Day 10 - earning Entrecard credits

I also wanted to mention earning entrecard credits from the forums in entrecard. Check any forum that sounds like marketing and promotions. Bloggers will pay you to comment, stumble and/or digg their posts. Since commenting on other peoples blogs is a great way to build links and gain traffic anyway, I watch for these offers and frequently hop on them.

Day 9 - just joining social networks - blog catalog, stumble upon, digg

I continue to drop around 20 to 30 entrecards. Additionally, I’m resubmitting this blog to blog catalog. Last time it was rejected because it was too new.

I’ve also joined Digg (HalfFullCup) and StumbleUpon (xmarks1). There are forums on entrecard and blog catalog where you can trade diggs and stumbles. I did that for awhile and got a little traffic but it made me feel dirty. It wasn’t honest traffic. I’m going to build my friends databases on both Digg and Stumble a bit before I try to get traffic. I believe the best way is to Digg and Stumble anything you think is cool as you search the web. Also link to as many people as you find interesting on both networks. After you have built up a good list of friends (more than 30 active members – check to make sure that they are actually digging and stumbling – it won’t help you if they really don’t use the system) and then post you best post. You can call your friends attention to it on both sites. If they like it their activity will bring more people’s attention to it. So for now, I’m just going to build my own activity.

Day 8 - Avatar

If you are having difficulty creating an avatar for entrecard and other site. Check out bloggers such as http://househomegarden.blogspot.com/. This site others free avatars. There are other bloggers out there that are willing to help. Search "free 125" or "free avatars" and several should come up.

Day 7 - entrecard continued

I'm up to 350 visitors. What I have done over the last several days is to drop around 20 to 30 cards at entrecard members a day and advertise. I find the fastest way to do this is by clicking only on those from my drop inbox. I have posted a few items in the entrecard forums and earned some extra credits by commenting on other blogs. Go into the forums and look into marketing and promotions forums. People are willing to trade credits for traffic. I then use the traffic to purchase ads. I only purchase ads with 16 ec or more. I think those that are worth less are probably not active blogs and stay away from them.

Day 6 – Entrecard

I haven’t done much in terms of promoting this site in the last couple of days and my traffic is around 10 a day. What I did do is join entrecard.com. Basically you need a 125 by 125 pixel image (called a widget) and an email address. Sign up and put entrecard’s code on your blog. Other entrecard members will sign up to advertise on your site, which earns you credits. You can pay credits to advertise on other entrecard member’s sites. Additionally, you can earn credits by viewing entrecard member’s sites and “drop”ping a card on them. That mean you clicked on a button marked drop. Each time you drop, you earn a credit and the site you dropped on earns a credit.

So far, I’ve dropped 43 times, mainly on the same 10 blogs. I have been dropped on 38 times. Some people drop like crazy and drop up to the limit, 300 per each of your blogs. From this blog, I only drop 10 to 15 a day. That only takes a couple of minutes. Most people you drop on will try to drop on you too. It builds a repeat traffic pattern. I purchased advertising which is just kicking in today and have earned 2 clicks. Prime advertising opportunities require a wait, so the ones I purchased won’t kick in for a couple of days.

To earn extra credits, I logged into the entrecard forum and reviewed the promotion/marketing groups. Some people will pay you credits to comment on their site. I did a couple of those today but I haven’t been paid yet. When I do, I will buy more advertising. I don’t normally waste credits on cheap advertising (which everyone in the beginning is cheap) but if anyone comments here and joins entrecard, let me know. I would be happy to be your first advertising customer.

I wanted to mention something I did on my other blog. I wrote a post about my daughter’s diaper training, then I started a couple of discussions titled “she peed on my floor and I had to cheer.” I included a link to my post. The title was interesting enough that I got people jumping over right away. Almost immediately, I had a dozen people from the forums reading my post.

Day 5 - google trends, insights for search

Basically no one visited today but that isn’t surprising. I have family visiting so I didn’t do much yesterday and did nothing today. I didn’t visit those who commented on my posts. Since I don’t have a readership or reputation yet, backing off promoting your blog will result in a major reduction in visits. My other blog (www.inandoutoftruth.blogspot.com) had 90 visits one day last week and I doubt I’ll break 30 today. It is suffering from the same lack of attention this week.

Let me throw out one tip. Visit Google trends (www.google.com/trends). It will show what search terms are growing in popularity. Google Insights for Search (www.google.com/insights/search/#) is a related site the does something similar. Review what searches are more popular. If you are deciding about a couple of different topics to write about or really are just looking for ideas, write about something that is growing in popularity. That way, you may be able to ride some of the growth in interest. Right now according to Google trends, C. familiaris, Bill Gwatney and Colin Powell are hot trends. In Google insights for search, I am able to focus on just the United States (for example) and a period of time. According to this site myspace, youtube and yahoo are the highest rated search terms. What is really cool about insights for search is that you can focus on categories. One category is online communities. By looking at that category, facebook is the leading search term by a major factor but hi5 is growing incredibly fast. Any of these would be great topics to write a post about and hope that you would be able to earn some of the growing interest.

Tonight, I’m just going to post this blog. Ping my blog and then visit the people who commented yesterday. I really won’t get much of a chance to promote beyond that.

Day 4 - traded links and turned down by blogcatalog

It’s a day later and I had 28 visitors. I’m pretty pleased. I had forgotten that blog catalog requires that blogs be up and running for a minimum time before being accepted, therefore this blog was rejected from BC for the time being. I did post several introduction comments on BC using my other blog. If your blog has been around for a little while to sign up and friend me (my profile is xmarks).
I also traded several links. It’s been a long day and I’m quitting early. I’ll post this and ping my blog.

Day 3 - Continue responding to comments, add more discussion in google groups and join blogcatalog.

OK. It is about a day later and I only have had seven more visitors and only one more comment. I did have a couple more responses to the coffee shop discussion but I think I will let the die on its own.

So to my check list:
1.) Post something. I’m working on it.
2.) Respond to any comments on my site. The new comment is more of a thank you. I’ll come back to it tomorrow.
3.) Coffee Shop discussions. There are a few on there now talking about new blogs. I will check out some other people’s blogs and add mine to the list. I believe it is best to go and check out other people’s blogs instead of just expecting them to come to you.
4.) I am going to post a few discussions on other groups. To do this, click on the “google groups” sign on the upper left in the Coffee Shop. I’ll then find a group or two that seem appropriate for me and enter a couple of discussions.
5.) I will join blog catalog at http://www.blogcatalog.com and insert their widget. I’ll do more with blogcatalog on future posts.

(don't forget to pingmyblog.com after each post)

Day 2 - Expanding on comments/discussions and submitting site to google and yahoo.

It is approaching 24 hours since I set up this blog and I have had 18 visitors, 2 comments and 4 comments on the discussion I put in the coffee shop. Not bad but time to promote some more.

First, did I write something? Well that’s what you are reading now. I am going to keep stressing the importance of frequent posts. I aim for a daily release but 5 or 6 a week is more realistic for me.

Second, once I post I “ping” my blog. This tells search engines that there is something in your blog. I use www.pingmyblog.com. That site will ping a large number of different indexes at the same time.

Third, I tell all of my friends and family who read the internet that I’m writing something and they should go check it out. Let them know that you put new things up frequently so they should keep coming back.

Fourth, I trade links with my friends and family who blog. Nobody loves me more than me so I’m going to trade links with my other blog. To do that from the dashboard, I click on “layout.” Then I click on “add a page element.” In the popup window, I click on “blog list,” “add to list” and then type in my other blog’s address. I suggest being very free with giving links to other blogs. Don’t demand that they link back. You can always remove the link at a later point if you feel the relationship is too one sided.

Fifth, I have two comments. Comments are one of the best methods of promoting your blog in the beginning. I will go to each person who commented on my site and try to return the favor. I try to return comment for every comment I receive. It builds better relationships and builds both of our blogs. Think of commenting from a few points of view. A. It is simply nice to comment on someone else’s blog. Being nice is well nice. B. Commenting on someone else’s blog encourages them to come visit my blog and hopefully comment. C. Even if the blog owner does not come and visit, my comment frequently brings in their readers to look at my blog. It becomes a free advertisement. I may even ask to exchange blog links.

Sixth, several people commented on my coffee shop discussion. I will reply to them in the coffee shop and will visit (and may comment) on their sites. By replying in the coffee shop, I keep interest up in my discussion and I keep is near the top of the coffee shop list.

Seventh, there are at least a half dozen other new blogs posting for attention in the coffee shop. I will visit several of them and post comments.

Finally, I am submitted my blog to google and to yahoo. This will tell the search engines that my blog exists. Unlike pinging, I only need to do this once. Submitting can be done easily by visiting these sites:
Http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
Http://www.google.com/addurl
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

That will be it for day two.

Day 1 - Preparing the blog to be promoted

I started my blog in December 2007. It was my first attempt at creating anything on the internet. From December through June 2008, I attempted to write a new post every week or so and I didn't spend any effort promoting my blog. The main reason is that I didn't know how. To be completely honest, I did really know that I should promote my blog. I haven't really told my friends or family about my blog either, so my traffic consisted of me and occasionally my wife. Once or twice someone else stumbled onto my blog but they stumbled away just as quickly.

July 9th 2008, I decide to jump in and start blogging and promoting with a passion. I started writing posts several times a week. I aim for a daily update but can't quite make it. I also started promoting my site. In that last month, I have gone from 0 to 2 visitors who weren't me to having more than 40 unique visitors every day. During the week ending August 8th, I had 293 unique visitors totalling 372 visits and yes, this does count my wife. So far, each week I have more visitors and more visits. While I can't predict how many visitors I will be able to reach, I am going to try.

Some of the questions I see new bloggers ask most frequently are how do I promote my blog, how do I get traffic, how will people find my blog and how can I get visitors. More experienced people than me have written about how to get traffic. There are the 25 ways to get traffic, the 50 ways to get traffic, the 99 ways to get traffic and the 100 ways to get traffic. What is missing from this articles is the fresh experience. Therefore, I thought I would start a new blog aimed at teaching new bloggers how to get traffic from a new bloggers point of view, namely me.

On any day that I actively promote my blog, I will post what I did. I will try to explain why I did it. Sometimes I honestly won't know and I am just being hopeful.

Ok. The first step is to write something. OK, I've written something.

Second, I need a way to measure my success. Therefore, I am going to add sitemeter and google analytics. Sitemeter is just http://www.sitemeter.com/. Get an account. I'm signing up for a free account. Fill in the form. Click on the "manager" area. Open your blogger dashboard in a second window. Click on layout, and then on add a page element on the right hand side of your page. In the pop up window, select HTML/JavaScript. Back in sitemeter, click on HTML code. Copy and paste sitemeter code to the open window in your blogger dashboard and save. Finally on sitemeter, click Ignore Visits. That will prevent sitemeter from counting your visits to your own site.

Then sign into google analytics and repeat adding HTML code.

Another very important thing to do is to go to the dashboard and click on edit profile. Put your blog address in and allow others to see it. The will allow others to find your blog when you leave comments on posts.

For my final blog promotion for tonight, I am going to go Google Help Groups – The Coffee Shop and add a discussion. For tonight, I am just going to announce my new blog, tell readers it’s purpose and invite them to stop by. Note that I am going to leave my blog address in the discussion. If the reader wants, they can also find me by clicking on my profile.