RenaisNet

By Tom, 1 month and 24 days ago

Promotional Coop - Opportunity Knocks for Your Blog!

I'm looking for five bloggers or other website owners to join in an informal promotional network. This will be a mutual promotion group, no financial obligation, just quid pro quo with a half hour a day or less spent promoting each other's sites and our own. «Or less» because each of the things you'll do, should be a thing you're doing anyway to promote your own site, it will be just a matter of adding a few clicks and a couple of minutes reading and writing about the other members blogs as well.

This is non-exclusive. You can do whatever sort of cooperative efforts you are already doing with others. The more traffic you generate elsewhere, the better this works, so go for it! This doesn't affect your ownership of your blog, your advertising, your links, your membership in other networks, your content, your blog design, etc.

I have found one very interesting and potentially very big opportunity to generate lots of quality inbound links for each other's sites and that's a big part of the impetus behind this project. A half dozen members is sufficient to create a «critical mass» with this particular tool, though we might add a few more if all the original members agree. This is something I stumbled onto in the backend of the Google Webmaster tools. I managed to find one SEO guy that has spotted this same thing and that is it. Darren Rowse hasn't written about it, John Chow hasn't mentioned it. I don't read Shoemoney, but if he wrote about it, it didn't show up in a Google search.

You'll need to have two websites to join. (If you only have one and want to team up with a friend who has one and be considered one «member», that's fine.) These should preferably be sites with their own domain names. If you have an existing Blogger blog or something similar that is well established, indexed in Google and Yahoo, with some «Page Rank», that might be acceptable. At least one of the sites needs to already be indexed in Yahoo and Google. The other site can be new and PR0, but sites that have been banned for spam, etc. are not allowed. The sites have to have original content. They have to be more than just link blogs and they definitely can't be scraper sites.

This is going to be first come, first served and I'm not revealing much of anything to anyone I don't think is serious. If you're already active with things like EntreCard, social networking, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. you're going to get first shot. To «apply» send me an email tomhanna a-t tom-hanna d-o-t com.

Here's what I'm offering to get this thing moving for all of us:

1 - Links from an existing PR 5 blog for every member. This is a bonus, in addition to my own equal contribution as a member. Want a free link from a PR5 blog? Join and devote half an hour a day to driving traffic to your own blog and others. That's called «win-win».

2 - I've set up the system so we can all do this in a matter of a half hour a day or less.

3 - I'll be offering my help or advice as needed to get setup.

By Tom, 5 months and 4 days ago

And the winner is...

The January contest to award my entire end of month EntreCard balance is over. The winner of 10,066 EntreCard credits (roughly a $100.66 value) is Mark Fulton of DotSauce Magazine.

There were a total of 24 entries from 6 entrants, so anyone who took the time to enter and follow the rules had a good shot at a prize worth roughly $100. And they are all automatically entered 1 time in the next contest where Everybody Wins! That's a lesson worth learning for the current contest where the top prize is $50 cash, 2500 EntreCredits (worth roughly $25) and a year text link. Plus, every website/blog owner who enters gets something of real value just for entering - a nonreciprocal link, the most valuable kind. Everybody who enters wins. You just can't beat it. The lesson - ENTER!

Anyway, congratulations to Mark and thank you to these folks who followed the rules and sent their entry email:

To those who recognize that they entered and aren't on this list, a consolation prize - send me the entry email you didn't send to start with and I'll enter you in the next contest (where Everybody Wins!)and add your link to the list.

A few odds and ends:

I used the random number generator at Random.org to pick the winner. This generator uses atmospheric noise to create a true random number instead of the pseudo-random numbers typical of software randomness generators.

I listed the entrants and assigned them one number for each entry.

My original plan was to generate a random number between 1 and the number of entries and count down to the individual email it represented. With a large number of entries that would have been a quick and workable solution. Since the number of people who sent the email was so small, quick and workable wasn't an issue, fortunately.

By Tom, 5 months and 4 days ago

Online income 2007

JPratt made $16,000 online in 2007 and tagged me to disclose my own online earnings. I wouldn't normally be writing about this, as I'm not primarily in the «make money online» blogging business. But, since a few people are apparently curious, I will write about it. Also, the per click value paid by the CPC networks for finance, mortgage and real estate related keywords dropped compared to 2006.

My 2007 gross was $7,938.05. Google Adsense accounted for $3,264 of this. Text-link-ads.com accounted for $4,406.49. Yahoo Publisher Network and BlogAds accounted for the rest. These numbers should have been higher. I had very low growth from 2006 as I let some sites lapse due to other obligations and dealt with some problems on others. (One entire site got banned from Google because the information I was publishing appeared to be keyword spam. It consisted of bank and government owned home listings and it duplicated city names hundreds of times a week. It was all legitimate information, but the duplication got picked up as spam. It didn't help that I was selling text link ads on that site, I'm sure.)

My expenses were probably higher than average as I added unlimited wireless internet from AT&T midway through the year ($50/month roughly) and the cost of a DSL connection in this backwoods area is $65/month.

I also purposely pay for multiple web hosts for a couple of reasons:

  • Multiple IP addresses may marginally improve search engine results
  • Redundancy. I've been burned three times now by very good web hosts suddenly turning to crap. I'm now using the highly recommended A Small Orange for one site, Daily Razor for another site and GoDaddy for the balance.

Finally, I've plowed a lot of money into long term domain registration during December. That should mean lower expense for a few years and it should also increase the earnings as longer term registrations reportedly get a higher authority from at least one big search engine that starts with G.

My advertising expense on the other hand is fairly low. I ran a couple of BlogAds - basically spending the money I made selling BlogAds - and that's it. I have year old unused credits for AdWords and Microsoft's advertising network. Guess I ought to use those...

By Tom, 5 months and 13 days ago

Everybody Wins Contest - First Prize $50, 2500 credits and a year advertising

In this contest Everybody Wins!

The weekly prizes won't start until the first week in February, but you can jump on board now and get a slot in the first set of Everybody Wins! prizes. There are multiple prizes with this contest and it will be simple for any blogger to enter - no email, comment, or subscription required as long as you have a way to be contacted at your site.

The EntreCard credit contest for January is still going with over 7600 credits and counting to be awarded and very few entries. Entering the January contest earns a bonus entry in the EveryBody Wins! contest!

The prizes:

  1. $50 (US), 2500 EntreCard Credits and a 1-year text link
  2. 200 EntreCard Credits and a month of advertising (Monthly)
  3. 200 EntreCard Credits and a week of advertising (Weekly)
  4. Everybody Wins! - nonreciprocal link to your site from this one

2 Ways to enter:

  1. Write a blog post with a valid link about any blog post on any RenaisNet blog and send a trackback. (If you don't have trackback, use SimpleTracks or leave a comment manually.)
  2. Post a link to any RenaisNet site on your own site and leave me a comment or send me an email.

A complete list of sites you can link to or blog about follows along with details about the prizes.

Rules:

  1. Enter as often as you like, but only one link or blogpost to each RenaisNet site from each of your sites.
  2. First prize will be awarded when there are 500 trackbacks or links.
  3. Contest will start again with a new first prize after 500 trackbacks or links and all original entries will be included in the new contest.
  4. Anyone who entered the current EntreCredit contest gets an automatic entry.
  5. «Bad neighborhoods» aren't eligible for the Everybody Wins link.
  6. Please no adult or gambling sites.
  7. Legitimate links - no «nofollow» or similar cloaking and no javascript links.
  8. Your link or blog post should say something that would make the reader want to take a look.
  9. Links should have reasonable anchor text - some keyword reasonably related to what you're linking to should be included.
  10. No «splogs». Your trackback has to get past Akismet and Spam Karma II set to «Total Beeatch» setting. It also has to pass muster with my nose test. My decisions on this are final.
  11. Cash prize will be sent by PayPal or check at the winner's option.
  12. Don't be an idiot.
  13. Any threat of legal action will immediately end the contest with the cash prize donated to the American Tort Reform Association.

More on the prizes:

A year text link - This will be a text link network wide for a year. It wil be a «dofollow» link but may be below the fold.

A month of advertising - This will be a 125x125 pixel ad (you supply the graphic) on 5 RenaisNet sites of your choice for one calendar month. This will be in prime territory above the fold.

A week of advertising - This will be a 125x125 pixel ad (you supply the graphic) on 1 RenaisNet site of your choice for seven consecutive days. This will be in prime territory above the fold.

EveryBody Wins! links - These will be posted as blog posts monthly on RenaisNet.com. If your entry points to RenaisNet, I'll post your link on another site so you get the nonreciprocal link benefit.

Site List

RenaisNet

Internet and Technology

Blog Carnivals
Blog Carnival Strategies for Readers and Bloggers
Googleholism
Googleholism: Online Support for Googleholics

Entertainment and Media

McGossip
Grey's Anatomy: The McSteamiest Gossip around!
Talkster
Talkster the Talk Radio Resource

Politics

Election 2008 Countdown
News, Information and Resources on the 2008 US Election
Election 2006
Archived news and information from the 2006 US Election
Tom Rants
Flyover country libertarian Republican perspective

Business and Consumer

Tom's Reviews
Product, Service and Website Reviews
The Barter Blog
Trade and Barter News
Financial Options
Investing and Financial Planning
EconoIndicators
Economic Indicators and Statistics
Building Wealth
Business Opportunities and Asset Protection
Safe and Secure
Keep your family safe and secure in a risky world
New Jobs' Caling
Your new career is calling

Real Estate

RealNews
Real estate and mortgage news
RealAnswers
Answers to your real estate and mortgage questions
Luxe Homes
Luxury, Executive and Resort Homes
REO News
News from the Foreclosed Real Estate Industry
RealStake
News on commercial and investment real estate and development
Growing Global
International Real Estate

Missouri REO Foreclosed
Foreclosed properties on the market in Missouri

Books

RealShelf
Lists and reviews of business, real estate, finance and investing books and magazines
My Library
Personal Book Collection - With Reviews

Other

Floater
Outdoor fun and travel adventures
By Tom, 5 months and 14 days ago

New Theme and 2 Big Thank Yous

I was preparing to design a new theme for this site and the others in the network from the ground up myself. I had been using a modified version of Scott Wallick's plaintxtblog theme. It's a great theme with a relatively simple three column layout, but to get the column widths and other things I wanted I was having to do a lot of tinkering and experimenting, plus I wanted to go for more of a 3 1/2 column layout. The first Big Thank You is to Scott who has produced a great simple theme that is simple enough for users with a little skill to modify to make their own. It's still going to be the core for several RenaisNet sites.

I was about to get to the nitty gritty of designing a new theme, which having produced one so simple I even called it UltraSimple, I can tell you is not a small undertaking. At the last moment, I was saved, when I ran across the 1 Blog Theme written by Javier GarcĂ­a of the 1Blogr network.

Javier has the theme billed as «WordPress template with lots of customization options.» That's an understatement. The theme can be so thoroughly customized, from color to header images to column widths to the insertion of ads/text/scripts/objects virtually anywhere on the page, that the only way you'd know two different sites were both using it was by looking at the credit in the footer.

I expect to write a full review on 1 Blog Theme on my review site in the next few days. For now, I just want to note that I'm using the theme here and will be rolling it out across many of the RenaisNet sites as I have time to customize it. And I want to say a Big Thank You Muchas Gracias to Javier for a very nice piece of work.

By Tom, 5 months and 14 days ago

Tom Rants on Reuters

My personal flagship political commentary website, Tom Rants, has had several pieces featured on Reuters (the international news wire service) through BlogBurst the last few months. I've only been averaging about one post a month that I really put much into and they're picking up about half of them.

I Volunteer

Giuliani Tax Cut Plan

On Diplomacy, Giuliani Gets It

Thompson Tax Cuts Big Enough?

and

Giuliani Tax Cut Plan... featured again under the Business and Finance category.

(Note that this is a conservative-libertarian political blog. If you want to leave comments on the views expressed in the pieces, please do so at that blog. Comments must, in any case, be civil or they'll be deleted.)

By Tom, 5 months and 28 days ago

Top 10 Droppers

I got tagged in the «Top 10 Entrecard Droppers» meme by Offbeat News and Videos, so, here are links to my top 10 droppers with a big «THANK YOU» you to them for visiting:

That's about all I have to say on EntreCard for the moment, but check Blogcarnivals tomorrow for a special double EntreCard treat and be sure to check out the 3001+ EC credit giveaway updates.

Technorati Tags: , ,

By Tom, 5 months and 29 days ago

EntreCard Contest Updates

Make Money with Every Visitor to Your Blog - Automatically with Pay Per Play 5 Second Audio Ads

Don't miss the Everybody Wins! contest - prizes up to $50.

Complete details, how to enter and rules here.

The pot is well over 5000 points at this point and should be a couple thousand larger by the time the contest ends. The pot will be at least 10,000 EntreCredits to the winner.

Before the full update, a couple of thank yous. Dark is Easy added 75 points to the pot as I won the Dark is Easy weekly EntreCard contest.

Another thank you to my top ten droppers, as well as the several others who drop nearly every day and added quite a few points to the pot.

Thanks to the people who bought ads on my widget. Unfortunately I didn't keep track and can't find a way to look up all the past ads, but the current advertiser is Lobo Links and past advertisers include Scott McKinnis's The Mountain (also my first dropper) and The Optimizer SEO News. I'll ad others as I remember them and as new advertisers come on board. If you advertised, leave a comment or contact me and I'll add you. Thanks again. New advertisers: SEOJr. and EZ DIY Electricity. Dark is Easy, Lobo Links, Ask Shari About Fantasy Golf and Hulag.

Now the latest results:
January 27, 2008

  • Minimum Credits to Winner: 10,000
  • Currently in account: 9,082

January 18, 2008
2 AM

January 14, 2008
1:30 AM
2 AM

  • Minimum Credits to Winner: 5539
  • Credits Added Today: 6 (as of 1:30 AM)
  • Number of entries so far: 7
  • Expected value of an entry: 791 credits
  • Cost to advertise on my card: 102 credits
  • Number of blogs with the card: 4

January 13, 2008
2 AM

  • Minimum Credits to Winner: 5268
  • Credits Added Today: 28 (only 2 AM)
  • Number of entries so far: 7
  • Expected value of an entry: 753 credits
  • Cost to advertise on my card: 110 credits
  • Number of blogs with the card: 4

January 6, 2007:

  • Minimum Credits to Winner: 3184
  • Credits Added Today: 400+
  • Number of entries so far: 4
  • Expected value of an entry: 796 credits
  • Cost to advertise on my card: 117 credits
  • Number of blogs with the card: 4