17 Uses for Twitter

The more I read and use twitter, the more valuable it has become. I wrote an earlier post a couple weeks ago on some basic techniques for it, but it’s uses have been growing and growing. When I first looked at the site I was like what is the point of a site where all you do is have 140 characters to write about how you are doing. Well actually, it’s incredibly useful.

Pretty much every blog related to blogging, has written a post about twitter. Using my typical strategy, I’m going to combine the strategies of all of these posts into one, as well as including many of my own. So here is my list, of 17 uses for twitter.

1.
    Bragging Rights

Have you seen on blogs that more and more regularly, you are seeing their amount of followers next to their amount of subscribers? It’s becoming very popular. I found a figure for how much a twitter follower is worth, now I realize it’s based on completely sketchy and unreliable information, so it’s not really true. But some guys came up with the figure 6.19$ now it means absolutely nothing beyond the fact, that you can now brag that your site is worth xxxx$. But hey, it’s just as unreliable as Alexa, and Technorati and everything else on the internet right?

2.
    Getting RSS Subscribers

I read a great guest post by Nathan Rice over at dailyblogtips about this. Twitter friends will often turn into RSS subscribers if you can help them out. People ask questions a lot on twitter, just help them out, and then politely tell them you could do even more for them because your blog talks about what they need. And so if they subscribe they can get more information. Don’t be a spammy about it, but if it can help them out, then it really works.

3.
    Getting Friends and Fans

Twitter is a good way to build some relationships, because it is instant. It is like a site designed solely for the purpose of writing your facebook update, and allowing others to comment on it. People love talking on this, and so not only can you help your site out, you can make some good friends, and learn things as well.

4.
    It’s Easy

Twitter is a great program for Social Networking because it is so simple. There is only the chat box, and then followers. The only slightly difficult part in the whole thing, is figuring out how to reply to people. Have you ever heard the term, “retweet” ? This means when you write a twitter update, and others like it so they retweet it on their site as well. But the question is how do you do this? All you have to do, is write this symbol @ and then their username. So to retweet something I said, you would write @mastersofseo to start the message, and then type the message.

5.
    Viral Effect

If you write a good enough tweet, then it can get fired across the twitter world very quickly. Because it’s all instant, and everybody is refreshing the page constantly, if you write an interesting enough thing, then it can fly across the internet instantly. You can receive a flood of traffic, if it’s done well enough.

6.
    Help with Digg and Stumbleupon

If you’ve been a good twitter person, and you’ve been nice to your followers, then you can occasionally ask for stumbleupon and digg requests. If you do it rare enough, and make sure it’s only one of your “killer” articles, then your followers will be happy to help you out. And depending on how well you write your twitt, you can experience two viral effects at once.

7.
    Feedback

Do you have any questions you want to ask an unbiased opinion? Here is your chance. Ask your followers what they think of your template, ask them if they think your blog content isn’t up to par. Twitter is a great way to ask people for help, and to actually receive it. Twitter users are very kind, and I’m sure they would be happy to help, if you aren’t being a jerk about it.

8.
    Gathering News

Things on Twitter fly so fast, it’s crazy. By just reading your homepage, you can pickup all that is happening around the world. All the new releases, tech updates, and latest blog posts, on twitter you can get it all, fast.

9.
    Keeping in Touch

Twitter is a great way to realize what your blogger friends have been up to. You can learn all of their latest updates, and be able to keep in touch, even though you are far.

10.
    Getting Traffic

You can install an application for firefox here that allows you to update your twitter without even going to the site. By updating it a lot, then people will be interested in what you do. Too often people make the mistake of only writing on it when you write a post, people get sick of only links. Tell them what your doing, and they will in turn visit your site, this application makes it easy.

11.
    Twitter users have Alexa Toolbar Installed

Take a look at this Alexa picture from the last three months, see that jump on Nov 22?

I didn’t receive more traffic then usual, I actually received less then usual, then why the jump? Well one because Alexa is a piece of junk, but besides that, because almost 60% of the traffic that day was from Twitter. So even though the traffic number wasn’t that high, a much higher percentage had the alexa toolbar, thus exploding my Alexa ranking. Do you see that number for yesterday?

41,139, that’s really low, in case you know nothing about Alexa. Using Twitter can greatly help you lower your Alexa ranking

12.
    Every Tweet Counts

Each one is like a digg submission, make it right, and it will pay off. Use the right type of words that won’t diminish your reputation, and that will entice people to talk to you. That’s right, I said talk to you, not to visit your site. This is about relationships just as much as it is about traffic. Tell people how you are doing, and when you are telling about your post, then do it in a nonspammy way.

13.
    Be Original and Smart

Just like with every other social site, don’t try and pass off old information as new. Don’t do stupid scams, and lies to get attention. Use the site as it was meant, and tweet you information, that’s helpful to people.

14.
    Hiring People

Are you looking for a web designer, programmer, or for blogging help? Then send out a tweet looking for recommendations. It’s a great way to interact with people, and the Twitter users will surely be nice enough to help you out. This is a great way to fine freelancers as well.

15.
    Creating your Image

Twitter allows for the options of creating your own layout. You can use your logo to create a unique twitter site for you. This helps to broaden your personal image, because you have essentially another site that is purely your own.

16.
    Planning Meetings

Twitter can be used as a simple facebook. Instead of sending a personal email through facebook, just give them a quick tweet on twitter. This can be used for all kinds of information, that only needs quick messages.

17.
    Twitter Flipping

The new wave of siteflipping is twitter flipping. Thanks to free accounts, and the uniquness they allow with only one allowed per site, people are grabbing up free accounts, for the purpose of selling them on auctions. Twitter sites like @lifehacker or @problogger if grabbed early enough could have been worth a lot. But the pickings are quickly decreasing as the accounts are snatched up. So grab your free twitter accounts now, for selling later.

Increasing your RSS Subscribers is one of the most important things that a blogger needs to do. Not only is it a way to sell more ads, it also is a big statement about your blog. Typically your RSS subscribers, are frequent visitors, and so the more you have, the more traffic you have coming to your site. However, getting RSS subscribers sounds a lot harder then it actually is. People are surprisingly willing to subscribe, if you go about it the right way. I’ve compiled a list of strategies that I use, and I would highly recommend for you as well.

1.
    Always respond to emails.

Being available is one of the greatest encouragements to potential subscribers. If they know you actually care about them, then they are much more willing to subscribe. And also, people will subscribe just because you were nice to them, so make sure you are always polite, and try not to blow anybody off.

2.
    Display your numbers proudly

Don’t be ashamed of it, whether you have a lot, or a little, they are both good, and I will explain why. First, if you have very few people. If you actually have good content, then people don’t care how many other subscribers you have, it’s lets them feel happy because they can be one of your first groupies. If you have a lot of subscribers, then it really builds people’s confidence seeing the high number. Even if you don’t have very good articles, everybody is wondering why they have so many subscribers, and so they find themselves subscribing just because everybody else did. Either way, you win, and you don’t really lose anything. Just post good content, and you should be able to break the embarrassing point quickly.

3.
    Set up a popup

I’ve heard very mixed reviews about this, but I’ve never heard a review that said it didn’t work. Every article I’ve read about it, said it gave them great success. The only complaints were it’s annoying, but I mean, very few people would not read a blog simply because of a popup, just make sure there’s an easy way to exit out of it, otherwise you Will get lots of complaints.

4.
    Write Good Content

This is very straight forward, if you want to know about this, read this article on how to write a good blog post. Don’t waste people’s time, with articles that don’t help anybody, be original, informative, and helpful and you’ll be fine.

5.
    Have a Subscribe Button

And place it as far up on the page as you can. Do not hide it at the bottom of your side bar, advertise it, and make it obvious.

6.
    Have an Email Option as well

RSS subscribing is still relatively new. A surprisingly large amount of people don’t know what it is, so make sure people can do it through email. More then half of my subscribers are through email, so make sure you have that option as well. Also, have that high up on your sidebar as well.

7.
    Reciprocal Commenting

Every time you get a comment, return to that person’s site and comment back. Let them know you appreciate their visit, not by thanking them. But by returning the favor, I bet you they’ll come back. 

8.
    Write lots of Guest Posts

This is really important, because it’s a great way to advertise your site. Choose similar sites, with a similar audience, and it’ll be an incredible way to get new subscribers.

9.
    Make a Huge Subscribe button

Check out this site for an example. That guy has almost 4,500 subscribers, not a bad total,  I think he knows what he’s talking about. Now don’t make it that big, but the one I have now is too small, yes I admit that. Make it at least 125×125, and stretch it as far as you dare. 

10.
    Ask people to Subscribe

It sounds dumb, but people will really respond if you ask them to. Now you have to do it indirectly, don’t just write a post saying SUBSCRIBE!! with a big button in the post. The way I do it, is to ask at the end of every post saying, if you liked this post please subscribe. Short, sweet, and gets the point across.

11.
    Have all the Subscribe options

If you go into your feedburner account, there are a lot of different options. Make sure you have them all checked; you would not want to be preventing your readers from subscribing because you didn’t support their type of RSS reader.

11.
    RSS feed Vs. Url Feed

Now I have yet to test this out, but I’ve read that this works in a lot of posts. When you comment on a blog, instead of doing the url of your blog, do the url of your feed. If you have the full post option from Feedburner, then they will essentially be at your site anyway, and this way it’s easier for them to subscribe. I can’t recommend this as I haven’t tried it yet, but it sounds like it could really work. I’ll try it and let you know my results at some point.

12.
    Participate on forums

Discussions, forums, message-boards, call them whatever you like, these are great ways to get subscribers and traffic. It’s like fast paced blog commenting. Just get in a forum your knowledgeable about, and related to your site, and just be very intelligent and help people out, and then refer them to your blog for more details. If your on the right forum, then this is a great way to grow your blog.

13.
    Comment on like-minded blogs

This is similar to the guest posting thing, but this is available all the time. Start doing the rounds in commenting, and visit similar blogs. Comment, help people out, you don’t even have to refer them, because your name will be a link, so you don’t have to be spammy. Just help people out, and you’ll be helping your site out as well. 

These are a few myths that I want to debunk. There are lots of ways that people say you can increase your subscribers, and these are popular. But don’t fall for them, they have very little if any real effect.

14.
    Don’t waste time with Feed exchange sites

There are lots of sites promising to advertise your site, for example Rsshugger.com I fell for that site when it first came out. To join you had to link to their site, and write a post about them. I was desperate for new subscribers so I gave it a shot. I think I referred about 150 visits to their site, and they gave me 3 total visits, and who knows if any of those even subscribed. And I was one of the tops sites for a while, because of all the traffic I gave them. Don’t waste your time with these!

15.
    Don’t use Feed Directories

These are a waste, and they really don’t help you any. It’s not worth the time it takes to put your site in them, and all you get in return is one more subscriber from the site. Very rarely will they ever actually refer anybody to your site, so don’t waste your time with them.

16.
    Don’t do feed exchanges

These are also a waste. What’s the point of a subscriber if you are both only doing it for the extra number? This is called rss faking. And no only is it a dishonest way to advertise your site, it doesn’t really help you out any either. One more person isn’t going to make that much of a difference, and even if you do a lot of these, you will be adding people who probably don’t read your site anyway.

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As the second post in my series on blog contests, I am sharing with you a contest over at mrjavo.com, you should already know the format of how this works, if not you can read the first one here. Just a note, this contest ends Nov 16th. Which I realize is only in four days. But this contest is similar to the linkers blog one in that, you can easily give yourself a chance of winning, without too much trouble, within the next couple days.  

Here is the link to the contest, Mr. Javo 2.0

Prizes

1st Place

• $200 filled into an advertiser account on Bidvertiser – Value $200
• A custom blog design courtesy of Canadian Web Design – Value $195
• One hour consultation with Mattaw of MoneyBites – Value $50
• One copy of OIOpublisher – Value $47
• One copy of the Traffic Rush Course, courtesy of Caroline MiddleBrook – Value $47
• One copy of the SEO eBook Don’t Get Banned by The Search Engines – Value $40 NEW!
• One year VIP membership on CreateBanner.com, courtesy of Xavier Media – Value $35
• 50,000 BlogUpp! impressions, courtesy of BlogUpp! – Value $30 NEW!
• One copy of the eBook Work Smart, Get Rich!, courtesy of The Net Fool – Value $15

2nd Place

• No Compromise Logo Design Package, courtesy of Logo Design Team – Value $229 NEW!
• A professional audio Intro / Outro for your Podcast or an Audio Introduction for your Blog by Mary-Lynn at Bigg Studio – Value $150
• A copy of the UBD Citrus Theme, by UniqueBlogDesigns – Value $79
• One hour consultation with Benjamin of Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $50 NEW!
• One copy of OIOpublisher – Value $47
• One copy of the Traffic Rush Course, courtesy of Caroline MiddleBrook – Value $47
• One year VIP membership on CreateBanner.com, courtesy of Xavier Media – Value $35
• 30,000 BlogUpp! impressions, courtesy of BlogUpp! – Value $17 NEW!
• One copy of the eBook Work Smart, Get Rich!, courtesy of The Net Fool – Value $15

3rd Place

• One WordPress theme from PremiumThemesNow.com, courtesy of Daniel Scocco – Value $50
• One hour consultation with Benjamin of Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $50 NEW!
• One copy of OIOpublisher – Value $47
• One copy of the Traffic Rush Course, courtesy of Caroline MiddleBrook – Value $47
• One copy of the Instant Blog Traffic eBook, courtesy of Ben Pei – Value $47 NEW!
• One year VIP membership on CreateBanner.com, courtesy of Xavier Media – Value $35
• One month of 468×60px advertising on Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $20 NEW!
• One copy of the eBook Work Smart, Get Rich!, courtesy of The Net Fool – Value $15
• 20,000 BlogUpp! impressions, courtesy of BlogUpp! – Value $10 NEW!

4th Place

• One WordPress theme from PremiumThemesNow.com, courtesy of Daniel Scocco – Value $50
• A blog review on Shanker Bakshi dot Com – Value $50 NEW!
  
• One copy of OIOpublisher – Value $47
• One copy of the Traffic Rush Course, courtesy of Caroline MiddleBrook – Value $47
• One year VIP membership on CreateBanner.com, courtesy of Xavier Media – Value $35
• One month of 125×125px advertising on Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $20 NEW!
• One copy of the eBook Work Smart, Get Rich!, courtesy of The Net Fool – Value $15

5th Place

• A pre-made toon, which is a guy with a laptop “making money” while on the beach, courtesy of Vic Ocampo – Value ?$50
• One copy of OIOpublisher – Value $47
• One copy of the Traffic Rush Course, courtesy of Caroline MiddleBrook – Value $47
• One year VIP membership on CreateBanner.com, courtesy of Xavier Media – Value $35
• One blog review by Benjamin of Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $30 NEW!
• One month of 125×125px advertising on iDesignStudios.com – Value $20 NEW!

6th Place

• A paid review on Balkhis, courtesy of Syed – Value $80
• Two months of 125×125px advertising on Direct Sales Web Marketing, courtesy by Dennis Edell – Value $50
• Thirty-minutes of blog consultations with Jim from The Net Fool – Value $30
• One blog review by Benjamin of Big Ben Patton’s Place – Value $30 NEW!
• One month of 125×125px advertising on WebTrafficROI.com – Value $20 NEW!
• A link after every post during one month on Piggy Bank Pie – Value $10

7th Place

• Thirty-minutes of blog consultations with Jim from The Net Fool – Value $30
• A blog review, a 125×125px advertising for a month and 1000 EC by Louis Liem – Value $30
• One month of 125×125px advertising On Mr Javo dot Com, courtesy of Revvenue.com – Value $25
• One blog review on Niessuh.com – Value $20
• One month of text-link advertising on WebTrafficROI.com – Value $10 NEW!

8th Place

• A Blog review on SponsoReview.com – Value $30
• One month of 125×125px advertising on IndoContest, 2500 EC – Value $20
• 1000 EC from Give Away City
• 1000 EC from Danandmash In Oz

9th Place

• One month of 125X125px advertising on Work From Home Business Blog – Value $10
• One month of 125X125px advertising on Blogging From Scratch – Value $3
• 1000 EC from KisahberuanG.com

10th Place

• 1000 EC from ThemeLib
• 1000 EC from Cash In Style
   

  There’s a Ton of prizes! Now, there is no way that I’m going to review every single one like I did last time. But I’m going to review them generally. My first impression, is that I’m somewhat impressed. That ten different people all have a chance at winning, is very cool, and I like that because it gives you more motivation to rack up more points

  The prizes consist of lots of Ebooks, including some of the same ones from linkers blog. Again like I said in the last one, you can’t really know if they are worth anything until you’ve actually read them. So, I’ll just assume they are worth something. There are a few blog reviews, and consultations which are great. An objective opinion is always good, and all the reviewers have fairly successful blogs, so they Should know what they are talking about. There are also several themes, which could be quite nice. I like the UBD citrus theme, but everyone will have different opinions on blog themes. There’s lots of impressions from BlogUpp, which is a traffic exchange program. I’m somewhat skeptical of those, I’ve tried a few of them, including easyhits4u and they’ve always been a waste of time in my mind. However, I could be wrong, so these could potentially be useful, if they are actually good traffic. This also includes several blog reviews, and advertising opportunities, which are very nice. And then there are several pots of entrecard credits which are always nice.

  Now the big advertisement for this contest is that it’s worth over 2,000$ worth of prizes. Honestly though, I’d take 100 bucks over any of these prizes, and be thrilled about it. If your going to run a contest, cash is best. The first prize totals up to being worth 659$! Thathat’s a Lot of money. And yet besides the 200$ in a bidvertiser account, the lot doesn’t seem worth 459$. The best set of prizes in my mind was the sixth one. A paid review by Balkhis is a great prize. I give props to Javo for getting Syed to give that. And then there are several good advertising options in here, as well as consultations with thenetfool. Jim is a great blogger and I really respect his opinion. If I do end up winning any of these prizes besides the sixth one, it’s possible I may be putting them up for a little contest of my own.

  These prizes suffer from many of the same problems as the linkersblog’s one, no wow factor. The one thing that makes these prizes better, is that there are Way more of them, and there are ten different prizes which I like. It definitely encourages you to spend more work on it, because you know that you have a higher chance of winning something.
  
  Final Grade on Prizes
  6/10

  Requirements

  There are only a couple options to get points in this contest. Like the last one, this one is based by points, and will be decided using random.org. There are only 3 ways to get points, which just shows you that he’s running it for a specific purpose.

  By signing up and confirming your email for his newsletter you get 3 points. (this is also required to be in the contest.)

  By writing about the contest, you get two additional points.

  And for subscribing to his RSS feed by email, you get one additional point.
  Pretty straight forward and simple, he’s trying to get RSS subscribers. And from the looks of it, he’s done pretty well to. His subscribers have gone up by at least a hundred in the last couple weeks, and probably more, but I can’t remember the exact number it was at.

  The contest ends on Nov 16th at 22:00 GTM -4. So if you are going to join, Do it now! There is still plenty of time to do all of these things, and you will have a shot at one of these ten prizes.

  I liked linkersblog’s one better in this respect, because he had more ways to get points, but these ones still aren’t difficult to do.
  
  Final Grade on Requirements
  6/10
  Easy things to do, but not very many ways to get points.

  Chances of winning

  Here’s one of the problems with the contest, there’s a lot of people in it. Like a lot more then linkersblog’s one. On his post there are 123 comments, that’s A lot. The other contest only had about 30 or so. You can’t judge by the comments, but that’s at least 4x more people, then the other one. And who knows how many more just subscribed to the newsletter, and didn’t comment. And so the possibilities are a lot less, but there are ten prizes. So kind of similar to the other one, I think it’s worth doing, but still only medium or less chances of winning something. Also, it’s a random draw, so you always have a shot, just it’s significantly lower because of all the people in it.

  Final Grade on Chances of winning
  5/10
  More prizes, doesn’t necessarily mean higher possibility of success.

  Overall Grade
  6/10
  More prizes, and better prizes in my opinion, but still a bit on the weaker side. And your chances of winning are significantly lower then with the linkers blog as a result of more people. Some useful things in here, but again not worth spending too much time on.  

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I thought of a cool new series to run on this blog, that I’m going to start today, and will run at least at least until the end of November, hopefully though it will be indefinitely. Because of the start of the Blogging Idol 2, lots of bloggers have been trying new ways to increase their RSS subscribers. One of the most popular ideas is by running contests. I was reading my usual group of blogs and found that a lot of them were offering some really great prizes, for their contests. I thought, wouldn’t it be great if somebody compiled al these contests, so that people could learn about them, and know whether they’re worth entering. So I’ve decided that somebody is me. I’m going to find the contests that I think are good, or just if they’re popular, and then I’m going to grade them on several different categories. For example, requirements, prizes, your chances, and then of course an overall grade.  In my last series of posts, I tried hard not to state any opinion on anything, however in these I am going to be blunt and honest. I’m not going to lie to you, if the contest is crap, I’m going to tell you that.
 

These are my final categories for judging.

Prizes

The most important thing of any contest is, what do I win? People entering it want to know what’s in it for them, why should they waste their time subscribing, or blogging about the contest, unless they can get something out of it. So, I will make sure to list all the prizes and what I think of them.

Requirements

Once you hear the prizes, typically you’ll already be getting greedy, so your next question is, what do I have to do? A popular type of contest now in days is based on points, and the winner is determined by randomizer.org, or some type of random draw. The host of the blog will award different points, for different ways that you help them out, such as subscribing, linking… I will list in this section, all the things that you need to do, to give yourself the best chance of winning.

Chances for Winning

Usually the prizes are great, and the requirements are pretty easy, so what’s the draw back? There’s 200 other people in the same contest, who are all doing the same thing, looking for the same prize. You’ve got practically no chance to win. In this section, I’m going to give the contest a grade, based on what your likely hood of winning is. 

Overall grade

This is just my final statements and opinion of it. All these grading will be based on a scale from 0-10, so I will give you a final estimate on the contest.

I’m going to start this off with showing you a contest that’s being run by Danny over at Linkersblog, and here is the link to the contest.

Prizes

·    A Copy of ‘Blog Flipping Blueprint‘ by Brian Clark – Worth $147!
·    One full license of the SuperPress Theme by Fresh Press Themes – Worth $97!
·    One Hour of Private Consultation with Jason from TUK – Worth $100!
·    Logo Design Service from Logopallet – Worth $100!
·    A Unique Video Review from IMWITHJOE.com – Worth $50!
·    A Copy of WP Auction Gold from SponsorReview.com – Worth $50!
·    Lifetime membership to OIOPublisher.com – Worth $47!
·    Entry to the Traffic Rush Course by Caroline Middlebrook – Worth $47!

The prizes total up to 638$ kind of a weird total…  But let’s delve into these things. First off a copy of Blog Flipping Blueprint… A copy of what? I’ve never even heard of it, hmm it’s worth 147 bucks… well Danny I’m taking your word on this one.

One full license of the SuperPress Theme by Fresh Press Themes, ok what does that all mean? Basically your getting a free wordpress theme. Okay I can digg that, (no pun intended) and it’s worth 100 dollars so it’s got to be pretty nice.

One hour of private consultation with Jason from The University Kid, now this sounds intriguing. I like to pretend like I know Jason pretty well, although the relationship consists of a few emails back and forth and that was all business related. His site is doing remarkably well, and so this sounds like it could be worth something. I’m a little skeptical at how much he could do in an hour, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Logo Design Service from Logopallet, this is another useful prize. It’s not incredible, but it’s a very useful tool. Everybody needs a 125×125 ad, and it’s always nice to have one that looks professional as opposed to one that you obviously created in photoshop.

A video review with I’m with Joe. This is somewhat similar to the thing with Jason. I mean they’re both very successful bloggers, but I wonder how much they can actually do. They can give you some helpful advice, but they can’t give you traffic, or links which is more important in my opinion. Now I know your going to say well your not going to get traffic and links with an ugly site, well we’ll see. I did okay with my atrocious black, silver and red. If you weren’t around when I had that, then be happy cause it was Ugly.

A copy of WP Auction Gold. This is another cool prize, another very nice template, however, I wonder what your going to do with two templates… maybe they’re assuming you have two sites. I suppose you could just sell it.

Lifetime Membership to Oiopublisher, this sounds interesting. It is a very popular site, so I’m sure they have some good advice to give.

Entry to the Traffic Rush Course by Caroline Middlebrook. From her site, it describes it has essentially a how to use stumbleupon tutorial. This could be useful, tips on traffic is speaking the bloggers language. If this is really any good, then this could be the best prize of the bunch.

Final Grade on Prizes
4/10

Probably a bit harsh but there’s nothing in there that makes you say wow! Lots of potentially useful things, but nothing incredible. 

Requirements

This is my favorite part about the contest, because I really like the requirements to join this blog. It’s nothing to difficult, and there’s tons of different ways to enter. I’ve never seen a contest with so many different ways to get points. He lists 12 different options, including an option for a special 13th one every week. Usually the bloggers have an idea in mind, to get subscribers, or get links… but I respect Danny’s pursuit to grow his blog in an all-around in this contest, and not just empathizing on one thing. Also, because of the many different ways you can enter, everybody and I do mean Everybody can enter it with no trouble at all. Here’s a screen shot of the different ways to earn points.

You can easily rack up five points with out any trouble at all. It’s nice because he includes the options of higher points for things such as linking, and referring people to him, but he also includes easier steps. I was somewhat surprised to see subscribers given such a low points amount, because he is also in the Blogging Idol 2 contest, but I guess he knows what he’s doing.

Final Grade on Requirements
8/10
He’s got a lot of different options, with many different ways of getting points. Very little requirements at all.

Chances for Winning

Now this is somewhat of a tough question to answer. Because you can with little trouble rack up anywhere from 8-12 points which would currently be the leader of the pack. However, because it’s chosen by a random chooser, you can be the leader by a lot and still not win. I find random draws somewhat frustrating but I don’t know if there’s any other way to really do it fairly. Because of that, we can draw out two things, first you should definitely enter this contest, at least by doing the easy things, because it’s possible you could win by merely stumbling the post, or adding him on twitter. However, this also discourages spending a lot of effort on advertising the post, because you don’t really gain too much, because it’s still a random decision However, you do have one major thing going in your favor. If you look at this picture, of the top rankings you can see that there are only about 30 people entered. That number could grow drastically in the next week, but right now there’s not very many. So your not going to be fighting against hundreds of other people in a random draw. So that greatly increase your chances of winning.

In case you were wondering, yes you can still enter this contest. It runs until Dec 1st. You will be a little bit behind, but if you look at that picture above again, of the top rankings, you can still easily be number one by simply blogging about the contest.

Final Grade on Chances of Winning
6/10
I am very wary of making an effort for random drawings, but the fact that it’s not very popular yet, and there are so many easy ways to join, makes it worth the effort.

Final Grade
6/10
Weak prizes, but easy requirements, and relatively low amount of competitors makes this contest one definitely worth entering, but not worth spending too much time on.

If you are running a contest feel free to comment with the link, or email me and I’ll review it. And I’ll check it out and consider whether it’s worth adding. However, I may bash it, so don’t send it unless it’s Really good.

If you liked this post please subscribe to my RSS feed for more tips on how to blog, and for information on more contest, that you won’t want to miss!

Finally, what you have all been waiting for, the tips on how to get traffic. Hopefully these will benefit you, they certainly did help me. Some of them are rather brief, but I think they all include important things, that we can all benefit from. Feel free to comment with which ones you think are the most helpful, so that I can make sure to tell them, or you can just swing over to their sites and tell them yourself. So without further stalling…

How to get Traffic by the Top Bloggers

Jason – www.theuniversitykid.com

When I started out, there were three main ways I got traffic to the blog:

Contests

Comments

Forums

I ran contests with prizes (mostly donated, and easily gotten like ad
spots, eBooks, consultation etc)… now although the prizes were not that
valuable, I made sure I got a lot of them so that the contest dollar
amount was a big one, which attracted more sponsors and readers.

I commented on other blogs extensively – often around 40 – 50 per day -
NOT A-listers, which is the mistake that many make, but smaller blogs of a
similar / slightly bigger level. This way, I was able to build
friendships, which helped me a lot – those bloggers then mentioned me and
I reciprocated.

Lastly, I used to put in a few solid hours daily on forums, which sent me
around 5,000 uniques per month. Around 40-50 posts per day spread across
various large webmaster and marketing forums like Digital Point, Warrior
Forum, Sitepoint etc.

Around a month or two ago, I added another main way of promotion to the
mix – viral marketing, where I told people to refer 3-5 friends to
subscribe to receive the password to a post where I laid out step by step
how I made $7,500 in a few months and could guarantee it. This sent in
around 200-300 subscribers in less than a week, which was a substantial
increase for me and I’ll be looking at more viral marketing for the site
soon.

Glen Allsopp – www.viperchill.com

Want to know how to get traffic? Drive traffic to others. Stumble peoples pages, give them links and flatter their ego. There’s something about humans that makes us want to give back to those who are helping us, even re-tweet peoples tweets. I’ve seen countless examples of those who are social and helping getting everything back (and more) in return. Of course, make sure you have something good for others to promote, but make sure you give before you expect to receive.

Collin – www.collinlahay.com

Here is a simple post that sums up what my blog talks about:

The best way to make money online for any website in any niche is to rank on the first page of the search engine results.  To accomplish this task, you need to know how to build links so that Google and other search engines know that your blog or website is the authority for that keyword phrase.  There are hundreds of ways to build links on the internet, and my blog is all about showing you where to find them.  Link building is the greatest form of internet marketing because the effects are permanent and once you rank #1 for a result, so long as you continue to build links, you will be receiving the most targeted traffic you could possibly hope for and you will be earning money for doing the least amount of work.  If you want free link building strategies to get you started, check out my blog at CollinLaHay.com

Jim – www.thenetfool.com

The Net Fool on Web Traffic

Getting traffic to a blog is one of the more difficult subjects sought after by beginners. For one, the first few months of my blogging career was spent fruitlessly trying to place links in attractive places to get a visit here or there… as I burned through my working hours just talking with other players in my niche area. I believe that receiving traffic to your blog is going to be largely catered to your ability to generate RSS subscribers and have them come back day after day. What this means to you, is that you will need to make it EASY for people to subscribe to your blog… but also, you want it to be something they just plain want to do.

What am I getting at? The number one way to get traffic to your blog is to be a good blogger! Yes, it sounds cliché… but in reality there is no better way to get traffic then by having a personality. Nobody wants to come by day after day reading re-hashed material. If you blog like that, than you WILL be the one staying up all night spamming forums and commenting our of your mind. Now I’m not saying you shouldn’t be commenting, but it will only count if the article you link people to is something they like and will pass on to your friends. Have a personality, retain your RSS subscribers, and you’ll get an unbeatable recurring traffic flow to your website.

Yan – www.thoushallblog.com

Unless you have perfected the art of SEO, the single most effective method of generating targeted traffic that has stood the test of time is blog commenting. Not only it helps to create the initial exposure and awareness, more importantly it does build long-term relationship with fellow bloggers.

Keeping in mind that getting the initial traffic is the easy part, converting them to be your returning visitors probably takes more than just commenting alone. Whilst commenting is considered to be the push factor, it remains true that your content is the key pull factor. Therefore, the best scenario is to know how to maximize both to your blogging advantage.

Jim – www.jimkukral.com

Stop worrying about traffic. Write good content. Differentiate. Be unique. And do it consistently. Traffic will come. Yes, it will take time, but if you think you can have instant success online just by “getting traffic”, you’re mistaken. Probably not what anyone wants to hear, but it’s true.

Danny – www.linkersblog.com

Two Ways I got Traffic for Free!

Forum Marketing

A lot of the bigger bloggers completely ignore forum marketing as they don’t believe it’s worth the effort. The truth is that forum marketing is worth all the effort and much more! A simple way to get started with forum marketing is to join a forum, think of a catchy title for one of your blog posts, and put a link in your forum signature.

Once you have created an account try to jazz it up a bit, add a profile picture and a little bio about yourself. On large forums such as digital point they get hundreds of new members a day so it is important to make yourself stand out from the rest.

After you have made your profile all pretty it’s time to start posting. The best technique to get people to click the link in your signature is to reply on threads related to the post you are trying to promote, although you won’t find this gains you thousands of new visitors instantly, it will bring you very targeted visitors.

After you have built your forum reputation a bit you may decided that you actually want to start threads of your own, if you do it right this can be a great method of gaining traffic for free, I personally have gained between 1,000 and 2,000 visitors in the past two months from a forum related to my niche.

Blog Commentating

Anyone who knows me will know that I am huge believer in the power of blog commentating. Not only do I preach the power of blog commenting, I also practice the art too.

I could go into blog commenting until the sun goes down, but for your sake I’m not going to go into it too much. What I can say is that if you are looking to gain traffic, friends, links and subscribers then you will definitely want to give it a try. The best advice I can give you in a line or two is just be yourself. Get out there and use commenting as way of introducing yourself to other bloggers, and the rest will just happen

If you liked this post please subscribe to my RSS feed so you can learn more on how to blog. I have several great post ideas that I am very excited about, and will be releasing this month, so make sure your receiving them!