I know that is a harsh title but very fitting for this post. Yes, this will be a rant post!
The top three blog ad networks out there right know are Entrecard, Adgitize and CMF Ads. They all are getting worse over time and I am not happy with any of them right now. Lets start with Entrecard:
When Entrecard changed ownership they made an announcement that they were suspending outside ads. Well it did not take them long to re-implement that. Right know there are only two ads that are running and they are Entrecard ads. It won’t be long until other outside ads are brought in. I estimate it will be in about 2 week. I am not getting any traffic right know from Entrecard, I am lucky if if I get 3 visitors a day. It makes more sense for me to use this space to sell my own ads instead of letting Entrecard make money from my ad space. I was very close to dropping Entrecard all together, in fact I took the widget of for a couple of days. I put it back on because I still have over 30,000 credits and do not want to surrender them. The only value I see in Entrecard is that it allows me to advertise inexpensivelyon some of my blogging friends’ blogs like Extreme John and Dragon Blogger. There are about 8 blogs that I rotate my ad on, if they leave I will follow.
Adgitize was and still is my favorite blog ad network but they really pissed me off a couple of weeks ago when they raised the price from $14 to $24 for a month. That is a big increase, maybe Ken has not heard that we are in a recession. I think he is making a bad business decision. He should of lowered the price to attract more bloggers and increase he total pool of money. I predict that over half of the current bloggers will not renew and he will make less money then he is currently making. I currently have a paid ad running on Adgitize and I get about 60 visits per day but I do not think I will renew next month.
I took of my CMF Ads widget this week as it was not even close to being worth taking up valuable space on my blog. I was with them for 4 months and probably got about 10 visits total. I am not sure why but people did not click through to my blog. On the publisher side it really sucks, in order to be competitive you have to price your blog at 50 cents per month. Even if you get 10 people to advertise (you will be lucky to get 10) that comes to only $5. Then you will have to wait 4 months to get $20 so you can request a payout. They take $10 and you get $10. I am not exaggerating, it took me 4 months to make $10 with CMF. I would like to believe that my blog space is worth a little more than that.
**Update- as of 12-21-09 – Adgitize reversed their decision to raise prices and lowered the monthly cost back to $14. It is refreshing to see a blog ad network really listen to the bloggers. FYI, adgitize was my top traffic generator in 2009.
I am wondering what your experiences with these networks have been.
Does anyone else think they all suck?
Is there anything better out there that I should know about ??
Promote your blog with Linkedin
Is your blog linkedin?
I must admit that I have up to now neglected Linkedin as a potential source of traffic for this blog. With that said, I have been using Linkedin for a while for my day job as a recruiter and pro resume writer . I have also been using it to promote my career advice blog .I am going to spend some time and build up my profile as well as my network. We all know that networking is important in building your readership. It is essential to interact and build friendships with other bloggers in your niche. Why not utilize the #1 site that was built for the sole purpose of networking and making connections.
You may be thinking that Linkedin is just for professional and business people. Well you are exactly right and if you want to build your blog it is important to view your blog as a business and view yourself as a professional.
Earlier this year Linkedin added a feature very similiar to Twitter and Facebook where you can add an update about what you are doing now. This is a great spot to highlight your must recent blog post.
Also earlier this year Linkedin partnered up with WordPress to add an application that pulls your recent blog posts and adds them to your profile. This is an app that you add on Linked in simply by typing in your blog url and they do the rest. Take a look at the screen shot below:
Over the next couple of months I will be trying to add to my network and hopefully drive some consistent traffic to my blog. I will provide an update in a couple of month and report back on how successful this initiative is.
In the meantime, I am curious to see if any of you are using Linked in and seeing any meaningful blog traffic from it?
If you are on linkedin, please send me a request..Here is my link Tycoon Blogger on Linkedin
I have received a few questions in the comments section and the contact form and wanted to answer them here in a post instead of individually.
Question : Why was my blog not selected?
Answer : I went through each and every blog that expressed interest and selected all that met the basic criteria. The criteria was theblog must have been started this year and the topic must be related to tech, blogging, social media, wordpress, making money online or related niche. What I did was look at the last 10 posts and if over half were related to the above topics then you were in if less than half you were out.
Question – Can you add a link to the image?
Answer – This is a great question and great idea. My answer is that I have tried, when I was tesing outh the plugin, I was able to add a link that clicked through to the site. Then something strange happened, when I clicked on the circle to attemp to vote for a blog it actuamatically took me to one specific blog for each circle. There was some kind of wierd bug in the plugin. I tried to install the plugin on several other blogs to play around with it but I kept getting a fatal error. At this point, I am somewhat regretting my decision choosing this plugin. The good part is that it is pretty easy to determine what the site is from the thumbnail. What I will be doing is adding links to all the contestants in the featured post so that everyone can click through and evaluate the sites.
Question: Can you move the vote circle to the bottom?
Answer : I would love to, if anyone knows how please let me know. For the time being, I have emphasized that you must click on the circle ABOVE the thumbnail. If you are directing potential voters please make sure to emphasive that point as well.
Question : When does the contest end?
Answer: The contest ends on Dec 1st.
What other questions?
Thank you all for you votes and support! Please help me spread the word!!
The Contest for the Rookie Blogger of the Year is now underway.
Before I get into the details, I want to take a minute and thank my friends who have sponsored the contest:
George Serradino – who runs an awesome blog that is full of blogging tips, downloads and thesis theme services has sponsored $25
Dick from Leisure Advertising – which is a network of blogs, directories, and information sites that target golfing,RV enthusiasts and other leisure related activities has sponsored $25
The following bloggers have sponsored 30 day ad spots on their blogs :
Ditesco from iBlogZone
Lee from MyBlog2Day
Joanne from BestJoanne.info
I encourage you to check out the above sites.
I am sponsoring $100 cash and a full year ad spot ($360 value) which brings the total cash and prize amount to over $600
If you have not already noticed, there are 18 blogs running down the right sidebar. To vote you have to click on the circle above the blog image and then click the vote button on the bottom.
Remember, click the circle ABOVE the thumbnail.
Here you can click on all the blogs and evaluate which one you like best.
Blogging School
Just Throw Money
Site Sketch 101
To vote go to the widget on the sidebar, pick your blog and click the circle ABOVE the thumbnail and then click on the vote button.
Thanks for participating and tell your blogging friends!!
As a lot of you know, I am currently in the process of arranging my first blog contest. The contest is called “Rookie Blogger of the Year” and my reader’s votes will determine the winner. I have been spending the last couple of days evaluating different polling options for WordPress Blogs and trying to decide which one will work best for me.
The first choice that I had to make was if I wanted to add a plugin or if I wanted to use another web hosted poll.
Here is what I looked at:
Plugins:
Soda Head Polls – I have never heard of this plugin before I did my research. I tested this out on one of my personal blogs and thought it was really cool. This plugin allows you to fully customize the look and feel of your poll. You can add different skins and design a unique look. The design elements seems to be the best feature and help to differentiate this plugin from the others. I found it difficult to use and I was not to impressed with the admin capabilities.
WP- Polls – I have heard of this before as I have seen it in action on several other blogs recently. I also tested this on my other blog and although the design features were not as robust as Soda Head, I found the admin section to be so easy to use. I also felt that the voting integrity was better with this plugin. I was confident that it would do a better job of eliminating voter fraud.
Democracy – I looked at this briefly, there was so much negative comments associated with this plugin that I did not even bother taking it for a test drive.
In addition to plugins, I also looked at several alternative polling methods:
PollDaddy.com – I have used PollDaddy in the past and I was impressed, it is so simple to use and you can create a poll in a matter of seconds.
Hiburrito – I also looked in WOP, which stands for World Online Poll. I wanted to check this out as I see the site owner Asswass on a lot of blogs that I visit and wanted to see what it was all about. A WOP is very cool as you can easily create a poll and insert it in your blog. I also like the video and picture poll options. I will definitely be back and use this site in the future, but I did not feel it was right for this project.
I ultimately chose the WP-Polls plugin as it offered the several things that I wanted most. Which is the ability to add images and links easily through the admin feature. As well as ensuring voting integrity.
Do you think I made the right decision?
What is your favorite option for adding a poll to your blog?
Don’t forget to stop by later in the week and vote for your favorite up and coming blogger. Voting begins on October 15th.
