If you asked me what I thought about Twitter a month ago, I would tell you it’s a useless site that’s just gonna die away in a year just like MySpace. Well, over the past two weeks I found the true potential of Twitter.

I started up a new blog on the game ‘The Sims‘. If you know anything about the niche, there are already hundreds of big blogs that pretty much own it. That meant I needed to push my way up from the very bottom and to do this I knew I would have to try something different than I’ve done in the past.

Which brings me back about a week before this blog,  my buddy Swastik randomly told me about how awesome Twitter was, what it did for him, and then taught me the basics (thanks swas). I decided I would give it a shot on this new blog, and used about 10 minutes of knowledge and 500 followers to average 200 hits a day in my first week. I know it’s not much but with a few more weeks I can get a few thousand followers and perfect my tweeting in a way that could pull in three times that.

Anyway, I guess the moral of the story is that Twitter is officially awesome. Give it a shot, seriously open up a Twitter account NOW if you don’t already have one.

p.s. follow me on twitter

You just wrote an awesome post at your fairly new blog,I mean this thing is just perfect, and you know it’s something people will like.
But you just hit that publish button, so what happens now?
Do you just sit and wait for people to come? NO, as soon as that post hits your front page you need to run around screaming about it, on the net that is.

I use post by post promotion techniques here at blogict, which pretty much means I use active promotion methods here. Now it has it’s pros and cons which ill talk about later but for the most part it’s great for newer blogs like this one.

Here’s what I do:

1. Blog commenting

On 45+ blogs
I know everyone in the blogosphere is pushing the whole blog commenting thing on you, including me, but it’s just so easy. Commenting should be the 1st thing on everyone’s post by post promotion list. With every post I write I go to my list of 45+ blogs I like and comment at them. I always see a spike in traffic, ALWAYS.
Just some things to remember:

1. Write GOOD comments, none of those “nice post” comments.
2. Find blogs that use the commentluv plugin.
3. Go back to your comment and check for a reply, and comment yet again.

2. Social bookmarking

is awesome
So many people underestimate the power of stumble upon, digg and all those sites. All you have to do is read this post by Darren and you will change your mind in a hot second. Sure your gonna have to submit your site to a bunch of sites but the potential is amazing

3. Social networks

Are so easy
If your already using sites like Facebook, MyBlogLog and the ever popular Twitter then leverage them for traffic. If you have twitter just tweet about your new post. If you can pull this off in a non spammy way your golden.

4. Leverage them forums

There traffic goldmines
I don’t do this as much as I would like to but if used right you can get traffic from forums. It’s pretty simple, if you check out the last post on pulling traffic from forums, you’ll see how to get your start at the forums. Then all you have to do is give an excerpt and start a conversation in the thread and your good to go.

The Pros

Of post by post promotion
1. Brings in a bunch of traffic each and every post.
2. Can bring in new readers each post.
3. Will slowly build your reputation.
4. Can bring in more

The Cons

Of post by post promotion
1. It’s time consuming.
2. Needs to be done each and every post until your very well established or change up your methods.

So what do you think of post by post blog promotion? What do you do for promotion?

Image by: danielleblue

Contest sponsoring is something that every blogger should needs to do, especially in their early days. The benefits are seemingly endless and great in proportions. The really great part is that you don’t need to give a car to the contest, most of the time a simple banner on your blog will do just fine.

So what are these great benefits?

Here’s a few of em:

1. Links galore

Sure the person  holding the contest is gonna get more links than you but if the contest is large enough you can rake in huge amounts of links. Take a look at the recent contest over at Thou Shall Blog, all you have to do is Google the list of sponsors and you’ll notice that theirs quiet a few a few people sending some link love their way. Now if your looking for a Page Rank jump the next update I really suggest you give sponsoring a shot.

2. Traffic BOOST

When I say “traffic boost” it’s not always a huge boost. The spike in traffic can range from a good 50 visits if you sponsor a smaller contest, all the way up to 2000 if you sponsor something like ProBloggers Birthday Bash. But no matter how much or how little traffic you get you could always turn it into loyal readers, commentators and even some subscribers. But just remember you only have 10 seconds.

3. Get recognized

Well it should be pretty obvious that with all those links your gonna get sponsoring contests, your gonna build “brand awareness,” as most like to call it. People are gonna see your name and blog all over the place. It’s great if you want to build a name for you and your blog.

4. It’s FREE

Yeah this is probably the best part about the whole thing. All you have to do is give something that you already have. Such as a copy of your  ebook, one of your premium themes or maybe a simple ad spot. So for $0.00 you can get the kind of perks that cost hundreds.

Is their a down side?

Of course there is, I’ll tell you all about it.

1. Got to be careful

Yeah, that’s right. If your gonna sponsor a cash prize or something along those lines you need to be careful, cause the world is filled with scum bags ready to take what every you have to sponsor and keep it for them selves.

2. An EPIC FAIL

Every once in a while you’ll run into the contest that’s nothing but an epic fail. So you have to really look at the contest and see if it has a chance at getting you what you want, then and only then you can jump into it confidently. Epic fails are a waste of time!!!

What do you think about contests? Are they good or bad? DO they hurt more than they help? Do you have any experience with sponsoring contests?

A little itsy bitsy p.s. I’m working on a contest as I write this soooo keep them eyes peeled!!!

Image by rothwerx

Some of you many know that this blog launched just 5 weeks ago on November 26th with the first post, and now on January 2nd Blogict has a Google Page Rank (PR) of 3. I have had a few people ask me how I did it, and although its been said before on a few other blogs I am going to tell you how I got a PR3 in a short 5 weeks.

What I have done

Through out the past couple of weeks I have employed a couple of different link building techniques I have picked up in the past, and they worked like a charm for me.

1. DoFollow blog commenting

I didn’t comment all that much on dofollow blogs, but the little bit of commenting that I did certainly helped. Dofollow blogs are simply blogs that allow search engines to follow links in their comments, and the hardest part is actually finding high PR dofollow blogs to comment at. I asked uncle Google and he gave me a couple of lists, like the small one Rajaie pulled together, and a some decent directories full of dofollow blogs. A quick tip: Remember to read Donny’s tips to comment the right way on dofollow blogs.

2. Became a top commentator.

I believe this was one of the biggest contributing factors to the PR jump here at Blogict. All you really have to do is become an active member at blogs that display the top commentators in their sidebar. Not only will you get that valuable PR but a ton of traffic depending on the blogs you participate in. Yan from thoushallblog.com has come up with an awesome List Top Commentator Blogs, check it out if you want to get serious about pagerank.

3. Used Forums For Link Building

I recently talked about pulling traffic to your blog from forums, but it’s no secret that if used right forums are a great link building tool. All you really have to do is drop your links in relevant threads without spamming, and use your signature for links. I found an awesome list of dofollow forums at the linkers blog but I mainly used my favorite forum WTF.

4. A little Social Bookmarking

I honestly haven’t put all that much time into social bookmarking but I can say I’ve dugg one or two of my posts and stumbled a couple of em’ also. I definitely plan on using social bookmarking a lot later on. Hopefully this month I can submit all my posts to the major dofollow social bookmarking sites.

What I Plan On Doing & You Should Too

Along with what I’m already doing and doing it more I want to add a few things into my link building schedule during the next few months.

5. Create WordPress Themes.

Through out 2009 I plan on releasing WordPress themes, one or two for free and a couple paid. I have always wanted to do this, as you can get a bunch of site wide links on the blogs of people that use it.

6. Hold a BIG contest.

Well I want to hold a contest slash raffle some time in the next two months.Why? Because I have seen the effects of contests on quiet a few of my friends blogs and forums; so I want to try it for myself in hopes that it will not only make Blogict more popular but bring in a ton of links for that PR6 that I want by December of 09′.

7. Linking from free secondary blogs.

I just started this today but I can’t remember where I read about it. Anyway, I headed over to the two major sites that give free hosted blogs; WordPress and Blogger, and created sister blogs which I’m really just going to write simple articles at and link to posts here at Blogict through them. It’s an easy and free way to get a few links and I actually hope to have 10 of these free blogs by the end of January. I’ll tell you all how well this goes over and if it’s worth the time.

8. Any more ideas?

Other than paying for links do you have any other ideas that I or any one else can use? Share them in a comment, and if I like it enough I will give you a pretty little link.

Image by Susie

Its a time tested technique and has been working for me since I got my start with blogs. If you can manage to use it properly you too can pull in hundreds of visitors a day, and get a lot of returning readers.

Traffic from forums is awesome because people who use forums are ‘community-minded’. They are the types of readers that enjoy interaction, which means they like to comment.

Here is how you do it:

1. Find forums for your niche.

You may be thinking that not all niches have forums about them. But you would be surprised what kind of forums their are out there. I even found forums about appliances, remember finding places your potential readers gather is easy with Google search something like “appliance forums.”
Try to find more than 2 of them, currently I am using 4 or so to bring in some traffic.

2. Sign up and customize.

Now if you haven’t already signed up go do it now and come back to read on.
Ok, back? Good, if the forum lets you use signatures with links in them, you obviously want to add your site and use some catchy text. You also want to set up your avatar, use the logo+slogan of your site and maybe the url. If the forums you just signed up for don’t allow any type of links I would shy away from it, even though you don’t exactly need them to get some traffic.

Rules for signatures:

• No flashing text, it makes you look unprofessional.
• No neon colors, like the last one.
• No long descriptions, people just wanna look at your links and know whats their. They don’t want to read a paragraph.

Rules for avatars:

• No multi-color avatars, they look ugly and leave a bad impression.
• Use your logo, avatars create a brand. If people see the avatar enough they will remember your site.

3. Don’t jump into quick, you might drown.

I see it time and time again, people rush into a nice forum and spam their links in every thread they get a chance. Which is a great way to get banned and annoy people, thus hurting yours and your blogs reputation. So  snoop through the forums for a day or two before you get into it.

What you do while you snoop:

• Look around and find the best topics and most active areas.
• Read the rules and get a feel for the people their.
• Figure out whose in charge and who is popular.

If you do this then when ever you do start posting you will be able to get better results.

4. Get posting.

Now that you have joined, setup your profile and you’ve gotten a feel for the place you can start posting. Just make sure you do it in little steps.

Your first 100 posts.

Because people hate newbies that spam the place they practically live in you want to take it easy, at least for the first week or two. You should just answer peoples questions, be helpful and friendly and if possible link to blogs other than yours. Do not post about your articles just yet, get some where around 100 posts just so people don’t automatically say, “pshh just another youngster tryin to teach us something” and leave the thread.

After 100 posts.

This is about when you want to start pushing your blog into posts. You have already helped a good amount of people and built a small reputation for your self amongst some, so now you should start writing good content in threads of your own. Include a relevant link to your blog in each post saying “learn more about this here: link to your site.” You could even link saying “get your daily dose of blogging tips here: link to your site.” If your posts are good enough you will drive alot of traffic to your blog, no doubt about it

Posting rules: Cause you don’t want to over do it.

• Don’t spam your link every chance you get, it makes you annoying.
• Don’t link to you blog more than once in a post or thread.
• Make sure you don’t spam the place with threads, it will get annoying.
• Be an active member, don’t just post for traffic, post and help people out, they may click your signature links.

7. Make good with others.

I have made quite a few friends through forums, it really just happens. If people find your content really helpful they may private message you asking you a quick question or two. But don’t just leave it their, you should put in some extra time to establish relationships with key forum members such as moderators, administrators and owners. Send them a message just telling them how much you like their forum, maybe offer some help and throw in some suggestions too. You cannot have enough influential friends, they can help you send bucket loads of traffic to your sites.

Some side notes.

I have tried a few ways of getting traffic out of forums that may be questionable but they work.
Get into an argument, I have been in some good and bad arguments.
Good ones are the arguments that two or more people share their thought to try and prove a point. People can actually learn from these and even though they stay out of the argument the usually still read it. Thus getting you some exposure which can turn into traffic.
Bad arguments are the useless quarrels that a few members get into, I had one about Americans not being stupid, it got me a lot of traffic but I can’t say it was all good traffic. Plus this can ruin your image at the forum.

Fake site sales, every time I go to sell a site I end up getting a good hundred visitors within a day to the site I want to sell. Some times I may post a fake sale with a really catchy title that pulls in potential buyers. They all check out the site and some stick around to comment. The only problem with this is that if you don’t sell you may get some angry posters.

A quick recap:

Since its a 1142 word post

• Their are forums in your niche, so find them.
• Sign up, then set up your profile.
• Snoop around the forum and get a feeling for the place.
• Take it easy for the first 100 post, don’t spam and link to your blog too early.
• Make friends with the mods and owners, they can help a lot in the long run.
• Sketchy ways of pulling in traffic: Fake website sales and arguments.

What do you think about forums as a constant form of traffic? Any other tips or words of advice?

You can all expect to see a lot more quality posts like this one in the future so SUBSCRIBE!!!

Image by wwarby