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A contest blog. You see them everywhere. Why? Because getting content is so easy. You don’t have to find topics or even write it yourself. People will submit the content. You just have to sit back and relax. So having a contest blog is really easy.

Having a successful contest blog is not an easy thing to do. ContestBeat achieved this goal and it’s now in the TOP 10 of the contest niche.

But why contests? Are they any good? Yes they are. Case study: Domprofesor.com. Contests are great promotion methods. They increase traffic, links, rss readers and all stats in general. Before I started the contest I had 100 incoming links and 50+ RSS subscribers. After the contest I now have 250+ links and 300+ rss subscribers. So contests create awareness and build buzz. And in the long run it’s the best option.

Now you know what contests are all about, let me tell you more about ContestBeat. I chose CB because they had no fee for submitting a contest to them. Other contest sites that have CB’s coverage and viewers ask for a $10-$50 fee to post about your contest, while CB does it for free. Also what attracted me was the site’s design. Clean, crisp, big fonts, everything you need to make a site user friendly. And most of all, if you don’t know nothing about how to create a contest they have the greatest advice page, telling you all the right things and no bull.

So if you want more traffic, more buzz, more links and more subscribers, better start a contest instead of paying for any kind of advertising. And if you want to start a contest, better use ContestBeat.Com.

Popularity: 77% [?]

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We all know the power of social media and the huge number of visitors it can bring to your site. But getting on the front page of a social media site like Digg is kinda (really) hard if not impossible. But what if I told you that there is a method to get your site of the front page of Digg without any headaches??! And what if I told you it’s really easy to do that???

As you may know 80% of social media readers DON’T read the post. They just read the title, the description and the COMMENTS. If they like the title and the description they will vote your post (most of the times without even reading the entire post). But how to use this to your advantage? EASY. Using social media comments will give you an unfair advantage over your competitors. You will get huge amounts of traffic because your site will be on the front page every time (well, sort of). But how is this done, I hear you ask.

First you find a Upcoming post that is going to be Popular (you can do that by sorting by most votes) and has a few comments (under 20). The post must be somehow related to what you are going to promote or else people will just ignore it (if it’s not related at all to the commented post, it will get buried, which, if it gets a large number of minus votes, it will also attract attention). So now the thing to do is PLACE A LINK TO YOUR SITE in your comment. The results are just amazing. If your comment is in the first 10, if the popular post gets 1000 views, your site (with the link in the comment) will get at least 700 views. Of course this can get you banned from sites like Digg if you do it to often and if your comment are really offtopic. But don’t worry, you can always create another account.

So with this in mind, you should think before you submit a post to Digg and it gets 7 diggs. Maybe you should just comment.

Popularity: 69% [?]

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They’re not angry, I was just kidding. But they are going for your server. Let’s say you have a site. 300-500 visitors per day. Someone submits one of your posts to let’s say Digg. And in 14 hours that post gets on the front page of Digg. That’s great news. That’s what you wanted. Tons of traffic to your site. This is what you wanted. But let’s think about it for a little. 500 visitors per day means about 21 visitors per hour which means 0,3 visitors per minute. That’s not going to kill your server, even if you are using free hosting. Now let’s imagine the Digg front page situation: 10,000 visitors in 24 hours means 416 visitors per hour which means 7 visitors per minute. But you won’t get 7 visitors each minute for 24 hours. The first 40-60 minutes are going to be crucial. Being on the first page of Digg you will get some 7 visitors per second. This is bad news. This is even worse if you use a database based publishing platform (like Wordpress). Because every time a someone visits your site your wordpress will have to contact the database and display some content. And if you take into consideration the fact that most $7 hosts allow only 10 simultaneous connections to the database (only 10 users at the same time) you will realize how wrong is this. Most hosts use settings like this not to break down the server. Because if you allow more than 10 connections your server will have to process a large amount of information in a fraction of a second and it will go down.

So before you even think about getting tons of visitors in an instant, you should think about handling them in some way. If you get your post on the front page of any social site and your site doesn’t work you will hate yourself (just like I did when it first happened to me). Use stuff like WP-Cache or similar (you’ll find more about this on Google). They work. Don’t think about switching hosts. Any $7 host will give you the same thing. If you want a host that can handle 7 visitors per second you’ll have to pay about $80/month (maybe less). And if you usually get 500 visitors per day you don’t want to pay $960 year for that.

So before getting a flood of traffic you should brace yourself, using simple and effective methods.

Popularity: 41% [?]

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Or so it said… Because the result… I LOL’d my ass off.

Remember a few days ago I told you I got my hand on some of those miraculous eBooks that tell you SECRETS and stuff you would kill for (all for $49,99). I have some 75 eBooks and they are all CRAP, all of them. I read about 30 of them and I now consider myself as stupid as I was before. Not only there was nothing new in those eBooks, but some of them contained literally no information at all. It was just crap. I also got on of those TRAFFIC eBOOKS about how to get more traffic to your website. And now I am writing about it because yesterday I saw and ad for that particular eBook that said:

“No visitors on your website??? Get tons of traffic today!”

I won’t give names but what you are going to read next will be as funny as hell. The first thing you must know is that this eBook costs $97 or $47 (depends who is selling it - because there are some resell/rebranding rights). The eBooks in very short - I don’t like looong thing to read, I like step-by-step stuff, easy to read, clear and concise, that tell you exactly what to do. So I was thinking I finally found something here. But I WAS WRONG. I WAS SOOOO WRONG. Here is basically what the Ebook was all about:

1. Download some CRAZY BROWSER and then join some TRAFFIC EXCANGE/AUTOSURF sites (that’s just smart, I didn’t see that coming). Then you read more about how to use the autosurf sites and the browser you just downloaded. And of course all the links to the traffic exchange sites and to the browser download are all affiliate links (hidden of course).
2. The next thing the program tells us we need is a huge subscriber list. To do that we
   are going to need an autoresponder (that the eBook provides of course, with an affiliate link of course). Now the next phrase made me lol just like a lolcat: “Not sure what to promote to your huge subscriber list? Here are some great programs…” After that there are some links to some other $49,99 crappy eBooks, affiliate links of course.
3. Step 3 consists in signing up to some free hosting services (affil links here too). After signing to that free hosting service you’ll need to create an AMAZING TRAFFIC FORMULA PAGE (???WTF???) - all details are inside.
4. And finally a SECRET that will send targeted visitors to your site immediately - and you are so lucky because this is an INVITATION ONLY and you have an invitation. After sending the invitation code you get the link where you can download the TRAFFIC SECRET: THE TRAFFIC TOOLBAR aka SPYWARE.
5. Finally there are of course some other bonuses: more $49,99 affiliate programs that you can(not) make money from.

And that was it. The conclusion we can draw is:

YOU PAY $47 FOR LEARNING THAT:

• You can get traffic by using traffic exchange/autosurf sites (DOH). Awesome dude, I didn’t know that !!! LOL.
• This is not a scam, is says traffic and it gives you traffic. However traffic is nothing, you need readers. If you wanna make money from this you will need clicks on your site, and traffic alone won’t get you clicks. Only visitors will get you clicks.
• Getting some free affiliate links for $47 is a deal that rocks. Awesome dude. LOL again.
• Getting spyware for $47 is also a great deal. Spyware is way more expensive than that. ROFL.
• You know where the huge number of crappy eBooks come from: the same place, because they are all the same.

So my final advice… Don’t buy crap, use your common sense. No one is going to sell you $1000 worth of product for only $47. NO ONE.

Popularity: 36% [?]

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For people who don’t know what that is… Linkbait is content created with the purpose of getting people to link to it. This will result in increase in traffic and better SEO. Viral linkbait is the kind of content that allows quick dissemination by it’s readers and just like a virus, it’s self replicating.

Now that you know what a viral linkbait is you can read about the things that can create a perfect linkbait:

1. It should look natural. Just like fishing, they use artificial lures that look and act like live bait. That is what you want to. You don’t want your linkbait to look like linkbait. The article should look very natural, like it’s not designed to attract links.
2. It should be topical. If your linkbait content is topical and it relates to popular issues, you have greater chances for success. Having more potential readers is probably the most important thing when trying to spread something.
3. Make it easy. Easy to read. If you produce extensive resources about something your reader may wanna bookmark it but not share it. But if you produce something easy to follow (just like a funny youtube clip) it will spread more easily.
4. Provide linking options. Consider this: someone viewed you likbait, liked it, and now wants to share it with his friends or community. A “share this” like button will facilitate better dissemination, without making it hard for the user to share the linkbait.
5. Be the first to disseminate the linkbait. As i always say, don’t be shy. If you want something done your way, do it yourself. Don’t wait for others to start doing it.

Popularity: 36% [?]

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