rssHugger, Just Another Feed Directory?

In the never ending quest to promote blog and feed I've registered with rssHugger, another feed directory.

What makes this one special that I'm dedicating a whole post to it? To be honest, I'm not sure at the moment, it just looks like a feed directory like any other, you can search for topics, there is a list of the most recently added and a Top 100. Pretty standard stuff really, the only reason I'm writing a post about it at all is that is part of the registration process, you either have to pay $20 dollars to add your blog or write a post about it. I chose to write the post, at the end of the day it costs me nothing, they get another backlink and a plug.

Once I've written this post and published it, I can then go and add this blog to the directory, this then gives me my own page with links to my posts and feed subscription. I will write an update to this post once my page is up and running.

My blog sucks and other musings

Yes, you heard me right, MY BLOG SUCKS, and I know what you're thinking, your're thinking, YES IT DOES. And your right it does, it absolutley stinks, you're also probably thinking, how have you only just realised this?


Well, actually I realised this a little while back, but I've just carried on sucking anyway regardless. Below is a list of reasons that I feel this blog sucks, please feel free to respond with others.

• Boring and unoriginal content
• Uninteresting to look at
• Poorley written posts
• Lack of imagination
• The only visitors I'm getting at the moment are from Entrecard
• The blog offers no discernable value

The biggest mistake I've made with this blog is starting it again, I'm getting less visitors and making less money now that I've started posting again than when I had left it for 10 months. Part of this is due to the changes in template and the domain name, this really killed my traffic from search engines. Prior to this I was getting 100 -150 visitors a day from search engines alone, now I barely get 70 - 80 total. I get the odd boost here and there when I've stumbled or dugg one of my own posts, but unless I constantly drop entrecards or promote on different social sites the number of visitors drops dramatically. Part of the reason why I've lost my search engine visitors is that I'm waiting for it to be reindexed after the change in domain name. The number of visitors I get is meaningless if they don't stop for long and read my posts.

The visitors I do get to the site don't stay long and very rarely comment, this just goes to show how unengaging my content is. This post isn't a bid for sympathy or for people to say that my blog doesn't suck, what I want is for this blog not to suck, what I need is feedback. I need readers of this post to let me know what would make this blog better, what kind of posts they want to read, if there are any positives at all about this blog that I can concentrate on and do more of. Without feedback this blog is going to fade away and eventually be trashed, another failed blog.

I look at all the new blogs that have now cropped up and the quality of them are amazing and the writing is brilliant, I'm not sure if I can compete with them. I'm not an especially creative person and I don't find writing all that easy, just this small piece has taken me hours to write and it's still not very good.

Please help me make this blog better, tell me what you want from this blog, is there a subject that I haven't covered here that you would like me to write about, then just let me know.

Photo by aromano

$20 in FREE Clicks from Bidvertiser

If you fancy a bit of free advertising for your blog or website then Bidvertiser are offering $20 worth of free clicks when you sign up. There is no obligation to spend anymore than this, upon sign up you will be asked for your credit card details but you will only be charged if you go over the $20. You can have your ads placed on hundreds of sites in less than 10 minutes for free, just click here.

Poll Result - What do you think of the new look?

Not exactly an overwhelming response to the poll, 10 people liked the new look and 2 people didn't care, with over 2,000 visitors in the past week, that's less than 1% response rate.

Photo by MarilynJane

Thank you to those that did respond even if it's just to say you didn't care. I'll try to make the next poll a bit more interesting and hopefully I'll get a few more responses.


If you would like to stay up to date with the latest goings on here at My quest to make money on the internet, then you can subscribe to my feed through your favourite feed reader or via email.

Bidvertiser, a possible alternative to Adsense

With so many people these days having their Adsense accounts closed for little or no fathomable reason, I thought it prudent to look for an alternative, just in case this happens to me.

The first alternative I'm trying at the moment is Bidvertiser. Bidvertiser have 3 programs you can can use, Advertiser, Publisher and Referral.

Advertiser Program

The advertiser program is for placing your own ads on other peoples sites, this works on a bidding system, I haven't looked into this much as I currently have no plans to advertise this blog through them.

Publisher Program

The publisher program allows you to display ad boxes of various sizes and shape on your site, they look a lot like Adsense ad boxes. Adsense and Bidvertiser differ in that Bidvertiser ads are not contextual, they are not related to the content of your site but are bidded on by advertisers.

Listed here are some pros and cons to this method of displaying ads as I see them:

Pros

• The price-per-click you get is based on the quality and popularity of your website. The more popular and appealing your site is, the higher price-per-click you will get.
• Sites with little content or Flash sites will benefit more from this.
• You can approve or deny the ads that are shown.

Cons

• Ads aren't as targeted to content, if you have keyword rich content this will not matter.
• To make the ads more targeted takes more effort as you will have to approve or deny ads.
• Bidvertiser is not used as widely by advertisers as Adsense.

As well as ads on your site you can also add Bidvertiser ads to your RSS Feed, this gives you a further avenue for monetization.

Referral Program

The referral program allows you to refer both publishers and advertisers, below are the payment levels:

• When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $10, we'll credit your account with $5. When that same advertiser spends $50, you will be credited with an additional $20.
• When a user signs as a publisher and first earns $10, we'll credit your account with $10. When that same publisher earns $50, you will be credited with an additional $40.

Conclusion

Signing up to Bidvertiser was simple and was approved straight away and I had the ad units setup with in a matter of minutes. Adding ads to my RSS Feed was also a breeze, setting up took very little time.

Its too early to tell yet whether or not Bidvertiser can really be an alternative to Adsense, I'm going to use them for a month or two to see what happens and make a decision then whether to keep them or not.

Get $20 in FREE Clicks to Advertise Here!