Link Bait Me

As some of you may know, I’ve become too busy to manage JoeTech.com, TwitterTech.com, this blog, and all my other sites, so I decided to sell most of my sites. With less than three days left on the auction, I figured I would give a little link love and go out with a great link bait experiment.

While poking through my referer logs, I found a referral from Affiliate Crunch and guess what. It worked. It got me there and more than that, it generated a link to Affiliate Crunch from me. Maybe you’re a regular visitor or maybe you’ve been lured here by a fake referrer log in your web site logs. If you fall into the second category, you know what I mean. It’s called Referrer Bombing, and it usually refers to spammers slamming a site with thousands of requests to a page with a fake referrer. In this case, though, we’re talking about something much less sinister. It’s a FireFox add-on that you install and every time you visit a site, it will pass a fake referrer for you or none at all. It’s up to you.

How does it work?
It’s pretty simple, really. When a you pull up a page in your web browser, you are sending an HTTP REQUEST to the web server that hosts that site you are viewing. This request typically contains a some important information for the webmaster. Usually, this is intended for log files and can be viewed in your hosting package’s logs page. As a bonus, third party applications that generate stats for you can also pick this information up. Part of this information is whether the user typed the URL in directly or clicked on a link and where that link was that was clicked on. When you pass along a fake referrer, the goal is that the webmaster will see it in his or her logs or statistics program and visit your site.

Is it targeted?
Like any campaign, it can be targeted. For example, if you’re looking to promote your new Twitter site, you would want to visit blogs about Twitter or the sites of some Twitter users that have a ton of followers and like to talk about the sites they frequent. This could work for most anything you want to target fresh new traffic to. It would seem that you could target this new traffic as tightly as you’d like.

Will I get a million new visitors?
Frankly, I don’t know. I haven’t really tried it before, so it’s hard for me to say. And don’t forget… You still have to do a lot of foot work, visiting a lot of sites, to get your URL in all those logs. If you have a habit of providing great content, this method will work even better because you want people to stick around, but that’s true for nearly all web marketing. If you do give it a shot, come back and let me know how it went.

Popularity: 59% [?]

To gain entries into the contest, just do any of the following:

- Make a comment of value (not just “i agree”, etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)
- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)
- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries


Please note: If you are already subscribed to any of the sites below, you are already earning entries. Also, to get credit for posting about the contest, your post’s link must show up in the comments below or in the comments on one of the other blogs below.

How much easier can we make it? So you can sneak in with just one entry by simply posting a comment here, you can increase your odds by reading and commenting on a few more posts here and at one of the blogs below and maybe subscribe to a couple, or you can really up the odds and subscribe to all all of our blogs (which you’ll enjoy reading anyway), comment on a bunch of posts, and blog about this contest. The more entries you earn, the better your odds, of course. If you’re going to post about this contest, just grab the image and code from here.

The deadline for this contest is 12:00 AM June 1, 2008.

Who wants to pay you?
- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- Jason Boom
- Mr Javo
- AFrogToKiss.net

Popularity: 60% [?]

To gain entries into the contest, just do any of the following:

- Make a comment of value (not just “i agree”, etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)
- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)
- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries


Please note: If you are already subscribed to any of the sites below, you are already earning entries. Also, to get credit for posting about the contest, your post’s link must show up in the comments below or in the comments on one of the other blogs below.

How much easier can we make it? So you can sneak in with just one entry by simply posting a comment here, you can increase your odds by reading and commenting on a few more posts here and at one of the blogs below and maybe subscribe to a couple, or you can really up the odds and subscribe to all all of our blogs (which you’ll enjoy reading anyway), comment on a bunch of posts, and blog about this contest. The more entries you earn, the better your odds, of course. If you’re going to post about this contest, just grab the image and code from here.

The deadline for this contest is 12:00 AM May 1, 2008.

Who wants to pay you?
- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- How 2 Blogger
- Jason Boom
- Mr Javo
- AFrogToKiss.net

Popularity: 100% [?]

JoeTech.com is in the number two spot on Entrecard, yet I’ve dropped an average of maybe 10-12 cards a day for much of January. How is it that I can still succeed in Entrecard without dropping cards like a mad man? Take a look at my ENtrecard stats below. As you can see, I’ve dropped hardly any cards, yet I had my highest inbound drop day the other day with 239 cards dropped on JoeTech.com while I only dropped 22. Now I’m going to show you how to make that happen for yourself.

Start with lots of traffic
I know what you’re thinking, but this post would be incomplete if I didn’t point out the cold fact that the more existing traffic you have, the more people you will get to drop their card on you, so I’ll just get it out of the way first. I started out with a fair amount of traffic, but lately, I’ve been increasing my traffic quite a bit in a variety of ways. Many of my efforts focus on Entrecard, so I get a lot of good Entrecard traffic, which turns into people dropping their card on my site. Get more traffic and you’ll get more Entrecard drops, which will turn into even more traffic.

Interact with other members
Really, this is the golden rule for any social network. If you interact with other members, people start remembering you. When that nework includes an identifying image like Entrecard does, people remember that image as well. Try to not depart from your base image too much, if possible. When you drop your card on a member’s site, they will be more likely to recognize you and will often head over to your site again to see what you’ve been up to. Take a look through the forums and reply on threads on which you can offer valuable or witty commentary. If you just sign up and add the widget, don’t expect a lot to happen.

Be someone’s hero
I think it takes a lot more than writing little scripts to be someone’s hero, but some disagree. Since I created the Entrecard slots last week (which I must thank the brilliant Jason Boom for, once again), They’ve brought a lot of traffic. The widget files have been loaded over 80,000 times on web sites and that number is now increasing by about 1,000 per hour. The traffic is phenomenal, the links back to the site are a real treat, and the comments I’ve gotten where people have actually called me their hero are extremely flattering. However, I think the best benefit is the brand recognition. Part of having a successful blog is getting your name (and URL) to stick in everyone’s head.

Reciprocate
I have to admit that I get so busy that I sometimes just fly through comments, emails, etc. and I fail at this part, but I think it’s valuable advice, so I will share it with you. When someone comments on your blog, you should comment on theirs. Digg for a Digg? Stumble trade? Entrecard is no different. When someone drops their card on your blog, why not pay them a visit and drop yours. I do try to visit and drop my card on people when I can, and you should, too. Not only does reciprocation let that person know that you noticed and appreciate their time, but it also lets them know that there’s a small reward in helping you out again where there isn’t with other sites.

I’m sure there’s more I can think of later, but I have about 15 new promotion ideas in my head that I need to get on paper and put into action. I’ll report on some of those later, so sign up for my RSS feed or you might miss it.

Popularity: 63% [?]

To gain entries into the contest, just do any of the following:
- Make a comment of value (not just “i agree”, etc.) on a post = 1 entry (remember to comment on all blogs)
- Subscribe to RSS via email = 2 entries (per blog you subscribe to!)
- Write a post about the contest on your blog (must include a link to this page and the links below to participating blogs) = 25 entries

How much easier can we make it? So you can sneak in with just one entry by simply posting a comment here, you can increase your odds by reading and commenting on a few more posts here and at one of the blogs below and maybe subscribe to a couple, or you can really up the odds and subscribe to all all of our blogs (which you’ll enjoy reading anyway), comment on a bunch of posts, and blog about this contest. The more entries you earn, the better your odds, of course. If you’re going to post about this contest, just grab the image and code from here.

The deadline for this contest is 12:00 AM March 1, 2008.

Who wants to pay you?
- JoeTech.com
- Link Bait
- Gorilla Sushi
- CK Marketing
- The Big Bald Blog
- How 2 Blogger
- Dot Sauce Magazine
- Jason Boom

Popularity: 67% [?]