Advancing this Blog...

I have just gone ahead and signed up for yet another blog exchange program at BlogAdvance. Although I have just signed up, initially it looks and I'm guessing works just like BlogSoldiers. I may be wrong. This is just the initial inference. This blog being in its infantile stage, needs as many visitors as it can get. Moreover, I realized that BlogAdvance has a whole lot of different reader base than the ones that are available at BlogMad, BlogExplosion or BlogSoldiers. For a nascent blog, I would recommend all of these...

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A few more Directories...

These are the few sites that I have submitted my blog to. I suggest that if you haven't already, you should go ahead and submit to these sites. The more directories, the merrier! I will be adding this blog to more directories soon. Its just that my exams are starting on friday and I am a little short on time. Until next time, happy blogging...

1. Today - A very important site. Will require a reciprocal link.
   
2. Blog Street - Enter your url.
   
3. Ice Rocket - Ping them your url.
   
4. We Blog A Lot - Ping them your RSS feed if you have one.

Any doubts will be welcome...

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A Short Note on BlogSoldiers

BlogSoldiers is a traffic exchange site. It is one of the most versatile I have come across. It even pays you money for browsing other blogs. Although, I am yet to test this feature, it appears to be present. Moreover you can do a lot of nifty things like set the amount of visitors that visit your site through BlogSoldiers. Besides, they have just upgraded their credit ratio from 1 : 2 to 3 : 4. That means, for every 4 blogs you browse, you get 3 visits.

Let me remind all you skeptics out there that traffic exchange sites are a good way for your site to get noticed initially. The early days of a blog are the most difficult. The same goes for the uninitiated blogger as well. I will start looking more seriously at directories which is also an important factor in marketing your new-born blog. Until then, happy blogging...

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Time to visit the (bloga)ZOO!

I have just signed up on another nifty little blog exchange site called Blogazoo. Now, let me explain what caught my attention on this little site that separated it from the rest of the crowd.

At Blogazoo, the age-old problem of getting quality traffic to your site gets solved albeit to a very small extent. But hey, any quality traffic is better than none, right? It will be interesting to see how their concept works out practically. In theory it sounds somewhat ok.

What they do is place a Gazoo on member blogs. Gazoos are text links which when clicked by a surfer, will get him multiple credits for the single click. This will encourage users tp read through blogs. Who knows? They might even contribute valuable clicks to your site as they surf it searching for Gazoos!

I have just signed up and as of yet, my site has not been approved. But once it does get approved, it'd be interesting to see how things work out. Check it out here! Keeping my fingers crossed. By the way, for those of you who haven't already, I recommend you sign up to the following traffic exchanges as soon as possible. You won't regret it.

BlogMad
BlogExplosion
BlogSoldiers

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The Adsense

OK. The time has finally arrived. Its time to start the ad campaigns. Figuring out the right time isn't such a big deal. I'd let my instincts do the time-keeping. There are many sites out there providing ads for site owners to generate revenue. You can try them all. I'll be reviewing most of them here. But I'd recommend you to start off with adsense. It's the easiest to set up. Once you get the feel of having ads on your site, you can try different ad providers. Check out the ad I have placed on the right sidebar. More on adsense later...

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Ingredients of a good blog

By ingredients of a good blog, I mean what you need to make money from your blog. What it takes to stand out from the crowd. This list is by no means complete. But just a foundation stone. It will be updated as this blog progresses...

1. Content is king. You have good content and people will come flocking to your blog. Its a fact.

2. Traffic is queen. When your aim is to make money, traffic is what you have to aim for. If traffic is high, then everything else falls into place almost automatically.

3. Links are the princes. Links, links and more links. You can't have enough of it. Get as many inbound links as possible. I guarantee you'll never regret it.

4. Ads are the ministers. Choose wisely when it comes to ads. I will be doing a detailed feature of ads in the near future. Don't forget to check it out.

That's all for now. Use the permalink if you want to see future updates to this post.

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Submit to Search Engines...

Now I think is the right time to start submitting to search engines... I've said it before and I'm saying it again... Search Engines will take like, forever to process a new site. So waiting until they come and find you is not an option. So it is better to let the search engines know that you have a new blog and would like for it to be indexed.

Excluding some of the biggies like google and yahoo! submitting to all the known search engines is not physically possible. So what do we do?

Well there are a number of free sites that will do the submission for you somewhat automatedly. I personally use Submit Express's Submit page. They submit to 25+ search engines including AOL, HoTBoT, etc. for free. But, be sure of including the best meta data you can, before you submit to search engines. To go to the free submission page click here and submit away. Slowly but surely, your rankings are bnound to increase.

Another page for free submission is Free Web Submission. I suggest you use a combination of these two submission services to get maximum exposure. But be careful. They have a lot of common submissions between them. Some search engines have a policy agianst multiple submissions fearing spam. So, I suggest first you try Submit Express and then Free Web Submission as in the case of the latter, you can select which sites to submit to. That gives you flexibility. Try it out. And Happy Blogging...

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Exchanging Traffic

As I had mentioned earlier, it would take months for the search engines to give you a proper pagerank that would drive enough traffic to your site. There are many methods to get listed faster. I will be going into those details at a later date. But right now, what is it that you really need the most?

Now, and trust me on this, you really need to get people to see your blog. Let them know that it is there. But of course, as always we need to do this economically. That is, without spending a single penny. This is where traffic exchanges step in.

Traffic exchanges are sites through which you view other people's webpages and get traffic in return. They utilize a system of credits. For every site that you visit, you get a specified credit amount. This is then exchanged for traffic to your site. 1 credit = 1 view. There are quite a few such sites. There are even traffic exchange sites that are meant specifically for blogs. In this post, I am highlighting 3 such sites that I have found to be the most effective for my needs. They are given below:

- This is one of the biggest and oldest traffic exchange sites around. They have a 2 : 1 traffic exchange ratio. That is, for every 2 sites you visit, 1 random guy visits your blog! Highly recommended. They even have games and other tools that help you get more credits.

- This is another huge traffic exchange site. They have lots of tools and games and they keep you really entertained as you swap traffic with other bloggers. They also have a traffic ratio of 2 : 1.

- My personal favorite. This site has the cleanest interface. It looks way cool. It is brought to you by Kinetiq a Web 2.0 startup company. Be sure to check-out their other tools. And the icing on the cake? They have a traffic ratio of 1 : 1! Brilliant.

If you are a starting blogger, I recommend you to try all three of these.

A little disclaimer: The quality of the traffic you get from these sites are more often than not, just visitors in search of credit. So don't expect a huge jump in the number of your readers. But hey, something is always better than nothing!

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You've Got to Love This Kinda Traffic!

Traffic is by and large the most important facet of a blog. Period. No other factor determines the success of your blog like the Traffic that is driven to it. Okay, so you've set up your blog just the way you want it and you are now satisfied. So now what?

It is a fact that no new site can start getting any traffic initially. The tried-and-tested method of waiting for the search-engines to find you and index you will not work. Neither is the costly Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools and services method an options for us. So do we wait?

Well, no. There are tons of stuff you could do while you wait. You could add toys and widgets to your blog. You could keep adding your blog to new directories. But that isn't really enough is it? That is why some nice people got together and started sites such as blogmad, blogexplosion and blogsoldiers. These are sites that are designed for traffic exchange. A traffic exchange site is where most of the bloggers go for their traffic needs.

In such sites, you surf other blogs from around the globe and earn credits. These credits are then redeemed by the sites in exchange for traffic from other bloggers doing the same thing as you did. Usually the ratio of visits to other blogs by visits to your blog is 2:1. That is, only half the number of credits. But, in blogmad, unlike the other two, the ratio is 1:1.

The quality of this traffic is highly debatable. But in the early days of a blog, this traffic would surely be a welcome addition to the already meager count of visitors. Maybe a few of them might notice you and turn regular readers.

Oh and by the way, you need something to track all the traffic. How else are you gonna know how many people view your blog. There are lots of online tool sites that will help you sort out this problem. Two such sites are given below...

Sitemeter
Statcounter
Needstat

Personally, I use sitemeter but statcounter is just as good (if not better) than sitemeter. Moreover, these are temporary ones. They can only log 100 visits. So if your visitors exceed 100 between checks, use nedstat which keeps a much larger log.

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Links and SEO

To understand the importance of links to and from your site, you will have to know a little about how search engines work. I will give you a brief idea about search engines, but if you want in-depth analysis, check it out at HowStuffWorks.com.

Ever wondered how search engines search the net so fast and retrieve thousands of results within seconds? I will explain how the majority of the search-engines do this and by majority, I mean Google! First and foremost are the bots. The bots are scripts that are designed to scour the net for new and changed information. They are also called spiders. These spiders jump from page to page and index the pages onto their servers.

Now how do they jump from page to page you ask? LINKS! Each page usually has at least one link to the outside world! As soon as it spots a link it goes through to that page and indexes it. So now you know how important a link is! So the more links you have for the spider to find the more the spider likes you. And you know you have got to be liked by the spiders! On the net, they're the one's you should befriend if you need fame and fortune!

Anyway those are only outbound-links. What we really need are solid inbound-links. These are the links that will help your blog. The reasoning is that if there are a few inbound links, that means that you have something interesting on your site. But if you have more than a few links, then that means that your site has something very popular. So you rise in ranks in the search-engine. The higher the rank, the more traffic you are likely to get. The more traffic you have, the more profitable your site is gonna be! See, links are an indispensable part of fundamental Search Engine Optimization (SEO). In my next post, I'll tell you how to get some quality inbound-links to your blog. don't forget :

QUALITY INBOUND LINKS -> MORE TRAFFIC -> HIGHER PROFITS!

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