Link Bait Me

The picture to the right… That’s the 169 Technology blogs in the Entrecard network. Despite the fact that my own blog, JoeTech.com is in the top spot (#2 in the whole system), I had about 5,000 extra credits to burn, so I submitted my ad to every single available tech blog in the system. That’s about 140 or so. Some are already approved, and the rest will probably be approved within the next couple days. JoeTech.com reached an Alexa rank of just over 22,000 today and I’d love to see it go under 20,000. I also just want to promote it like crazy and keep the momentum going.

At some point, I will do a full post, detailing all the things I’ve been doing to just about double traffic every month. I’m thinking I’ll wait until the Alexa rank gets in the top 10,000, so head over and stumble a post if you want to see it sooner.

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A couple days ago, JT Pratt posted about his 2007 earnings, boasting $16,000 and tagged me to do the same. I thought about it for a couple days and then decided to do it for two reasons. First, it was smart link bait, and I’m going to reward it with a link. Second, Affiliate Confession, Turnip of Power, Sukosaki, and others are bragging about how much they make online, so I might as well show my hand a little.

Unfortunately, I’m very disorganized and don’t have my numbers for 2007. With my father passing away last year and my spending a lot of time flying around the country and dealing with his estate, I know I made a lot less in 2007 (maybe around $6,000). In any case, here’s my 2006 Google and Yahoo tax docs and I made about $4,000 more selling sites and domains in 2006.

My 2006 Google tax statement:

and my 2006 Google tax statement:

So how much did you make in 2007? Comment here or better yet, write a post about it.

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This month has already been exciting. I have two contests coming to an end and developed three free tools for you to play with. Here’s the total of what I’m giving away as detailed below:
- $100 cold hard cashola
- 1,000 Entrecard credits. What the hell… 2,000!
- 125×125 ad spot for the month of February in my header.
- Even more Entrecard credits
- Link ads and a 250×250 pixel ad

That’s right! There’s plenty to go around. Keep reading to find out how to get it.

$100 in your pocket
Last month, I got together with some other bloggers and we came up with a $100 prize to give away to one lucky person. Here’s who’s in on it:
- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- Mixed Market Arts
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- How 2 Blogger

There’s a bunch of entries, but there’s still a few days to get your entries in. Read the original post for details on how to enter. It only takes one entry to win, but you know what they say. You can’t win if you don’t play. And if you don’t win, we’ll be giving away another $100 next month.

125×125 Ad and 1,000 2,000 Entrecard credits
I am super excited about the $100 contest, but I wanted to do another one. I had a bunch of Entrecard credits flowing into my account, so I decided to give them away. To sweeten the deal, I created a new 125×125 ad space right up in the header of JoeTech.com and added it to the prize. Go check out the 8 easy ways to enter and get your entry in before January 31st. Oh yeah. I just now decided to up the ante to 2,000 Entrecard credits, too. Sometimes I just feel like doing that.

Play slots and win 1,000 Entrecard credits
WHAAT? Yeah… I was emailing back and forth with my new ally, Jason Boom over at JasonBoom.com, and asked how I might give away more credits. Jason suggested Entrecard Slots and that’s all it took. Later that night, the slots were up. I loved the idea, and it looks like a lot of other people do, too. The best part is that you’re not competing against anyone. The prizes range from 1 ec to 1,000 and the highest I’ve given away is 100 ec so far, but it’s only been up for 4 days. You can also put a widget (like the one on this page) on your own blog. What’s in it for you? If someone clicks it and hits a 1,000 ec jackpot, you will also get a 1,000 ec jackpot as my thanks to you. Head on over and remember to bookmark it and/or ad the widget to your blog.

More Slots for text links and a 250×250 Ad
You don’t have to be on Entrecard to take advantage of the slots. After the success of the Entrecard Slots, I decided to make a version for everyone else, called Free Ads Slots. In this new version, you can play all day long and you can win several size variations of links on the page, or the jackpot of a 250×250 link. I’m thinking of adding cash to it, too, but no decision on that yet. Free Ads Slots also has its own widget and once again, if someone hits a jackpot after coming through your widget, you hit the jackpot, too.

Get your IZEA Real Rank badge
When IZEA announced the launch of their Real Rank algorithm, they also opened up an API for geeks like me to play with, and of course, I couldn’t stay away. Within the hour, I released the first self-updating, hosted IZEA Real Rank badge. If you don’t know what that is, just go read the post and check it out.

There’s more stuff coming next month, too.

I’m interested in what you all think, too. Which is your favorite contest? What future contests would you like to see here? What have you won from other sites?

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Most of you have heard, by now about Entrecard, in which you get credits for dropping your virtual business card on someone’s site and for others dropping their card on your site. Today, I want to talk about a couple fun marketing projects I put together pretty quickly after being given a great idea. I had just written a post about future pro blogger, Jason Boom and emailed him to let him know. In our correspondence, we spoke of Entrecard and my abundance of credits. Since I had just written a whole post about how we can all learn from Jason, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and ask him what HE thinks I should do for a promotion. Jason quickly shot back a short email about an Entrecard Slots concept, and I immediately liked it. Later yesterday, I spent a couple hours building it. Today, I built the version for those of you not on Entrecard yet.

The Entrecard version

http://www.joetech.com/ec_slot/

This works pretty much like you might expect. When you visit the page, it simulates a “pull” for you. If you get a winning combination (as indicated by the prize chart above), you win that prize. In this version, the prize is Entrecard credits, and you could win as much as 1,000 in one pull. You get one free pull per day. If you win, just send me the winning code and I’ll send your credits. The idea is that you’re going to get credit for dropping your card on my page, so while you’re at my site, just click the slots widget and you can win even more Entrecard credits instantly. The Jackpot is 1,000 credits. 1,000 credits just for playing a free slot!

The Free Ads version

http://www.joetech.com/ad_slots/

What if you are not an Entrecard member? What if you ARE, but you want some more free advertising? The answer is easy. Check out the Free Ads Slots. I made this version just for you. It works in pretty much the same manner, except that instead of credits, you win a live (and instant) link from the slots page. You can win varying sized links and the link stays until enough people win the same size link that it rotates out. So if there’s not a lot of traffic, it’ll be there for a while, but if the link rotates out quickly, that should mean there was a lot of traffic, and a lot of eyes on your link. In this version, the Jackpot prize is a 250 by 250 pixel linked ad.

Webmasters get two ways to win
If you’re visiting either page, it’s because you have a site, or more likely, a blog to promote. So what’s the best way to get more traffic to the slots and also give you another way to win? Why that’s the widget, of course. Each version of the slots has its own widget, so you can run them both on your site like I am. All you have to do is copy a single short line of code and you’re done.

If someone clicks on the widget, the slots page knows where they came from. If they hit the Jackpot, you also hit the Jackpot, automatically! That little widget could earn you some easy jackpots.

Just want to buy an ad?
That’s easy enough, too. Both versions of the slots have Project Wonderful ads on them, but that’s not the only way to snag a link from these pages. On the Free Ads version, you can buy a symbol. If you want the Lucky 7 to link to your site, fork over the small fee and it’ll link to your site every time it surfaces. The ones that surface less are cheaper. I’ll probably implement this with the Entrecard version this weekend.

So that’s it. Check them both out and grab those widgets to maximize your chances at hitting a Jackpot!

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January 2008 brought us something fresh, and his name is Jason Boom. I can’t remember if it was on Entrecard, MyBlogLog, or somewhere else that I tripped over a link to JasonBoom.com, but the important thing is that I did, and I feel lucky to have done so, because I think you and I have some learning to do and Mr. Boom seems to be dropping lessons left and right.

Who cares about Jason What’s-his-face?
Honestly, I don’t know Jason from a hole in the ground, but the creative name of his blog intrigued me enough that I clicked the link and checked it out. Since then, I’ve found myself going back again and again. I really don’t want to make this about Jason himself, but I do want to point out that he’s not your typical make money blogger. That is to say that according to his “About Jason Boom” page, he really just intends to blog about the internet and things in general. However, I think he’ll have a lot of blog marketing posts in his future if my first impression is on the mark. He seems to know what he’s doing, right out of the gate, and I’m sure he has nowhere to go but up. That’s why I think YOU should care about who he is and watch his blog closely.

What can be learned from this Boom fella?
Jason’s blog popped up out of nowhere this month and a mere twelve days ago, his first post emerged. This first post was from the heart and genuine, but it certainly wasn’t anything to make me stand and take notice. Oh no. What did that was the face that this fresh face with a blog just days old hit the blogosphere complete with a simple but attractive design and a great logo. First impressions are important and Jason proved this with an attention-grabbing blog name and a nice design with a memorable logo.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Boom turned up on MyBlogLog and then I found him on Entrecard. He also jumped into BlogRush, which I do not recommend, but his joining these networks is a sign that he’s ready to dive right in and get people to his blog. He’s also showing that he’s on top of the blogging scene and knows what’s going on when it comes to marketing yourself.

Last week, I noticed something that either he added or I just hadn’t noticed before, and that’s his creative way of getting RSS subscribers. Most people just throw an RSS icon or button up (like I did) and hope people click it when they see it. He went a step further, pulling from the theme of his site to create something you get curious about. It gets your attention and increases the probability that you’ll subscribe.

All of the above is great, but the thing that drove it home for me was Jason Boom’s guest post on JohnCow.com. Stop and think about this for just a second. Here’s a blogger who’s first post was less than two weeks ago, and he’s landed a guest post on a very popular blog. It takes confidence to throw in a guest post for consideration when your own blog is so new, and he pulled it off.

Let’s recap what he’s taught us so far
- Your blog should have an attention grabbing name
- Employ a memorable logo and solid design from the start
- Make use of networks early to get a jump start
- Guest blog your way to a traffic boost
- Dive in and start blogging
- Extend your creative juices to every element of your site

If you’re looking for smart blog promotion ideas, subscribe to Jason’s feed like I did. Even if you don’t read any of his posts, it will remind you to go see what he’s doing to promote himself. Looking at my slapped together, logoless boring design, I can say with a hint of shame that Jason is giving me the kick in the pants I need to get a new design up and work on my promotion ideas. Thanks for the nudge, Jason, and good luck!

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