Posted 7/31/08

Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog, which can be bought for $80,000, and Stumbler who can be added here.

24 Year Old Male Seeking Playful Sports Blog…

Okay, so now that you know how to increase the value of your blog, you’re going to need to find somewhere to sell it.

There’s a lot of sites that you can post your site for sale at but there’s only a few that you should worry about:

Site Point
Digital Point

Site Point

You have to pay to list your site on Site Point. If you are selling it for over $10,000, you have to list it as a premium website for $40. Otherwise, you have to pay $20. You can also sell a lot of other stuff there relating to websites for various costs. It’s worth the cost because it’s the most trafficked site relating to selling sites. You can set up an auction or sell it for a fixed price. You may make more money with an auction, but auctions are also legally binding, so if you aren’t getting high enough offers, it would be hard to pull it off the marketplace. People have done it in the past but it has caused controversy at Site Point.

Digital Point

You can list your site for free here, and the process is a lot more informal. There is no legally binding contracts, and you can run the sale however you want, but there is also more chance of being scammed because the site isn’t policed as well as Site Point.

A few others just to get more people looking at your site:

Bloggeries  - Bloggeries is the top blog forum on the net, but you won’t get much action here. It has nothing on Site Point and Digital Point.

DN Scoop - DN Scoop is the site that overvalues sites, so you could mention how much DN Scoop valued your site at, and maybe some ignorant fool will believe it and buy it for that much.

Since most sports bloggers don’t frequent any of those sites very often, you might not draw a whole lot of interest. You should also email some of your sports blogging friends to see if they’re interested. And if your sports blog is popular enough, like Free Darko or TBL or something, you could probably email Deadspin and other blogs and get them to link and talk about how you’re selling.

What to List When Selling Your Blog

Give out every details that will help you sell your blog.

• PR
• Links (if you have a lot)
• Pages indexed (every blog has a lot)
• Traffic (Whatever truth about your traffic sounds best. Like if you had a ton last month, list how much and show a screenshot, but you don’t have to list how much you had the month before. Also, mention how many pageviews, not uniques, you had when it comes to hits, but if you had a lot of uniques, mention that as well.)
• Stuff you’re giving away along with the blog
• How much money you make per month (Again, mention whatever makes it seem like you have more.)
• Where the traffic comes from
• Where the money comes from (people are going to ask you about that no matter what, so just get it out of the way and list it)

Put some html formatting and stuff to highlight the good parts. Here’s an example from SitePoint: Car-Depo

There you go. Now that I’ve given some advice on selling your blog, you owe me a commission, Kellex.

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Posted 7/30/08 - Kellex

I couldn't help myself...sorry, so unrelated but this ridiculous lion thing is everywhere.





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Posted 7/30/08 - Joshua

So some of you may have noticed it has been awhile since I posted here. The simple fact here is I let outside forces mess up my daily work schedule. Basically I let stuff make the schedule instead of me making my schedule.

Bloggers can learn a very important lesson from this; do not let stuff or other commitments deter you from what it is you would want to be doing. We all have many things that take our time away, but to be successful bloggers we must find time each day to sit and write if only a few paragraphs.

Over the last few weeks I have started a new semester at school, traveled to three different NASCAR tracks, taken my son to his first baseball game, and tried to get outside and enjoy some of the summer. All of that has taken away from writing, and while those other things are extremely important, writing is what I do and I need to find a way to insure all of my commitments are being met.

For me the best strategy is to have a solid time each day where I do different things. As many of you know from reading this I write at least two articles a day and try, try, try to write something in a personal blog as well. Some of these days are easy; some are a little bit harder. For those that are curious, this is what a typical week looks like for me on the writing side.

Mondays are the easiest days, but for me the most nerve racking. I spend Monday mornings going over the stats from the weekend’s 3-5 NASCAR races. For each race I have an index card where I write down all the important facts I want to remember for the next race there. Generally this takes about two hours or so.

It is important for me to know not just the news but the actual results of NASCAR stuff for my role as a fantasy racing expert at www.fantasyinsideronline.com. While going through that I look up the stats for my pick that week. Last Week I picked Kyle Busch, who finished 15th not a horrible pick but he never ran higher then 9th so not a good pick either. My gut told me all week I should have gone with Carl Edwards and as it turns out he was 2nd. The lesson here is always trust your gut.

After pouring over stats from that week, I move to stats for whatever tracks are coming up on the schedule. Then I make my fantasy picks and my top 12 power rankings for the week. If all is well it is around noon and time for lunch.

Tuesdays tend to be a little tougher then Mondays. Generally speaking I write my post here on Tuesday mornings and I have an opinion NASCAR column due. I also have a Sports business piece due for my new job and starting in September I will have an additional NASCAR opinion piece due for a new project I cannot announce yet but details will be coming.

Wednesday is the easiest for me, just one Sports business piece to do and not NASCAR at all. This is my rest day. Thursdays are much the same but I tend to find myself glued to my Sirius waiting for announcements on NASCAR's silly season. I try to write a really nice piece for my NASCAR blog this day as well, but lately news has not been breaking until Friday.

Friday is fun day, usually NASCAR all day from early in the morning to late at night after a truck race; it more then drives my wife crazy. I write a Truck series piece in the morning and attempt to write another NASCAR blog entry in the afternoon when I hear something cool going on. I also write a sports business piece and try not to take another invitation to go and cover a track in person. Lately I have been receiving a lot of requests to visit tracks and cover their events.

Now I know that doesn’t sound like a lot but mix in a full time school schedule, and since my wife works most of the time I have my son here, and there is always an abundance of house work that needs to be done and one can see my need to have a firm schedule in place to get it all done.


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Posted 7/30/08 - Kellex



Daniel over at one of our favorite blogs, Daily Blog Tips, has been running "Blogging Idol" which is his take on a blogging competition with the goal to see which participant can increase their RSS subscribers the most during a certain amount of time.



I have to admit that I haven't been following this contest as closely as maybe I should be, but I have been following enough to realize that some of these people are spilling the beans on their RSS building methods.  With the goal being to raise your subscription levels, part of the contest asks each contestant each week what methods they used to get newbies to sign up to their feed.



Some of their explanations are pretty obvious, but each week I've seen a couple of bloggers using some interesting tactics that I hadn't thought of before.  Of course I haven't implemented any at this point since I just went through that whole sale deal, but in the near future I definitely plan to take what these people are offering up for...FREE.





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Posted 7/30/08 - Kellex

I booked my first Performancing Ad already!  And then cancelled it the next day...

Yeah, so their support department still hasn't responded to my request to see if there is a work-around to get Blogger users into the mix since right now the Blogger platform does not appear to be supported.

Anyone else signed up for the program and been able to use it?  If so, have you sold any spots yet?


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Posted 7/29/08 - Kellex

We just ran a post looking at the annoying things that blogs tend to do and that happened to spark our big wonderful brains into another laughable idea! 



As bloggers, we sort of do some pretty weird things with our blogs that we either think will generate us some traffic, buzz or seriously, who knows what right?  We definitely do some whacky things though and those whacky things are what this post is dedicated to!



It's pretty sad that we were able to come up with 13, but the truth there is you can probably come up with a lot more than 13...



1.  We trust every single new affiliate or ad merchant with our social security numbers!



2.  We spend 30-45 minutes a day dropping "cards" on blogs that have basically no relevance to our blog which we've put thousands upon thousands of hours into.



3.  We take the word of John Chow, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Darren Rowse as instant money making gospel.



4.  We actually think that in just 6 months, we can be making $30K per month!  



5.  We spend hours a day talking about the power of Google and think that it's socially acceptable.



6.  We think that making the front page of certain sites will turn us into millionaires!



7.  We spend actual money on things called "EC's" that are worth nothing.



8.  We enjoy attending dozens of large conferences while everyone else on the planet hates them.



9.  We listen to a guy that doesn't know what the MGM Grand is.



10. We give away worthless ebooks of our friends that we overvalue at thousands of dollars to build hype for a contest.



11. We spend years building social networks with people that we have never actually met in person.



12.  We brag about how great our lives are with no bosses or set schedules yet we spend 18 hours a day on the internet with ourselves.



13.  We make lists of anything on the planet we can think of, no matter how absurd they are.




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Posted 7/29/08 - Kellex



This new supposed internet sensation has just gone "alpha" meaning they are allowing only invites and special request accounts.  So if you are wondering what 12seconds.tv is, you aren't the only one!



The site is basically a Youtube on 12 seconds of crack.  The site allows you to post 12 second videos to either tell a joke, update your life, update your site or whatever the hell you want really.  But like I just said, you have to do it in 12 seconds.



There is almost no chance in hell that I will use this service, but I was unfortunate fortunate enough to get an invite which also gives me the power to invite other users to it.  As a member of this alpha version I have 10 invites to give out to my loyal and lovable readers!



So who wants one?  This could be a pretty cool service if you are into that whole voyeuristic video thing, right?  Let me know and I'll hook you up!  All I need is an email address to send the invite to.





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Posted 7/28/08

Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog, which can be bought for $80,000, and Stumbler who can be added here.

Sweeten the Deal, Make More Money

As I said in part one, selling a blog is hard because of the time investment required to run a blog. Since people need to update every day and market their posts, those factors will decrease profit margins and asking price. The trick to making money on the internet is automating the process. So if you want to sell your blog for a higher price (or if you just want to make more money on your own blog), you need to have some automated processes that you can package with your blog. If buyers see they can make money easily, they will pay more.

Here are some items to throw in with your blog to increase value:

Mailing List

With a blog, you have to get hits everyday. With a mailing list, you already have a list of people you can send to whenever you want, and most won’t unsubscribe. Before you go about selling your blog, you could spend the weeks or months before building a mailing list. You would have to sign up for AWeber, the best email list program, for $19/month at the cheapest. Put a sign up square on your site. Try to think of some incentive to give to email subscribers, perhaps an ebook or a piece of sports memorabilia to a winner. It doesn’t even matter if the email list is actually related to your blog’s topic. John Cow created an email list unrelated to gaming when he sold his gaming blog in his Cowpetition. Do the email list on whatever topic you want, if you are unethical, and promote it elsewhere, in forums, etc. Most buyers aren’t going to ask questions about the list, they will just assume it’s focused on sports. Throw in the email list with the blog when selling.

Forums

The great thing about forums is you don’t have to do any work, and you make money. A lot of money, too; each time someone posts, that takes about three pageviews, and, they will usually post multiple times each visit, so they are great for CPM advertising. The main problem is that it takes a lot of work to get forums active. (I can give you a detailed article about forums later.) You have to post a lot yourself and get other people posting, and no one wants to post in an empty forum. Even if a ton of people aren’t posting though, you can still make a little bit of money, though; you don’t really lose money from not having people post.

Yardbarker, Ballhype User Profiles

One of the easiest ways to build traffic to posts is social media sites. If you buy a blog, especially a niche blog, like a sports blog, you’re going to need a way to build traffic. If you don’t already have a Ballhype profile, it’s going to be hard to build your profile. Or, even if you do, another profile will always help, giving you a head start when posting. If you’re selling a sports blog and you don’t plan to start another sports blog, you might as well throw in your Yardbarker and Ballhype profiles into the deal.

These are just a few of the things you can add to your blog deal to make more money. Anything that makes earning money automatic will earn you more money and increase value.

Part 3 is on actually finding someone who will want to buy.

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Posted 7/28/08 - Kellex

PerformancingAds looks to be one of the newer advertising options out there which is leaning towards the ever popular 125x125 ad size.  This service allows you to set your price for your 125 ad spots, exchange them with other users, get paid via PayPal, and even use "nofollow" on them.

The service actually seems like a fairly decent one although it has a sort of Text-Link-Ads feel but instead of text links is using 125 banners.  So if you aren't ready to make the jump in and test the service, you may want to hang back until you hear some reviews on whether or not it is "Google Friendly."

To you Blogger users like myself, it doesn't look like at this time you will be able to use PerformancingAds.  I've got a ticket into them to get a definitive answer and will let you know if there is some sort of work around.

Oh yeah, and they also offer a pretty solid referral program that you can be a part of just for signing up no matter what kind of blog software you are using.

Until then, hopefully someone will try it out and give us their opinion!  You can also find this listed under our recommended money making programs.

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Posted 7/26/08 - Kellex

We haven't poked fun at blogs in general in a long time and now that we are back on track with just one blog to tear apart, we thought it was perfect timing.



I think we are all aware of the little things about certain blogs that irritate the hell out of us aren't we?  Well this list takes a look at those and also will probably bring to light something you may be doing that is also obnoxious as hell.  And you'll notice a few things on this list that we are probably doing right here at the Sports Dollar.  Actually, just so you know we are poking fun at ourselves, we'll "*" anything that we, ourselves, are guilty of.



Just a reminder that no one is safe.  Some of our favorite blogs and friends have been motivation for this list!





1.  Having an Entrecard "Recent Droppers" list.  Although these things hand out all kinds of free links to me, I still think they are the tackiest widget on the planet!



2.  Using a "Recent Viewers" widget that is greater than 4x5.  Yeah, you know who you are.  Do you think anyone is actually looking through the 10x10 "Recent Viewers" spam-a-lot box?



3.  Printing your "Blog Earning" Report.  Ummm...yeah we just did this.*



4.  Showing a chicklet for the 100 blog services you belong to.  Seriously, chicklets were gum that we all ate as kids, and they went out of style for a reason.



5.  Displaying your "Meta" section.  Hey, smart guy, we can't login to your account!  Stop confusing the newbies.



6.  Using Peel-Away ads.  "Bleh" is all I have to say here.



7.  Filling your posts up with Adbrite, Kontera, Amazon and Infolinks in-text-hover advertisements.  I understand you want to take up as much ad space as possible without looking suspicious, but those triple underlined random colored links aren't going to get me!



8.  Ending every single post with "Get My Free eBook to Make Money!"  The book has already been written 1500 times and it says the same crap although, you probably told is doesn't.



9.  Displaying all 3 Yardbarker banners to squeeze out every penny!  Once sports bloggers figured this trick out, it became like a religion.*



10.  Displaying the BlogRush widget.  Have you actually ever seen 10 visitors from this thing?  Didn't think so!



11.  Having the 100 link long blogroll.  We know you don't read any of these blogs.  Plus we know you were a part of that email spam, generic link exchange campaign crowd. 



12.  Cartooning yourself.  Someone please tell me that this ridiculous trend is ending soon?  "But it's a great way to brand yourself!"  Spare me Chico.



13.  Recommending Twitter as a legitimate networking tool.  Set up your Twitterfeed and let it go.  Talk about a time waster!



14.  Presenting a video blog about how great video blogging is.  It's official!  I will never, EVER, watch one of these unless you pay me $150.



15.  Not displaying your entire posts in your feed.  I've subscribed to your feed because I don't have time to go to 30 different blogs in a day people!



16.  Cutting off your posts with a "Read the rest here!" link.  I don't want to click 4 times before I actually get to the point of your ridiculously open ended post that basically just told me nothing except that "link baiting is a good way to get links."  Oh, for the 10,000th time.



17.  Posting a link list made up of the first page of Digg, BallHype or YardBarker.  Ok, we haven't completely done this, but we've come close!  Laziness is life.



18.  Linking to every post on Deadspin while using Jim Rome phrases.  If you call yourself a "clone", call an opinion a "take" and finish up conversations with "Goodnight Now!" you need help.



19. Using a PayPal "Donate" button.  We're all struggling bloggers man, did you really think I was going to drop you $50 just for telling me your free opinion?



20.  Displaying your rankings to every service on the planet.  I'm talking BallHype, PR, Alexa, Top Sports Sites, Technorati, Quantcast, Compete.com, etc.*



21.  Displaying a Digg button in your sidebar.  Still not sure what this is supposed to accomplish.  Someone please fill me in.



22.  Creating a logo for your blog, t-shirting it, and wearing it to every single event you attend.  Not sure we need much of a story to think about this one.



23. Creating a top 10, 25, 50, or 100 list of anything you can think of which is most likely irrelevant to your topic.  This list is relevant though isn't it?*



24.  Displaying that mile long "categories" list.  I might as well do a damn Google search than attempt at navigating these things.



25.  Writing an "Annoying Habits" list and coming off as completely annoying.  Anyone else sensing a Bitter Billy!





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Posted 7/25/08 - Kellex

This story is starting to make its rounds through the internet but it's definitely worth a read, listen, or glance.  Yaro Starak, one of the many "pro bloggers" out there runs some sort of a blogging school and had a student hit the big time.

The guy's name is Alborz Fallah and he runs this nifty little car review blog down in Australia.  The site has become so big that it was recently valued at $5 million which is pretty absurd for a blog, especially since he is still running it like a blog.

I don't actually believe any sports blog out there could be valued at that price tag, but still, you can see how important blogs have become to consumers and even big corporations.  The guy gets to drive every elite car on the planet now and pulls in a solid $500K or more per year.  Not a bad deal?

On a side note, if you want to see something hilarious, watch this video of Yaro flying into Vegas.  The guy needs to unplug from the PC once in a while it sounds like to me...


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Posted 7/25/08 - Kellex

Yes and they slapped us with a PR3 which we will gladly take!  Our first venture received a PR5 after just a few months but it also had a ton more exposure and linkbaiting pieces galore to generate a ton of love.  But like I said, we'll take a PR3!

Everyone remember to check those PageRanks using either the Google Toolbar or one of the new Firefox plug-ins I suggested a couple of weeks ago.  (Funny thing is that my Firefox plug-in showed my PR last night before the Google Toolbar did.)


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Posted 7/24/08 - Kellex

Perfect timing for the latest series from Mitchell!  Last night and this morning we completed the transaction of Le Basketbawl out of our hands and into a new owner's.  The deal has gone absolutely flawless so far and the new owner was very easy to work with.  (I even think we were decent enough too!) The new owner will make a post over there shortly to let everyone know their plans. 

Saying Goodbye

We had a blast over at Le Basketbawl, but I've got to admit, seeing it go is like a huge weight lifting from my scrawny shoulders.  (Ok, not that scrawny...)  We put so much work into that bad boy over the first 4 months and then this thing started up and took all of our time away.  It ercked me everyday to think about it just sitting there wasting away without any activity or fun posts.  I tried to find writers, but none ever really panned out and then I tried to dive back in and actually brought it back for a month and then I realized this blog was suffering.  At that point I had to make a decision on which would possibly be more successful in the long run for us...obviously you know the answer to that now.

The Future!

I have some interesting things envisioned for the future of this site that I'm willing to take a stab at.  Are they risky?  Possibly.  But are they worth it if they work out?  You better believe it!  As much as I preached about this blog in the beginning being "one of a kind" and all that blah blah-ness, I actually believed it and still do.  My approach hasn't really changed except for a few tweaks here or there.  Much more is on the horizon people, I hope you'll stick with me!

Can you imagine, the Sports Dollar being my only blog-child?  With all my time devoted, just to it?  MUuahha!


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Posted 7/24/08 

Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog, which can be bought for $80,000, and Stumbler who can be added here.

Part 1: How Much is My Site Worth

Inspired by Kellex’s quest to sell LeBasketbawl, I have decided to write a 5 part series on how to sell a blog. Take note, Kellex.

The first question you would want to ask when selling your blog is, how much is it worth? Don’t want to get ripped off.  There are some sites like DN Scoop that claim to value blogs. My blog, Juiced Sports Blog, for example, is worth $23,484 according to DN Scoop.  Since it makes about $120 a month, it would take just 196 months, or 16 years, to make back that investment…

Needless to say, any site that claims to value your blog will inflate its value tremendously just to get links.

Most people buying a website will look at a website as an investment. How long will it take to make a profit from buying that site? Most sites are sold for between 10 and 20 times monthly earnings. Since The Sports Dollar earns about $500 a month, Kellex could sell it for about $10,000, and the buyer would earn his initial investment back in 20 months assuming it keeps earning that much. (Not that he’s selling this site, just an example.)

Site valuations are affected by other sources as well. The money needs to be consistent, of course; you won’t earn $500 one month after earning $100 the past five then be able to sell for $10,000. How well the site is ranking in Google, its PR, other things of that nature will also impact the price. It’s all about making money when buying a site, and the less work you have to do on the site, the more your going to be able to earn.

Therein lies the problem with selling a blog. With most types of sites, you get a lot of search engine optimized pages, content, direct traffic, etc, coming to your site for a specific purpose that isn’t time sensitive. When it comes to a blog, you have to update every day. Naturally, that takes a lot of work, thus narrowing your potential buying audience and decreasing value. If you could make $500 a month by doing nothing on a site, you are freed to work on another site and earn money from there, but with a blog, you have to update every day. You have to factor your time into the expenses of running a blog or any business.

And when it comes to selling a sports blog, that would be even harder because sports bloggers are not typically known for their desire to earn money and to have money. They don’t have as much money to spend on buying blogs.

Because of these obstacles, you’re going to have to decrease expectations a little selling your blog. Instead of targeting 20 times earnings as your sales price, you might have to sell for closer to 10 times earnings.
However, there are many ways you can increase selling price before you make a deal. I will cover some of those methods in my next post in two days.

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Posted 7/21/08 - Kellex

It sure is!  I know that we've claimed all along that Le Basketbawl is our baby, but the time has finally come to focus solely on the Sports Dollar and its potential to become the next big thing.  Le Basketbawl will always have a part in our blogging hearts, but if we can't devote the right amount of time and effort to it, then we'd rather see someone else.

Here is the post over at Le Basketbawl and you can also contact me through our form if you have questions on it.

Stats:

• URL:  http://www.lebasketbawl.com
• Page Rank:  5
  
• Established: 12/28/07
• Page views/month: 18,000
• Uniques/Month: 14,500
• Pages Indexed in Google:  4,930
  
• Yahoo Backlinks:  8,609
  
• Unique Articles:  266
• Subscribers:  27-30
• Platform:  Blogger

This is an NBA basketball blog that has had a ton of exposure in just its first 7 months being up and live.  In February alone it topped 60,000 pageviews and has been linked to sites like Yahoo's Ball Don't Lie, Sports Illustrated's Extra Mustard, and the Big Lead on a regular basis.

Thanks again!


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Posted 7/21/08 - Kellex



Boy do people love to read about money!  Last week I chose to post an income report for this site to give people an idea of how we are doing but really to help generate some buzz around sports blogs and the fact that sports blogs can really make money too.



When I say generate buzz, you probably have no idea what these income reports can do, do you?  You may have seen some of the "pro blogger" income reports and by the number of comments received on them, you should have a pretty good idea of their power.  (John Chow's last report received 224 comments which is just ridiculous.)  Ours on the other hand has 15 which for this little blog, means some pretty good conversation!



In other ways, income reports tend to blow up social media sites like Digg,  BallHype and of Stumble Upon.  Just an hour ago, I posted the report to Stumble Upon and thanks to the 58 friends I have took off like wildfire. Here is a neat little screenie:

 

(In case you haven't seen a Sitemeter report before, that is the 23rd hour of the day, not the 23rd of the month.)

Now I've had things do well on Stumble Upon, but never quite like this blog income report just did.  In about 30 minutes, it sent me 400+ visitors which led to almost 800 pageviews!  I can give half the credit to the report itself but the rest of it has to do with the network I've built through the service.



So what can we learn from this?

1. Buzz-worthy material, even if not the same level as a big dog, can still generate you some much needed traffic after a weekend away in Vegas!


2. Continue to utilize the major Social Media sites like Digg and Stumble Upon; they aren't going anywhere any time soon people, but use them wisely!


3. You better start networking on Stumble Upon!  My 58 friends aren't nearly enough, but you can still see how much they helped me.  Add me as a friend now and we'll take over together!
   
   

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Posted 7/18/08 - Kellex

Wow…I’m not really sure what else to say about the newest flick in the Batman series.  Christian Bale is easily the best Batman ever and will most likely never have that title taken away.  Christopher Nolan as the director does such an amazing job at grabbing the darker yet deeper side of Batman than any of the directors before him. (Makes me sick to think of what Joel Schumacher did to this series of movies.)  And man, Heath Ledger is ridiculous as the Joker and actually scared the hell out of me a couple of times.



The movie was a little long and that could have been the fact that I was in a theater last night at 3 AM, but it resembled Batman Begins with the fact that the movie could almost have been broken up into 2 separate flicks.  I’m glad they didn’t!  Your eyes just become glued to the screen even when your body and mind should have been 3 hours into a deep sleep.  I’m notorious for falling asleep during movies, but never once did I even blink at this picture.



Opening night at any movie can be a disaster but I had never see anything like I saw last night.  The theater we see our movies at ended up showing the Dark Knight in about 10 theaters with some showings returning for 3 AM slots.  Almost every showing was sold out and this thing has got to be breaking records by the time this weekend is over.  The Indiana Jones and Transformers premiers haven’t got sh%t on Batman. 



I won’t go into details on the movie because I hate spoilers, but people, you need to see this.  And please don’t wait until next weekend or for DVD; it’s just too perfect of a picture.



“Wow.”





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Posted 7/18/08 - Kellex



Over the past couple of weeks I took to dropping cards via Entrecard again to try to gain a top 3 position in the Sports category, help bump up some traffic, and to see if anything has changed since we quit the service a month or so ago.  Entrecard seems to continue to grow even though multiple people have documented their disgust with it as a “waste of time” by thinking they could probably spend their time working on legitimate traffic building techniques.  The numbers don’t lie people…for whatever reason people continue to blow this site up and according to Compete.com’s stats on them, they almost eclipsed 1 million visitors last month.

I was one of those people that figured I could use my time more wisely (which was true) and also thought I had grown above and beyond what Entrecard had to offer.  What I’ve come to realize now is that Entrecard is not a waste of time and you can’t grow above something that has grown in the ridiculous proportions that it has.  I do think it has its place in the blog world and I may even continue to use it for a few more weeks but eventually I think I’ll be back to where I was a month ago.



The nice thing is, if you really spend some time with it and encompass yourself in its community, you can meet some great people and also drive some decent traffic to your blog.  Over the last couple of weeks I dropped my 300 cards per day and within a few days had my blog in the top 5 for Sports, but still have been unable to grab that top 3 spot over a few of the long standing suckers (James…Stan, hate you!) won’t seem to give in to my wrath.



I will say that dropping those 300, buying a ton of cheap ads and showing a little bit of love can easily get you 500 visitors in a day.  Who can complain about that?  It may be as many have said, the “wrong kind of traffic” but I’ve gained 7-8 subscribers in the last week or so since using the service again and I’ve also had a ton of comments from new people that I only know through Entrecard.



Like I said, I’m sure I’ll be over the service in a matter of a weeks, but I know that I can always gain some decent traffic, a few more subscribers, and pump up my Yardbarker earnings just by taking 30 minutes out of a day.  What’s 30 minutes anyway?



Here are some other things you should know about Entrecard…



Sez Who Partnership

Entrecard has announced a new partnership with Sez Who, a comment ranking program/company (whatever the hell you want to call it) to try and rid the world of fast droppers.  The partnership is geared towards having people take the time to actually comment on blogs again and build up a rank through Sez Who rather than just drop and close with those amazing CTRL+W’s and CTRL+Tab’s! 



Other Changes



Here is another list of changes you’ll see at Entrecard that seems to have continued to draw people in:



-Selling 125x125 site-wide ad spots for a pretty reasonable price

-Opportunity to purchase more Entrecard Credits (personally I thought this would fail)

-Much easier navigation to sites through your “Drops Inbox” or through “Campaign”

-A ton of contests via the Entrecard Blog



James, I know you are all about Entrecard.  Any feedback or tips you can give people that are still into using the service on a daily basis?





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Posted 7/17/08 - Kellex



What up!  The start of the 2008 NFL season is just weeks away and our buddy James over at NEPatriotsDraft.com was kind enough to ask us if we wanted to participate in a weekly-blog-collaboration-ranking-system-thingy and of course we accepted!



We may be huge NBA fans and have our own blog in that biz, but we have had many, and I mean many thoughts on starting our own NFL blog because of our love affair with it.



Our guess-timation of the rankings along with a few others will be pulled together by James and posted on his blog in one big NFL ranking pot.  He asked that we give reasoning for one team each week as to why we put them in their particular spot.  Once he's done his first rankings, we'll give you a link!



Here we go...

1. Jacksonville Jaguars*
   
   


2. New England Patriots
   
   


3. Indianapolis Cults


4. Dallas Cowboys


5. San Diego Chargers


6. Pittsburgh Steelers


7. New York Giants


8. New Orleans Saints


9. Cleveland Browns


10. Seattle Seahawks


11. Buffalo Bills


12. Minnesota Vikings


13. Green Bay Packers


14. Philadelphia Eagles


15. Tennessee Titans


16. Washington Redskins


17. Baltimore Ravens


18. Cincinnati Bengals


19. Houston Texans
    
    


20. Denver Broncos


21. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
    
    


22. Miami Dolphins


23. St. Louis Rams


24. Carolina Panthers


25. Chicago Bears


26. San Francisco 49ers
    
    


27. New York Jets


28. Kansas City Chiefs
    
    


29. Arizona Cardinals


30. Oakland Raiders
    
    


31. Detroit Lions


32. Atlanta Falcons

*The Jacksonville Jaguars come in ranked as my number one simply because this ranking system will belong to NEPatriotsDraft.com and it's just not right to give him that much love by having his own team ranked #1.  Plus my boy MJD and Ol' Gold Grill Taylor will still be runnin' all over the AFC!



I promise in the next list that I'll actually give a legitimate reason.





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Posted 7/17/08 - Kellex

Check out this site!  This would be the newest competition to the Sports Dollar!

I'm actually a part of this site through my NBA blog and haven't really found all that much success with it, but it did at least give me some quality links a while back.  I actually just posted on my other blog about a $100 contest that this site is giving away to NBA bloggers which may be worth a glance.

But the reason for this post is that they have a "make money" section which means someone else has caught on to this idea.  Good for them!

They are also attempting some sort of a revenue sharing idea which is basically them allowing you to put your on Adsense ads on blog posts that you write for them.  Not a bad deal I guess, except that Compete.com is saying they racked in a  whoppin' 1,100 people last month.

Anyway, check them out as I'm pretty sure they have sites for every single sport or team you could think of and it may be worth a look.


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Posted 7/16/08 - Kellex

After I reported on my June income, I noticed that a few of you wondered more about the affiliates we use and also mentioned that you need to be using more of them.  For the purpose of this blog, I tend to see the most success with PepperJam and Clickbooth by referring new users on to their specific services.  The services work great for me, but are lacking a ton of sports minded opportunities right now.  LinkShare would be my suggestion for sports blogs to take a look at if they need an affiliate network that offers a ton of different sports programs.

PepperJam Network

PepperJam will likely provide you with more sports options in the near future due to their dramatic growth over the last few months.  You can see their early success just by checking out the $10 sign on bonus they are running right now that everyone in the blog world is promoting like crazy.  They tend to offer programs with higher payouts than most other affiliate networks which is why I keep promoting their use.  PepperJam continues to be our biggest affiliate and from the looks of it will continue to stay that way.

Clickbooth

Clickbooth on the other hand is a different type of network.  We make our money from it by referring people to their service and that’s about it.  I’m not saying that you shouldn’t join it and browse around at the thousands of different options they provide, but they are lacking any sort of sports category.  Clickbooth seems to really focus on email campaigns and ringtones; if your audience is into that sort of thing, then check ‘em out.

LinkShare

LinkShare offers bloggers a chance to work with most of the big sporting good stores for each sport and should be your choice if you are looking to sell sporting goods.  Commission Junction is another big one but LinkShare seems to offer the types of products your NFL, NBA or MLB readers would be into purchasing.  This blog is not necessarily geared toward selling sporting goods products which is why we only serve up one banner to LinkShare and that will hopefully be going away soon.

I hope that gives you all an idea of the affiliates we use and possibly an idea on what you could consider for your blogs.  If you have any other questions, feel free to drop me a line or leave a question via comment.

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Posted 7/16/08 - Kellex

Back during the NBA Finals, I blogged like crazy about the new service BlogBurst and how it actually can bring in some solid traffic to your blog.  The service geared up during the NBA Playoffs and Finals and seemed to really be pushing for basketball blogs to write for their service.

Well after Le Basketbawl was llinked from their

service a couple of times to NBA.com and some other sites during the second quarter of this year, I ranked in their top 100 sites!  They sent me this nice little email:

Dear Kellex,

For the 2nd quarter of 2008, your blog ranked among the top 100 BlogBurst blogs in both headline impressions and click throughs posted to our publishers’ sites.  Congratulations and thank you!

Ranking in the top 100 sounds neat and all, but I just barely made it coming in at a whopping 99th.  So for coming in 99th, they decided to hand me over $50, which of course I gladly accepted!  Not sure what the other ranked blogs took home, but I'm guessing that the higher you were ranked, the more money they shelled out.

Anybody else have fun with their service and come in the top 100?

Oh, and you know what?  I just published the blog's earning report and now I realized that I included this $50 in the total but it was earned on Le Basketbawl and not this blog...Whoops!  Subtract it from the total which brings it down to $500.43.  Sorry for that discrepancy!

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Posted 7/15/08 - Kellex

Blog Income Report:  June 2008

I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, but what the hell right?  The whole blog income report has run rampant in the blog world and seems to have become some sort of bragging opportunity for many bloggers.  Actually it serves as more than that which is why I figured I would share.

June marked our third full month and even though ran as our slowest traffic and writing month, came up as our biggest earnings month to date.  We thought it was worth sharing and also thought it was a way to prove that what we’re doing in this blog and teaching you really does work.  Of course this blog is no where near the size we’d like to see it at, but over the next 6 months should be pretty close to where we think it can get.

Summary of earnings:

Private Ad Sales:  $289.20

Affiliate Earnings:  $48.23

Reviews:  $100.00

Misc. Earnings:  $113.00

Total:  $550.43

So not historic numbers by any means, but I’m satisfied with them.  We’ll see if we can double that amount in the next few months.  I’m guessing this will be the last time in a while I do one of these reports because I can’t stand them, but just felt it was time to show you that I’m not completely just some babbling fool, even though certain people may feel that way. 

Thanks again everyone for helping this blog grow to a pretty decent size in such a short time.  PepperJam continues to be our biggest affiliate earner and remember you can get a $10 sign-up bonus if you join them during the month f July!  You can find our other list of money makers through our “Make Money” page if you need to see any of the services we used for this report. 

Let me know if you have any questions!

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Posted 7/15/08

Mitchell Blatt, owner of Juiced Sports Blog and active stumbler.  Add him here to improve your Stumble profile and success.

How I Increased SE traffic by 400% a few weeks ago.

Yes, I increased my search engine traffic by a lot this month, but sadly it is now dying down.  People aren’t searching for CC Sabathia much anymore… However, it did help me a lot while it lasted.

I had written quite a few posts about Sabathia in the weeks leading up to his trade.  Since I had already written about the fact that he was getting traded before it was big news, Google noted me as an authority for CC, so my posts ranked high for keywords like “Sabathia trade” even after the competition got higher when the trade actually went down.

Going into the Sabathia trade, I had the advantage of having a friend doing some anonymous source work on the trade, so I reported on June 23 that Sabathia would get traded here and had a few updates: Sabathia posts.  However, even if you didn’t have an inside source, you could have written about the rumors.  If you have posts early on, weeks before news breaks, that have some age and some links, you will get a boost when that news does break.

Here are some of my SE numbers for various keywords the week of the trade:

Sabathia trade-102

Cc sabathia trade-69

Cc sabathia traded-27

c.c. sabathia trade-24

cc sabathia trade rumors-22

sabathia traded-20

Now, I only had one keyword in the triple digits, but I had a total of 222 keywords containing the word “sabathia.”  You really hit the long-tail when reporting news stories, so I had keywords like “who will sabathia” and “what about the sabathia trade?”  Google analytics even gave me credit for getting hits from “cc sabathia traded to dodgers,” even though it listed 0 hits from that keyword.

I also had a report on how the player to be named is going to be Taylor Green, so I got 210 visits from Taylor Green-related keywords, including the inane keyword “+ ‘c.c. sabathia” + trade ‘+taylor green’”

Another good thing about ranking high for newsworthy keywords is that you get linked by people who searched for the news, so I got linked by Scout.com a few times and a lot of other blogs.

So, If you want to build search engine traffic, one strategy is to look to the future, and optimize for that.

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Posted 7/14/08 - Kellex

After a long weekend with the family back in Montana, I found closure in the life of a grandparent, saw a ton of family I hadn’t seen in years, and realized some big things on the horizon in my personal life that I need to take care of (soon).  Even as a sad time with family and friends, I couldn’t have asked for a greater refresher to gear up for the summer and really start to work on some things. 

This blog had some great growth and potential during its first couple of months and then I sort of hit that 3 month wall that most blogs tend to ram head on into.  (Luckily I dropped her into neutral and sort of coasted rather than just destroying the hell out of it!)  I started leaning back towards my NBA blog while leaving this blog with the bare minimum because of the NBA Finals, had a tiff with an “anonymous” commentator, writers’ block, and renewed a love affair with the game of golf.  Oh yeah, and the sun finally appeared here in Oregon!

All of that led to a lackluster month of June and I apologize.  Please don’t completely run away now, because I promise, things will be back to normal!  It’s good to be back just before the NFL season kicks into gear and the Olympics are inching onto our shoulders.  There is a ton to write about and hopefully I can continue to tickle your brain with some of this sports blogging for money idea!

On a side note, I also need to apologize for forgetting my camera and not snapping pictures of my home town as it is easily one of the most beautiful places on the planet.  Feel free to send me a few hateful comments, because I deserve them!  And if you have a chance, do some Google searches on Whitefish, Montana to see what I’m talking about.

Lastly, give your parents, grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and kids a big ol’ hug!

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Posted 7/9/08 - Joshua

Myspace is marketed as a social networking site, but it can be used as a professional networking site as well. Now I have told all of you that any sports blogger better have a personal Myspace, and a blog Myspace. Now I want to make sure we are all using all the tools there.

Does anyone know how I happened to come to write for the Sports Dollar. I would love to say I was so awesome writing that the Sports Dollar came to me and said we got to have you, however I actually contacted them through an ad I saw on Myspace.

On your Myspace home page there is a jobs section. Go click on it and you will find a searchable database of all kinds of jobs. I have configured mine to search for all kinds of sports jobs. Everyday I see who is looking for sports people in all kinds of capacities.

Networking Features

Now there is also an additional networking feature in your profile settings. There you can set up a network request for other sports bloggers, other writers, and in my experience I find that many NASCAR people and other writers have found my profile through this feature.

Buy Your Friends

The next tool is fairly new to Myspace and this is the buy your friends application that is more of a game then anything else. However once you buy some friends you can change their headline to anything you want. This is good because you could buy the MLB website; something a lot of people see and change their headline to the URL of your blog.

The number one thing people seek in advertising is the level of saturation any marketing campaign can bring. When I worked for the Detroit Demolition I negotiated a contract with our local cable company to broadcast our games on their local video on demand channel.

I also signed them up to be the team’s major sponsor in return they ran a number of local ads, and the number one thing I wanted was a high level of saturation. I wanted local sports fans to see Demolition ads 5 times a week, or at least once or twice per day.

Using the buy your friend’s application you can do the same thing. Go out and get yourselves a high saturation of free ad space. It really works.

For an example of this please visit my myspace:

http://www.myspace.com/joshualobdell

I would be happy to add you all as friends and for you to see an example of using myspace tools.


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Posted 7/8/08 - Kellex

If you are still listing your site's email address on your blog, it may be time to reconsider your reasoning behind that.  Exposing your email to the world can cause you a major headache in the long run especially if your blog starts to take off and receive thousands of visitors per day.  

You can expect spam, spam and more spam to an email address that you most likely wanted to remain as clean as possible.  A contact form is a nice alternative to just slapping your email address out to the public world.  Plus, did you really want to get looped onto someone's mailing list of irrelevant posts to Digg or Stumble?  

Check out Wufoo as a contact page service.  If you are using Blogger, this is probably your best option and the option I use on this blog.  It is completely free to sign up for with the free account allowing you to have up to 3 different forms which means you can use this one account to cover forms for each of your blogs.  (Unless of course you're a lunatic and have time to manage more than 3!)

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Posted 7/8/08 - Kellex

John Cow (not Chow) just got done with their little blog building competition against Garry Conn and wound up whooping his ass.  So during the competition, they documented the entire thing to allow you to follow along with their steps on how they take a blog from its beginning stages through to the big time. 

The posts were very informative and should have given bloggers on any level a good learning experience.  In fact the series of posts were so good that they happened to be perfect for an E-book which they just released.  To get the book, you need to go to John Cow dot Com and subscribe to their feed via email.  I have the link, but if I give it to you they will probably sue me or something.

I definitely learned a lot, so I advise that you check it out.  Sorry that you have to subscribe though...

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Posted 7/7/08 - Kellex

Happy Monday to everyone! I wanted to give you all a quick update for what to expect this week. I've had an unfortunate situation happen and will be heading back to Montana for the week to be with family. During this time, I'm just guessing that I won't be on a regular schedule whatsoever and have no idea how many posts or anything will be released. (Did I just say on a "regular schedule"? Oof.)

The goal right now is to turn this week into a tips, tricks and tools week. Or now that I've typed that, maybe it should be called the "TTT", "Triple T", or "Tri-Tip" week. (Added to post title!)

I'll fill the week up with any little tip, trick, or tool that I use on either of my blogs and that you should think about checking out. Writing about these is quick and easy and should give us all a refresher on some basics that would be a good idea to look back on from time to time.

If anyone has a lovely guest post or rant they'd like to release, feel free to hit me up via email or Contact form and I'll see about sliding you in. Otherwise, have a great week everyone and we'll be chatting soon!


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Posted 7/6/08 - Kellex

Sharing my 4th of July as the wonderful Ms. Dove tears it up with Roman Candles! (Of course I'm biased.)



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Posted 7/6/08 - Kellex


Is Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) becoming somewhat of a powerhouse online? After UFC 86 took place tonight, Google Trends blew up with people searching for the results of the competition with a majority searching specifically for the winner of the "Rampage" Jackson vs. Griffin match. (Sherdog results!)

I know money makers like Shoemoney are all over the MMA scene with sites like Fighters.com and usually when the big dogs start something, there is a pretty good chance it could take off or already has.

Personally, MMA does nothing for me and I'd rather watch a big time boxing match, but to much of the rest of the world, MMA is "it". MMA sort of reminds me of NASCAR and will probably conitnue to grow exponentially in the next few years only to level off once they feel they may be too big for their britches.

This is an interesting niche to watch as the sport and its fans become more "mainstream" and legit. For more UFC results, take a look at ESPN's coverage which is also starting to take off.


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Posted 7/4/08 - Kellex

What's up! It's the Fourth of July weekend and I'm not sure there will be many posts...sorry!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll have a chance to relax and put together some new stuff but with all the festivities, you just never know what's going to happen. I hope everyone has a safe and wonderful night! Leave the Roman Candles with the big kids!

Peace.

Posted 7/3/08

Guest post written by Aaron of Daily Basketball; a must read for any serious NBA blogger or fan.

As any statistics-obsessed blogger already knows, there are three types of traffic: direct visitors, referring visitors, and search engine traffic. Gathering direct visitors and referring visitors can be considered an art; write enough quality content, and you'll gain a strong readership and get rewarded with a lot of links. Search engine traffic, however, is a lot more mysterious for many bloggers.

Assuming you'd like to increase your search engine traffic, I'd like to share a hint that has worked well for Daily Basketball in the past.

For a week or so this past June, the most popular page on my blog wasn't the home page. It was "34 Reasons to Cheer for the Boston Celtics". I wondered why this happened, so I check out my trusty stats program. During the NBA Finals, I had over 2000 visits to my site from people searching for "paul pierce."

In contrast, I'm pretty proud of myself ranking #2 on Google for the keywords "basketball blog," but I don't receive a lot of traffic for my high ranking there. Probably one-tenth of what I received compared to the Boston Celtics post a couple weeks ago.


Anyway, on to my hint for bringing search engine traffic to your blog or site. Write posts about keywords with a high-volume of search queries. Spend less time worrying about ranking high for extremely specific terms. The topic should be related to your site, but general in nature.

Let's refer back to the Boston Celtics story above. I couldn't find my blog post in the top five pages of the Google results page for "paul pierce". When you're dealing with extremely high volumes of traffic, you don't need to be on the front page of the results to bring tons of visitors to your site.

One site that can help you find popular search terms is Google Trends. You can find a list of the top 100 search terms for every day. While most aren't relevant, you should be able to find something particularly interesting to the sports audience.

Take a look at your statistics and find what keywords people are using to come across your blog. Hopefully, you'll be able to find the post(s) that brought those readers to your site. Find out where your site ranks well, and what your readers are searching for.

A quick review: remember to find high-volume search keywords. Don't worry about finding your way to the front page of the results. Write your posts about keywords related to your blog that have tens of millions of interested visitors, if not hundreds of millions. Yes, those keywords are out there.

You'll have to experiment, but once you hit the niche, you'll be rewarded with a stream of interested readers.


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Posted 7/2/08 - Kellex

Anyone can spit out some junk on the NFL or NBA and call it a sports blog right? But not just anyone can take a blog from the bottom and raise it to the top of their niche and make a difference or make people say, “Damn dude, that’s legit!” I see sports blogs come and go almost daily and it’s usually because of the same things.

Most bloggers start out with a vision to make it big, have an online presence that is felt, and pull in some huge cash. Unfortunately, all three of these dreams are unlikely to happen to about 95% of us because of the competitive nature of the business. You have to be something pretty special AND focused to reach the top and to help you get there I’ve put together 5 areas you should look at to help not only grow, but maintain a worthwhile blog.

1. Who is the best in your niche?

Everyone should know who the big dogs are in their niche. If you are unaware of whom the top blogs are, then you are completely out of touch and should possibly stop what you are doing and do some quick research. Big time blogs are there because they’ve broken through and are providing something to thousands of readers that no one else is. You can pull from these blogs and while you are just starting out, you should probably be mimicking a lot of what they are doing. As a blogger without experience, you probably shouldn’t be trying to reinvent the wheel, right?

2. Do you know your sports social media sites?

If you haven’t heard of BallHype, YardBarker, Stumble Upon and Digg, then once again you need to shut down those dreams and find yourself a Google Toolbar to do some searching. These social media sites will be your greatest tools as a new blogger to help you reach an audience you couldn’t dream up. If you play your cards just right and put out some entertaining pieces from time to time, you will find these sites extremely useful. Trust me.

3. Have you found the top sports forums?

One thing almost every “tips & tricks” site will tell you is that you need to find a forum related to your niche. In this forum you will need to become an active member and provide worthwhile analysis and insight on your topics that will encourage readers to follow you from this forum to your blog. As a sports blogger, RealGM is probably your best bet to start with.

4. Are you getting to know any of your readers?

Your readers are the lifeline to your blog and without them, you’d have nothing. Always encourage participation through your posts and make sure to give your own thoughts and opinions. Readers can get unbiased opinions or recaps from ESPN; they come to your blog for your own personal, interesting perspective. Think about allowing guest posts, interviews, and polls to help keep them around and active.

5. Is your content worth anything?

When was the last time you wrote something and felt really great about it? If you are finding your blog lacking participation, growth and energy then maybe it’s time to switch gears. Your number of posts per day may need to be pulled back while you focus on writing some deep and meaningful pieces. Readers appreciate your knowledge, which is why they keep coming back. Don’t ruin their perception of you by not taking the time to give them everything you’ve got.


Time to join ClickBooth to help monetize your site, don't you think?

Posted 7/1/08 - Kellex

We've preached about PepperJam in the past and we'll probably continue to as it seems to be our biggest money maker. The network offers great payouts and various options to monetize your site with while not overwhelming the hell out of you. One downfall? It doesn't offer as many sports related programs as you'd hope for, but likely will with all of their ridiculous amounts of success over the last few months.

So why another post about PepperJam? They've decided to offer a bunch of new programs to make you a lot more money and to gain even more participation around the blog world.

And how are you going to make more money?


Refer People to Them!

For the month of July, they'll offer you an extra 40% on top of their normal referral leads if you refer new publisher accounts. Not bad eh?

$10 Sign-up Bonus!

That's right folks! You also get a solid $10 bonus just for signing up with them as a new publisher. In order to receive the bonus, you need to be approved as a PJN publisher, not have an existing PJN account, and click through on this "$10 Sign-up" Banner.



One More Added Money Option?

Yep! As a PepperJam publisher you'll have the option to make up to $50 per month just by writing about the network. Each time you write up a quick post on PepperJam, any of its tools and how neat you think it is, they'll give you $10! (5 times max per month people.)



Have you signed up for the PepperJAM Network and eBay.com, their newest affiliate?

Posted 7/1/08 - Kellex

Having issues today...will have some posts for you tomorrow.

In the mean time how bout joke day? I'll start and you can give one of your own via comment...

Joke:

What did the Zero say to the Eight?

-Nice Belt!