Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Hawg is a blooming idiot

Folks, I'm here to announce to the world that I -- The Hawg -- am a damned fool.

Why? A few months ago, I had a little blog about real estate. I kind of let that languish for awhile and decided to revive it. So, I moved it all over to Today.com from Blogger a few days ago and applied for an Entrecard account.

If you'd like to see my little real estate-related blog, just point your browser over to Straight Shooting Real Estate. Henceforth, I shall refer to that blog as The Hawg's Folly for reasons that will become evident in a moment.

So, I registered my revived blog with a few sites, traded a link or two and applied for that aforementioned Entrecard account in hopes of getting a little traffic. So everything was great, right?

No! Hell no! Absolutely not, in fact. Today.com just announced that the traffic magnet known as the Entrecard widget would no longer be allowed on their blogs as of April 7 (or thereabouts). So, I've got a little time to build some traffic from Entrecard over at The Hawg's Folly, but not much.

So now what the hell do I do? Every traffic-getting site I've used stinks compared to Entrecard and I've got a new blog that has gotten 12 whole hits without it. I'd rather not transfer everything back to Blogger because I've put in some work on The Hawg's Folly, so I'd like to find some other ways to get traffic.

Do you fine folks have any suggestions? I'm sick to death of trying schemes and reading hyperbole-laced rants full of promises that are obviously too good to be true.

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Geez. That'll teach me to try something new, huh?

11 comments:

Patricia Rockwell said...

The Today blogs are some of my favorites! I recommend that all you Today bloggers who are on Entrecard petition Today to be allowed to stay on Entrecard!

HawgWyld said...

Patricia:

What burns me is that I've just started the aforementioned blog on Today. And I can enjoy Entrecard on this blog for a mere two weeks? Stinks!

Anonymous said...

I wish I knew of a program that could help, but the only program that has ever worked well for me is Entrecard. That's a real pity, but at least you have this one and maybe you can just ask nicely and have people pop over from this blog?

Unknown said...

Hey, isn't Today.com one of those things by which a blogger can make enough money to have one of those hot-to-trot android wives custom built? So, with one of those, along with your regular wife, kids, pups and kitties, where would you find the time for Entrecard anyway?

Anonymous said...

When Entrecard announced their new advertising scheme of incorporating outside ads in with the blogs, the issue came up about Today.com not allowing affiliate or outside advertising. Graham was supposed to talk with them about it to see if they would continue to allow Entrecarders. With a cutoff date, that conversation may not have turned out the way Graham wanted it to.

Anonymous said...

I really think you should think about getting your own domain and own web hosting. I went to it over a year ago, and it has been GREAT. It's bene worth every penny.

I've been on a mission for a while, on my Mrs. Mecomber's Scrapbook blog, about this. Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you want an honest opinion about something, or need a hand.

Sharkbytes (TM) said...

I've had good luck with Adgitize. You do have to put a bit of cash in, but you can get most of it back. It has gotten me almost 1500 hits on myqualityday.blogspot.com in just under a month. You can read my review of it at http://justthrowmoney.blogspot.com/ then scroll down or check recent posts for two entries about Adgitize.

I agree that Entrecard is great though. I'm hoping they work out something for the Today.com people

HawgWyld said...

Jude -- Same here. I hear people gripe about the "quality" of traffic Entrecard brings, but I've been thrilled with the service. Thanks to Entrecard, I get a lot of visitors and comments and I've run across some great blogs, to boot.

If I wasn't a member of Entrecard, this blog wouldn't have the exposure it does now.

FishHawk -- Good point. Of course, if I never get any traffic at Today, I won't get those bags of money they promise.

Theresa -- Apparently not.

Mrs. Mecomber -- Ah, but I'm cheap and lazy. I love how easy it is to know absolutely nothing and post a blog through free services like Blogger.

I'll probably send you an email. I wouldn't mind looking at some alternatives. I can't move this blog and lose my PR and Alexa score, but I doubt I'll get much traffic on my real estate blog. I wouldn't mind experimenting with that.

Sharkbytes -- I hope they work out something, too. I'll keep Adgitize in mind (providing it doesn't violate some Today policy) although I'd rather not pay money for traffic. I'm too cheap for that!

Paul Eilers said...

Live and learn, Hawg.

As for web traffic, it is tough to find anything that will teach you for free. Anything good, that is.

I am currently studying a a guy named Terry Dean. He is reasonable. Another one I like is Perry Marshall, but he's a bit expensive, and uses AdWords, which costs money as well. I don't think you would be interested in that.

Good luck with whatever you find.

Paul

Eat Well. Live Well.
ER BurnTheFat.com
PurpleGreenPops.com

Da Old Man said...

To paraphrase Homer Simpson, "Never try."

Bill said...

I second the point on going to your own domain and hosting account. It's super easy, wicked cheap and if you use something like Wordpress it is stunningly simple to run a blog. For traffic: article submission. That simple. Check out ezinearticles.com and searchwarp.com. Modify your current blog posts, submit to these and other article directories and sit back. I get as much traffic from this practice as I do from google.