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Finally Yahoo has opened its doors to publishers to submit their blog posts to Yahoo! Buzz (buzz.yahoo.com). This means higher traffic to those who write exceptional posts, and you could even get millions of visitors if your blog post is featured on yahoo’s main page yahoo.com.

How it works?

You go to http://buzz.yahoo.com/buttons and get a button of your choice. Integrate it into your blog. And finally keep doing what you are doing - writing good stuff!

Well, you could go ahead and start submitting your own contents (blog posts) to Yahoo! Buzz. But that’s not really a sustainable strategy for bringing in the traffic. Rather you should concentrate on writing quality posts and let your readers promote your posts.

So, after you have integrated the button in your blog. For the first time, someone has to submit it to Yahoo! Buzz, then the rest of the people will just vote for that post. The more the post gets votes, the more it will have a chance to be top news in Yahoo! Buzz. And if your post gets to be the best content, then it may be featured in Yahoo.com — potentially bringing in millions of visitors to your blog!

So why wait, go to http://buzz.yahoo.com/buttons and get your buttons! I have got mine already (done my part), now it’s for you to vote for my posts ;) (see button below)

Guys at MarketLeverage.com are quite creative. They have found a novel way to get mentioned on top blogs like problogger (46K+ readers) and shoemoney (16K+ readers) with a small investment that the team themselves will enjoy wearing. They purchased these two blogs’ t-shirts and wore them and sent a picture of the whole team wearing the t-shirts. Guess what? They got dedicated post on both blogs. That’s what we call a win-win situation. MarketLeverage (win), two blogs (win).

Shoemoney t-shirts are just $5.00 each for both men and women, and problogger t-shirts are $17.99 for women and $23.99 for men. So, LeverageMarket spent about $50 on shoemoney and $132 on problogger (unless they bought double logo t-shirts, which are more expensive). It’s a fraction of what you would actually spend to get publicity on these high-traffic blogs, if you were to go through normal conventional way of advertising.

Moral of the post: Be creative!

I am sure many of you know Scribd right? Scribe in their own words: “Scribd is a Silicon Valley startup creating technology that makes it easy to share documents online. You can think of Scribd as a big online library where everyone can publish original content, including you!”

Basically, you can upload your documents and it will be available to other members of scribd, as well as to anybody who searches for them online.

Scribd as a promotion tool

One thing you can use srcibd is - as a promotion tool. In fact, it can be a great promotion tool if you write great, useful articles. Before I wanted to post about this, I gave it a try and uploaded 14 documents of mine to scribd. Eleven of them were photoshop related tutorials and 3 were blog articles. Documents were uploaded on 10th and 11th of February, so has been roughly one month.

As you can see, so far they have been viewed 2053 times. That translates to average 146 views per document. Most viewed article was 356 times, and the least viewed was 27 times. You can view list of all articles here.

Ways to promote your blog on scribd

• First of all, if you write good articles people will click on the author link on that particular article and view your profile. Therefore, you must have a proper profile page. What I mean is, try to put some info about yourself, your picture, and most importantly your blog URL. Start building your brand from your profile page.
• Secondly, end the articles that you published with your blog URL. You can have a one line sentence like “for more articles go to yoursite dot com“.



• Thirdly, try to join groups and communities that are relevant to your niche. If there is no group available in your topic, you can create yourself one.

But most importantly do not spam! Just share your best articles with other scribers and start building your repuation in scribd. start here scribd.com.

I hope you found this article useful. Subscribe to RSS to read upcoming useful articles. click here.

One of the most secure and reliable source of income from your blog is the one that comes from your direct advertisers. And not the one that comes from AdSense, or TLA, or ReviewMe, or any other publisher program for that matter. Why?

Because, firstly, you never know when those programs will stop making money. For example, AdSense used to be a huge money maker before, now it’s a dying breed. Or you might have been making good money with Text-Link-Ads, ReviewMe and PayPerPost before, but no longer after the Google PR penalty.

Secondly, they usually take a huge chunk of your income. Most of the time 50% of your income is gone to them (if not more).

Thirdly, they clutter your blog. And if you do not integrate properly, they might make your blog look unprofessional. As a result, it will be difficult for you to get new readers for your blog. Because new readers are very very difficult to convince, and tons of ads won’t do any help.

So, making a living with publisher programs is a risky business. If you rely on them 100% at the moment, you should really start to diversify. Try to, slowly shift from publisher programs to your own advertisements. Because that’s the only secure and sustainable way to make money in the long run. It’s a difficult task to find advertisers for your blog, but it’s not an impossible task.

Provided that:

• your blog content is of good quality
• that your blog gets considerable daily traffic - at least 200 unique visitors
• not to mention it looks professional (it’s not difficult to customize free themes, so there is no excuse for having a bad design.)

Keep record of your previous advertisers

When you introduce a new advertising option on your blog (eg. 125×125 buttons), it’s always a good idea to start with your current and former advertisers first. Why go look for new advertisers when you already have the list of potential advertisers for your new ad option?

These people had already advertised on your site, that means, they had already gone through the decision making process, and they chose to advertise on your blog (among many other blogs). So, it’s a lot easier to get them advertise again, rather than getting new advertisers.

Give irresistible offers

When you contact your former advertisers, give them an irresistible offer! Offer that is simply difficult to say “no” to. It can be a free trial or a discounted rate which is far below the normal price.

While free trial will get your ad spots filled in no time, they also have the least conversion rates compared to paid ads. Because, with free stuff there is no commitment, so people take them for granted. Also, anybody would agree for a free advertisement, and that makes it difficult to know if the person is really interested or just taking a free ride.

In contrast, only the interested advertisers would pay. Normally people who pay for it (even if small amount), would follow their ad through (i.e will track the ad performance, click-through rates, sales conversion..etc). And this interest and effort of the advertiser will play a major role when deciding whether to continue advertising on your blog after the first month.

Contact advertisers on other blogs

Advertisers on other blogs that are in similar category as your blog are your potential advertisers too. If they are advertising on your competitors’ blogs, then it’s probable that they would want to advertise on your blog as well.

So, click on those ads and get to know their website. Once you know what they do and who to contact, send them an email. Again, your email should contain a great offer that they cannot resist. Also it’s important to include a link to your stats or provide a brief summary of your blog’s stats. Because these are new advertisers, who probably do not know about your blog.

Be flexible

When dealing with advertisers, be flexible. If they ask for a further discount, give them. If they want to advertise for longer period (3 months or more), give them more discount. If their ad is expiring today and they didn’t contact you, or worse yet they didn’t answer your emails, be patient and give them extra 24-48 hours. Little things like these can go a long way, so pay attention to them. These small details can turn one-time advertiser into a long-term sponsor. Being rigid and strict will only chase your sponsors away.

Tell your readers

Make announcement on your blog about the new advertisement option that you are introducing. Because your blog readers are your potential advertisers too. In fact, they have many advantages than other people who do not read your blog. For example, they know about you and your blog (its niche, traffic, readership..etc). And that alone makes a huge difference. Because to your readers, you don’t have to explain all about your blog and the daily traffic it gets. For them, you just have to make a good offer, that’s all.

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P.S How do you get advertisers to your blog?

This article was guest blogged by Skellie from SkellieWag.org. She is a regular contributor to some of the top blogs such as ProBloger.net, CopyBlogger, and ZenHabits. In this post Skellie will cover 10 ways to grow your blog’s traffic.

It can often seem as if our blog’s growth is out of our control. We post regularly and try to write the best content we can, but sometimes this doesn’t seem like enough. Our growth might plateau, or even start going backwards.

Thankfully, there are some things that are in your control. In this post, I want to explore ten actions you can do straight away that will grow your blog and send you traffic. Perform one of these tasks each day, or one a week. You’ll breathe new life into your blog.

1. Give something away. These days, most bloggers don’t want to give something away unless they get something in return (a link, or maybe a review). This seems intuitive: why give away time or resources without any clear benefits?

The truth is counter-intuitive. Give without expecting to receive and you’ll receive anyway. I’m not speaking about this hypothetically. On my own blog, I offered free simplicity reviews and post ideas for anyone who asked without asking for anything in return. I still get links from grateful participants to this day. Giving away something useful for free leaves a lasting impression. There’s no better way to get traffic and recommendations — without even asking for them.

2. Get connections to vote for you on social media. Call in a favor by asking other bloggers and social media users you know to vote up your best content. You’d be surprised how willing people are to give you a leg up if you’d only ask — especially if you do something for them in return, or have done so in the past.

3. Run a competition. The best competitions have one of three qualities: a fantastic prize, an unusual prize, or an interesting format. Other bloggers shouldn’t have to endure a sacrifice to participate. Make the requirement something that will benefit both you and the blogger, while also putting them in the running to win something. If you don’t have funds, make the prize something valuable that costs nothing to you: advertising space on your site, or a service utilizing one of your talents.

4. Write a free report. A ten page report (usually a ‘how to’ on a topic within your niche) might take a few hours to write but is something that can promote your blog in the long-term. If it’s good, people will share it around. They’ll attach it to emails and offer it as a download on their own blogs. Make sure to link back to your own blog in the report and your incoming traffic will grow exponentially as the report spreads.

5. Start a meme. Think of an idea for a blog post or a set of questions. Write that post or answer the questions, then tag ten other bloggers you’d like to participate in the meme. If you make your first article instructive, you’ll encourage everyone who participates in the meme to link back to you for the original instructions. If five of those ten bloggers you’ve tagged participate, and they each tag five others (and so on), your meme has the potential to generate dozens (or hundreds) of links back to your blog.

6. Guest-post on a popular blog. A guest-post on a popular blog can bring dozens to hundreds of targeted hits into your site. Don’t think you could ever write for a popular blog? Think again. They key things to remember when pitching to a popular blogger is: keep it short. Don’t write the post before your pitch has been accepted. Your email should include your post idea and a headline for the piece if possible. Link to your best article to show them the kind of writing you’re capable of.

7. Buy a StumbleUpon campaign. My blog has been on the front page of Digg twice and StumbleUpon is still my biggest single referrer. For $5 your can buy three-hundred hits from social media influencers. If your content is good, you can guarantee a few of those visitors will vote up your post and send you even more traffic. If your content is really good, your $5 campaign could snowball into a viral episode, bringing you thousands of visitors. Here’s some more information on running a StumbleUpon advertising campaign.

8. Comment on five popular blogs. The posts on your niche’s most popular blogs are often viewed by thousands of people. If you’re one of the first commenters, you could have thousands of eyeballs passing over your comment. Leave an insightful or thought-provoking comment and this may motivate others to investigate you and your blog. Today, try to be one of the first to comment on posts from five different popular blogs — particularly those with active and interesting comment threads. You’re bound to get some quality traffic.

9. Send out links to your best content. We all want links from popular blogs. You know what they say: if you want something, you’ve got to ask. Send a brief email to five other bloggers linking to a great post you’ve written that’s relevant to their audience. Don’t ask for a link directly, just say something like: I thought you or your readership might be interested in this. Not every person will link to you, but keep trying and eventually someone will. I’ve received hundreds of visitors over time from links that I went out and asked for. Learning to be audacious is a necessary step for any successful blogger.

10. Join a forum in your niche. Your forum signature allows you to attach a link to your blog with every post that you write. Write ten posts today and you’ve created ten new links to your site. People do click through these links. When I first launched my blog, I built its initial readership almost exclusively through participating in a niche forum. This method really does work.

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Top Digger Muhammad Saleem has written a Digg Manual for all the people who are interested in Social Marketing phenomenon. Muhammad Saleem is No.3 in Digg Rankings, his submissions hit Digg’s front-page over 1000 times. So what better way there is, except learning it from a pro like him.

Obviously, for most things, there is no shortcut to succeed. If you were expecting something fast, then this article is not it. Author says it takes time to succeed in Digg, because you need to build reputation and friendship with other members in the Digg community. Thus the name “social marketing”, because you need others’ help to succeed. And that, takes time… So it’s a long process. At least it was for him, he started digg’in in late 2005.

In the beginning, try to read as much “popular” content as you can, to get an idea of what kind of content people want shared with them. Follow that by posting comments on these stories, making sure that you are being objective in your commentary. Subjective commentary can be interpreted as a personal attack or excessive fanboyism, neither of which is good. Only post comments if you have something substantive to say, and don’t try to use comments to drive traffic to yourself or otherwise hijack a comment thread.

Try to submit and share in moderation. Always start with sources that are already popular with the community so that you can minimize errors in judgment and accidental submissions from less-respected sources.

Total of 8 Advices

Article is at Search Engine Land, I strongly recommend you read it. Author’s own blog is located at MuhammadSaleem.com