Blog Promotion: Traffic Generators (Part 2 of 3)
This is a second in a 3 part series on some basics in Blog Promotion. In the last segment, social tagging and social bookmarking was addressed. In this segment, traffic generation for blogs is the subject, however, since publishing the prior article, there was one more social bookmarking/tagging site that just launch, that should be added to your arsenal of promotion tools.
Diigo – Diigo is an acronym for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff” and works along the same lines as
de.licio.us. In fact you can import your
de.licio.us tags in Diigo, as well as your browser bookmarks. Diigo also has a nice toolbar which you can
install that will help you organize, manage and promote your bookmarks. There’s a lot of similarity between Diigo and
de.licio.us in how the two services operate, but enough additions to Diigo to
make it stand apart and a bit higher.
Now, lets take a look at blog traffic generators. Just what are blog traffic generators, was my
first question when I started looking into the different ways to promote blogs
through search marketing. Blog traffic
generators are websites that provide special services that drive traffic to
your blog. This is done either through
visiting additional blogs within the services network or by link swapping with
other blogs within the services network.
Each of these services requires you to have an account with
the service and usually assigns you credits as you visit other blogs or acquire
links into your link swapping list. The
more “credits” you earn, the more prominent your website becomes in the
services. Some services even allow you
to add multiple blogs and then “assign” your credits to your blogs by
percentages, thereby helping you to promote one blog more than the other
throughout the service.
The most common traffic generators are the “you view a bunch
of blogs, you get credits, your blog gets shown too” type of service. You view the blogs within the service’s frame
work for usually a 20 second minimum viewing time; generally you have to enter
some kind of number or code to proceed to the next blog. For each blog you legitimately view, you
accrue “points” or “credits”.
Blog Traffic
Generator Services
BlogAZoo – Traffic generator that works
on the premise of you viewing others blogs, you then accumulate points for each
view. The more points you accumulate the
more it helps to boost your own blogs distribution in views throughout the
service’s network.
BlogFlux - Another traffic generating site based on the “you
view mine, I view yours” and point accumulation system. Bloggflux is a little more picky about the
sites that it allows into its network. If you just started your blog yesterday, forget about submitting to
Bloggflux. To quote their Rules of
Submission “If your blog is new: Because of the large amounts of spam we
receive, your blog must be 7 days old and have a minimum of 5 posts. It sounds
draconian, but this rule is an unfortunate side effect of spammers. Hate them,
not us (please)!”
BlogMad – Like the
two above, it works on the viewing/points accruing system, however, you are
only allowed two blogs and “if you have
more you better earn them”. At first
I found this system a bit frustrating in trying to activate my blog within its
system. I first tried the username and
password system it has in conjunction with Moveable Type/TypePad and it kept
giving me a “denied” error and then I went to the linking version, neither were
working, so I submitted an email through their help system and within about an
hour, the blog was activated and I actually started seeing traffic coming in
from the service.
Once I got past that initial frustration, I found that it’s
a rather nice service that even allows you to buy text links or banner ads from
their service. You can also promote the service
and gain some points by having a link to BlogMad in your own blog, they even
provide some funky banners and graphics that are quite eye catching.
BlogExplosion – Like the
previously mentioned service, BlogExplosion works on the same premise. The nice this about BlogExplosion is that you
can have multiple blogs listed (all must be admin approved after they are
submitted), but you can then choose how to assign the credits you earn towards
the blogs you have listed with the service.
The one stipulation that stands out for this service is that
its not for “websites” it is for blogs only, and from what I can surmise, each
submission is checked that it is an actual blog, not a “spam” site trolling for
traffic. From their submission page: “Your site must be somehow related to
blogging or provide a relevant service to bloggers like blog hosting, blog
templates, blog resource sites, blog search engines, blog software etc. Any
site that we feel is not pertinent to blogging will not be approved”.
BlogLinker – This service works on
the premise of link swapping, where in you have a list of links you post within
your own blog or on their service and thereby gain points to help promote your
own blog. I didn’t get into this service
very deep as I found it even more frustrating than BlogMad at first because it
says it’s sending a verification email – and no email ever shows up. But, the service still allows you to set
everything up and it seems to begin working even w/o that verification email.
If you have the time to dedicate to using the traffic
generator services, the services listed here can definitely benefit your blog
in the way of traffic. The one thing a
blogger needs to realize in using these services is that, even though its “free”
to sign up, the “cost” is your own time that you need to spend browsing other
bloggers’ blogs. The more time you can
dedicate, the more traffic you can generate towards your own blog.
Next up, blog promotion with rss feed providers and blog directories.
Trade shows are a great way to advertise. All you need is an attractive exhibition stand to catch the attention of attendees.
Posted by: Banner Stands | September 29, 2009 at 06:16 PM