On December 23, 2007, the new software version 3.33 was released of JkDefrag, a piece of software that I keep in my USB toolbox all the time. The program represents one of the best free defragmenters and optimizers for all versions of Windows, starting form 2K. The software is completely automatic, user-friendly, and fast, while not imposing the heavy load on the computer resources. Defragmenter is able to handle not only fixed, but also removable drives, like USB or memory sticks, offering to the advanced user several optimization strategies to choose from.
Our deep gratitude goes to the author Jeroen Kessels, Internet Engineer from Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Website: http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/
Monday, December 31, 2007
Friday, December 14, 2007
Closing Post to Blog Traffic Increase Overview
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 11)
After extended exploration of the topic for 10 publications, I decided to close it. For me, if I feel tired from the task, I was enjoying before, it is time to make a short break. That is why; please accept this post as unofficial closing for the series of articles on the topic “How to increase blog traffic without financial investments”. It does not mean that I am going to get away from the topic for long, as it has the priority importance in the Blogging monetizing business. I have several ideas to implement soon enhancing the topic review.
Other Promotion Techniques – Brief Overview
I will just list several items that were not reviewed in the series for different reasons. But, since other authors mention them in their reviews, I might just overlook their marketing potential. Among them:
Posting on UseNet. Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. Dropping the seeds of the announcement for your Blog might give a boost to the site exposure.
Applying for Web Site Awards. Getting Best Blog Award in the featured category is a good way to show on the site, how good your Blog is, and also expose your site in the new niche. There are multiple online sites giving away the awards, you can easily find them through the search. I will mention just one of the top related sites:
Webbie Awards: http://www.webbyawards.com/
Submitting Blog to Design Galleries. The biggest list of the Design Galleries I could find online has been offered by Web Design Blog (99 sites in the body of the post, and more in the comments).
Link: http://webdesigngalleries.wordpress.com/2007/05/05/a-complete-list-of-web-design-galleries/
Interview Well-known Person. Arrange interview with someone well known in your industry, your marketing niche, or your local community. This interview will bring acknowledgement of your abilities to bring the newsworthy original material and will generate additional traffic to your Blog through the link from the interviewed person Blogs or Websites, since people tend to link back to their interviews.
Offer Contests. Organized contests will improve your reputation in the Bloggers community and will enhance your readers’ participation in your Blog activities. As you do that, utilize its marketing potential in full. For example, interview the contest winners and nominees, get their testimonials for your site, post related Press Releases, etc.
Participate in Meme Games. A meme is an idea transferred from person to person, from Blog to Blog like a virus. How does meme work? One Blogger is proposing idea like "Hey, let's post three facts about yourself that nobody knows yet!" He is forwarding it to his fellows Bloggers, tabbing them, and the game start its online brief, but bright, life with many people involved in the chain, until it dies down by itself or replaced by the new memes.
I want to thank all the readers that provided their feedback to the publications. Good luck to everyone. Internet is huge. There is place for everybody to get the share of success and profits!
After extended exploration of the topic for 10 publications, I decided to close it. For me, if I feel tired from the task, I was enjoying before, it is time to make a short break. That is why; please accept this post as unofficial closing for the series of articles on the topic “How to increase blog traffic without financial investments”. It does not mean that I am going to get away from the topic for long, as it has the priority importance in the Blogging monetizing business. I have several ideas to implement soon enhancing the topic review.
Other Promotion Techniques – Brief Overview
I will just list several items that were not reviewed in the series for different reasons. But, since other authors mention them in their reviews, I might just overlook their marketing potential. Among them:
Posting on UseNet. Usenet is one of the oldest computer network communications systems still in widespread use. Dropping the seeds of the announcement for your Blog might give a boost to the site exposure.
Applying for Web Site Awards. Getting Best Blog Award in the featured category is a good way to show on the site, how good your Blog is, and also expose your site in the new niche. There are multiple online sites giving away the awards, you can easily find them through the search. I will mention just one of the top related sites:
Webbie Awards: http://www.webbyawards.com/
Submitting Blog to Design Galleries. The biggest list of the Design Galleries I could find online has been offered by Web Design Blog (99 sites in the body of the post, and more in the comments).
Link: http://webdesigngalleries.wordpress.com/2007/05/05/a-complete-list-of-web-design-galleries/
Interview Well-known Person. Arrange interview with someone well known in your industry, your marketing niche, or your local community. This interview will bring acknowledgement of your abilities to bring the newsworthy original material and will generate additional traffic to your Blog through the link from the interviewed person Blogs or Websites, since people tend to link back to their interviews.
Offer Contests. Organized contests will improve your reputation in the Bloggers community and will enhance your readers’ participation in your Blog activities. As you do that, utilize its marketing potential in full. For example, interview the contest winners and nominees, get their testimonials for your site, post related Press Releases, etc.
Participate in Meme Games. A meme is an idea transferred from person to person, from Blog to Blog like a virus. How does meme work? One Blogger is proposing idea like "Hey, let's post three facts about yourself that nobody knows yet!" He is forwarding it to his fellows Bloggers, tabbing them, and the game start its online brief, but bright, life with many people involved in the chain, until it dies down by itself or replaced by the new memes.
I want to thank all the readers that provided their feedback to the publications. Good luck to everyone. Internet is huge. There is place for everybody to get the share of success and profits!
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Take Part in Blog Carnivals
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 10)
The set of the articles on the blog traffic increase started from my personal interest to the topic. I intended to cover briefly in one article all the main approaches for the newbie-blogger, as myself. Did not work this way! The topic appeared to be endless, and this article represents already part number 10. At the beginning, I decided to post only information on the promotion techniques that I have personally tried. I had to bend this rule as well, since this topic already drives me through without giving opportunity to stop and relax. When, I will finish the set, I will come back and pick up the promotion ways that seem easy to implement, and promise the best return on investments. I am sure, that Blog Carnivals participation will be than one of my favorites. I love carnivals! Just the name itself gives a taste of festivity and celebration.
What is a meaning of Blog Carnivals?
Blog Carnivals are collections of individual posts and articles, fitting provided topics of discussion, which are received from different blogs, with each author expressing his personal viewpoint and remarks on a subject. Usually, Blog Carnival is started by one hosting blog, which acts as a form of table of contents, posting the submitted articles or post to the topic of discussion. Such carnivals can be originated by popular and well-established blogs or bloggers’ groups, aligning the carnival topic with the blog usual content.
The central Web Site for this marketing niche is BlogCarnival.com. This site’s definition for Blog Carnivals is provided below:
“A Blog Carnival is a particular kind of blog community. There are many kinds of blogs, and they contain articles on many kinds of topics. Blog Carnivals typically collect together links pointing to blog articles on a particular topic. A Blog Carnival is like a magazine. It has a title, a topic, editors, contributors, and an audience. Editions of the carnival typically come out on a regular basis (e.g. every monday, or on the first of the month). Each edition is a special blog article that consists of links to all the contributions that have been submitted, often with the editors opinions or remarks.”Why participate in Blog Carnivals?
Planning your blog promotion campaign, consider the following benefits of participation in Blog Carnivals:
Your posts submission at the Carnival gives external links to your blog from the sites within the area of your interests. These links will assist to establish blog reputation and improve its credibility in the bloggers’ community, and add to the blog ranking in the Search Engines.
You can be linked not just by the carnival hosting site through your posting, but also from other blogs as well. Another carnival participant, or just visitor, might find your story through the carnival post, and might choose linking to it.
You get additional instant high-quality traffic. Getting tons of visitors from carnivals is, probably, one more online myth, but if you take part in a popular carnival on a well-known Blog, and your post is interesting enough to attract visitors’ attention, you will see a definite boost of traffic count to your blog. And this is not a random traffic of the bystanders, but the visitation from the most active and interested members of the bloggers community.
You have a great opportunity to meet other people working in the same direction as you are. Participants for the blog carnival are easy to establish long-term relationship between them due to the common interests. Also, you have a good chance to read valuable posts and suggestions from other people, that you would not be able to find in any other way.
You have a chance to win valuable prices for your publication.
The participation in the Blog Carnivals does not require significant time investment, unless you are specifically preparing the post for the particular celebration from scratch. As you can choose the topic of discussion, in most cases, you can use the material for the submission, which is already available on your blog. To test the efficiency of the submission process, I was able to perform the procedure of finding the appropriate blog and submitting my own entry in no more than 10 minutes.
Where to Submit for Blog Carnivals
I did not find a big variety of the sites that centralize the Blog Carnivals search and establishment. In fact, there is just a single site that is dedicated to this mission:
Blog Carnival: http://blogcarnival.com/
In a way, it makes all the operations related to the blog carnivals much easier for the hosts and submitters. Hosting Blog Carnival is another great way to promote your site, but that requires from the host site to be already solid and established, the goal we are all working for.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Forums Participation
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 9)
Participation in Forums and Message boards is another marketing approach to increase exposure to your blog. Many message boards and forums have a separate section of the discussion, collecting topics related to the blogs and blogging. But, even participation in non-related discussions on forums and message boards with leaving your blog link as your signature might bring you new customers. If I see a post on the message board, that is catching my attention by an interesting approach, I might want to learn more about the author and his virtual space. If the topic of the conversation is related to the blog theme, it is even better. User can discuss it, referring to his blog in a natural way as a source of additional information. People do not feel this conversation to be a part of the self-promotion campaign.
Also, it was noticed that the Search Engine are quite favorable to the forums content, so you might see the quality content, you posted on the forum discussion, at one of the first pages of the related keyword searches at the major Search Engines. Definitely, your blog address reference has a chance to catch public attention and increase your page ranking.
There are few good Forums, dedicated to blogging. If you are not only looking to promote your blog, but are also open for any new ideas and interactive communication with other fellows bloggers, the Blogging Forums will give you valuable assistance. It is useful for the Bloggers of all proficiency levels, but it is especially rewarding for newbies, as there they can find assistance with blog design, set-up and promotion. Based on the area of particular interests, user might focus on a certain area of the blogging forums, for example: blog promotion tips, template related issues, how to earn money from blog, Review my blog, RSS related, link exchange, Blog Add-Ons etc.
As usual, I am using RateItAll to prepare the Web List of the best online Forums, that are specializing on the Blog and Blogging related topics:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24458-forums-for-bloggers.aspx
Participation in Forums and Message boards is another marketing approach to increase exposure to your blog. Many message boards and forums have a separate section of the discussion, collecting topics related to the blogs and blogging. But, even participation in non-related discussions on forums and message boards with leaving your blog link as your signature might bring you new customers. If I see a post on the message board, that is catching my attention by an interesting approach, I might want to learn more about the author and his virtual space. If the topic of the conversation is related to the blog theme, it is even better. User can discuss it, referring to his blog in a natural way as a source of additional information. People do not feel this conversation to be a part of the self-promotion campaign.
Also, it was noticed that the Search Engine are quite favorable to the forums content, so you might see the quality content, you posted on the forum discussion, at one of the first pages of the related keyword searches at the major Search Engines. Definitely, your blog address reference has a chance to catch public attention and increase your page ranking.
There are few good Forums, dedicated to blogging. If you are not only looking to promote your blog, but are also open for any new ideas and interactive communication with other fellows bloggers, the Blogging Forums will give you valuable assistance. It is useful for the Bloggers of all proficiency levels, but it is especially rewarding for newbies, as there they can find assistance with blog design, set-up and promotion. Based on the area of particular interests, user might focus on a certain area of the blogging forums, for example: blog promotion tips, template related issues, how to earn money from blog, Review my blog, RSS related, link exchange, Blog Add-Ons etc.
As usual, I am using RateItAll to prepare the Web List of the best online Forums, that are specializing on the Blog and Blogging related topics:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24458-forums-for-bloggers.aspx
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Writing and Submitting Articles
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 8)
You blog promotion through your articles published at other blog sites or article directories is a great way to develop exposure to new readers. It allows you to express yourself on unusual for you promotion channels and to bring in new readers who would not have come to your official blog otherwise.
For the starter, you can base your article on your own blog posts, tweak them a little bit, add eye-catching caption and graphics, and you have your article ready. Or you can write the first article about your blog, its purpose, its milestones, and about yourself as a blog creator. When article is ready, it could be submitted to the bloggers’ communities, article directories, direct publishers, and other blogs. Each of these opportunities can present each own benefits and should be closely evaluated while designing the marketing strategy for your blog promotion.
We will highlight the articles submission to the free articles directories, representing the most popular source for the hosting of article publication. They offer multiple benefits by spreading a word about you and your points, and gaining back links to your blog from outside location. Also, if your article is of high quality, other webmasters might pick it up and run on their sites. As all article directories site require the publishers to retain the original links, planted inside the article, this can create the back links to your blog multiplication from each posted article.
Rated list of the top 40 free Articles Directories is posted on RateItAll. Feel free to raise your voice, rating the listed items and adding new:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24434-free-articles-directories.aspx
For those, who prefer the automatic way for articles submission, there are multiple free software titles that can do that with minimum user assistance. As in all cases of the automatic submission, the effectiveness of the process is quite questionable. I personally did not test any of these programs, so I will just give you couple of links for software downloads on your own. Please, drop some comments on your impression from the automatic software performance.
One example: Article Submitter: http://articlesubmitter.imwishlist.com/
You blog promotion through your articles published at other blog sites or article directories is a great way to develop exposure to new readers. It allows you to express yourself on unusual for you promotion channels and to bring in new readers who would not have come to your official blog otherwise.
For the starter, you can base your article on your own blog posts, tweak them a little bit, add eye-catching caption and graphics, and you have your article ready. Or you can write the first article about your blog, its purpose, its milestones, and about yourself as a blog creator. When article is ready, it could be submitted to the bloggers’ communities, article directories, direct publishers, and other blogs. Each of these opportunities can present each own benefits and should be closely evaluated while designing the marketing strategy for your blog promotion.
We will highlight the articles submission to the free articles directories, representing the most popular source for the hosting of article publication. They offer multiple benefits by spreading a word about you and your points, and gaining back links to your blog from outside location. Also, if your article is of high quality, other webmasters might pick it up and run on their sites. As all article directories site require the publishers to retain the original links, planted inside the article, this can create the back links to your blog multiplication from each posted article.
Rated list of the top 40 free Articles Directories is posted on RateItAll. Feel free to raise your voice, rating the listed items and adding new:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24434-free-articles-directories.aspx
For those, who prefer the automatic way for articles submission, there are multiple free software titles that can do that with minimum user assistance. As in all cases of the automatic submission, the effectiveness of the process is quite questionable. I personally did not test any of these programs, so I will just give you couple of links for software downloads on your own. Please, drop some comments on your impression from the automatic software performance.
One example: Article Submitter: http://articlesubmitter.imwishlist.com/
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Scanning document without Scanner
Imagine a very realistic situation, when you need to make a soft copy of the document, and you do not have scanner in the neighborhood. Or, another one, when you need to make a scan, consisting from multiple pages, but your flat-bed scanner can take just one page at a time, making the scanning process time-consuming and requiring your continuous involvement in the scanning process.
If you have a fax machine in your possession, you can easily solve the problem. Sign for a free service with FaxAway (http://www.k7.net/), get a free fax number, and fax the paper document to your new number. You will get email with soft copy of your faxed document as attachment.
If you have a fax machine in your possession, you can easily solve the problem. Sign for a free service with FaxAway (http://www.k7.net/), get a free fax number, and fax the paper document to your new number. You will get email with soft copy of your faxed document as attachment.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Free Press Releases Distribution
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 7)
"Press releases are no longer documents seen by just isolated editors and reporters. Anybody using press releases these days puts them online," noted Tracey Falbe in her book "Creating Publicity: Free Online Press Release Distribution". The book announces press release as a valuable component of each and every marketing campaign. So, we have obligation to review this method of the blog exposure increase as well.
Writing a press release, announcing the blog accomplishments to the media might be very helpful to spread a word about your site. Take time to prepare sharp and factual announcement that will briefly deliver the main information and will encourage the PR readers to visit your site to get details and just see, what else you got there. Spend additional time to proof read your posting, as PR announcement should look very professional to be posted and appreciated by readers.
Some of the PR sites are enjoying pretty high traffic. They are closely monitored by journalists, publishers, bloggers, looking for the killer content for their sites, and industry watchers. And, may be, you will be lucky enough to get a publication about you, your site, and your business on the highly-recognized media, where you never expected to see yourself. This doesn’t mean that you can prepare a press release that reminds a simple self-advertisement for your web site, blog, or business. The information in the press release has to be indeed newsworthy and objective.
The content of the press releases is also gets picked up by search engines, which makes your posts to be even more available to readers, and increases the chances for your site to be seen. And, finally, a side-benefit of the PR posting is increasing links popularity of your own site due to the linking from the PR site, which helps with search engine ranking. Link popularity is currently one of the top determining factors of where your website will rank on Major Search Engines listings.
There are a number PR sites that allow for press release to be posted free of charge. Definitely, the list of publishing options is limited for free members, but, since it is free, there is no point for complains. I have generated the list of such sites at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24425-press-releases--free-online-services.aspx
"Press releases are no longer documents seen by just isolated editors and reporters. Anybody using press releases these days puts them online," noted Tracey Falbe in her book "Creating Publicity: Free Online Press Release Distribution". The book announces press release as a valuable component of each and every marketing campaign. So, we have obligation to review this method of the blog exposure increase as well.
Writing a press release, announcing the blog accomplishments to the media might be very helpful to spread a word about your site. Take time to prepare sharp and factual announcement that will briefly deliver the main information and will encourage the PR readers to visit your site to get details and just see, what else you got there. Spend additional time to proof read your posting, as PR announcement should look very professional to be posted and appreciated by readers.
Some of the PR sites are enjoying pretty high traffic. They are closely monitored by journalists, publishers, bloggers, looking for the killer content for their sites, and industry watchers. And, may be, you will be lucky enough to get a publication about you, your site, and your business on the highly-recognized media, where you never expected to see yourself. This doesn’t mean that you can prepare a press release that reminds a simple self-advertisement for your web site, blog, or business. The information in the press release has to be indeed newsworthy and objective.
The content of the press releases is also gets picked up by search engines, which makes your posts to be even more available to readers, and increases the chances for your site to be seen. And, finally, a side-benefit of the PR posting is increasing links popularity of your own site due to the linking from the PR site, which helps with search engine ranking. Link popularity is currently one of the top determining factors of where your website will rank on Major Search Engines listings.
There are a number PR sites that allow for press release to be posted free of charge. Definitely, the list of publishing options is limited for free members, but, since it is free, there is no point for complains. I have generated the list of such sites at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24425-press-releases--free-online-services.aspx
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Links Exchange Overview (Text Links and Banners)
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 6)
If you are following this, never ending article (you are at the moment on its part 6), you might notice that the format of this part is different from the previous sections. Instead of giving the main article name as a Heading, I have replaced it with Chapter Title and used the Article Title as subtitle. The reason for this transformation is in the possible competition of the previous Chapters with the same Title for the place in the Search Engines. Crawler will check the titles and might not choose all of them for the grading. Therefore, the unique title and tags should be chosen with every publication to increase your exposure chances.
I used this preface, unrelated to the topic of today’s discussion, as illustration of the simple steps you can do to improve visibility of your Blog.
Text Links Exchange
In this chapter 6 we will discuss the Links Exchange. In a way, it can be considered as a brief reviews exchange version, fast to implement, and quite flexible. Many Blog owners consider this method of the Blog promotion as one of their favorite. This strategy involves contacting other Blog owners for a possible link exchange partnership. It is preferable to locate Blogs that are somehow related to yours, contact the webmaster, and offer him links swapping.
The Link Exchange supposes to work at the following directions:
1. Increasing the link popularity.
2. Improving search engine positioning.
3. Generating free traffic.
4. Enhancing the Blog content.
With all the positive signs Links Exchange brings to the Blog owner, there are some online warnings on using and over-using the Links Exchange for the Blog traffic increase. I want to bring you the full citation of David Jackson on the Link Sharing methodology, borrowed from the Trader Mike’ Blog
(http://tradermike.net/2005/08/link_exchanges/):
To conclude the topic, I want to call for careful use of any of the traffic increasing techniques with keeping in mind that nothing you do should jeopardize the Blog’s content quality, readability, and interface comprehension. Content is a King, everything else is just dress or dressing…
Banners Exchange
I personally actively dislike this type of the advertising and, consequently, this method of the Blog traffic increase. The reasons for this denial are as follows:
• I consider this method of advertising as outdated, with low efficiency outcomes.
• Bold, eye-catching banners call the feelings that are completely opposite from those, that are supposed to be: you want to avoid the banner and everything that is related to it.
• You give away a significant space of your site to advertise something you are not aware of. It can be a tasteless graphic, or content that is unfitting to your site. It is true that somebody else is hosting your banner, but it does not make the situation better for your Blog.
With all that, I understand that the great popularity of this kind of blog marketing should have the valid justification. If services find their consumers, there are definite advantages for the Bloggers in using them. Yes, using banner exchange networks is different from simple link swapping in terms of potential visitors reached. If you become member of one or several large banner exchanges communities, you have the potential for your ads to be shown on hundreds, or even thousands of other sites that you would not reach in any other ways. Also, banner rotation and sophisticated targeting might increase the potential attractiveness of this method of advertising to the Bloggers. There are many communities that will be happy to have you as a member. For example, TradeBanners: http://www.tradebannerads.com/
This time, I have not generated the list at RateItAll, but to satisfy the readers looking for a bigger choice of the communities, I have borrowed the list, generated by Zdenek Rauner, at his Prospector site:
http://www.prospector.cz/Free-web-site-promotion/Banner-exchanges/
To be continued…
If you are following this, never ending article (you are at the moment on its part 6), you might notice that the format of this part is different from the previous sections. Instead of giving the main article name as a Heading, I have replaced it with Chapter Title and used the Article Title as subtitle. The reason for this transformation is in the possible competition of the previous Chapters with the same Title for the place in the Search Engines. Crawler will check the titles and might not choose all of them for the grading. Therefore, the unique title and tags should be chosen with every publication to increase your exposure chances.
I used this preface, unrelated to the topic of today’s discussion, as illustration of the simple steps you can do to improve visibility of your Blog.
Text Links Exchange
In this chapter 6 we will discuss the Links Exchange. In a way, it can be considered as a brief reviews exchange version, fast to implement, and quite flexible. Many Blog owners consider this method of the Blog promotion as one of their favorite. This strategy involves contacting other Blog owners for a possible link exchange partnership. It is preferable to locate Blogs that are somehow related to yours, contact the webmaster, and offer him links swapping.
The Link Exchange supposes to work at the following directions:
1. Increasing the link popularity.
2. Improving search engine positioning.
3. Generating free traffic.
4. Enhancing the Blog content.
With all the positive signs Links Exchange brings to the Blog owner, there are some online warnings on using and over-using the Links Exchange for the Blog traffic increase. I want to bring you the full citation of David Jackson on the Link Sharing methodology, borrowed from the Trader Mike’ Blog
(http://tradermike.net/2005/08/link_exchanges/):
It’s well known that if you own a web site the number of other sites that link to your site is crucial, as the number and quality of inbound links determine your ranking in the results of the leading search engines. This has led to the proliferation of “link sharing”, i.e. “you link to me and I’ll link to you” deals.
The problem with link sharing, however, is that it adulterates one of the most useful aspects of the Web: carefully chosen links to contextually relevant topics. Link-sharers not only allow the inclusion of any and every link, but often allow the authors of the linked-to sites to choose and describe the links themselves. If linking is an integral part of Web content and editorial value, then link-sharing debases that content and value.
To conclude the topic, I want to call for careful use of any of the traffic increasing techniques with keeping in mind that nothing you do should jeopardize the Blog’s content quality, readability, and interface comprehension. Content is a King, everything else is just dress or dressing…
Banners Exchange
I personally actively dislike this type of the advertising and, consequently, this method of the Blog traffic increase. The reasons for this denial are as follows:
• I consider this method of advertising as outdated, with low efficiency outcomes.
• Bold, eye-catching banners call the feelings that are completely opposite from those, that are supposed to be: you want to avoid the banner and everything that is related to it.
• You give away a significant space of your site to advertise something you are not aware of. It can be a tasteless graphic, or content that is unfitting to your site. It is true that somebody else is hosting your banner, but it does not make the situation better for your Blog.
With all that, I understand that the great popularity of this kind of blog marketing should have the valid justification. If services find their consumers, there are definite advantages for the Bloggers in using them. Yes, using banner exchange networks is different from simple link swapping in terms of potential visitors reached. If you become member of one or several large banner exchanges communities, you have the potential for your ads to be shown on hundreds, or even thousands of other sites that you would not reach in any other ways. Also, banner rotation and sophisticated targeting might increase the potential attractiveness of this method of advertising to the Bloggers. There are many communities that will be happy to have you as a member. For example, TradeBanners: http://www.tradebannerads.com/
This time, I have not generated the list at RateItAll, but to satisfy the readers looking for a bigger choice of the communities, I have borrowed the list, generated by Zdenek Rauner, at his Prospector site:
http://www.prospector.cz/Free-web-site-promotion/Banner-exchanges/
To be continued…
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 5)
In the fifth part of the research, we will continue investigating the most promising ways to increase traffic flow to the Blog. In this chapter we will review the reviews exchange approaches.
Part 5: Reviews Exchange
Sponsored Reviews
Recently, this method of the Blogs promotion gained an enormous popularity. As Blogs eventually became the powerful and the wide-spread way of the content delivery to the readers, some Blog owners started to invest on ordering the sponsored reviews from other Bloggers to be posted on their sites on the promoter’s Blog. Usually, it means that for your money you get a nice attractive review on your site and its content that supposed to bring additional traffic to the site, and consequently additional income source that should justify the monetary investment. It also became an additional income source for the fellows’ bloggers, while they can find the “orders” on multiple “paid reviews” sites. This method of the blog promotion, while being quite effective and popular, does not fit well to the main idea of this article to include just free methods of the blog exposure. There are also warning voices claiming that sponsored reviews, while not violation the business laws, are “contaminating” the free and non-biased spirit of the information exchange in the bloggers’ communities. With all respect to the revealed concern, I personally consider this method of advertising to be completely acceptable, as far as the posted review or article is marked with clearly-visible and well-articulated disclaimer that the post is a part of the “sponsored” or the “paid-per-review” advertising campaign. Let the reader decide than, what credibility to be granted to the sponsored post.
List of the several Web Sites where you can order sponsored reviews, was posted at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24403-money-for-sponsored-blogging.aspx
Reviews Exchange Communities
I think the review exchange through the specializing communities might give a really good exposure boost to the freshly created blogs with good content. Unfortunately, there are not many sites, I could find in this category, for this presentation. The brief listing is hosted on RateItAll as well:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24370-reviews-exchange--free-online-services.aspx
The biggest advantage of this promotional approach: your visitor are not just clicking on your page and passing it through (like traffic exchange), but are actually reading the content, as they need to write something in the review later about your blog. Some of readers use the shameless tricks, posting the generic common phrases to describe any blog, they have reviewed. But, blog owner might be rewarded by really thoughtful comments and suggestions and by gaining devoted return readers, deciding your content is valuable enough to be bookmarked. In most cases, you can also choose the topic for your reviews, so you can also gain interesting new insights in the area of your interests. Per my practical observations, this is one of the methods of the site promotion, you should seriously consider in your marketing campaign.
Reviews Exchange with other Bloggers
This approach differs from the described above, as you exchange the reviews with other blogs. Every beginner blogger will benefit the reviews exchange with the better know blog, can be characterized by bigger traffic flow and higher rating. In exchange, the “Big Brother” is getting an additional exposure by reviewing many new and less “famous” blogs and journals. The certain disadvantage of reviews exchange with other blogs is a necessity to fit the review posting with the general direction of your own blog, otherwise this post will be visibly out of the main posting stream. Keep in mind, that you are responsible to the blog, you are exchanging reviews with, but you are also responsible to your readers that are accustomed to your style, topics presentation, else. Every perceived false will not serve good neither your blog, nor the blog you are reviewing. Therefore, I would recommend seriously taking in account not just the potential advantages of your blog review being posted somewhere else, but also your ability to incorporate the new review in your blog canvass.
Part 5: Reviews Exchange
Sponsored Reviews
Recently, this method of the Blogs promotion gained an enormous popularity. As Blogs eventually became the powerful and the wide-spread way of the content delivery to the readers, some Blog owners started to invest on ordering the sponsored reviews from other Bloggers to be posted on their sites on the promoter’s Blog. Usually, it means that for your money you get a nice attractive review on your site and its content that supposed to bring additional traffic to the site, and consequently additional income source that should justify the monetary investment. It also became an additional income source for the fellows’ bloggers, while they can find the “orders” on multiple “paid reviews” sites. This method of the blog promotion, while being quite effective and popular, does not fit well to the main idea of this article to include just free methods of the blog exposure. There are also warning voices claiming that sponsored reviews, while not violation the business laws, are “contaminating” the free and non-biased spirit of the information exchange in the bloggers’ communities. With all respect to the revealed concern, I personally consider this method of advertising to be completely acceptable, as far as the posted review or article is marked with clearly-visible and well-articulated disclaimer that the post is a part of the “sponsored” or the “paid-per-review” advertising campaign. Let the reader decide than, what credibility to be granted to the sponsored post.
List of the several Web Sites where you can order sponsored reviews, was posted at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24403-money-for-sponsored-blogging.aspx
Reviews Exchange Communities
I think the review exchange through the specializing communities might give a really good exposure boost to the freshly created blogs with good content. Unfortunately, there are not many sites, I could find in this category, for this presentation. The brief listing is hosted on RateItAll as well:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24370-reviews-exchange--free-online-services.aspx
The biggest advantage of this promotional approach: your visitor are not just clicking on your page and passing it through (like traffic exchange), but are actually reading the content, as they need to write something in the review later about your blog. Some of readers use the shameless tricks, posting the generic common phrases to describe any blog, they have reviewed. But, blog owner might be rewarded by really thoughtful comments and suggestions and by gaining devoted return readers, deciding your content is valuable enough to be bookmarked. In most cases, you can also choose the topic for your reviews, so you can also gain interesting new insights in the area of your interests. Per my practical observations, this is one of the methods of the site promotion, you should seriously consider in your marketing campaign.
Reviews Exchange with other Bloggers
This approach differs from the described above, as you exchange the reviews with other blogs. Every beginner blogger will benefit the reviews exchange with the better know blog, can be characterized by bigger traffic flow and higher rating. In exchange, the “Big Brother” is getting an additional exposure by reviewing many new and less “famous” blogs and journals. The certain disadvantage of reviews exchange with other blogs is a necessity to fit the review posting with the general direction of your own blog, otherwise this post will be visibly out of the main posting stream. Keep in mind, that you are responsible to the blog, you are exchanging reviews with, but you are also responsible to your readers that are accustomed to your style, topics presentation, else. Every perceived false will not serve good neither your blog, nor the blog you are reviewing. Therefore, I would recommend seriously taking in account not just the potential advantages of your blog review being posted somewhere else, but also your ability to incorporate the new review in your blog canvass.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 4)
In the forth part of the research, we will continue investigating the most promising ways to increase traffic flow to the Blog. Earlier, we already discussed several methods of the site promotion, related to the Blog submission to the various search engines and directories. In this chapter we will review the traffic exchange approaches.
Part 4: Traffic Exchange
Manual Traffic Exchange
Manual Blog Traffic Exchange communities operate on a basis of a reciprocal viewing ratio: every member, by visiting other members’ Blogs in the network, is earning credits that could be exchanged for visits by other community members to his own Blog. Some traffic exchange networks also encourage members to buy additional credits, which will be translated to the non-reciprocal visitors’ traffic. Among the main benefits of using traffic exchange as a method of the blog promotion is opportunity of getting extra traffic from the fellows-bloggers that you would never get in any other way. The communities’ members are the blogging fans themselves, so you get the traffic from the people that might be interesting in what you can offer. However, I would not personally consider this traffic as high quality traffic. The reason of this downgrading is based on the fact that most participants review the sites for simple credit making without an actual interest in the Blogs they are viewing through, frequently not even noticing, what is happening on the screen. Another disadvantage of the manual traffic exchange – it is very time-consuming. Indeed, you click and click, and at the end you get several visitors to your site that even might not note what it is about. And, finally, this area comes too close to the borders of the permitted by AdSense traffic generation guidelines. Just wanted to cite to you a clarification on the topic from the AdSense official Blog:
“As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers. We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don't recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity”.
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/04/note-on-traffic-exchange-programs.html
As you see, there is no prohibition to use traffic exchange services, it is just not recommended. So, it is your choice, if you want to use the traffic exchange program in your marketing campaign. In case you are not linked to AdSense income share program any, consequently, to any related obligations, you can simply disregard all the related warnings. The list of the most recommended Traffic Exchange services is provided in the Web List, hosted by RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24372-manual-traffic-exchange-for-blogs--free-online-services.aspx
Note that this list covers only the Web Sites that, in their service coverage, are dedicated exclusively to the bloggers. There are even more general traffic exchange services, which accept any type of the membership Web Sites in the community. I have not prepared the Web List of services in this category, but you can easily get multiple hits if you search on Google “manual traffic exchange”.
Automatic Traffic Exchange
An Automatic Traffic Exchange approach has one big advantage: your participation is almost not required. You sign for one, or for multiple accounts; leave your computer overnight, and the “smart” auto-trafficking program will guide your PC through Internet, earning you money, credit for your own site exposure, or both. These programs, however, clearly violate the AdSense instructions, and there is a good chance that you will be busted one day, if you use the scheme. Definitely, if you are working on your Blog or Web Site with no AdSense participation, you are clean from the legal viewpoints. Usually, the automatic traffic exchange program is activated by the participants overnight, while the account owner is away from the computer.
So, even thou your traffic statistics will show significant increase, no one from your “visitors” will actually see your site. The generated traffic is purely artificial, and can increase site exposure earnings per impressions, if it would be legal. As a bottom line, I would not personally recommend using the Automatic Traffic Exchange schemes, as it is illegal (for AdSense or others similar advertising brokers) and might cause your account suspension. You can loose more than you can gain.
To be continued…
Part 4: Traffic Exchange
Manual Traffic Exchange
Manual Blog Traffic Exchange communities operate on a basis of a reciprocal viewing ratio: every member, by visiting other members’ Blogs in the network, is earning credits that could be exchanged for visits by other community members to his own Blog. Some traffic exchange networks also encourage members to buy additional credits, which will be translated to the non-reciprocal visitors’ traffic. Among the main benefits of using traffic exchange as a method of the blog promotion is opportunity of getting extra traffic from the fellows-bloggers that you would never get in any other way. The communities’ members are the blogging fans themselves, so you get the traffic from the people that might be interesting in what you can offer. However, I would not personally consider this traffic as high quality traffic. The reason of this downgrading is based on the fact that most participants review the sites for simple credit making without an actual interest in the Blogs they are viewing through, frequently not even noticing, what is happening on the screen. Another disadvantage of the manual traffic exchange – it is very time-consuming. Indeed, you click and click, and at the end you get several visitors to your site that even might not note what it is about. And, finally, this area comes too close to the borders of the permitted by AdSense traffic generation guidelines. Just wanted to cite to you a clarification on the topic from the AdSense official Blog:
“As many of you already know, our program policies strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs. These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers. We occasionally receive questions from publishers interested in using traffic exchanges to bring traffic to their site. While these services may help advertise your site, we don't recommend using them, as they may also result in similar invalid activity”.
http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/04/note-on-traffic-exchange-programs.html
As you see, there is no prohibition to use traffic exchange services, it is just not recommended. So, it is your choice, if you want to use the traffic exchange program in your marketing campaign. In case you are not linked to AdSense income share program any, consequently, to any related obligations, you can simply disregard all the related warnings. The list of the most recommended Traffic Exchange services is provided in the Web List, hosted by RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24372-manual-traffic-exchange-for-blogs--free-online-services.aspx
Note that this list covers only the Web Sites that, in their service coverage, are dedicated exclusively to the bloggers. There are even more general traffic exchange services, which accept any type of the membership Web Sites in the community. I have not prepared the Web List of services in this category, but you can easily get multiple hits if you search on Google “manual traffic exchange”.
Automatic Traffic Exchange
An Automatic Traffic Exchange approach has one big advantage: your participation is almost not required. You sign for one, or for multiple accounts; leave your computer overnight, and the “smart” auto-trafficking program will guide your PC through Internet, earning you money, credit for your own site exposure, or both. These programs, however, clearly violate the AdSense instructions, and there is a good chance that you will be busted one day, if you use the scheme. Definitely, if you are working on your Blog or Web Site with no AdSense participation, you are clean from the legal viewpoints. Usually, the automatic traffic exchange program is activated by the participants overnight, while the account owner is away from the computer.
So, even thou your traffic statistics will show significant increase, no one from your “visitors” will actually see your site. The generated traffic is purely artificial, and can increase site exposure earnings per impressions, if it would be legal. As a bottom line, I would not personally recommend using the Automatic Traffic Exchange schemes, as it is illegal (for AdSense or others similar advertising brokers) and might cause your account suspension. You can loose more than you can gain.
To be continued…
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Submission to the Search Engines and Directories
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 3)
In the first two parts we discussed the tips and recommendations, related to the content preparation and presentation on your blog, as the basis for the successful site exposure. If the content is not very good, or has not been properly presented, there is no point investing in the advanced marketing steps. Even if you can attract the one-time readers, they will never be converted to your fans and returning visitors. "Content is a king", but if you will not be able to spread a world about it around, nobody knows that you have a "treasure".
You can access the first two parts of this publication through the following links:
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without.html
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without_13.html
In the third part of this research (I just approached to it as one of my college papers), we will review the marketing promotional techniques, related to the blog submission to the Search Engines and Directories, notifying the potential readers on your virtual presence and on the following blog updates per your fresh posts. Coming to the point of this part preparation, I got stuck. The amount of the information about the related services on the Web is enormous, and the new players are coming to the market on a daily basis. It is a good sign, confirming that this area of interests is really “hot”, and we are at the right place at the right time. So, let's use the free Internet opportunities for our own profits.
To make the article more flexible and let the readers leave their valuable inputs on the listed services, I have posted most of the services that will be mentioned below as Web Lists at RateItAll Rating Community (http://www.rateitall.com). This way, the listings might be updated without modifying this post. I will be also grateful, if you raise your voice to vote for your favorite services on the presented Web Lists.
Submission to the General Search Engines
First of all, let’s treat our blog as a regular Web Page. If so, we can simply submit it to the major search engines. It is obvious, that the high percentage of the traffic, coming to the blogs, is originated from Search Engines. If your blog is parked in one of the communities, the host will submit your pages to the Search Engines for you. However, you hardly can control and boost the process of submission. If you want to take this matter in your own hands, you can independently submit your blog to the search engines. As my promotion approach does not suggest any payable solutions, I am offering you to choose one of the free automatic submission Web Sites, which will do the job for you in no time. The quality of the promotion outcomes is questionable, but due to a small amount of time spent, you have nothing to loose. There is a small list of the available Web Sites, I have prepared for your convenience at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24359-automatic-web-site-submission-to-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx
Yes, the easy and fast submission option, described above, exists, but I would not recommend using it for the most valuable Search Engines, where you expect most of the traffic from. You can get much better results, if you submit your blog manually, as some crawler based engines do not like getting the submission from the automatic sources. Besides, most of the Web traffic currently is coming from the few leading engines, anyway. Just spend little bit more time to ensure your submission efforts will get you the best possible results. I suggest performing your blog submission to the following top engines and directories manually:
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html - Yahoo!
http://www.google.com/addurl/ - Google, AOL, NetScape, iWon.
http://dmoz.org/add.html - Open Directory.
Submission to the Blog Directories
There are so many different search engines and directories, created exclusively for blogs. I am not even thinking to cover them all. If you wish to use automatic blog and RSS submission software to the multiple directories, consider buying Dummy Software's Blog and RSS Submit Software http://www.dummysoftware.com. The software is a shareware, but it can be tested for free on limited amount of the sites for submission. Establishing your presence in Blog directories will increase your link popularity, amplify the Blog direct traffic, and improve search engine rankings. I have prepared the appropriate list of the best Blog directories on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24360-submission-to-blog-directories--free-online-services.aspx
Submission to the RSS Search EnginesFast increasing number of the content sources caused appearing new distribution channels to the public. RSS is one of them, as more and more advanced Internet users utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed on the latest news and posted information. As there are increasing amount of the RSS consumers, the Blog owner should invest some additional time on giving them ability to access the blog posts through RSS Search Engines. If until now, online content was optimized solely for SEO (search engine optimization), a growing popularity of RSS requires additional site optimization for RSS readers. Usually, the submission process for the RSS search engines is fast and easy. On most sites it is limited by posting the RSS feeder URL from your Blog without registration or filling much information on their sites. The list of selected RSS search engines is posted on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24374-submission-to-rss-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx
Submission to the Social Bookmarking Sites
The original and the main purpose of the social bookmarking sites is ability to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages, similarly to saving bookmarks in your browser. The difference is that you can access the social bookmarking sites from any computer, and easily share them with your friends and colleagues. In addition, these sites are actively used for blog promotion, similarly to the blog directories, increasing the potential value for the blog owners. All the sites require membership to access their services. The list of the best selected social bookmarking services is posted on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24375-social-bookmarking-sites--free-online-services.aspx
You might not need to subscribe to all the services currently available currently, choosing only those that will provide you set of features you like.
Pinging Blogs
Pinging services are specializing on updating the various search engines and social bookmarking sites on the Blog recent updates. Blog owners are interested in getting the widest possible publicity to the newly posted data as fast as possible. Therefore, the bulk pinging services will be handy to fulfill this task. The list of the best multi-ping services, I could find, is posted, as usual, on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24378-blog-pinging--free-online-services.aspx
To be continued…
In the first two parts we discussed the tips and recommendations, related to the content preparation and presentation on your blog, as the basis for the successful site exposure. If the content is not very good, or has not been properly presented, there is no point investing in the advanced marketing steps. Even if you can attract the one-time readers, they will never be converted to your fans and returning visitors. "Content is a king", but if you will not be able to spread a world about it around, nobody knows that you have a "treasure".
You can access the first two parts of this publication through the following links:
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without.html
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without_13.html
In the third part of this research (I just approached to it as one of my college papers), we will review the marketing promotional techniques, related to the blog submission to the Search Engines and Directories, notifying the potential readers on your virtual presence and on the following blog updates per your fresh posts. Coming to the point of this part preparation, I got stuck. The amount of the information about the related services on the Web is enormous, and the new players are coming to the market on a daily basis. It is a good sign, confirming that this area of interests is really “hot”, and we are at the right place at the right time. So, let's use the free Internet opportunities for our own profits.
To make the article more flexible and let the readers leave their valuable inputs on the listed services, I have posted most of the services that will be mentioned below as Web Lists at RateItAll Rating Community (http://www.rateitall.com). This way, the listings might be updated without modifying this post. I will be also grateful, if you raise your voice to vote for your favorite services on the presented Web Lists.
Submission to the General Search Engines
First of all, let’s treat our blog as a regular Web Page. If so, we can simply submit it to the major search engines. It is obvious, that the high percentage of the traffic, coming to the blogs, is originated from Search Engines. If your blog is parked in one of the communities, the host will submit your pages to the Search Engines for you. However, you hardly can control and boost the process of submission. If you want to take this matter in your own hands, you can independently submit your blog to the search engines. As my promotion approach does not suggest any payable solutions, I am offering you to choose one of the free automatic submission Web Sites, which will do the job for you in no time. The quality of the promotion outcomes is questionable, but due to a small amount of time spent, you have nothing to loose. There is a small list of the available Web Sites, I have prepared for your convenience at RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24359-automatic-web-site-submission-to-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx
Yes, the easy and fast submission option, described above, exists, but I would not recommend using it for the most valuable Search Engines, where you expect most of the traffic from. You can get much better results, if you submit your blog manually, as some crawler based engines do not like getting the submission from the automatic sources. Besides, most of the Web traffic currently is coming from the few leading engines, anyway. Just spend little bit more time to ensure your submission efforts will get you the best possible results. I suggest performing your blog submission to the following top engines and directories manually:
http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html - Yahoo!
http://www.google.com/addurl/ - Google, AOL, NetScape, iWon.
http://dmoz.org/add.html - Open Directory.
Submission to the Blog Directories
There are so many different search engines and directories, created exclusively for blogs. I am not even thinking to cover them all. If you wish to use automatic blog and RSS submission software to the multiple directories, consider buying Dummy Software's Blog and RSS Submit Software http://www.dummysoftware.com. The software is a shareware, but it can be tested for free on limited amount of the sites for submission. Establishing your presence in Blog directories will increase your link popularity, amplify the Blog direct traffic, and improve search engine rankings. I have prepared the appropriate list of the best Blog directories on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24360-submission-to-blog-directories--free-online-services.aspx
Submission to the RSS Search EnginesFast increasing number of the content sources caused appearing new distribution channels to the public. RSS is one of them, as more and more advanced Internet users utilize RSS newsreaders and aggregators to keep themselves informed on the latest news and posted information. As there are increasing amount of the RSS consumers, the Blog owner should invest some additional time on giving them ability to access the blog posts through RSS Search Engines. If until now, online content was optimized solely for SEO (search engine optimization), a growing popularity of RSS requires additional site optimization for RSS readers. Usually, the submission process for the RSS search engines is fast and easy. On most sites it is limited by posting the RSS feeder URL from your Blog without registration or filling much information on their sites. The list of selected RSS search engines is posted on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24374-submission-to-rss-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx
Submission to the Social Bookmarking Sites
The original and the main purpose of the social bookmarking sites is ability to store, organize, share and search bookmarks of web pages, similarly to saving bookmarks in your browser. The difference is that you can access the social bookmarking sites from any computer, and easily share them with your friends and colleagues. In addition, these sites are actively used for blog promotion, similarly to the blog directories, increasing the potential value for the blog owners. All the sites require membership to access their services. The list of the best selected social bookmarking services is posted on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24375-social-bookmarking-sites--free-online-services.aspx
You might not need to subscribe to all the services currently available currently, choosing only those that will provide you set of features you like.
Pinging Blogs
Pinging services are specializing on updating the various search engines and social bookmarking sites on the Blog recent updates. Blog owners are interested in getting the widest possible publicity to the newly posted data as fast as possible. Therefore, the bulk pinging services will be handy to fulfill this task. The list of the best multi-ping services, I could find, is posted, as usual, on RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24378-blog-pinging--free-online-services.aspx
To be continued…
Friday, November 16, 2007
Link Referral (Web Site and Blogs Promotion) - Featured Review
LinkReferral – Featured Review
Link Referral in the mission statement is promising to provide budget or free alternative to search engines in bringing additional traffic to your Web Sites. Quoting the description of how it works from the company Web Site: “In order to participate, all you need to do is login and visit a maximum of 30 sites and 5 reviews in a 24 hour period for the highest possible ranking in your site category. Obviously the higher your ranking, the more traffic you will likely receive. Rank is determined by the sum of visits + (reviews X review quality), and then finally by the latest login time. You can expect to receive 20-60 extra visitors a day of people who specifically chose your site to visit from a modest amount of daily participation and that number is growing daily as more members are participating in the program.”
I am a member of this community for about a week, and I want to bring you my 2 cents on how the site can be useful for your traffic building efforts. First of all, the site has a pretty high online ranking (as of today, Alexa traffic rank is 5,271; last wee it was even better – in the middle of the 3,000). I did not plan to purchase upgrade, so my task was to evaluate the member ability on bringing your site to the top of the list by all means available with imposed restrictions. The results of this experiment were quite satisfactory. I could manage to climb to the rank 7 in my category with my site, so it is published on the main page of the category listing. I got 6 site reviews in a week, and I am proud of not loosing a single point of the score (read below a disclaimer to this statement), and I got a certain traffic flow from the site.
The disclaimer I mentioned above is related to the fact, that there are not many quality sites there, at least from those, I have already reviewed. In fact, any blog or self-multiplied one-page site can become a member, including unashamed sales and promotion pages. So, every good site or blog is clearly visible and respected by the community members. The good outcomes I could count from this site use are: getting 4 people linked to my site or added it to their favorites (and these are the most valuable addition, as these are people that care of what I am writing about) , finding two really good informative blogs that I have included in my Blog Lines favorites myself; moderate additional traffic to my blog.
In conclusion, I want to claim, that the review is not sponsored, I do not get any compensation neither from the host site, nor for other organizations. In current days, it is an important note, I know. Also, I will not benefit from your membership as referrals, as referral program is working only for paid membership. Anyway, it is a site to be considered in your efforts for your blog or site promotion.
Link: http://www.linkreferral.com/
Link Referral in the mission statement is promising to provide budget or free alternative to search engines in bringing additional traffic to your Web Sites. Quoting the description of how it works from the company Web Site: “In order to participate, all you need to do is login and visit a maximum of 30 sites and 5 reviews in a 24 hour period for the highest possible ranking in your site category. Obviously the higher your ranking, the more traffic you will likely receive. Rank is determined by the sum of visits + (reviews X review quality), and then finally by the latest login time. You can expect to receive 20-60 extra visitors a day of people who specifically chose your site to visit from a modest amount of daily participation and that number is growing daily as more members are participating in the program.”
I am a member of this community for about a week, and I want to bring you my 2 cents on how the site can be useful for your traffic building efforts. First of all, the site has a pretty high online ranking (as of today, Alexa traffic rank is 5,271; last wee it was even better – in the middle of the 3,000). I did not plan to purchase upgrade, so my task was to evaluate the member ability on bringing your site to the top of the list by all means available with imposed restrictions. The results of this experiment were quite satisfactory. I could manage to climb to the rank 7 in my category with my site, so it is published on the main page of the category listing. I got 6 site reviews in a week, and I am proud of not loosing a single point of the score (read below a disclaimer to this statement), and I got a certain traffic flow from the site.
The disclaimer I mentioned above is related to the fact, that there are not many quality sites there, at least from those, I have already reviewed. In fact, any blog or self-multiplied one-page site can become a member, including unashamed sales and promotion pages. So, every good site or blog is clearly visible and respected by the community members. The good outcomes I could count from this site use are: getting 4 people linked to my site or added it to their favorites (and these are the most valuable addition, as these are people that care of what I am writing about) , finding two really good informative blogs that I have included in my Blog Lines favorites myself; moderate additional traffic to my blog.
In conclusion, I want to claim, that the review is not sponsored, I do not get any compensation neither from the host site, nor for other organizations. In current days, it is an important note, I know. Also, I will not benefit from your membership as referrals, as referral program is working only for paid membership. Anyway, it is a site to be considered in your efforts for your blog or site promotion.
Link: http://www.linkreferral.com/
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Free Automatic Site Submission to the Search Engines
You created your first Web Site, Journal, or Blog. Now, it is time to let World know about its existence. You need to submit the site to the Search Engines. If you are ready to spend money on the submission process, you can buy professional submission software, or you can hire professionals that will manually submit the site. If you are not ready to spend money on that, but you have time, you can submit your Web Site to the Major Search Engines by yourselves. If you have neither time, nor money, you can use the free automatic site submission online services. I have prepared a brief listing for your convenience:
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/ - Free submission to 20 Search Engines, including Google.
http://www.ineedhits.com/free-tools/submit-free.aspx - Free submission to 20 Search Engines.
http://www.addme.com/submission/free-submission-start.php - Free submission to up to 20 Search Engines. Web Site link placement on your site in exchange is required.
http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html - Free submission to 70 Search Engines, including Google and AOL.
http://www.addpro.com/submit30.htm - Free submission to 18 Search Engines, including Google.
The effectiveness of the automatic submission is rather questionable. But, the entire task will take 5 to 10 minutes of your time. So, you loose nothing, and might gain an additional exposure for your Web Home.
http://www.freewebsubmission.com/ - Free submission to 20 Search Engines, including Google.
http://www.ineedhits.com/free-tools/submit-free.aspx - Free submission to 20 Search Engines.
http://www.addme.com/submission/free-submission-start.php - Free submission to up to 20 Search Engines. Web Site link placement on your site in exchange is required.
http://www.submitexpress.com/submit.html - Free submission to 70 Search Engines, including Google and AOL.
http://www.addpro.com/submit30.htm - Free submission to 18 Search Engines, including Google.
The effectiveness of the automatic submission is rather questionable. But, the entire task will take 5 to 10 minutes of your time. So, you loose nothing, and might gain an additional exposure for your Web Home.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (part 2)
You can access the first post, related to the Blog Content highlights and recommendations (part 1), through the following link:
http://webfreebies4u.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-to-increase-blog-traffic-without.html
In the second part we will discuss the posting techniques and approaches to improve overall blog visibility and get the genuine traffic of your visitors – people, who are interesting in the same topic as you are, and who eventually might become your virtual friends, fans, and supporters.
Part 2: Blog Posting
1. Content Posting.
* Post your content during weekdays, since you can get a wider audience.
* Post your content on weekends, as there are fewer posts, and your post can get more attention from the readers.
* Post at different hours of a day. The post is the most active as it is brand new. At the time it is fresh, it has the biggest exposure opportunities in your community. Later, the newer posts will push your publication lower and lower, until it disappears completely from the recent posts listing. Posting at the different schedules will help you reaching the customers from different time zones and with various computer-using routines.
2. Tagging your posts. Tag your content accurately and smartly, so your visitors can find you post by focusing on their particular area of interest. Do not try using the tags or keywords, just because they are popular and will attract the most expensive AdSense advertising. If the tags do not match your content, your visitors will never come back.
3. Linking to other Blogs. There are several valid reasons to make a link in your post to other blogs or publications. Giving legitimate references to the articles and posts, which you used for your blog entry, or providing more information on the other sources related to the topic of discussion, will not divert your visitors away out of your page. Instead, it will reach the following potentially positive outcomes:
* You help your visitors to get the full picture on the topic of interests, and they will appreciate your openness and extra-efforts to assist them.
* You build the audience that will trust your judgment, as you are not just a source of the posted information, but also an expert in the deeper informational research on the topic.
* You save yourselves from the legal consequences, if you are accused in plagiarism. As far, as you point out on the text author, you are free from the possible accusations and banning from your host for unethical behavior. Just, be sure to check your hosting site, if the non-original content is allowed, when you intend to copy the borrowed article, or any part of it, “as is”.
* The authors of the posts, you give references to, might notice your links, and take a look on your posts. It is especially useful, when you refer to the blog, which is much more established, than yours.
* And finally, when you notify the author on linking to his posts, it can be considered as a polite way of hinting on the possible link exchange. Just remember, that it is not your main target at the moment. Do not be aggressive on the link exchange requirements, otherwise instead of getting the good reputation, you are striving for, you will end up with a bad one.
4. Leaving Comments and Participating in Discussions. Improve your rating by giving quality comments on other people’s blogs. Your point of view and your thoughtful remarks might also drive visitors to your personal blog. There is nothing wrong to post link to your blog in the comment, if it is relevant to the comment topic. Posting irrelevant link or non-informative comment will bring you more harm than good, as readers will consider your comment as spam. Anyway, if you have a good post, the link in your signature can help; even in the case it does not match the topic of discussion. Readers, attracted by your nice comment, might want to explore your other posts as well. Give them the opportunity.
5. Replying to the Comments on your Posts. Always make sure to reply to the comments and questions, your readers are leaving on your posts. If they spent their valuable time to write the note, you should respect that and show your gratitude by replying, or giving them the advice they are asking for. It also makes the post more interactive and drives more visitors.
6. Inspect the reading statistics from your current posts, and learn which posts were the most successful. Investigate in depth your own content and try to understand, what exactly in these particular posts could contribute to the booming exposure. It might not be just content, but also formatting, timing, hosting community influence, else. As you figured out what all your popular posts have in common, try reproducing the success in the future publications.
To be continued.
Monday, November 12, 2007
How to increase blog traffic without financial investments (Part 1)
You created your first blog, and made several well-written posts on the important topic. You also linked your blogging account to the AdSense, and you are looking for visitors. But, visitors are not coming. You see that clearly on the post statistics and AdSense statistics. If you established your Web presence in the big communities, you can just wait for the community members to find your post, or for your hosting site to submit your post to the main search engines according to the topic of relevance. But, you want to see results immediately. I want the immediate improvement of my traffic statistics as well. So, I went online, and made the thorough search for the recommendations from the professionals and fellows bloggers.
The following article is an overview result from the multiple sources on the topic: “How to increase blog traffic without financial investments.” The list of the links that were used for the article preparation, will be enclosed in the final part of the topic, for your convenience. I want to thank all the authors who contributed to the topic’s review.
Part 1: Blog Content
1. Provide quality content. It is hard to explain in simple words, how the quality content can be separated from the non-quality content. But, if you read an article on topic of your interests and you see say to yourself: “That’s it. I knew that, but the author put the staff on the blog quite nicely”- this is a quality content. Share your expertise generously with other people, so the readers recognize it and depend on you and your opinion.
2. Provide original content. There are many sites with free content for your blog, and there is nothing wrong to use once a while an article that fit to topic of your discussion (definitely, if you provide the information about author, and your blogging host supports non-original content posting). But, the most readable blogs are not those that collect articles from other primary sources, no matter how good the posts are.
3. Personal Voice. Through your posts readers should see an author – you. As blogs are more like personal journals, they need to have a personal touch of the creator, giving the visitors feeling that you personally like they came, you write for them, to make their life easier and more fun. This personal touch might be provided through the humorous comments, examples from your experience, etc.
4. Provide an interesting and expert content. Everybody has the topic(s) where she or he is an expert. Choose the topic for your posts that it is interesting for you. Do not choose the topic, before they seems to be the most profitable. If you do not have fun, writing your posts, the visitors will not have fun, reading them. Be constantly aware on all new trends on your topic of interest and became an expert in this area.
5. Look on your posts from your visitor’s perspectives. Try to review your post as the post of some stranger you stumbled online. Is this post is keeping your attention till the end, or you get bored right away? Try to be objective. If this post would be written by somebody else, would you like it?
6. Controversial Content. If that is applicable to the topic of your discussion, prepare the posts with controversial content, that might evoke the discussion and polemics, which will increase the blog exposure and will eventually drive more traffic. One of the methods of increasing user’s participation is posting provocative questions and touch “hot topics”. These posts should be related to the topic of your discussion and you should use them carefully, as your blog stylishness and integrity are more important for your long-time success.
7. News and long-lasting content. Try to create articles with the long-lasting content to ensure your posts readability next year, next 10 years… Definitely, it is from not easy to impossible for the topics related to the Internet, technology, or other topics with enormous speed of development. If your content will loose actuality fast, be first to deliver the news, taking the traffic the other way.
8. Track back links to your other posts. While writing new post, try to include the relevant links from your older posts, promoting them the most natural way. These intra-links should not be accepted as shameless promotion, but should be integral to the post.
9. Writing Style and Design. You should develop your own, easy-identifiable style as a writer. But, anyway, reader will always appreciate if you make his comprehension easier by using the proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalizing letters as needed, proofreading you posts, and using the blog design and Themes and will help your reader to focus on the post, and avoid distraction by the reading obstacles. By investing your time in these simple actions, you will actually show the respect to your reader.
10. Regular Updates. Update your blogs regularly, let your fans to be addicted to the new post they can enjoy on the regular basis. The rule is “the more regular you blog, the more traffic you will get”. It is increasing the overall knowledge base, you are presenting to the public, combined with keeping the most devoted your readers not to be disappointed by your extended absence.
11. Pictures and Videos. Use pictures and videos naturally incorporated in your posts. They give more flavors to your articles, make them more readable, and attract the public attention.
12. Blog Title and Description. Do not think that it is not important! It definitely is! Gets a cool relevant, straight-forward, and keywords-rich title that makes people check your site for the first time. And the description should match the title, giving the brief presentation on your topic, approach, and character of presentation. This will also assist you in getting better indexing results in the search engines.
13. Most Popular Posts. You have the posts that you like most, and your readers like most. Why not putting them the permanent links to them on the sidebars, or add the few “killing” posts in your signature, when you are finalizing your regular posts? Your best weapon should be utilized as much as possible.
14. Length of the Posts. It is recommended to keep the overall posts and paragraphs inside the post short. It is better to offer your visitors to come daily, checking your new pieces of the information, than to get them tired reading one long article. It does not mean that you should always right the short posts. If the long article can be divided into the self-sufficient components, it is better to split it and arrange separate parts submission.
I am going to use the last recommendation for myself, and leave other aspects of the blog traffic increase to the following posts. Happy Blogging!
The following article is an overview result from the multiple sources on the topic: “How to increase blog traffic without financial investments.” The list of the links that were used for the article preparation, will be enclosed in the final part of the topic, for your convenience. I want to thank all the authors who contributed to the topic’s review.
Part 1: Blog Content
1. Provide quality content. It is hard to explain in simple words, how the quality content can be separated from the non-quality content. But, if you read an article on topic of your interests and you see say to yourself: “That’s it. I knew that, but the author put the staff on the blog quite nicely”- this is a quality content. Share your expertise generously with other people, so the readers recognize it and depend on you and your opinion.
2. Provide original content. There are many sites with free content for your blog, and there is nothing wrong to use once a while an article that fit to topic of your discussion (definitely, if you provide the information about author, and your blogging host supports non-original content posting). But, the most readable blogs are not those that collect articles from other primary sources, no matter how good the posts are.
3. Personal Voice. Through your posts readers should see an author – you. As blogs are more like personal journals, they need to have a personal touch of the creator, giving the visitors feeling that you personally like they came, you write for them, to make their life easier and more fun. This personal touch might be provided through the humorous comments, examples from your experience, etc.
4. Provide an interesting and expert content. Everybody has the topic(s) where she or he is an expert. Choose the topic for your posts that it is interesting for you. Do not choose the topic, before they seems to be the most profitable. If you do not have fun, writing your posts, the visitors will not have fun, reading them. Be constantly aware on all new trends on your topic of interest and became an expert in this area.
5. Look on your posts from your visitor’s perspectives. Try to review your post as the post of some stranger you stumbled online. Is this post is keeping your attention till the end, or you get bored right away? Try to be objective. If this post would be written by somebody else, would you like it?
6. Controversial Content. If that is applicable to the topic of your discussion, prepare the posts with controversial content, that might evoke the discussion and polemics, which will increase the blog exposure and will eventually drive more traffic. One of the methods of increasing user’s participation is posting provocative questions and touch “hot topics”. These posts should be related to the topic of your discussion and you should use them carefully, as your blog stylishness and integrity are more important for your long-time success.
7. News and long-lasting content. Try to create articles with the long-lasting content to ensure your posts readability next year, next 10 years… Definitely, it is from not easy to impossible for the topics related to the Internet, technology, or other topics with enormous speed of development. If your content will loose actuality fast, be first to deliver the news, taking the traffic the other way.
8. Track back links to your other posts. While writing new post, try to include the relevant links from your older posts, promoting them the most natural way. These intra-links should not be accepted as shameless promotion, but should be integral to the post.
9. Writing Style and Design. You should develop your own, easy-identifiable style as a writer. But, anyway, reader will always appreciate if you make his comprehension easier by using the proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalizing letters as needed, proofreading you posts, and using the blog design and Themes and will help your reader to focus on the post, and avoid distraction by the reading obstacles. By investing your time in these simple actions, you will actually show the respect to your reader.
10. Regular Updates. Update your blogs regularly, let your fans to be addicted to the new post they can enjoy on the regular basis. The rule is “the more regular you blog, the more traffic you will get”. It is increasing the overall knowledge base, you are presenting to the public, combined with keeping the most devoted your readers not to be disappointed by your extended absence.
11. Pictures and Videos. Use pictures and videos naturally incorporated in your posts. They give more flavors to your articles, make them more readable, and attract the public attention.
12. Blog Title and Description. Do not think that it is not important! It definitely is! Gets a cool relevant, straight-forward, and keywords-rich title that makes people check your site for the first time. And the description should match the title, giving the brief presentation on your topic, approach, and character of presentation. This will also assist you in getting better indexing results in the search engines.
13. Most Popular Posts. You have the posts that you like most, and your readers like most. Why not putting them the permanent links to them on the sidebars, or add the few “killing” posts in your signature, when you are finalizing your regular posts? Your best weapon should be utilized as much as possible.
14. Length of the Posts. It is recommended to keep the overall posts and paragraphs inside the post short. It is better to offer your visitors to come daily, checking your new pieces of the information, than to get them tired reading one long article. It does not mean that you should always right the short posts. If the long article can be divided into the self-sufficient components, it is better to split it and arrange separate parts submission.
I am going to use the last recommendation for myself, and leave other aspects of the blog traffic increase to the following posts. Happy Blogging!
Friday, November 9, 2007
Featured Review - Free Web Hosting 000WebHost.com
This post will be interesting for those, who are looking for the free Hosting solution for the Web Site. It is not easy to find an offer that will give you the zero-dollar advertising-free Web Site with subdomains and FTP uploading options. 000Webhost is listed with the high ranking in all directories and fit to all the requirements above. Site provides 250MB of disk space with 100GB Bandwidth, supports various scripts (latest versions of PHP and MySQL with no restrictions), allows your ads, hosts sub-domains (absolutely free for you) and promises to be alive at least to 2012. On top of all these goodies, it pays you for all the referrals you bring to them. 24/7 online support is available as well.I am using this service for several months, and it has never been down.
Please sign up for your free space and sub-domain:
http://www.000webhost.com/?id=3226
------------------------------------------------------------
While this post was written back in 2007, and there is overwhelming information from the frustrated users, pointing out that the 000webhost should be avoided, I am not going to modify the post. Just recommendation - before you decide to sign in with them, read all the comments below.
Please sign up for your free space and sub-domain:
http://www.000webhost.com/?id=3226
------------------------------------------------------------
While this post was written back in 2007, and there is overwhelming information from the frustrated users, pointing out that the 000webhost should be avoided, I am not going to modify the post. Just recommendation - before you decide to sign in with them, read all the comments below.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
The Best 10 Job Search Engines
Top 5 Search Engines
(Scores 100-130)
Looking for a new Job is a complicated and important project in your life. With this publication, I will try to make one of the project stages a little bit easier. I will review the Online Job Search Engines and provide brief description, links and rating, based on the multiple online reviews and users’ feedback. For the matter of this publication, I will present only General Job Search Engines that have the nationwide geographic coverage and include resources for the most of the professional occupations in the modern economy, rather than presenting a particular specialized niche. Analysts estimate the amount of the online job search web sites to exceed 45,000. So, it is not an easy task for a job seeker to choose the place, where he will invest his time and hopes. By limiting this review by exclusively General Engines, I understand that I cut artificially many sites with more specific resources that in some cases might be even better than general information sites. For example, Dice can be considered as one of the best sites on the technology market, and TheLadders - on the High-paid Jobs Listing ($100K+) market, JobsInLogistics - for logistics jobs, LatPro – resources for Latino (Hispanic) population, Computerwork - for computer-related jobs, Jobsinthemoney - for jobs in financial industries, and other sites focusing on the particular niche of the Job Market (CallCenterJobs, Telecomcareers, GreatInsuranceJobs, Jobs4HR, AllRetailJobs, etc).
Rating, accompanying the site reviews, is based on the ratings, preferences, and reviews from 20 online and printed articles, devoted to the Job Search Engines evaluation and promotion. I have to admit that, being for last 6 years far away from the Job Search Market, I decided to refrain from giving my personal opinion on the sites rating, and provide the overall score, calculated on the base of the professional reviews.
From 40 sites reviewed, the group of the five leaders has a distinctive advantage in comparison with the main remaining candidates.
The Leading Job Search Engine with score 128 should be pronounced the Monster.com.
Monster can be characterized by a simple-to-navigate website interface and huge database of positions from all career paths. Its database has almost 50 million resumes of the job seekers. You can look for job by category, location, employer, or keyword and save your searches as active search agents that are browsing the ongoing positions listings and notifying you by e-mail, sent to your inbox.
However, this site is more than just a job search engine. It offers resume help and distribution, career advice, and networking capabilities. You get a free account with room for a resume, cover letters, and an online job application history to track your job search progress. You can also choose to use premium resume writing and publishing services for a small fee.
Among attractive extra features, we want to mention MonsterTrack, offering special guidance to college students at the most complicated initial steps of the internship or first employment place search; Monster Networking, helping to connect people in the same field for potential leads and recommendations; Monster Mobile, transferring the job search featured capabilities to the mobile phones, and Monster Blog, where candidates can chat and exchange their advices and experience in different job-related fields.
The only noticeable disadvantage of the site is extensive use of advertising, pop-ups, and special offers that might be distracting and might spoil the overall very positive impression of the site quality and effectiveness.
The second place, unexpectedly for me, has been aggressively captured by the Job Search Engine that is not one of the group of “Big Three”. With a score 117, SimplyHired.com got a “silver medal”.
SimplyHired is a simple search engine, searching for listings from other job boards, companies’ pages and online classifieds, searchable by type of job, type of company, keyword, location and the date the job was posted. You can use the site to search for job openings and subscribe to a search result delivery, or you can register for a free account and save annotated listings onsite as well. Among additional features to be mentioned are: interesting option for the user to "train" the job search engine on the preferred content delivery by rating jobs you are interested in; the ability to research salaries; the ability to add jobs to a job map and view detailed profiles of various companies.
It is not surprising that this Job Search engine with almost 7 million listed positions obtained multiple awards for outstanding results from Time, Forbes, PC Magazine, and CNet.
To add some fun to the serious activities of the Job Search, site is offering you to participate in the Simply Fired contest for the best stories about getting fired.
The bronze, with a score 116, is taken by one of the biggest sites in the category, CareerBuilder. According to the Workforce Magazine, for the past two years CareerBuilder.com has ranked number one among job sites for overall traffic and popularity. CareerBuilder has more than 1.5 million job listings, more than 250,000 companies posting jobs, and over 2 million resumes submitted. This site pulls job listings from the pages of the Tribune and Knight Ridder newspaper conglomerates, so online search might bring you unique results, especially if you are looking for job in major metropolitan areas served by these newspapers.
CareerBuilder offers job searchers a free account for resume and cover letter posting, email job alert notices, job search advice, and customized job search capabilities according to the multiple criteria: location, job title, key words, and specific industry. List of job search communities and detailed information on the coming career fairs are included as well.
Site might be characterized by the strong presence in US, on the international arena he is just starting to build its network. Another significant disadvantage is that employers have to pay a premium to search resume database, with different fees structures with and without positions posting.
With a minimum gap, the next site that came out in the competition, is Yahoo! HotJobs (a score 114).
Yahoo Hot Jobs is a personalized Job Search Engine, linked to your Yahoo ID, so you can use the same login account for the both sites. This comprehensive and user-friendly search site includes a massive job search bank, records storage for “My Searches”, multiple resume templates, and a large library of Career Tools. Any job search can be subscribed to via RSS. You can add your subscription to "My Yahoo" or to a personalized RSS reader (as Bloglines).
All users agree that the site very effectively implemented the job search by location, when user can see all the jobs available in his general area. Another nice feature implemented is HotBlock technology, giving job seekers control on which employers can see their resume.
Yahoo! HotJobs has a free limited search option for employers, and it also provides employers, recruiters, and staffing agencies an opportunity to choose billable recruiting program.
The biggest disadvantage of the site, revealed by the users, is the lack of the proper and qualified customer support.
And, the closing member of the “5 Best Job Search Engines” group is Indeed.com with score 113.
Indeed.com is a very powerful job search engine with simplistic interface. It is offering a completely different approach to job search in comparison with other competitors. User cannot submit his resume from the site, as it is focused solely on being a pure meta-search engine retrieving information from other major job search engines, job search boards, newspapers, associations, and company career pages. Job searching process is very simple, and can uncover unique resources, unavailable in other search engines. User is able to save his searches and have jobs delivered to him by email alert.
It is also possible to enter to the forums in which you can extract a lot of information related to jobs, allowing you to be more prepared on all stages of the job search, application submission, and at the time of job interview.
Other Top Job Search Engines
(Scores 80 -100)
Score 92
http://www.jobcentral.com/JobCentral.com
Score 91
http://www.careerjournal.com/
Score 88
http://www.craigslist.org/about/cities.html
Score 87
http://www.fedworld.gov/
Score 86
http://www.jobster.com/
A full list of the reviewed companies with scores from 50 to 80 can be found on the related RateItAll Web List (http://www.rateitall.com/t-24301-general-job-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx)
(Scores 100-130)
Looking for a new Job is a complicated and important project in your life. With this publication, I will try to make one of the project stages a little bit easier. I will review the Online Job Search Engines and provide brief description, links and rating, based on the multiple online reviews and users’ feedback. For the matter of this publication, I will present only General Job Search Engines that have the nationwide geographic coverage and include resources for the most of the professional occupations in the modern economy, rather than presenting a particular specialized niche. Analysts estimate the amount of the online job search web sites to exceed 45,000. So, it is not an easy task for a job seeker to choose the place, where he will invest his time and hopes. By limiting this review by exclusively General Engines, I understand that I cut artificially many sites with more specific resources that in some cases might be even better than general information sites. For example, Dice can be considered as one of the best sites on the technology market, and TheLadders - on the High-paid Jobs Listing ($100K+) market, JobsInLogistics - for logistics jobs, LatPro – resources for Latino (Hispanic) population, Computerwork - for computer-related jobs, Jobsinthemoney - for jobs in financial industries, and other sites focusing on the particular niche of the Job Market (CallCenterJobs, Telecomcareers, GreatInsuranceJobs, Jobs4HR, AllRetailJobs, etc).
Rating, accompanying the site reviews, is based on the ratings, preferences, and reviews from 20 online and printed articles, devoted to the Job Search Engines evaluation and promotion. I have to admit that, being for last 6 years far away from the Job Search Market, I decided to refrain from giving my personal opinion on the sites rating, and provide the overall score, calculated on the base of the professional reviews.
From 40 sites reviewed, the group of the five leaders has a distinctive advantage in comparison with the main remaining candidates.
The Leading Job Search Engine with score 128 should be pronounced the Monster.com.
Monster can be characterized by a simple-to-navigate website interface and huge database of positions from all career paths. Its database has almost 50 million resumes of the job seekers. You can look for job by category, location, employer, or keyword and save your searches as active search agents that are browsing the ongoing positions listings and notifying you by e-mail, sent to your inbox.
However, this site is more than just a job search engine. It offers resume help and distribution, career advice, and networking capabilities. You get a free account with room for a resume, cover letters, and an online job application history to track your job search progress. You can also choose to use premium resume writing and publishing services for a small fee.
Among attractive extra features, we want to mention MonsterTrack, offering special guidance to college students at the most complicated initial steps of the internship or first employment place search; Monster Networking, helping to connect people in the same field for potential leads and recommendations; Monster Mobile, transferring the job search featured capabilities to the mobile phones, and Monster Blog, where candidates can chat and exchange their advices and experience in different job-related fields.
The only noticeable disadvantage of the site is extensive use of advertising, pop-ups, and special offers that might be distracting and might spoil the overall very positive impression of the site quality and effectiveness.
The second place, unexpectedly for me, has been aggressively captured by the Job Search Engine that is not one of the group of “Big Three”. With a score 117, SimplyHired.com got a “silver medal”.
SimplyHired is a simple search engine, searching for listings from other job boards, companies’ pages and online classifieds, searchable by type of job, type of company, keyword, location and the date the job was posted. You can use the site to search for job openings and subscribe to a search result delivery, or you can register for a free account and save annotated listings onsite as well. Among additional features to be mentioned are: interesting option for the user to "train" the job search engine on the preferred content delivery by rating jobs you are interested in; the ability to research salaries; the ability to add jobs to a job map and view detailed profiles of various companies.
It is not surprising that this Job Search engine with almost 7 million listed positions obtained multiple awards for outstanding results from Time, Forbes, PC Magazine, and CNet.
To add some fun to the serious activities of the Job Search, site is offering you to participate in the Simply Fired contest for the best stories about getting fired.
The bronze, with a score 116, is taken by one of the biggest sites in the category, CareerBuilder. According to the Workforce Magazine, for the past two years CareerBuilder.com has ranked number one among job sites for overall traffic and popularity. CareerBuilder has more than 1.5 million job listings, more than 250,000 companies posting jobs, and over 2 million resumes submitted. This site pulls job listings from the pages of the Tribune and Knight Ridder newspaper conglomerates, so online search might bring you unique results, especially if you are looking for job in major metropolitan areas served by these newspapers.
CareerBuilder offers job searchers a free account for resume and cover letter posting, email job alert notices, job search advice, and customized job search capabilities according to the multiple criteria: location, job title, key words, and specific industry. List of job search communities and detailed information on the coming career fairs are included as well.
Site might be characterized by the strong presence in US, on the international arena he is just starting to build its network. Another significant disadvantage is that employers have to pay a premium to search resume database, with different fees structures with and without positions posting.
With a minimum gap, the next site that came out in the competition, is Yahoo! HotJobs (a score 114).
Yahoo Hot Jobs is a personalized Job Search Engine, linked to your Yahoo ID, so you can use the same login account for the both sites. This comprehensive and user-friendly search site includes a massive job search bank, records storage for “My Searches”, multiple resume templates, and a large library of Career Tools. Any job search can be subscribed to via RSS. You can add your subscription to "My Yahoo" or to a personalized RSS reader (as Bloglines).
All users agree that the site very effectively implemented the job search by location, when user can see all the jobs available in his general area. Another nice feature implemented is HotBlock technology, giving job seekers control on which employers can see their resume.
Yahoo! HotJobs has a free limited search option for employers, and it also provides employers, recruiters, and staffing agencies an opportunity to choose billable recruiting program.
The biggest disadvantage of the site, revealed by the users, is the lack of the proper and qualified customer support.
And, the closing member of the “5 Best Job Search Engines” group is Indeed.com with score 113.
Indeed.com is a very powerful job search engine with simplistic interface. It is offering a completely different approach to job search in comparison with other competitors. User cannot submit his resume from the site, as it is focused solely on being a pure meta-search engine retrieving information from other major job search engines, job search boards, newspapers, associations, and company career pages. Job searching process is very simple, and can uncover unique resources, unavailable in other search engines. User is able to save his searches and have jobs delivered to him by email alert.
It is also possible to enter to the forums in which you can extract a lot of information related to jobs, allowing you to be more prepared on all stages of the job search, application submission, and at the time of job interview.
Other Top Job Search Engines
(Scores 80 -100)
Score 92
http://www.jobcentral.com/JobCentral.com
Score 91
http://www.careerjournal.com/
Score 88
http://www.craigslist.org/about/cities.html
Score 87
http://www.fedworld.gov/
Score 86
http://www.jobster.com/
A full list of the reviewed companies with scores from 50 to 80 can be found on the related RateItAll Web List (http://www.rateitall.com/t-24301-general-job-search-engines--free-online-services.aspx)
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
36 Best Freeware Directories Collection
For freeware fans, I have prepared the list of the top sites, offering the freeware programs, posted at RateItAll.
The listing is focusing on the true freeware directories and reference sites. Freeware should match the following definitions:
1) Freeware - Free software, often written by enthusiasts and distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local bulletin boards, Usenet, or other electronic media;
2) Open source - software distributed in source under licenses guaranteeing anybody rights to freely use, modify, and redistribute, the code;
3) Shareware software, free for non-commercial use.
This definition does not apply to the illegal freeware software collections, as cracked software or warez. I also tried to avoid the sites, where there is a mixed listing of the freeware, shareware, and trialware programs due to the complications on the true freeware separation from the other, non-free competitors.
Link for the listing: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24284-free-products--freeware-directories.aspx
Enjoy the release!
The listing is focusing on the true freeware directories and reference sites. Freeware should match the following definitions:
1) Freeware - Free software, often written by enthusiasts and distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local bulletin boards, Usenet, or other electronic media;
2) Open source - software distributed in source under licenses guaranteeing anybody rights to freely use, modify, and redistribute, the code;
3) Shareware software, free for non-commercial use.
This definition does not apply to the illegal freeware software collections, as cracked software or warez. I also tried to avoid the sites, where there is a mixed listing of the freeware, shareware, and trialware programs due to the complications on the true freeware separation from the other, non-free competitors.
Link for the listing: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24284-free-products--freeware-directories.aspx
Enjoy the release!
Monday, October 29, 2007
24 Online Services to Offer Free Phone Calls
I personally like freebies. Even thou, there are sometimes hidden reasons to provide free services to the general public, as far as you understand the possible consequences, you can manage them successfully. I want to offer for your review a small list of the phone-related free online service, that include free phone calls, voicemail, and conference calls.
The WebList is hosted by RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24266-phone-calls--free-online-services.aspx
Enjoy this release, and add the entries I might be missing.
The WebList is hosted by RateItAll:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24266-phone-calls--free-online-services.aspx
Enjoy this release, and add the entries I might be missing.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Free Online Services - Audio Conferencing
This free service might be useful for personal use, and for business use as well. It might be very interesting for those who need to perform business and private conference calls with multiple participants.
The advanced conference calling system allows to host a conference call whenever you want. No reservations needed. No waiting. No fees. Host up to 100 callers per conference on the standard free account. The conferencing center is open 24/7, every day of the year. All users just pay the regular long distance fees to connect to the server.
You can sign up and start using the service immediately. You need just enter your name and email address.
Website: http://www.freeaudioconferencing.com/
The advanced conference calling system allows to host a conference call whenever you want. No reservations needed. No waiting. No fees. Host up to 100 callers per conference on the standard free account. The conferencing center is open 24/7, every day of the year. All users just pay the regular long distance fees to connect to the server.
You can sign up and start using the service immediately. You need just enter your name and email address.
Website: http://www.freeaudioconferencing.com/
Friday, October 26, 2007
57 "Money for Surveys" Web Sites Collection
I have compiled a list of the top 57 Money for Surveys Web Sites on RateItAll. It took me three days to filter through about 300 sites I found online. However, besides those, that I use myself, I could not give the proper evaluation for sites by just looking on their offerings.
The criterias for the site to be included in the list were as follows:
1. Preference for instant pay for survey, not a lottery or raffle. For some reason, I have suspicions on the prizes distribution fairness. I saw once, how the winner was determined through the raffle on one of the Trade Shows. Just overheard the talk: "Let's give the prize to Mr. X, he will feel good, and will buy the system tomorrow".
2. Applicability for the general population. I did not include too narrow targeting Web Sites.
3. Any good or bad feedbacks, I could locate in the online communities.
4. Amount of the information given before the site forces you to register or sign in.
5. Web Site professional outlook, how long ago was it updated, etc.
Definitely, I could miss some valid points. You are welcome to review the list, leave your opinion and rating, and earn money as much as you wish...Link for the list:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24248-money-for-surveys-websites.aspx
Again, I want to claim that the list does not include my referral links, so do not consider this posting as an attempt to make new referrals. Tell you truth, I am so bad in making referrals, so I just gave up on this side of the business.Anyway, good luck with your online moneymaking.
The criterias for the site to be included in the list were as follows:
1. Preference for instant pay for survey, not a lottery or raffle. For some reason, I have suspicions on the prizes distribution fairness. I saw once, how the winner was determined through the raffle on one of the Trade Shows. Just overheard the talk: "Let's give the prize to Mr. X, he will feel good, and will buy the system tomorrow".
2. Applicability for the general population. I did not include too narrow targeting Web Sites.
3. Any good or bad feedbacks, I could locate in the online communities.
4. Amount of the information given before the site forces you to register or sign in.
5. Web Site professional outlook, how long ago was it updated, etc.
Definitely, I could miss some valid points. You are welcome to review the list, leave your opinion and rating, and earn money as much as you wish...Link for the list:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24248-money-for-surveys-websites.aspx
Again, I want to claim that the list does not include my referral links, so do not consider this posting as an attempt to make new referrals. Tell you truth, I am so bad in making referrals, so I just gave up on this side of the business.Anyway, good luck with your online moneymaking.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Software Judge - Money for Software Reviews
Software Judge pays pays its members for posting original software reviews on their site from the list of the proposed software programs. Payment minimum is $1, and maximum is $50 per posted review. Minimum Payout to cash in is $200. The best contributors also get free gifts on top of the accummulated earnings.
Website: http://www.softwarejudge.com/
Website: http://www.softwarejudge.com/
Thursday, October 18, 2007
100+ Revenue Sharing Websites Listing
Hello Friends,I completed a two-days task of compiling the list of the 50 best revenue sharing Web Sites on RateItAll, with brief description, links, and rating for some of them. Please feel free to visit this listing and vote for your favorites.
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24229-revenue-sharing-web-sites.aspx
Do not consider this post as attempt to get more referrals, as I removed all referral links from the offered listing. You also can see the Widget at the left border with scrolling listing.
P.S. I rated Blogger with the highest ranking of 5, but its "enemies" decreased the overall ranking. If you care for the Blogger community, come and vote for it.
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24229-revenue-sharing-web-sites.aspx
Do not consider this post as attempt to get more referrals, as I removed all referral links from the offered listing. You also can see the Widget at the left border with scrolling listing.
P.S. I rated Blogger with the highest ranking of 5, but its "enemies" decreased the overall ranking. If you care for the Blogger community, come and vote for it.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Blog Promotion through Technorati
Claiming the blog to Techonorati will help you to maximize your blog's exposure to those looking for information you provide. Your visibility will be significantly improved if you post your Blog to the proper category of the Technorati's Blog Finder. Hey, you need visitors, and visitors are looking for you! Help them find your artciles. You have a chance to improve the attendance even more, if your Blog will be published on Technorati's Home Page.
Website: http://technorati.com/
Monday, October 15, 2007
RateItAll - Money for your ratings
In the previous posts, I placed several lists of the free software in various categories. They are hosted on the quite interesting site RateItAll - one of the oldest in the group. You can find there multiple lists of products, services, opportunities, and places with description, links and ratings. You can create your own lists in the area that nobody was investigating before, or rate the items, introduced by others. Every your post there carries your hidden signature, and you will earn income initiated by the page visitors through AdSense account (you should create one, if you do not have it yet). Adsense idea is great, as the income is not based on your action at the time (clicks, sigh-ins, or else). You establish your presence once, and collect dividends thereafter. It especially important for those who does not have a Web Site or blog, where Adsense codes could be planted. You also do not have to promote your Adsense pages, as RateItAll will do that for you, sharing the total revenue on 50-50 scheme.
Sign in through the link: http://www.rateitall.com
Sign in through the link: http://www.rateitall.com
Friday, October 12, 2007
19 Free Password Managers Collection
Password managers are very valuable pieces of software, even thou you might use the built-in forms auto-filling feature from your Operating System.
The stand-alone programs will give much higher flexibility and ability of the cross-computers use. You can find three major uses for them:
1. Filling user name and paswords on the pasword protected Web Sites. No need to remember anything.
2. Filling questionnaires and online forms with your standard personal information. Saves a lot of time to the Internet users.
3. Saving your data for passwords, credit cards, driving license in the portable password manager, when you go for travel. If your documents are lost or stolen, it will be much easier to restore them, and to call to your bank or credit company to cancel your cards.
Website:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24216-password-managers--freeware-collection.aspx
The stand-alone programs will give much higher flexibility and ability of the cross-computers use. You can find three major uses for them:
1. Filling user name and paswords on the pasword protected Web Sites. No need to remember anything.
2. Filling questionnaires and online forms with your standard personal information. Saves a lot of time to the Internet users.
3. Saving your data for passwords, credit cards, driving license in the portable password manager, when you go for travel. If your documents are lost or stolen, it will be much easier to restore them, and to call to your bank or credit company to cancel your cards.
Website:
http://www.rateitall.com/t-24216-password-managers--freeware-collection.aspx
27 Free Unit Converters Utilities Collection
One more list for you. This time it is all about Unit Converters. You will find different combinations of features and user interfaces, so you can find one program, suitable for your needs.
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24208-free-products--unit-converters.aspx
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24208-free-products--unit-converters.aspx
35 Free Screen Capture Utilities Collection
If you are using ocasionally the basic built-in screen capture utility PrintScreen, you would be interested in much better utilities, doing the same and much more, for the same price - zero. Choose one, that will fit your needs with appropriate set of features. Programs names, links, descriptions, and ratings are provided.
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24213-free-products--screen-capture-utilities.aspx
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24213-free-products--screen-capture-utilities.aspx
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
47 Free Archivers Collection
Please review the collection of 47 free archiving programs with brief description and links, I created on RateItAll. No small prints or strings attached. Pure freebies.
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24206-free-products--archiving-programs.aspx
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24206-free-products--archiving-programs.aspx
50+ free file manager utilities with reviews
Please review the collection of 52 free file managers, I have posted on RateItAll, with brief description, links for download, and rating. Are you still using standard Windows Explorer?
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24205-free-products--file-managers.aspx
Website: http://www.rateitall.com/t-24205-free-products--file-managers.aspx
Shared Reviews - Get Paid for Product Reviews
Shared Reviews in Beta status is paying the members $10 for every 5 product reviews. After launch, copmany will give away 50% of its revenue to the contributors.
Website: http://www.sharedreviews.com
Website: http://www.sharedreviews.com
Valued Opinions - Money for Surveys
Valued Opinions is an online survey panel operated by ResearchNow. The panel is available in over 15 languages across more than 20 different countries. Valued Opinions members receive ‘cash’ redeemable for vouchers for each survey they participate in and quarterly cash draws for members are also held.
Website: http://www.valuedopinions.com/
Website: http://www.valuedopinions.com/
Screamer Radio - Free Internet Radio and Recorder
Simple, portable, free, and doing its job properly - what may be a better combination for a software title? Many stations from different countries. You can record the stream in MP3 file.
Website: http://www.screamer-radio.com/download/
Our thanks to the author David Zidar from Sweden.
Main Features
·
It's easy to use
·
It's not bloated
·
It's ad free
·
It has no spyware
·
It has a huge database of radio stations
·
It has a cool peak meter ;)
·
You can easily record what you're listening to
·
You can hide it in the system tray
·
You can play back on multiple soundcards
Website: http://www.screamer-radio.com/download/
Our thanks to the author David Zidar from Sweden.
Welcome Message
Dear Friends,
Welcome to my Blog. I will do my best to provide interesting infromation and some new insights to the World of Web Freebies. It will include referring and reviewing free software for your computers, sharing with you some Web Sites and Internet Services, you can use for free, and certain Moneymaking Opportunities as well. EVERYTHING, unless stated is free here, without "small print" and "attached strings".
Welcome to my Blog. I will do my best to provide interesting infromation and some new insights to the World of Web Freebies. It will include referring and reviewing free software for your computers, sharing with you some Web Sites and Internet Services, you can use for free, and certain Moneymaking Opportunities as well. EVERYTHING, unless stated is free here, without "small print" and "attached strings".
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