The end of the month has arrived and I am now looking forward towards August, one of my decisions now is what to do with my 125×125 Ad spots for the month.

I have one spot being given away to the winner of my contest and have agreed a deal with another blogger to show their Ad on my site in August, that leaves four free Ad spots for the month of August.

In my eyes I have two options, I can either sell the remaining 4 spots for a set amount, or I can go for the riskier option of adding affiliate Ads which could yield higher results but could also earn nothing.

It seems that many bloggers go for a mix of direct ad sales and affiliate ads on their blogs, this is a good way of getting a fixed amount as well as a varied amount. I think that this is the best way of optimising your blogs income, I have decided to sell 4 of my spots directly and have the other two spots as affiliate Ads.

If you are interested in purchasing an Ad on ProTycoon.com then please feel free to contact me for the price.

I want to know what method you prefer to use on your blog? I also want to know how you go about selling your 125×125 Ad spots?

ProTycoon.com has been nominated for two categories in the Bloggers Choice Awards and I am asking for your support, to help me rise up the rankings.

ProTycoon.com has been nominated for:

If you feel I deserve my nomination please feel free to head over and vote for me!

There is a lot of competition but I would love to make the top 10 in Best Blog About Blogging award.

Are any of your blogs nominated? If so post up your links below so people can head over and vote for you!

Let’s hope we can all be winners!

My site was nominated for Best Blog About Blogging! My site was nominated for Best Blog Design!

July has been a very big month for ProTycoon.com, I have seen my subscriber count destroy the 100 subscribers target I set out to achieve for the month. I have also seen a big jump in traffic and comments, this has all helped to push my Technorati rank to around the 75k mark.

A lot has happened over the month in terms of posts and competitions so I thought I would have a short review of the month.

Top Posts This Month

As you can see there have been some really good posts this month.

As you have seen from the list of posts above, I started my own contest this month, there has been a lot of interest, there is still 2 days left to get your entries in, with the winner being announced on Friday or Saturday depending on how long it takes to sort it all out.

July will also be remembered as the month of Blogging Idol, I have managed to raise my RSS Subscriber count by around 104 this month, which I believe has me at around 12/13th place. Please feel free to promote my feed over the next two days to help me break into the top 10. Any help may be rewarded ;)

Ask people to check out my blog, or ask them to subscribe to my feed via E-mail

I am still accepting entries into my first bloggers survey, it only takes a few minutes to complete, and could get your blog featured in my upcoming ebook. Please take a few minutes to give it a go!

OnĀ  a final note, the site may have some downtime over the next 24 hours, I am moving host due to suffering a lot of downtime and unprofessional service from my current host. I have been unhappy at them for the last week or so and decided to make the move now, so that my site has maximum up time in the future, as the site grows.

Don’t forget you can get yourself featured on ProTycoon.com by purchasing some of my cheap merchandise and sending a photo to me of you with it. Check out the ProTycoon.com merchandise and get yours!

Let me know what you have been up to this month, what would you like to see from ProTycoon.com next month?

Jul28 in Blogging by admin

I run a number of blogs, and some other random money making sites as well. Up until now all my blogs have been single author, meaning that I am the only person writing on them. I have always liked it this way as I can be in total control of the content on the blog.

However, with the rise in popularity of some of my blogs I have less time per blog, so I have decided to change my way of doing things and opt for a writing team on one of my new blogs.

There are of course advantages and disadvantages to forming a writing team on a blog, lets look at why some people prefer working as a team:

  • More content can be produced quicker time frame
  • Different views can be expressed on the same blog
  • Promotion can be done by several people instead of just one, gain exposure faster
  • Regular updates as more people to update

As well as the advantages there are also many disadvantages:

  • Lack of control
  • Posts may be publish to close together
  • Some writers may write more than others
  • Content could get duplicated
  • Payment for writers

The decision to stay solo or work in a team is usually an easy one for each blogger, for example, ProTycoon.com will always be a single author blog, with occasional guest posts.

I have recently bought a new blog called ‘Football News Online‘, it is a soccer news site. The problem with soccer news is that it is updating all the time, and covers such a broad area. This means that it is hard for one person to update the blog all the time. This is the perfect example of a blog that suits a writing team rather than a solo author.

One of the problems that comes with using a writing team is that the writers will usually expect a payment, you will striggle to find bloggers that are willing to work for free, but there are some out there. You then have to decide what payment method you are going to use, the two most common are:

  • Monthly Fee – The blogger is paid a set amount each month.
  • Revenue Share – Each blogger takes a % of the blogs earnings for the month

With my new blog I am going to opt for the ‘Revenue Share’ option as this will encourage the writers to promote the blog more actively.

I am still very new to this and will keep you all informed of how it progresses, this will be my guinea pig blog for writing teams. Stay tuned for progress updates.

Do you use single author or writing teams on your blog? What are your views on using writing teams?

If you are interested in becoming a writer for ‘Football News Online‘, please feel free to get in touch. The site is still in production so sorry about the layout! My aim is to get football news from all over the world, I am currently looking for MLS and English football writers.

Jul27 in Links by admin

As many of you have seen there was a PR update today and over the next few days. As of yet ProTycoon.com has not changed, I am still at PR1 which is pretty annoying! The toolbar PR shows your rank as about a month ago, so as ProTycoon.com is only 5 months old, a PR1 is not a bad start. I was hoping for a PR3 though.

Some of my other blogs are PR4 and PR3 which is nice!

How did the update affect you?

Jul25 in Blogging by admin

Many of my loyal readers will know about my Technorati Targets but for those of you that do not know, I have set myself a number of targets to reach on Technorati, they are:

Target Authority: 200 – Currently 78

Target Fans:20 – Currently 5

Target Rank: 200,000 – Currently 86,554

As you can see I have managed to dramatically improve my Technorati Rank, I want to share with you how I have managed to make such a big leap up the rankings.

Before I explain how I Increased my Technorati Rank lets look at how the Technorati rank is calculated. The rank is calculated using Technorati Authority, you gain Authority by getting mentions on other blogs. Technorati believes that your blog carries Authority if you are being mentioned on other blogs.

So as you can see, to increase your technorati rank you have to get other bloggers to link back to your blog.

How did I increase my Technorati Rank:

  1. I ran a contest
  2. I asked other bloggers to link to my posts

As many of you will know I am currently running a contest here at ProTycoon.com, one of the ways entrants can increase their chance of winning is to write a post and link it back to ProTycoon.com. This of course has helped to increase my sites Authority and in turn helped to increase my Technorati Rank.

Another method that I have used is to tell other bloggers about my best posts, in the hope that they will link to them in their links roundup posts. This has helped me to pick up a few extra Authority points.

If I keep up these tactics I should soon be in the top 50k blogs.

Help me reach my goals by becoming a fan of ProTycoon.com

I want to know how you increase your Technorati Rank, what is your best tactic?

It seems that no matter where you venture into the blogosphere these days you are always greeted by some form of promotion by Market Leverage, whether it is a ‘Market Leverage Contest‘ or just a simple banner advertisement, they are everywhere.

I had not been lured in until recently when I realised that they must be doing something right with so many bloggers promoting them and using their services.

I am always a bit dubious as many of these programs offer lifetime referral bonuses which encourage people to talk about and promote them. I did however decide to take the plunge, albeit with my eyes wide open.

I was very surprised with how professional their service is, once I had filled in the application form and pressed submit I was greeted with a phone call verifying my account and asking me if I needed any help. I was then welcomed by my publisher manager and felt very welcomed to the program.

The website at first was a bit daunting, it took me a while to find some affiliates I was interested in using, but after sometime messing around on the site, I feel like I understand where everything is now.

With many bloggers moving away from programs such as Adsense, Market Leverage could soon be dominating the blogosphere’s advertising portfolio.

If you are not already using Market Leverage then check it out. If you are using it, how are you finding it? What programs do you use? What programs are you having the best success with?

Do you think that Market Leverage will dominate the blogosphere?

Jul23 in Blogging by admin

Blogs by their very nature depend on comments, you write your posts with the view that your blogs visitors will leave their opinions and views in the small section under the post. Comments are also used as a metric by many to judge how popular your blog is, a large amount of comments can mean you are providing great content that people feel they should give their view on.

It is no surprise then that many bloggers are looking to increase comments on their blogs. I have managed to increase comments here on ProTycoon.com using many different methods. I am going to highlight the 5 most successful methods for increasing comments on your blog.

5 Ways To Increase Comments On Your Blog:

  1. Ask For Comments: Sound to simple? It is very easy to end your post with “Please feel free to leave your comments below.” This reminds your readers at the end of your post that they can leave their opinions and views. I have found that by simply asking people to leave thier views I get slightly more comments than on a standard post.
  2. Finish Your Post With A Question: Similar to point 1, but more specific. Asking a question at the end of your post means that in order to answer the question they must leave a comment. This can have great results at the end of a post such as this one, where I could ask: “What are your best tips for increasing comments on your blog?”.
  3. Give Something Back: You may have noticed that I use the ‘Top Commentators’ widget on ProTycoon.com. I feel that it is a great way of rewarding the people that comment on my blog and also increases comments as people want to be on the top list.
  4. Make It Easy: Keep the comments form simple and easy to use. Make it possible for comments to be left quickly and easily and you will see a rise in comments on your blog. Make sure your comments section is visible at the bottom of your posts, not hidden way down the page.
  5. Make Your Self Approachable: Make yourself known in your comments area, reply to comments you recieve. I try to reply to all comments on my blog. People are more likely to comment if they think you will actually reply, or if you show you care about comments.

I have now revealed 5 ways to increase your RSS count.

Feel free to leave your comments below. How do you increase comments on your blog?

Jul22 in Contests by admin

As many of you know, I won a contest over at Group Writing Project last week, which led me to start my own contest. I was browsing through the archives of Group Writing Project and found a post entitled: ‘Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs of 2008 Group Writing Project‘. It talks of a contest being help by ‘Influential Blogger‘ where you have to write a post about 10 blogs you think are emerging in 2008.

I thought I would give it a shot, the blogs have to be newer than July 2007, so I had to pick 10 that have been created in the last year that I think are emerging as influential blogs in 2008, here are my 10:

  1. traffikd.com – Social Media & Internet Marketing Blog
  2. inspiredmoneymaker.com – Make Money Blogging
  3. theuniversitykid.com – Helping You To Make Money Online
  4. rajaietalks.com – Provides Some Great Blogging Tips
  5. thoushallblog.com – Very Active Here At ProTycoon.com, One For The Future!
  6. ironblogger.com – A Very New Blogging Tips Blog
  7. melvinblog.com – Already Has A Good Established Readership For A New Blog
  8. lostartofblogging.com – A Guide To Proper Blogging
  9. blogriffic.com – Marketing, Better Blogging and Design
  10. standoutblogger.com – Blogging Tips Blog, Growing Fast

They are my Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs of 2008, as you can see I have stuck to the ‘Blogging’ niche so you should all find these sites useful.

Who would be in your Top 10?

Don’t forget ProTycoon.com is still less than 6 months old ; )

Jul21 in Blogging by admin

Today I sealed the deal on ProTycoon.com’s first sponsored theme. I have opened a new section on the blog totally dedicated to themes that are sponsored by ProTycoon.com

To see the first theme, head over to: ‘ProTycoon.com Themes‘. I have always wanted to sponsor themes and be able to give them away on my blog, I have now reached that goal and hope to add many more themes in the coming weeks.

Why do I sponsor themes?

Sponsoring themes can have many benefits:

  1. Branding Your Blog
  2. Increase Links Back To Blog
  3. Offers Something To Your Readers

I am still looking for other WordPress themes to sponsor so if you have one that you would like ProTycoon.com to sponsor feel free to contact me.

If you use the theme, feel free to let everyone know what you think about it.

Other News

The ProTycoon.com contest has had over 75 comments, if you have not entered you still have until the end of July.

I am also looking to open up a weekly spot on my blog for guest posts, if you would like to submit a post, contact me with your details I will then ask you to send me your guest post for review.



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