Web Hosting Geeks
Webhosting Geeks isn’t another cheap webhosting site. They can however help you find the best website hosting. They give lists of the top webhosting sites, the best hosts of 2007. These include such webhosting sites as BlueHost, Yahoo and Hostmonster.
The rankings are done by a voting and review system. The best host is BlueHost, which is also given the “editors choice”. It was also voted the Best Blog Host as well. You can find webhosting by what you are looking for, whether its price, forum, or blog hosting.
Review your Webhost
A great feature they offer is the ability to rate and review your webhost. When I was reading the webhosting reviews I was disappointed at first. I checked Hostmonster and it gave maybe 5 reviews. Not that many I thought, until I saw there was a total of 23. That’s what I like to see!
However some of the other lesser known hosting sites only have several reviews, AN Hosting Inc only has one review. As they grow I hope the geeks can get reviews for all of the webhosts listed.
Free Domains
This wouldn’t be a very good hosting review without something free! You can also search hosting by which give out free domain names. There are currently 16 webhosting sites listed that give out a free domain name, some give out several. Hostmonster gave us Blogaboutyourblog.com for free.
If your thinking about hosting for the first time, or possibly switching hosts, check out the Web Hosting Geeks first!
Contest Roundup!
I haven’t done a contest round up in a while, there hasn’t been too many I’ve really wanted to enter. However I did win a free t-shirt at Derek Semmler, which I will write more about when I get the shirt. That’s right, I’m going to go with what I really love besides blogging. Modeling T-shirts. Just for you Ed!
I won this prize from pajama mommy, but already have a bunch of these my son doesn’t really watch so I figured to pass it on. My new blog, Its All Free Online, is updated with tons of freebies, giveaways and contests. The contest is easy, just leave a comment for one entry, and blog about it for an additional entry.
Win a Hawaiian Prize Pack
GoVisitHawaii read several of our articles about starting a blog contest and I gave her some ideas of prizes. Aloha! Sheila has put together a nice Hawaiian bundle of gifts for one lucky rss feed reader. She will post a secret message on her feed, once you see it send her an email. The people who discover the message will be put in a drawing and one person will win. Contest ends August 31st I believe, so only a few more days until she posts the message!
If you have a contest that we missed let us know, we accept bribes!
Comment Friday Winner: Charles Lau
This week our comment friday received a cool 24 comments. Not bad! I’ve noticed some really great and thorough comments lately, and we appreciate all of them!
Most all bloggers know how valuable social bookmarking can be. The majority of our commentors wrote that they all use stumbleupon. If you aren’t using stumbleupon yet you are missing out on some good traffic. If you write a good article just add me as a stumbleupon friend, send me a message and I’ll stumble it! (don’t be shy) If you’re looking more information on stumbleupon Blog-Op has a great article on it that he wrote a while back.
Charles Lau is a newer blogger who hasn’t had much experience with social bookmarking. I figured he was the perfect candidate for this weeks blog of the week! I found him not too long ago and left him a few comments, seems he has found his way to our blog. Charles writes some interesting articles, the one that caught my eye was How to Market Your Uploaded YouTube Videos. Charles has some pretty good quality posts on his blog, definitely worth a check out.
Comment Friday for August 24th
Comment Friday back again so soon. I look forward to Fridays, getting so much response from everyone. This week I am going to try to comment more myself, so there should be more discussion. Don’t forget to check back a couple of times for everyone else’s comment!
If this is your first comment friday, the idea is pretty simple. Leave us a comment about anything you want. I will select one lucky commentor that really stands out, and I will give a free link to them. Not only that, but they will get a one week free blogroll spot for a week.
This week I’d like to know which social bookmarking you use. Do you try your luck on digg or are you banned like a lot of us? Are you just a stumbler or do you consider other bookmarking as well?
Lastly, have you had any success with social bookmarking?
Some Traffic is Better than No Traffic
Recently I changed around some of our social bookmarking links. I removed digg and reddit completely and added sphinn and plugim. The removal of digg was a simple decision, we are banned. Reddit was also removed because none of our articles ever got votes. It was basically a waste of space.
I was talking to Matt of Blogging Fingers about this briefly. He is also considering switching to social bookmarking sites that are more blogger friendly. He asked how much traffic we received from Plug-Im. I answered that we get several visitors per article.
That’s pretty low.
Five is Better than None
It is low, but if you consider what we removed for it, it’s 500% better. I can’t remember the last time we received traffic from a reddit article.
Another plus is that nearly every plug-im article that is submitted from our blog gets to the front page. This gives us maximum exposure for each article on that website.
Better yet, you don’t even need to be logged in to vote. Don’t forget to give us a plug!
Limit Your Bookmarking
This is a great follow up for Clean Up Your Blog. The more bookmarking you offer, the less chance I am going to vote for your blog. If you have 10 sites and each have one vote, that isn’t going to help you. It’s better to focus on one or two, rather than twelve. By promoting one service you have a better chance of getting featured which in turn should result in 10x traffic you would receive.
Make sure to list the ones that are going to give you the most traffic.
Buy.com Coupon Code for Promotion Discount
Internet shopping is all about convenience. You don’t even have to leave your comfy computer seat to buy what you want and need. Especially with the ever growing online services available, online shopping can be addictive.
Since the online market has become so big, you can often find promo codes, which urges you to shop at a certain place. This usually gives you a discount or something free.
Websites like couponmall247.com offer savings like their Buy.Com Promotion Code. These range anywhere from a few dollars in savings to 20$. If you are already going to buy such products, you might as well save money. I often use coupon codes for purchasing domains and web hosting.
To continually attract new and reliable customers, websites often offer these deals to get your business. A Buy.Com coupon shouldn’t be hard to come by. Internet shopping already offers a generally lower price, they don’t have to pay employees, rent, insurance, the list goes on. They then pass that savings onto you.
Just watch out for those shipping costs!
Using Craigslist to Promote your Website
Not many bloggers utilize craigslist to promote their blogs. I have been using it for a few months now. I often publish several ads per week in different cities. Why should you use craigslist?
It’s Free
Free advertising is always good. It’s usually rare, but when you find it you should definitely take advantage of it. Creating an account takes only a few minutes. If you don’t already have one you definitely should register.
Sell Something
Whether you are selling a service or a product you should definitely post an ad. It’s hard to really promote a product besides blogging about it. Craigslist is like a super-forum. Whether you are offering your SEO services, website design, or something else you may just get a few more customers by listing a short ad.
Why should you post your craigslist ad?
By posting your ads there are many other ways to promote your website or blog. You can publish your ad in multiple city listings to get full optimization of your ad. I generally choose bigger U.S cities for the most results. Try San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego, New York, and Las Vegas.
Looking for Guest Bloggers?
This is the ad that I publish. Under “writing gigs” I ask for bloggers looking to publish work on our blog. I choose the “no pay” option and state that by posting with Blog about your Blog they can generate traffic and links to their own blogs. Each ad I publish generally get several hits, some even hundreds. This has resulted in dozens of inquiries.
If your traffic stats are stuck and you need a little boost you never know what results you can get with craigslist. Posting an ad weekly and especially daily can give you a nice steady flow of traffic.
Does anyone currently use Craigslist for website promotion?
France Is This Way
France This Way is a blog they share their life about being an expat family in France.
What Is an Expat?
Well I had no idea either so I asked wikipedia
An expatriate (in abbreviated form, expat) is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person’s upbringing or legal residence
So Mr.B is on vacation? Not exactly!
Making Money as an Expat
Mr.B recently wrote about ways expats make money in France. Among the jobs listed he mentions website designer and website publishing, or professional blogging. I think I guessed which he is working on!
His Expat France blog which goes all the way back to March of 2006 is only the beginning to his website.
France This Way is his own France Travel and Guide site. Whether your looking for Car Hire in France (which is like a car rental) or places to visit like Languedoc he’s got it all covered.
French Phrases and Food
I like the French Phrases section. A definite must to pick up some quick french. You never know when you may need it, au cas ou (“just in case”).
If you are a cook and like to try new things like me take a look at the variety of French Recipes. Lunch, Dinner, Duck and Dessert!
This website and blog is very complete and could be a great model for someone looking to start their own travel blog. Being unique and offering different features like the sections I mention really set it apart. Make your website different so people will continue coming back.