There are several banner exchange networks that one can utilize to get some free advertising. Spott in my opinion is one such network. Today I’m covering another network called Nuacco.net. This is a small time network exchange program, which has not got the kind of coverage Spott has received. Not too many blogs/websites registered on the network as well. It uses 125 pixel x 125 pixel graphic ads as banners. This is a size that is gaining a lot of popularity.
Just like Spottt, you receive 1 ad impression for every 2 impressions on your site. Just not that, they already have an option to purchase impressions and clicks. 300,000 impressions cost $10, and so does 500 clicks. A very reasonable amount in my opinion.

To evaluate their service, I created an account for this blog on their network. Here are some statistics:

Hourly break-up of ads served from the site Vs number of your ads shown.

Conversion rate details is also shown. I received 2 clicks on my ads served on other sites. So, the 18-hour exercise resulted in a 125×125 banner space being utilized on my site, and I gained 2 additional readers. Not too bad in my opinion.

I’ve been using Entrecard for the last few weeks on this blog, more as an experiment to see if it brings in more visibility for the blog. So, has it worked? Let the following graphs speak for itself:

 

Number of cards dropped on my blog

 

Number of people visiting this blog by clicking on my entrecard ads on other blog

 

Number of organic clicks (clicks leading to this blog due to my entry on the Entrecard website)

 

None of these are large numbers, but its additional traffic nonetheless. But is this traffic really worth it? Or are these people who are just dropping into the website to drop a card on my entrecard to get their 1 free credit? I will be doing that analysis in the coming days to see if this additional traffic is worth the real estate space occupied by the entrecard widget.

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.

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…

Online Marketing Monthly Magazine is a recently launched magazine which is giving out its first issue for free!

Annual subscription within USA costs only $47 and for International subscribers its $147. It seems a bargain price.

In any case, go ahead and download their first issue for free to get a feel for the magazine.

So you’ve started a blog. You’re writing good content…But it does not seem like anyone is reading it besides you!!

How do you get traffic to your site? How do you improve its popularity? There are several ways to do so…

1. Good Layout: You might be writing good content, but you also need to ensure that you’ve got a good site layout which is uncluttered and easy to navigate. This will ensure that your readers find the relevant content quickly. Also, if you do intend on using a free theme, do customize it a bit so that it stands out from the crowd.

2. SEO Friendly: Ensure you have your site optimized for search engines. Getting your posts indexed periodically by search engines like Google and Yahoo! is absolutely essential. Ensure you add a sitemap to your site. If you’re using a self-hosted blog running on WordPress there is a plugin available which automates the entire task. All you need to do is to submit it once to Google and your posts will be indexed faster than usual after that.

3. Feeds: Make your posts available via an RSS/Atom Feed. Most blogs support this already, but ensure you’ve got the RSS subscription badges visible on the site for people to locate it. Many surveys seem to suggest that full text feeds are better in the long run. Use sites like FeedBurner to manage your feeds. They provide a host of additional features over what WordPress provides. One of the things that you can use is FeedBurner MyBrand which serves feeds for your site directly from your site without redirecting to FeedBurner.

4. Social Bookmarking: Have plugins like addThis or Sociable (there are many others!) installed on your site so that its convenient for readers to bookmark your articles. Do not clutter it with too many bookmarking sites though! Also, don’t forget to join sites like Technorati, BumpZee, BlogCatalog, and MyBlogLog. These sites can help you get a lot of traffic and they are good sites for socializing.

5. Socialize: Its essential that you visit other sites in your niche area and comment on articles they post. Ensure its constructive and relevant comments. This is a way for readers from other sites to get to know you. You also get noticed within that niche area and might get opportunities to guest blog.

6. Trade Links: I am not sure if this is so useful now, with Google clamping down heavily. A good example is what happened with John Chow where he got bumped down badly in the rankings at Google. In my personal opinion writing good content is better off in the long run in building traffic than participating in link train posts!

7. Trade Advertisements: If you don’t want to pay for advertising your blog, you could try out adgridwork. You will need to add a small advertisement widget to your site to show advertisements. For every ad impression shown on your site, your own advertisement (for your blog) will be shown on sites participating in their network. All this for free!

8. Trade Reviews: We have sites like ReviewBack where you can write a review for another site in exchange for that site writing a review for you. All this for free. If you can selectively choose good blogs to trade reviews with, it could help in building back links and traffic to your site. Be choosy though and don’t review sites which are not related to your blog’s focus area.

If you can think of any additional areas to focus on, please do drop in a comment.

We all know about the Digg Effect. Now let me tell you about the ProBlogger Effect!

Darren Rowse is the ProBlogger who runs a blog by the same name amongst a wide range of other blogs. ProBlogger has over 27,000+ RSS subscribers and the blog is one amongst the Top 100 Blogs listed on Technorati.

Imagine what happens if ProBlogger gives a reference to an article on your blog. You’ll get a large inflow of traffic just like making it on the front page of Digg. The ratio’s might be different but the traffic is quite considerable nonetheless.

Two of my articles in the past have made it to ProBlogger articles, the latest of which is Get your own Blog Theme! See the traffic chart for the last 7 days:

Darren, thanks for the inflow of traffic. This is a great way to help me promote my blog. There has been a small inch upwards in the number of RSS subscribers as well. Every drop counts in building an ocean. This is a small step f