In my latest blog, I reveal the secret to increasing blog traffic. This tactic, which cannot be employed by all, is guarenteed to be successful ;).

Quick apologies to Matt for not posting more often, my own blogging is taking up more & more time, but anyway…

Both my blogs are doing quite well considering their young age, and sites like BAYB are proving invaluable for picking up some new tips. I’ve put my stats up here, and as you can see, in a little over 2 months I’ve managed to attract just short of 10,000 visitors, which I’m quite pleased with. Blog-Op has now got eight contributors who have all written some excellent articles for improving your blog and your traffic. You too can be one of these authors if you have some tips to share, and in return you get at least 2 links back to your blog along with some free publicity. Contribution is easy, read how-to here.

My miscellaneous blog of hot air, Thermal, is doing better than I could have hoped for, and I now have a lot of regular commenters generating a nice atmosphere, and linking to some really good blogs. The ‘Most Hot Air’ comment leaderboard has proven popular, and as it gives you a Technorati friendly link to your blog, it’s worth de-lurking for a few comments. Thermal is basically intended to be a little diversion from boredom, with some cartoons, interesting links and other random stuff that’s not too heavy – you’re more than welcome to visit.

In terms of getting some good quality traffic (readers and commenters) to your site, I can recommend two things, both of which it may be worth BAYB trying:

1. A Bestest Blog donation. The free link is essential, but do consider donating. I donated $50 (10 ‘paid posts’ later I get it back) and my traffic tripled overnight, and has sustained that level. By donating, you get a higher chance of coming out when someone clicks the ‘randomblog’ button. People using the random button earn nothing, no credits or anything. As a result, they are simply looking for new blogs to read, and a far higher percentage read, make comments AND come back. By donating you also become eligible for a fellow blogger to nominate you for Blog of the Day, which happened to me yesterday. This improves your random chances even more, and sure enough my hits have gone up again.
2. Make use of the Mr Linky autolinks and weekly memes. As an example, BAYB could take part in a ‘Thursday 13’, by putting up a list of 13 reasons to use BAYB, a ‘Click & Comment Monday’, which is just that, or even a ‘Wordless Wednesday’, where you simply post a photo. You then visit other blogs, and leave your link and a comment on their site, and they then visit yours in turn. You mustn’t spam, but with some thoughtful comments, and a couple of dozen links, you can get more readers to visit. Links left in an autolink box also count for Technorati purposes. I’ve written a short post on how to install these autolinks on Blog-Op.

I hope these tips can do for you, what they did for me, and I’d love to post your tips up on Blog-Op. Enjoy your blogging!

I have written a little on my own blog today about Blog Soldiers and AdSense.

Blog Soldiers appear to be sending out emails stating that: ‘There is nothing in Blogsoldiers that violates the Terms of Service of AdSense.’

Personally I see this differently having had a ‘warning’ from AdSense, a while back, for using Hit Exchanges such as Blog Soldiers.

I have enlarged on this further on my own blog Mike’s Money Making Mission so I won’t repeat the same here. However, I think members of Blog Soldiers should consider carefully what they are doing if they are using AdSense on their blogs.

I am not saying I am right. I’m just that bloggers should form their own opinion. Google are known to disable accounts that do not comply with their policy.

Good blogging,

Mike.Â
Mike’s Money Making Mission

I was amazed when Nick Pruett, a blogger from Techboggle contacted me. It wasn’t Nick’s interest in article exchanges and link exchanges that took me by surprise, but the fact that the author of some very insightful techy posts is just 17 years old.

Not wishing to sound condescending to older (or indeed young) folks, but there is something quite uplifting reading decent commentaries and explanations about the latest, so-say greatest gadgets, software and computer sundries from a young writer. Just like the more mature tech heads out there, he knows what he is talking about, explains things simply and has quite a refined sense of humor. The advantage he has over the old dogs is his perspective. His points of view are like a breath of fresh air. Unlike The Pisstakers posts which are tarnished by years of work and disappointments and almost innate cynicism, Techboggle tries to find a positive in a sea of negativity.

Anyway, if you see plenty of references to Techboggle on The Pisstakers blog, and even some posts from there, don’t be surprised, because as the title of this post implies, youngsters like Nick Pruett are the future of the internet and us oldies want to keep up.

I already had my first dose of Trackback, and hope to find out what that means in plain English. And I am sure that I will be the first to learn about the latest greatest trends in blogging before the old guys pick up on them. (Of course I will then pass the info on to here, once I have understood what on earth is going on!)

I was thinking about setting aside a day where I would post in the morning/afternoon asking for comments from our visitors. I would select a random blog, and that website/blog would be added to our blogroll for the week and also receive a link to their site. The next week we would remove them an add another blog. Each Friday, hopefully we will get more and more comments 🙂

Would anyone be interested?

Our Blog of the Year Winner

After moving the blog to wordpress and doing all the editing and everything we’ve needed I’ve been so busy I haven’t exactly lived up to my promises for our competition. Not only that but my favorite fish died and I lost my lucky sock, ok I’m just making excuses, on to the review.
I promised a review on our winner and will try to give it the best I can.

First of all I love the art. Everytime I come to the blog it has a new very well drawn picture. RPG means… role playing game, so he must be drawing different characters and monsters. I am kind of lost in it all as I have just scratched the surface of this blog.

The first thing you will notice besides the art is the language. After the English it is translated to.. Italian?

Not many ads, the ones that are there are well placed and don’t take away from the drawings. The rest of the widgets and add-ons don’t either. MyBlogLog as well as a shoutbox are placed on the main page. I don’t like the fact that the shoutbox replaces the comment section, but it works.

To easily view the other drawings there is a convenient ‘next‘ button so you can just go along to the next page and the next drawing.

Obviously this blog has great support on winning the Blog of the Year and we want to congratulate them ones again for winning. Let us know if there is anything else we can do and you are always welcome to post on our blog if you’d like. Thanks for your participation and dedication to our contest to win.

Wow. It has been a really long time since I have posted over here at BAYB. As some of you may know, I have a book that is rapidly approaching its release date. I am starting to get pretty excited. If you are a subscriber of Pinstripes & Ponders, you already know most of this.

Arcadia Publishing has set a February 26, 2006 release date. The book is listed on pretty much every on-line retailer I can think of (see three options below – but if you want to order elsewhere, the ISBN is 073854129X).

Last week I received word that local retailers have begun receiving postcards to announce the book, so it looks like I am in store for a fun ride over the next couple months. Stay tuned for more updates (and contests) as the release date gets closer.

Photo courtesy of the Fort Wayne Wizards.

Amazon.com | Barnes & Noble | Arcadia Publishing