How to win a blog contest? Secrets revealed…

So, you wanna win a blogging contest. Most contests believe in a random lucky draw at the end of the contest to determine who gets the prize. So, how can you increase your chances of winning?

Well…my tip is to participate in as many contests as possible. Sooner, than later, lady luck is going to come your way. There is no back door entry that I know of. I guess I got a little carried away with the title of this article! :-)

The next question is how to determine where these contests are taking place?

ContestBlogger has the ‘ultimate list‘ of 23 blogs that focus on bringing you a comprehensive list of blog contests across the blogosphere. Just choose the contests that you want to participate it, and increase your chances of finally winning a prize.

All the best…. :-)

Popularity: 13% [?]

Win a Professional Logo for your Blog

Are you interested in winning yourself a great looking logo for your blog? I’m sure the answer is YES!!!

The PrizeBlog is running a “The Win A Logo Contest” till 17th October. You still have 3 weeks to enter the draw.

If you’re declared the winner in a lucky draw, you get the logo designed from SOS Factory.

To enter the draw, all you need to do is write a blog post about it, just like this one.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Did you get your BlogRush flavour yet?

As you can see, I’ve been promoting BlogRush a fair bit recently. I do think they have something good going on which might be successful. Just like in my previous post, only time will tell whether they succeed or not! One thing is for sure, if they succeed, it should help bloggers get more targeted traffic to their site.

A few days back BlogRush had released what they called “Flavours“.

This allows you to customize the “skin” of the widget without having to change any code on your site. Just a configuration change at your BlogRush Dashboard will do the trick.

This should help you blend in the widget into your blog theme.

Popularity: 18% [?]

Vote for Online Presence at 5starred.com

There is a new “Top 100” list for blogs that has been launched recently. It uses a combination of Alexa Ranking, Google Page Rank, Technorati, and User Voting to determine the Top 100 list.

Vote for Online Presence on this list. It is listed as “Online Presence (Blog Sailor)“.Thanks!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Make Money Online using Google Custom Search

I never got around to incorporating Google AdSense for Search on this blog, even though Google provides a set of nifty tools to get this done in no time.

After reading an article on Google Custom Search, I made it a point to finally get that migration done. If you notice on the sidebar, you’ll now see a Google Search box rather than the standard WordPress search box.

Try searching for “Make Money Online” and you’ll get all results specific to those phrases on this site. At the same time, you might notice that there are advertisements showing up in the search results. Here lies the possibility of making money online for absolutely no additional work. Google Custom Search Engine allows you to link your AdSense account to the search engine, so that you get paid for any clicks on the advertisements.

Isn’t this easy?? It took me just 10 minutes to make the migration, that’s it!

If you are not using Google Custom Search yet, please do incorporate it right away on your blog. The results are much better than the inbuilt WordPress search, and you stand the chance of making money as well. Its a deadly combination!

Popularity: 16% [?]

BlogRush: Did you get your traffic spike?

BlogRush was launched recently by John Reese and the amount of attention it has received is just amazing. I don’t think any other site of its category has ever received the kind of attention that BlogRush received.

For those not aware, BlogRush calls itself a ‘Blog Syndication Network’. Basically, you show one of their widgets on your site (you can see it on the sidebar), and for every impression their widget gets, you get impressions of your blog on our blog sites. This can help generate some additional traffic to your site.

It works on the pyramid structure, i.e., you get a percentage of syndications each time your referral’s site shows the widget. So, the higher you are in the pyramid structure, in theory, you should get that much more traffic.

So does BlogRush work? I’ve had a few people sign up under me and I’ve seen only a small inflow of traffic from this widget. So, it is worth the effort of putting on your site? I think its too soon to say. My blog is not a very high traffic blog (yet!), but even then I have a spare credits in BlogRush. What that means is that they are not able to show my listings on their widgets enough times for all the credits I’ve earned!!! That’s not a good sign for sure. Rather than credits piling up, I would prefer it getting exhausted the moment its earned.

Lets wait and watch how BlogRush grows or falls…

Popularity: 20% [?]

Google Reader Tips & Tricks

Google Reader is a Web-based aggregator, capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds online or offline.

Here are some of the features that are now included within Google Reader:

• A front page that lets you see new items at a glance
• Import and export subscription lists as an OPML file
• Keyboard shortcuts for main functions
• Choice between list view or expanded view for item viewing (showing either just the story title or with a description, respectively)
• Automatic marking of items as read as they are scroll past (expanded view only)
• Search in all feeds, across all updates from subscriptions

If you use Google Reader to manage your feed subscriptions, you’re going to like this one. The image below shows the keyboard shortcuts for most of the commonly available functions in Google Reader. If you are a power user or aim to be one, these keyboard shortcuts can make you navigate through your feeds much faster without using a mouse!!

If you need help at any given time in Google Reader, just press “?”.

Simple and sweet…

Popularity: 19% [?]

Discount coupons at CouponKathy

CouponKathy is a website dedicated to providing you the best of discount coupons that are available. The site is primarily focused on the USA market, but has a fairly comprehensive and up to date database.

The next time you want to make a purchase, do ensure that you look at this site for some good discount coupons. After all, there is nothing better than getting a great deal on something that you always wanted to buy.

As an example, CouponKathy has Shutterfly Coupons that provide you free shipping. So the next time you take photographs with your digital camera and want to get those developed, you can utilize the coupon to get free shipping. Now, that will save you some money.

The one thing that I liked a lot about this site is that they provide you with step-by-step instructions on how to utilize the coupon codes as well. This makes it quite simple for a first time user to take full advantage off.

The site currently has coupons for places like Target, GoDaddy, Shoes.com, and many more. The GoDaddy coupon codes will provide you discounts on domain registration, as well as on SSL certificates.

You can always use their “Coming Soon” page to let them know of some new discount coupons or ones that don’t work any longer.

Give this website a try. You only stand to gain from it! :-)

Popularity: 14% [?]

Speed Linking: 24th September ‘07

Useful links for the day:

• Lorelle on WordPress has a nice article on 3 ways to speed up WordPress. Tips include database call optimizations, reduction in number of PHP scripts, etc.
• Paula Neel Mooney reports about the new Google AdSense for Mobile Ads which was released recently.
• DoshDosh talks about StumbleUpon Networking and how to use it effectively to build networks and share content.
• ZDNet reports about a potentially new version of GMail which will be released shortly! :-)

Enjoy!

Popularity: 11% [?]

DIY Logo Designs

LogoYes is a leading provider of do it yourself logo design and other premium design products to small businesses around the world. LogoYes has a patent pending on the unique logo creation processes.

Yes! You can take an attempt at using their online logo creator. Once you come up with a logo, they take it forward to ensure that its complete in all aspects.

I made an attempt to come up with a logo for Online Presence. Let me be honest that I’m no designer, so this logo looks bad only because of my skills. The tool to create the logo is so simple to use you really couldn’t ask for something simpler.

The pricing for various logo design packages is given below:

The pricing is very competitive and with the DIY concept, it gives you a unique perspective of getting a point across as to what kind of logo you’re looking for.

If you are a blogger and are looking for a new logo for your blog, give LogoYes a try. It must just work well for you.

Popularity: 12% [?]

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