Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
at 4:16pm
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I recently ran into some major issues with my hosting company. I won’t bother naming them, but I promise you would recognize the name if I did. What was the issue? Apparently, a few of my readers found something I had written here quite useful and submitted my post to StumbleUpon.
Having a reader submit your content to any Social Media service is usually an awesome event, especially for a small-time blogger like me. I had only recently switched to this new hosting company, though. I should have done my research before switching because the traffic spike I received from StumbleUpon was not that big, but my blog was basically down for the count.
Needless to say, I was pretty upset by this. I was also at a loss at to how to find a good hosting company. They come a dime a dozen. The only way I felt I could trust any company with my blog was by direct referral from someone using that particular hosting company or at least a recommendation from someone who knows what they’re talking about.
I have used services like FriendFeed and Rejaw to do get input as to what hosting I should switch to with some success, but I’m still on the fence. Recently, I found a site that makes it easy to find cheap web hosting. You often get what you pay for, but at least here I can read reviews done by actual customers because sometimes money is an object.
If you are researching new hosting or even looking for opinions on your current host, you should give them a shot. You even have the option to look at specific types of hosting, like hosting including free domains and recommendations for the best blog hosting.
Take a look at the site and tell me what you think.
Monday, September 1st, 2008
at 3:10pm
An interview question that I couldn’t answer.
What’s your answer?
Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
at 2:18am
One of the best things you can do to drive traffic to your blog is to run a contest. I recently came across a blog doing just that with some awesome prizes. Visit the site and enter the contest here.
How Does A Contest Get Me Traffic?
Well, don’t you like to win stuff? Of course you do. Everyone does. If people find out that you’re giving away random crap on your blog, they will be all over it. It’s even more attractive when they don’t have to deviate from their normal routine.
Viral Marketing
There is also a viral aspect to running a contest. You basically set up a points system where the contestants earn points for doing things to help your blog. A few examples of what may earn them points:
- Subscribing to your blog
- Adding to Technorati Favorites
- Linking back to your blog
- Add to MyBlogLog / BlogCatalog
You engineer the contest so that the participants are promoting for you in order to win. They subscribe, favorite and link your blog. In doing so, they have just alerted everyone they know that your blog has something going on. Viral stuff is awesome.
Where Do The Prizes Come From?
More than likely, this is going to require you to get together with all those awesome people you’ve met in the course of providing valuable content and input in your niche. All those people that you have had interesting and thought-provoking discussions with using various social media tools. Most people refer to this cooperation as a Joint Venture.
For example, the blog contest in question here offers premium WordPress Themes, unique visitor traffic, and an E-Book (just to name a few). Obviously, the prizes were not all created by the blogger running the contest. In providing the prizes for the contest, the others involved are getting some advertising and traffic as well.
Go Sign Up Now!
In conclusion (that sounds so corny), run off to TechSuave and get in on this contest. pay attention to what prizes are offered and what you have to do to win them. Try to think of what you could offer if you ran your own contest. Also, think about the best things to incorporate into the contest rules in order for you to get the greatest benefit.
Are you an Aspiring Blogger? - Win Prizes worth $1000 and more
