Anyone that’s read TUK in the last month should know about the contest I’m having – at the moment, there’s $150.00 and all my Entrecard credits up for grabs. At the moment, I’m somewhat in the lead – my buddy Internet Babel is coming close though, especially as he’s splurging the cash on paid reviews. Those of you that want to engage in RSS contests of your own may find such a situation unfair – what if you’re up against someone that’s not afraid to splurge the cash, and already has taken the initiative to purchase paid reviews on a few big blogs? You’ll need free ways that you can use to push ahead, and these are the ways which I’ll be using to try and win the RSS contest.

Guest posting

I’d say that guest posting beats paid reviews in almost every single aspect – except when those paid reviews are on TUK, of course . Seriously though, say you submit request for a paid review, and fork out a lot of your money to do so… and the blogger just doesn’t like what you’re putting up. What you’re left with is not just a huge hole in your pocket, but also a battered credibility as thousands will have seen your bashing, and this can not just effect the view point in the short run, but also have repercussions later. An example of how a bad review can kill is this one on John Chow – $450 out of pocket, and to decide for yourself just take a look at the comments.

Guest posting on the other hand allows you to be in your element. You write for an audience in your style on a topic of your choice, and most bloggers will be happy to let you put in a small plug for yourself – if they don’t, don’t bother with the guest post. By producing quality, which you’ll have to do in order to be accepted, you’ll leave a lasting impression that can help boost not just traffic, but other important things like RSS subscribers and comments.

I’m writing up a few guest posts, and already had one published on John Cow… if you have a website with more than 400 RSS subscribers and want me to throw together something, let me know

Entrecard chain dropping

I’ve criticized Entrecard a lot in the past for sending junk traffic… it is traffic, nonetheless. What I did (and you can do) is go mad dropping – but change your redirect URL to the one of your contest first. ECers generally check up the sites of those that dropped on them, so even if half of them do I’ll get a few visits; as my widget is below the fold, they’ll have to scroll down, and hopefully the sign of money will blind them and send them into an RSS subscribing frenzy. If you’re here from Entrecard, and you haven’t subscribed to my RSS feed, then what the hell are you still doing? Click the damned button and enter in your email address!

I dropped more cards today than I ever did in my life, and one fifth of my total all time – I tried to go 300, but it was just too boring… 100 will have to suffice for now. What I did was went to Powerdropping.com, right clicked on the cards of the first twenty and opened them in Firefox tabs and card bounced through them till I racked up 100 credits – it took me approximately 20 minutes.

I really put in some hard work – just to make it clear, look at my dropping statistics over the previous 30 or so days:

Commenting on other blogs

This always works – you’ll get a visit from the blog owner, if nothing else, but anyways – leaving intelligent (or way right controversial) comments on a few blogs, and using a link to your featured post as the URL can help send you free traffic, and targeted ones too (from bloggers that would be interested in your niche). So get commenting below, eh

Make sure you leave useful, non spammy comments, or else they’re going to just get deleted – you don’t want that happening, do you. Note – just ‘Good post!’ does not equal a useful comment.

Nothing revolutionary above, but three free ways you can get traffic to your blog contest. Get cracking, eh

I got interviewed

I’m a complete tool – I got interviewed a while ago, and then completely forgot and never mentioned it on here. If you’d like to know a little bit more about me, feel free to check it out at Successful Footsteps. Successful Footsteps is a fresh blog started by a friend who also runs Fruitful Time Task Manager; it’s a motivational website that aims to well… motivate you . It has some promising stuff, and I’m sure it’ll continue growing.

Membership websites

Unlike the good ole eBooks, membership websites can bring in a nice source of residual income… month after month and so forth. I’ve picked up a killer domain, and think I’ll eventually get around to setting one up – as soon as I find someone that knows how to install the script, as I’m clueless in those areas sadly . What I’m thinking is charge $9.99 or $14.99 and offer a few custom written reports of my own with resale rights – ones that can be passed on or even sold.

The domain I’ll be using is TheMarketersCourse.com - it’s adequate, I think. What I’ll be offering is unlimited support through instant messenger – something that will make up the monthly fee completely, I think. I’m also thinking of starting a small membership website for PLR, and offering five items at $5.00 a month – $1/item, which is not a high fee to pay by any means, especially as those items retail for around $10+ each.

That’s all for today – I’m working on those short reports now.