It has been a LONG WHILE since I’ve done these update posts and I apologize if this made some of you guys leave or think different of me. What I usually do with these review posts is I start linking back to a few of my posts, discuss new updates/additions to Bloggin-Ads, and give some decent linklove to people that have linked to me, but I did not manage to get a review done for. My last post was dated back to December 14th, 2007, and it is almost 3 months since then and I have a lot to tell you guys 
Bloggin-Ads Updates:
RSS Subscribers: 860+ (180+ in December)
Technorati Rank / Authority: 10,489 / 424
Alexa Rank: 57,296
PageRank: 4 (FINALLY out of ZERO!) – links here are worth something now
I’ve been marketing my blog quite a bit since it opened back in November and I’ve been pretty successful at it. I have Entrecard to thank for this since Graham launched this phenomenal just a few days after Bloggin-Ads went live. I think I’ve only spent $5 marketing my blog and it was a mistake. That stupid advertising program, Project Wonderful, confused the heck out of me and I thought it would be $5 to advertise on a site for the whole month, but it jipped me when I found out it was $5/Day. I admit their concept is good, but I don’t like the “pay per day” crap. Anyways, my point is it is NOT impossible to market your work with no money
Additions to Bloggin-Ads
There haven’t been much additions to this blog since the last update back in December, but I have noticed how much I’ve dropped in publishing posts. The reason I stopped writing as many posts is because I’m focusing more on QUALITY now as I’ve mentioned in this post. Soon I hope I can post about 3 times a week, but maintain the same amount of readers. That won’t come any time soon since I’m still trying to figure out some strategies.
About a couple months back, I also brought in a FORUM, but because of the lack of time, I decided to pause on marketing it. You could still access it, but there probably won’t be much fuss over there until I figure out a way to get it out. I was also trying to get a Entrecard forum up, but my domain was canceled. I’m hoping to bring it back in a few days because you gotta admit that the Entrecard forum SUCKS, but Graham wants to stick with the current one, so I’ll try to get it out somehow later.
I will be opening a new domain hopefully within another month, which will have all my reviews in categories and they’ll be organized much better. After the reviews are implemented into the new domain, I will be changing my post categories to make things more easier to search. I currently have all my ramblings only in the ramblings category, but because I have to be more selective on reviews now, I’ll have less. I’ll move the ramblings into their necessary categories and all my reviews in the reviews directory. This should make things easier for you guys.
Lastly, I am going to try Twitter out a bit more and I’m going to use it to update my readers with small problems or updates I have on Bloggin-Ads. I think that a post may be too much for updates, so Twitter should keep my readers updated much better. Please add me here and just have patience as it may take some time until I fully use it.
Guest Posting
On my last Bloggin-Ads update, I mentioned that I want to hire some guest posters and I’ve gotten a few more, so things are going pretty good for this section of my blog. I’m still looking for guest posters and hoping for some permanent ones, so if you’re interested, please check out my guest posting section. My guest posters have had quite a success publishing their posts here because it had sent quite an amount of traffic.
Reviews
As I mentioned earlier in this post, I have changed the requirements for reviews a bit. Some of the requests I get are simply unbelievable. I know I said that I will review all blogs, but some blogs I receive requests for are personal blogs and there’s basically NOTHING I can review about. Make sure you have an about page and decent content and a good topic before you request for a review. It’ll actually hurt you more if I write a review of your blog when you have nothing on there. Trust me.
Linklove
I’m going to list all the blogs that have linked to me since my last update:
Da Blogger, SiteHoppin’, University Kid, Ed, Media Morgue, Jaypee, Aching Debts, Blogging for the money, Somebody Unfamous, Designer’s Depot, Caroline, MoneyNing, Blogging Tips
If I missed anyone, please contact me. Thank you guys for supporting me! If you want to be on this list, just a simple link to me on a post of yours would get you on here
Sponsors (Current / Past)
Around mid-January was when I finally started to have my advertising spots sponsored. To my amazement, all my spots got sponsored pretty quick, so they’re all sold out. Some of my sponsors even purchased a few months in advance. I haven’t had the chance to thank these sponsors, so here it is:
- Celebridiot
- CSS Rockstars
- LinkBait Me
- JoeTech
- Logo Samurai
- Roseate Marketing Tips
- Matt Nutts
- Blog Money Wiki
- Senserely
- Dat Money
- Neil Duckett
- How To Make Money Online
- Perfect Blogging
- Ades Design
- Good Business Tips
Become A Sponsor
The list of sites above were the ones that kept and are keeping Bloggin-Ads alive. Without them, Bloggin-Ads probably won’t be alive because we’re as broke as the guys over at SiteHoppin’. Some of you may have realized that I have bumped up the prices on my advertising spots from $10 to $20/month (125×125 ad) and $20 to $40/month (468×60). Because I’m going to have a few 125×125 ad spots open this month and I never mentioned about my ad spots in the past (my first time posting about it), I’m going to sell the 125×125 spots for $17 instead of $20. If you’re interested, contact me now and get scheduled in
That’s it for the review. Hopefully you’ll see a new post tomorrow and thank you guys for supporting Bloggin-Ads (both viewers and sponsors).
Update: I raised the prices for the advertising spots because this shared hosting server on Hostgator is not cutting it. I’m receiving way too many hits and visitors that it’s even way too slow for me to publish posts. Another thing I want to add is that I only drop an average of about 20-30 Entrecards a day, so I do not depend on it because it’s starting to become FAKE TRAFFIC.
Hey Mike, hows it going.
Ive been watching how many bloggers have entrecard. Yours is the first so far to say anything about it. What do you mean its becoming fake traffic?
I was considering it, not that I like bandwagon jumping or anything like that.
Maybe you could elaborate abit about Entrecard for those of us thinking about it.
Cheers and Beers
Shane
Just drop by from email to say congratulation for your achievement. That result is even better than MixedMarketArts.com
That PR jumping from 0 to 4 is really something. But I wonder if you will do the same as other blogginb b*tches, after PR up they enforce nofollow again?
Honestly I don’t like to stuff my comment link with keyword, but if you don’t mind, then let it me. If you don’t like it, please feel free to rename it back to “Binh Nguyen” (i wonder if anyone search for my name).
Just one reminder for the sake of your PR: Try to be cool and don’t (or don’t let Google know) do too many paid reviews.
Lastly, it is a while since you last visit my blog. I really appreciated your honest comment and I want it again. I just redesigned my site and hope you can come over and point out some bad things, and what should I try to focus on doing. Thanks in advance.
Many cheers,
Binh Nguyen
@make money blogging – I will soon do a post about it, so stay tuned. Of course it’s purely on my own assumption, but I use details from other blogs to come up with my answer.
@Binh – I’m sorry but I did turn back on nofollow. I do admit that it is to protect the PR, but I turned it back on when I was still PR0 because I read a post saying it is bad. It also brings in a lot of spam comments, but turning back on nofollow will help me with that. There are comments that seem very professional, but they’re in fact spam. I approve most of these, so this is the only way to protect myself and my readers. I hope you understand. I have also changed your name because I am starting to dislike people putting other names…
Nice stats, they translate into lots of blogging hours behind them. I am just preparing my monthly report, I’ve gotten some good numbers too. What I would change is the bounce rate which is simply too high..
I honestly don’t know what the big deal with page rank is? Honestly I don’t like google telling me what my site is worth, who the heck does google think it is grading my blog. Sc3w them. Only no follow links to sites where I know there’s no hope in at of getting a link back, like ebay or something like that, but as for comments I do follow. Whats more important to me is RSS and newsletter subscribers, the best defense against google if you ask me. I’d rather have loads of rss readers and newsletter readers than a high PR any day of the week.
But each to their own. I personally dont comment for backlink or PR leaching. I prefer to add content that the SE’s can find for the blogger I’m commenting on. Give love to get love is my motto!!!
Cheers and Beers
Shane
Mike, it’s understandable. I myself don’t use Dofollow, too. If this is the case, then you should remove the Dofollow button from your sidebar so that people won’t spam you and cry + brag about it.
Let see if I can get my blog to PR7 as said. Or will I have to quit blogging because so far I made no money (well… few cents… per day… not enough to pay the hosting).
Entrecard is the main reason for high bounce rates, but it seems like many do not care about it. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I will explain all this soon.
-Mike
Mike,
First of all, congratulations on your PR jump. I got the same PR0 to PR4 jump this past update. Also, thanks for the shout out for sponsoring.
But I agree with you when it comes to Entrecard and I actually been preaching the fake traffic for quite sometime. Last time I checked, my bounce rate from Entrecard was almost 90%!!! Personally, I barely drop nowadays, even if I visit a blog that has it. And soon enough, I will be taking it off.
Oh, and I do want to guest post sometime, I just need to find time to actually write something for your blog.
Jay
DatMoney.com
rank 55,000. interesting alexa ranking. how long has your blog been live?
@binh: Go check out Jay’s latest blog post, that might give you some inspiration to keep up the blogging. Youve got some good unique content, just get your self out there and expose your self.
Question for you guys? Why are you so focused on high PR. Most lbogs this one included nofollow comments and side bar link so whats the point really. Advertisers for the most part look at traffic numbers they want exposure and impressions numbers. I personally believe that PR means nothing. Correct me if I am wrong
Thanks Mike. I will keep on blogging.
It’s a mistake just to focus on PR. But please don’t say PR is nothing if you also include it in your report. (p.s. don’t tell Google you don’t like their PR)
PR means more than you think when it come to relevant ads like AdSense. I can see you are making money for CPM not CPC that’s why PR means nothing. After all, either way, good traffic means everything.
For AdSense site, traffic from Search Engine is the best, that’s why PR is more important. While for CPM or affiliate, traffic from RSS subscriber means something while traffic from search is only low quality bouncing traffic.
Sorry binh but I dont see how PR (page rank) has anything to do with having relevant adsense ads displayed on a blog or website. Just by having a high PR isnt going to get you any better relevant ads. And getting a higher PR isnt a way of optimizing your blog or website for adsense.
Or increase or improve the the inventory that google is going to display on your blog or website
Hi make money blogging, you are absolutely right. My point was saying PR means more google traffic, which means better off for higher CTR for “contextual relevant ads”. Thumb down on my English for making it confusing
Cheers, Binh
I still like EntreCard* + BEERS!!
) Peace*
LOL! Only Billy would say that… what’s up man?! But hey, I don’t mean to spam your comments Mike, but since Entrecard was part of the topic, you should check out my most recent post!
Jay
DatMoney.com
@Binh. Thanks for clearing that up I sort of figured that’s what you meant. Hey jay and Billy Garryconn.com has a blog post on the entrecard topic. Hes asking whats your thoughts about entrecard. You might want to check it out.
[...] in a blog conversation over on blogging-ads.com Go have a look at what I do to when commenting. Blogging-ads Review You’ll notice that I refer other blog commenters to some other bloggers and their posts that they [...]
That stats are quite impressive Mike!.
As you maintain the same decent PR,your alexa rank has taken some backdrop!.More posts and effort-I see your blog quickly head into the top 100000 !!.
So you mean we can provide reviews of personal blogs provided we have an “About” page??
My last blog post is..Winning logo of the Doodle4Google contest :By Grace Moon