These apply to Finance service reviews, Flippable.
- One 125 x 125 at Dot Com Mogul ($25 value)
- Two 125 x 125 at Vincent ($20 value)
- One Full Blog Review at Lightnings Blog World (value $20)
- One 125 x 125 at The WWW Blog ($15 value)

Entrecard Credits

- 2500 Entrecard Credits by Life is Colourful
- 2000 Entrecard Credits by Sueblimely
- 1000 Entrecard Credits by Lightning Blog World
- 500 Entrecard Credits by Vincent

Total: 6,000

I’m really after the ECs and advertising space that’s why I joined. How about you? What do you want to win? Join now if you haven’t yet. This is also an opportunity to improve some aspects of your blog. Hmmm, this gave me an idea for my next post.

For more details about joining the contest you can visit Colourful Blog Anniversary Contest.


technorati tags: colorful, contest, prizes