Another blogger community to look at

A little while back I did an advertisement post for HighFivez.com. It is a fairly new blog directory/blogger community. I did sign up for it, and have seen some people on there who are also on MyBlogLog (vicezilla for one).



In the HighFivez site, one may post links to their blogs, and specific posts in their blogs. Other members may then express approval of the post (a High Five) or disapproval of the post (a Pound).



As I have had a post HighFived (I ROCK!!!), I know for a fact that I received at least on visit specifically from HighFivez.com. This post, BTW, is not an advert, it is simply mentioning my experiences with the community.



The more you get your blog out there for consumption, the more people you will have visit your blog, and the higher ranking you will receive.





Technorati Tags: blogging, communities, HighFivez.com

Communities for increasing traffic

Some time ago, when I started all of this, I signed up at the blogger community MyBlogLog. I wasn't certain what this would do, but I had seen it referred to before, so I went there and signed up. I then promptly forgot about it. After looking at where hits were coming from, I noticed that some were coming from MyBlogLog. I had noticed on some other people's sites (mylifestartsatfortytwo, fortywhat and others) a section in their sidebars which displayed icons avatars and names for recent visitors. This table was furnished by code supplied by MyBlogLog.



When I went to MyBlogLog and clicked the graphic for "Get Widgets" it gave me a couple of options. The first for tracking recent readers (who are MyBlogLog members - it doesn't do anything for non-MyBlogLog members). When I looked at the tracking info, I realized a couple of things...1) People were actually visiting my blog and b) lots of visitors were members of MyBlogLog. This got some fire moving under my feet. I started visiting MyBlogLog much more frequently, and (WARNING: This part is shocking, if you have a weak heart, you might want to look away and have someone paraphrase the next line or two) - I started responding to messages people had left in MyBlogLog - invites to join other blogger's communities and what not. And I started visiting the people who had visited me. This led to them visiting me more (I believe). Also leaving short messages at MyBlogLog thanking them for visiting and finally, leaving comments on their blogs.



All of this creates a kind of communal feeling. Sort of like "you do me a solid, I do you a solid" type of atmosphere. The more you visit and comment on other people's blogs, the more they will visit and comment on yours, and the more trackbacks you will receive. All of this is supposed to assist in increasing PageRank, Technorati rank and Alexa rank.



In this next week, my goal for this site is to post more on getting higher rankings everywhere. The places like PayPerPost and Blogsvertise pay better for more rank. Getting rank is not the easiest thing. I have seen time and again, websites or blogs trying to explain how to get a high PageRank in a short amount of time. Most of these start with links to their demo site from a high ranking page they already have. This kind of lends to the "got to have money to make money" catch 22, where one cannot get a good page rank, without links from sites with good page ranks. However, I do know that sheer volume of incoming links will increase a page rank. With this in mind, I am going to do some research and posting on how to get incoming links.



I hope I am not biting off more than I can chew with this next assignment.



As always, thanks for visiting!

Text Link Ads Update

It is now 15 April, and I have yet to receive any response from the emails I sent on 11 April. Perhaps an answer will be forthcoming, but it doesn't look good. This is somewhat surprising as what I have read when googling text link ads is mostly very positive.

I will post anything on this when/if a replay is every forthcoming.

Thanks for visiting!

I found a new site for monetizing your blog

Surfing the blogosphere I came across a place I had not heard of before. It is Text Link Ads. This seems very similar to Google Adsense on the surface. They put text-based links (what I saw on the blog I found it on was an image - but not an obtrusive one) on your site, and give you 50% of the proceeds. They pay out at the beginning of every month (minimum payout is $25).



One thing they claim - which I liked - is the ability to deny an advertiser on your site. If you don't like their product or their message does not fit the flavor of your blog, you can deny them ad space.



Of course I signed up right away. Hey anything to generate A Little More Income right? I put in all the essentials. This included my SSN because they have to tell Uncle Sam who they are paying. All of the ad sites require this (or an employer ID - which is easy to get from everyone's favorite Uncle).



After entering all of this information, it sends an email to verify the email address you supplied. Once verified, the site prompts you to enter a blog for displaying ads on. It has about three screens of questions and information to fill out (why they could not do this on one screen I don't know). At any rate, at the end of all this, it checks to see if your blog qualifies (why they can't do this when you first enter the blog URL, I don't know - again).



I searched their site rather fully, and could not find any guidelines as to what makes a site qualify, or what would dis-qualify a site for their ad program. When entering my site, I received this message immediately upon hitting "submit":

Thanks for your submission!

We are sorry but your site has not been accepted into our publisher program at this time. The main reason for websites not being accepted is because of our minimum traffic and link popularity requirements. Please do note that we do reevaluate all submissions monthly and will notify you via email as soon as you are accepted. Hopefully soon!

Again, I could not find any information on what it takes for a site to qualify. Also, I did not find any information on their site for canceling involvement in their program. I sent them a message via their online "contact us" page. The message I sent is:

I have been informed that my site does not qualify for your services. I would like to know what your "minimum traffic and link popularity requirements" are. This would be good information to have for possible future submissions. I don't want to waste time filling out three pages of forms only to find out the site would not qualify.



In addition, there I do not find a way to cancel my participation (and thus have you remove my SSN from your database). If you could provide steps for this procedure, I would be appreciative.

I will wait to see if I hear back from them. I don't know that I will, the whole thing seems kind of shaky the more I look at it. Without letting people know up front whether their site would qualify, they are just collecting personal information.



Another thing I could not find, which makes me even more skeptical of the whole company, is a terms of use agreement. When I signed up my account, it was there for viewing, but afterwards, it is nowhere to be found. I glanced the agreement over, but didn't peruse it. I started to think that maybe the qualifications for acceptance of a blog might be in there, but I could not find it again.



So I went back to the contact us page and sent another message along the lines of:

Where can I find a copy of the terms of use agreement I agreed to when I signed up. Thank you

If I don't hear anything back in the next couple of days, then we'll all know that this place is to be avoided like the plague.





Technorati Tags: text link ads, money, income, blogging

Planning for the unthinkable

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One cannot help but think about it, especially if one has children. That thing is death. Specifically what happens to those to whom one has a financial responsibility after they are gone. There are a myriad of solutions. Some better than others. For instance, planning on winning the lottery so that one's family will be taken care of in the event of anything horrendous happening, while enticing and, if brought to fruition, quite lucrative, not the best of solutions.

Most decent employers these days offer some type of life insurance with their benefit package. This is usually a nifty benefit, and sometimes less expensive than other types of life insurance. The problem arises when one leaves their current employer. When that happens, the life insurance ceases. Hopefully the new employer will also offer free or discount life insurance. If not, that two or three percent increase in pay just may not be worth it after all.

With the way things are these days, where people change jobs every couple of years and very few people actually work for one company for 20 years and get the gold watch and what-not, it is not the best idea to have one's life insurance tied to an employer. One's best bet is to get life insurance that is independent of any employer. It may cost a little more, but in the long run, it is much more reliable and stable.

New virus hiding as IE7 download

I'm just trying to spread the word here - I don't do this much, but I believe this to be very important

Trojan masquerades as IE 7 downloads by ZDNet's Ryan Naraine -- Spammers are using fake Internet Explorer 7 (Beta 2) downloads to lure Windows users into downloading a nasty backdoor Trojan. The fake downloads are part of a massive spam run that includes an official-looking graphic (see image below) linked to Web sites that auto-launch an executable named "ie7.exe." A copy of this spam that landed in my [...]

Technorati Tags: virus, IE7, trojan, zdnet

New blog directory - sign up early!

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It looks like the Google PageRank system has updated the rankings of pages and blogs. As stated here, my other blog, the one no one has visited (as far as I can tell by the analytics tools) used to have a PageRank of two. Now it has a PageRank of zero. I don't understand, but I have to accept it.

In the quest to up page ranks and get a better PageRank, Alexa score (more on that in another post) and Technorati Rank, I believe it is advisable to get the blogs out there as many places and as oftem as possible. That is where HighFivez.com comes into play. They are yet another blog listing service. One can submit their blogs, then people on the site can rank them. Giving a positive review of blogs and posts (a "high five") or a negative review (a "pound").

Mayhaps I'm a bit out of touch with the lingo of the kids these days, because while I understand what a high five is, I have no idea what a pound is. Signing up at HighFivez.com is completely painless. The worst part was waiting the three or four minutes it took for their email checker to email me a message with a verification link to click on. From then on out, adding blog was simple and straight to the point.

The site appears to be new, there aren't a ton of people signed up yet, so if one hurries, they could get a good position where their blog(s) won't get lost in the shuffle of millions of other (but far less intersting) blogs than yours!