I don’t know if you guys noticed the change in my Profiles list in the footer, but I have added Plurk in the list also. Well, this is a new version of twitter, but believe it or not it is much more addicting then twitter.

First of all, this is much more unique then twitter because of the time wall, and Karma. I am going to try it out and see how it is for a month and will traffic results. I got some good traffic from twitter, and I believe plurk will get me even more because right now, it is not as big as Twitter, so I will get more attention.

Right now it is a good time to build your Karma and rank really high on this. There are multiple ways of gaining Karma Point. Most Important, Be Active, Network with your friends, change things around.

While you are doing that, add me as your friend. Balkhis Plurk Profile.

If you are not a member then join Plurk Now.

In my opinion, Plurk is a good place to network. I think it will stay alive longer than twitter because of the innovative ways. When you will first go on, it will look weird and kind of different, but as you get used to of it, you will get a hang of it.

You will see me more active on Plurk rather than any other social network for now atleast. Lets see how will this work. As of what I noticed so far, Nick Throlson, Darren Rowse, Sizzler Chetan, Shoemoney and many other webmasters and bloggers are there. So what are you waiting for, Join Plurk Now.

Just incase if you missed the message of this post:

JOIN PLURK NOW

A few weeks back, I wrote about myself joining twitter. Well since the end of the month is coming along, I wanted to share my results on twitter. First of all, I did spend quiet some time on following people and kind of got tired after following over 20,000. But in result, I got over 900 people who are following me, and I recieved a good amount of traffic.

Here was my strategy:

I am not a famous person like shoemoney or johnchow, so not many people will just follow me. Therefore, I decided to follow everyone else. Someone will follow me. Maybe I won’t get a 100% return in the beginning, but sooner or later I will get enough followers. Well I spend a good amount of time following people, and then now I have left it alone. Each day, I get over 30 – 40 new followers. So My strategy seems to be working.

Now Twitter increases traffic to my site, but I like it as a tool also. First, I am sure people can just link to their post in all of their new entries, but that would be spamming the service. So I don’t post a link to balkhis alot, it is in the sidebar though under my website, so people visit through there.

In the past month twitter sent a good amount of people. Screen shot below:

Now I think that is a good amount of visitors. Now I got one designing contract from twitter, and have had some good conversions from just visitors to loyal readers. I think it is a good tool, but don’t spend too much time on it. Otherwise you will get addicted like me

If you aren’t at twitter, then get twitter. Also remember, sometimes twitter can outrank your own site. I have seen some examples where people pick their site’s name, and twitter rank higher. I picked balkhis the name, and I am hoping that google stays in my favor.

Anywayz good luck everyone this is my stats from twitter. I believe it is a good way to advertise your new products.

Running a contest is a very smart advertising technique which I have mentioned multiple times in my earlier posts. But this type of advertising only works if you can run your contest successfully. In this post I am going to share the type of contests you can run. Along with the ways to setup those contests. Also I am going to share the techniques of advertising the contest, and getting prizes for your contests. In this post, I have also added the advantages of donating prizes to the contests.

Before I go on with the post, I would like to show you some of my stats for my last contest which was Balkhis ML Contest.

Comments in a week – 900
Average Page Views – 6832 views a day
Average Unique Visitors a day – 1643
Increase in readership by 123 readers
Total of 53 fans on Technorati
Tons of Natural Backlinks

and much more….

Type of Contests

Before you start contests, you always have to plan ahead. One of the major things you want to know is how long will this contest be? Long Term, Short term, or Periodical? Because there are different ways you can go about in either ways to try and make it successful. (Read the rest in full post……)

I want to gain backlinks, and gain them quick… First thought of a beginning webmaster who just learned about websites. Thinking what is the success behind all the other bigger sites, and the first thing that pops up is their keyword rankings in search engines. That is due to backlinks… Not noticing the fact that the other site is well established and has been online for quiet some time. They have tons of backlinks yes, but it took them time to gain all those. Well not many people understand that. Since they want to gain backlinks, they will go ahead and do everything and anything possible that will cost them lowest amount of money and effort.

Question rises, what is the quickest way to get a backlink? Directory submission, but man that takes too long. Lets hire one of the services offering MANUAL directory submission for just $5. Biggest mistake of your life as you can loose all the credibility of that site by doing that. While I am not saying all of these services are a rip off, but a good proportion by which I mean almost all of them are a rip off. Manual Submission?? If it is a manual submission, how can one even show a report as what I see that most of the reports were generated by a software, and it shows Success: Yes, Date Submitted, and Time Stamped. Do you still think that was a manual submission? How many of you will go ahead and do 100 directory submission for $5 and put down exact time and second and put down which one was successful and which one was not. I know I won’t, and not many people would either because $5 USD doesnot worth enough. Not in U.S, not in any other country for that sake because the electric bill you would spend on using the computer far outweighs that $5, rest aside the internet costs, so this will eliminate those who will say Countries in Asia would do it.

It is simple that these people are using softwares, and claiming it to be manual. Yeah, the only manual part of the software is that you have to enter captcha on some directories, the form is auto-filled and its being run by a software. Some reports even have the link to the software and their copyrights at the bottom. How stupid is the user to believe these services?

Now next thing is how trustable is this service? Maybe the person just did the service once, and never did it again, and is keep generating the same report over and over? Half of these auto submissions are spammed. Do you know why? Because they submit your sites to paid directories and leave without paying giving the editor no choice but to remove the listing. You might gain 100 views from $5 .. that is expensive but neither of the editors were targetted users. I know that when I was running my directory, I didn’t look at any site that didn’t pay, so there you go you lost one user who was like me so now it is 99 users for $5. I am sure I am not alone in doing so.

Ensuring the quality of directories. How many free directories are really quality directories? Not many because they will just approve anyone, and most don’t even survive more than a year because they are sold, and than sold again, and than left alone, and than shut off.

In the final line, what I am saying that these directory submission services are a waste of time and money. Note: I have nothing against directories, and you should submit links to them, but submit to quality directories. Really hard to think that the guy will submit to 100 quality directories for $5 because I can’t even think of 100 quality free directories, and I have been keeping up with directories for about 2 years or so. Avoid these services, otherwise your site will be blacklisted among the directory owners, and many others because theser submission services will leave without paying them and they don’t know who is doing this. For all the editor know it is your site, and you are submitting it and leaving without paying. Don’t give your new or established site this reputation.

Did you ever wonder how to market yourself without really marketing yourself? I know the question sounds a bit confusing, but did you? Let me explain what I am asking. Well you know most businesses just buy ads on the websites to market themselves, but there is a way around that which is called Indirect Marketing. Atleast that is what I call it.

I really learnt this idea from Market Leverage. Every blog that I check on daily/weekly basis, I see the staff of Market Leverage there. Photos of their staff in the brand T-Shirt. I checked their webstie multiple times. Finally have decided to sign up with them today.

What this company has been doing is buying shirts of that particular site such as Shoemoney, ZacJohnson, and many other blogs and just wearing it and taking a picture and send it to the blogger, so they can post it. Pretty smart. Not just that, but they have taken it to the next level by making personal relationships with the bloggers by giving gifts to them. What else would you want in an affiliate company? Props to Market Leverage.

But what do you learn from this? Well I learn that sometimes you have to drive the audience from your competitor in a nicer way by offering them gifts and making personal relations with them. Also you can network with your audience. As my audience is bloggers, I try to network as much as I can on the IMs through facebook and others. I will be attending a few conferences as well. But most importantly, I have been making some traditions on the blog such as Pimp my Blog. With things like this I can attract more visitors, and I have noticed after the first blog I pimped, the number of subscribers have increased, and I am certain it will increase as I pimp more and more blogs.

I have been trying to find local online businesses who are located near where I live, so I can go meet them and make connections. As I already have mentioned that I will try my best to visit Microsoft’s headquarters on my trip to Seattle. I have also realized that Market Leverage is based in Florida, so I might visit them also because they are only 2 hours of a drive away. Hoping it will be ok with them. (I will contact ahead of time), or maybe one of them will find this post and reply here.

Sending business gifts is another way to make more connections, and do you know Business Gifts are exempted from taxes. Well, as you guys already know I promote all the companies who send me free gifts. Many other blogs do the same as well. I have alot of Balkhis shirts laying around, so if anyone of you are interested in buying one, the price is $25 / shirt. If you get this shirt and take a picture in it. I will post it on Balkhis and give your site a mention

So the key point of Indirect Marketing is networking and making more friends so you get more promotion through them. Eventhough I haven’t recieved anything from Market Leverage, they have already got me on their side. You can also do the same by using the techniques used by this company. Even a simplest act of linking to another site and giving them a mention if you like them can come in handy in a long run because webmasters do check who is linking to them and who is not.

Let me know what you guys think about this topic…