MelvinBlog

A blog that chronicles my journey on online marketing, blogging, social media, technology and life.

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Providing Something, That’s What People Love

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So I don’t really know if I can still compete to the blogging Idol. I would be entering the busiest week of this month. If you aren’t subscribed to my feed then consider subscribing now! 😉

Most people are thinking “how can I make my site popular?” And I admit, this is something that everyone of us wants but only few can have it. You see all the tips everywhere on how to run a blog and get tons of traffic and readers and how to promote and so. But the truth is, it boils down on how you make other people like your site, how you can provide them something that is useful. For this matter let’s take some examples on sites that do this one very well.

JohnChow.com – I know many are despising and hating Chow for putting so much ads on his site, for doing ten paid reviews a day, for having posts not related to making money online and more. But does it make his traffic suffer? how about the comments? Not even close! The truth about Chow’s traffic is that people enjoy him as him! I have seen many video posts of Chow and he’s very hilarious (looks very hilarious)! In this way, he provides ENTERTAINMENT for people like us. Of course, he’s still one of the more established make money online blog. But he does this with a twist! That’s what make John Chow’s blog grow!

JackBook.com – Well I am sure not many of you know this site. But I think it’s a popular one! Jacky Supit, the owner is a Malaysian blogger. Upon looking at his blog you can count on  both of you’re fingers why you will not like his site so much. Plenty of ads, lack of value of posts, atrocious grammar (worse than mine), an ugly tagline of “a master of blogger”, a 728X60 advertisement at the top of his header and doing reviews about casinos! Yeah, I don’t really much comment on his site. So why there are about 50,000 people following his site? Because he provides things! He converts wordpress themes to blogger for free, he shares his hacks to blogger blogs, he let people scorn at him, he’s very generous with most people and many more. That’s because he started with Blogger and then later moved with wordpress and he’s also a good coder. To count the rate of positives over negatives is just too much. Now, no wonder why many people are subscribed to his feed.

DoshDosh.com Dosh Dosh is probably my favorite blog. It is probably one of the more super duper informative blog about many things. Blogging, Social Meda, Internet Marketing and so. With Doshdosh I know people don’t bother with the anime faces at his blog. Now think if someone unpopular do this tactic. I’m sure people would question it and scorn at it. Also Dosh Dosh has also decreased his posting frequency. I think he’s just posting two to three times a week! Does it affect his traffic? No! Because every single post there is marked with educational and proven tips and techniques (in a formal language) that we could surely apply.

You see, these blogs are blogs that other people can easily think the reverse way what we (I) think of them. But because they have overdelivered with something that is beneficial to us, readers, they remained to be at the top of their niche. At the end it’s not important, how your site looks like, how you hide your privacy too much and even where you came from! It boils down to how you can greatly affect the society, and that is what people will follow!

You and you’re blog, what do you provide to the society? Do you just do it in hopes that you’ll make money from it sooner than later? Or you really have a genuine intention of providing something?

Laying Out My Initial Plans

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Most of the contestants for the blogging idol have already revealed what they are planning to do to gain rss subscribers on the first week. I have read most of it and I can say that they really have a nice plan to gain subscribers. Today I am going to share with you what are my initial plans that I have thought of. Of course writing good content, doing some forum promotions and others stuffs are obvious. My thoughts are a bit of out of box but I think is very very effective. So how do I start promoting this feed? Well I have started doing it offline. 😉 But of course I also had some great plans for online promotion

  1. Begging – yeah I am going to admit this one is a little unorthodox. But so what? I did some statements that would surely touch the readers heart on some discussion sites. Of course I made sure the statements wouldn’t look exaggerating to them. So where did I do it? First is Smorty Forums. I have a pretty good image there as I have helped a lot of people earn (or at least what i think). Another is in the Blogcatalog discussion area. Obviously Blogcatalog is a high-trafficked site averaging about 50,000 page views per day. The problem there is that all members want to take the spotlight so if you had posted there, come back after 2 minutes and you’ll see that you’re thread is already in the second page.
  2. The family and friends – this one is so easy to understand. The great thing here is that the more friends you have the more chances that there are more who will subscribe to your feed. Filipinos are very close to each other and it’s not hard to see why they would do what you requested for.
  3. Using my University – As I have said before I am an officer of an organization in our university. And not that just I am an officer, I also have a huge influence all throughout the org. So the thing would be simple, you’ll ask everyone in the IT and CS department as well as the students to subscribe.
  4. Giving away free stuffs! – Here in Philippines, people hold a lot of bloggers party. And I have a lots of giveaway cards printed that has my feed address at the back asking to subscribe. Now what do I say about Filipino people?

Right now, as the contest goes on I am seeing how little, I mean very little, a bloggers chance are. But this does not stop me from getting motivated! This is a great challenge for me and on how can I improve things that I am not really an expert in. So far I only had a 20+ increase in my feed count but I am very optimistic. How about you? How motivated are you? Well, if you are, then you may like to subscribe to my feed. 🙂

Your Face In Your Blog!

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So today I was reading doshdosh and again I have noticed Maki still not putting his face in his blog. Actually I know so much that Maki loves anime and have nothing against it. However I always feel that having your picture in your blog helps. Well I think I have said last time that blogs represent yourself and most of the times, the content, picture reflects to ourselves. Having your own picture in your blog specifically in the about page helps the readers value your blog more. I think one of the first pages that a visitor would read in your blog is your about page and what would you think he will think upon seeing a cartoon or no picture? Hmm..

I can’t argue with DoshDosh. It’s an established site that has given everyone a great help. In fact it’s one of my favorite blogs (a blog I read every morning). With Maki, he already had set his own standard of putting anime girls (sexy & yummy) and anime pictures in his blog and you can see that the readers don’t bother about it. For smaller blogs, it’s really important to have your face there. In case you’re trying to imitate him or just wanting to be anonymous, I’m very sure you’ll not duplicate Maki’s success. I really really do not see reason/s why you should not put a picture of you on your blog. Just look around, Chow being evil is being punctuated by his picture, Shoemoney has his every friday and almost everyone is proud of their face. And i’m not even talking about being gorgeous or ugly 😉

If you do not have a face in your blog, then how can you interact face to face with them? Or could you tell me why you don’t have a picture of yours and maybe explain your side.

RevResponse Looks Good!

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So last Monday I was contacted by a friend highly recommending RevResponse Program. Sure I know this one seeing on some established blogs. I have also seen some post about it. After signing I immediately play with it and have seen that they are giving everyone a lot of potential in making money with this program. Actually after some days of experimenting with it I’m not surprised to see that I already have incurred $30  for just 3 days.

Before everything else what is RevResponse? RevResponse is simply a site that supplies free white papers and catalogs and let publishers get compensated for giving them so. They are working on a CPA basis. It’s very attractive because it’s for free. You can get paid for giving your audience free resources. How much do they pay? They pay $1.50 per complete signup and usually some advertisers are paying more depending on your conversions. Revresponse offers a lot of free resources in different industry but most are business related.

Actually they require nothing for signup. No minimum traffic or whatsoever. In terms of placing banners they do the whole process for you. The banners are javascript so it surely would take a slight toll on your site. Another thing is that RevResponse gives you a unique site for promotion of all this catalogs. It is something like “http://publishername.tradepub.com. In my case it looks like this. So overall I can conclude that it’s a good program. The thing here is that most people love free resources and would surely and easily bite in this offer very easy. The only thing that I will do now is wait for my payment. They pay every 45 days in which for me is not good. 🙁 All in all I don’t see anything wrong the program. How about you? You read this blog everyday and maybe you can tell me something more about Revresponse!

I Forgot The Top Commenters!

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Everyone in the blogosphere seems to be talking about the launch of Blogging Idol. Of course I know everyone is getting themselves ready to launch their attacks to gain rss subscribers. I’m not gonna talk about the competition. Today I am giving something away to the top commentators last month. As you may have remembered I told you that I’m giving something for those people who have commented even w/an almost unseen comment form. So I just feel they deserve to get credited for doing so. So here are the top commenters for last month

As you can see, the criteria of top commenters is based per month. BUT it isn’t just end there. I have an algorithm done by a friend that detects people who are just running up their comments. As I have said before I’m not strict in comments but of course I don’t tolerate trolls. Another thing to add is that I have the editorial decision to remove a commentator who is sporting a spammy keyword. That’s why I always believe that when you put a comment, then you might as well want your name to get credited for it. For winners to claim your prizes shoot me a mail or a comment stating you’re email address. Don’t forget to put [@] to avoid spam on your inbox.

And before I forgot of course, everyone is doing it so do I. I’m not forcing you but see I can say I have something to be proud of my content. You can say I’m great, I’m sloppy, I’m lazy, I’m not ugly, but the best thing you can do is say nothing and subscribe to my feed. 😉

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What’s up Max Banner Ads!

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So everyone seems to be intrigued with this new plugin from Maxpress. Max Banner Ads is a plugin that makes it very easy to add and rotate banners in your wordpress blog. The good thing is you don’t need to alter any codes in your theme. Sounds good right? That is just the prelude. Another thing that it does is that it automatically tracks the statistics of the specific banner. It shows the impression, CTR and so on. After reading Chow’s post about it I immediately take a look at the site, grab my copy of it and installed it.

As you can see, the plugin automatically lets you add banners from almost everywhere in your site.  You can rotate as many as you want. And add the fact that it is free. Yes, it’s free. So you’re thinking now everything about it is positive? Well not quite. The plugin after activating it, actually is not still activated. You will be asked to subscribe to Maxpress newsletter, and it’s not optional. If you don’t want to, then you cannot use the plugin! For me I find very annoying. That simple subscription would probably have a huge impact on those who want to use the plugin. Another thing is that under the banner there is a link ala Project Wonderful. As of now I haven’t tried if you can remove the linkback to their site. Geez…

So all in all I find this plugin still useful. Though, OIO direct is still better by far, Max Banner Ads is free and would be very beneficial to those who do not have a $37. Yes, the subscription looks spammy and the linkback is annoying but sure the plugin worths a great look. If you have any other things to say about this plugin then say it…

Catching Up With All The Stuffs

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I really hate to post recaps but I have to. I feel drained because of all school works and all the stuffs surrounding me. Sometimes being healthy really helps a lot. And I can say I am not! wtf! So here are the things that happened and will happen in the next few days.

Pacquiao vs Diaz –> Not really a big fan of boxing but then it’s Manny Pacquaio! If you do not know Manny Pacquiao is the savior of the Philippines. Everytime this country faces crisis, he always back us up by giving us glory and winning his fights against everyone, yes everyone. It’s he who makes this country unite. Go for Glory Manny! Btw, I had a bet which costs $100 for it. Good luck to me!

I won in Carl Ocab’s Contest –> I wasn’t really serious and haven’t even think of winning a price. But Carl seemed to be very generous in this one. I think he didn’t follow his own criteria for winning and he just decided to make everyone that comments on his blog happy! Carl, I’m waiting for my price!

Monthly hosting paid –> I don’t seriously know why I have settled for monthly billing. Maybe because I would want to feel how is it to be like a parent who pays and budgets monthly.

Comment Form Fixed –> Again thanks for Alkorani. I’m lucky to have people commenting on my blog even with a white comment form. You’ll surely get something from me at the end of this month. Watch Out!

StandOutBlogger Logo –> Well SOB is one of the great blogs out there that I am really reading. It contains great tips for newbies/intermediate. I like your logo man!

Blogging idol –> Well I’ve joined this one. I have no idea how can I win in this contest and I know it’s very impossible. But then it can improve my marketing skills. I’m planning everything for this and as Daniel said, avoid Blackhats, so I would. Good luck to everyone who have joined it. Shoot me with tips to win it! 😉