Popularity: 7% [?]

…. Yup. I can’t say I’m overly pleased to be feeling this way and it’s only Tuesday. Image that. I’ve been reading some blogs and wow - I’m blown away with their productivity. It’s insane. I don’t know how they have the time to do everything that they do online. I honest to God feel like I’m standing still next to them with the things that I’ve got on the go and then the crazy crazy life their leading.

See I do this to myself ALOT. I read blogs and feel like I’m not even competing. Maybe I’m not really. I am having this feeling not only with the things I’m doing online and seeing online, but also offline. I just can’t seem to get my shit together enough to actually pull it together lately. What’s wrong with me!! LOL.

I think I’m just being me and really I am motoring along, it’s just that whole “keeping up with the Jones” which can be awesomely motivating and sometimes crippling.

I’ve been working on marketing my product for the past little while and if you’ve been visiting 45n5.com, Mark’s got a new site up which is totally for advertisers/publishers over at ShowYourAdHere.com - I’ve added my site to his repetoire. We’ll see how it works out. I’m hoping you’ll be interested in buying some space - I’ve got it listed at $5 for one week and $20 for the entire 28 days. Not too shabby and it works on a beer budget (which I can so totally relate to!).

So another marketing option is available. I’m still loving that Scratchback plugin and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with Entrecard. (Um, yes it’s still here - see, told you I couldn’t figure out if it’s worth it or not… so it stayed).

I’m thinking of doing some text link ads on my own and see where that goes. Maybe re-arrange my layout a little and start focusing on things I’m into and doing at the moment rather than having one sad looking link at the top there. Times are a-changin’.

Popularity: 13% [?]

Since the end of November I’ve been doing a bit of online marketing for one of my websites.  I’ve never really whole-heartedly ever done this with any of my sites.  I’m really not sure why I didn’t apart from the whole lack of funds to do it.

I’m all for the free way of doing things - you know the whole SEO, leaving comments on relevant sites, and just trying to schmooze my way across the Internet.

I have to admit that schmoozing is not my thing.  I don’t have the time to do it.  I have tried and it works for a little while, but the thrill of the chase kind of wears off and there are other commitments I have that need to be done and I’ve not developed cloning so it’s just a one woman job.    Because I don’t particularly like it, I leave it and things end up waffling.

So I’ve been buying ad space on certain sites.  So far the results have been pretty good - I’m happy with where it’s taken me and I’m hoping that with more income from selling products that I can then expand on my marketing.  See that’s the catch - I don’t have a backup income source to put on the marketing, it’s basically what I sell and then a percent of that goes back into marketing and the business.

Makes sense right?

It’s just slow going currently.  I feel it’s slow… but maybe that’s the best way to start out.  I’ve been advertising on some 125×125 spots - and that’s been going well.  I’ve advertised through Scratchback - and that went well too.  Only a few of those sites where I’ve been doing well - took the scratchback plugin down.  AAAAAAHHHHHH.  Dumb.  Anyway - I’m hoping to do a bit more scratchbacks.  Scratchback for the most part is CHEAP ADVERTISTING and for the most part if people see the link and are interested they’ll click.

I’ve also been trying my hand at Entrecard for the site.   I’m still not too sure about this way of advertising, but since the site is new this gets some eyes on it that may not ever have known about it.  I’m not sure how long I’ll keep it up there - and I’m not even sure if I’m getting any conversions with it either… I wonder if there’s a way to track that?

Well, back to the marketing budget.  I know I’m going the cheap route and for the most part I’ve kept my budget at less than $100 each month.  Actually more like $50 a month - well, for February.  If things go well, I should have my budget back up to $100 and I’ll see where March takes me.

Do you have a budget?  How do you roll with it for advertising on sites?  Who do you use?

So many questions I know, but I’m curious if there’s something out there that I’ve not thought about yet, and maybe others haven’t either!

Popularity: 12% [?]

Yesterday I was checking my stats, which I’ve not done for a couple of weeks - which that on it’s own is weird because I’m usually a daily stats checker. I think it has a lot to do with me trying to prioritize things that I’m doing. I find that I’m often distracted from the task at hand and things take way longer to complete or I don’t get around too. I’m getting better - but it’s not perfected yet. But anyway… see totally off on a tangent!

Back to my stats.

On one of my sites that I’m trying to be more active in promoting has picked up quite a bit. I’m happy to see more traffic coming my way. I took a peek at where people were coming from to the site - to see if my advertising was paying off - was I getting clicks, etc. It was kind of funny to see on this site that someone had used an online keyword digger - not for the site itself but for Advertising. A few weeks ago I was using Google AdWords to do some promotion, and if you’ve been reading - you will have noticed that I stopped because they were asking for way more of a budget than I have on hand currently.

So currently I’m not running anything like that online - but this software that was used - checks that. Checks the keywords I’m running on my ads. Holy Crap. I don’t think I’ve ever been seen on that level of competition before. It’s interesting and this software is online - so you can check out the demo of it. It’s called Keyword Spy and to be quite honest I’m not sure what to make of it.

On one hand I think it’s pretty tricky and somewhat unfair. Maybe I’m looking at it from my point of view that I’ve spent HOURS looking up good keywords to use for my campaigns and their my keywords damn it. Then there’s that other part of me who thinks this is pretty darn cool and I want to use the service to SAVE ME TIME and see what I might be missing out on when it comes to wedging my way into this market. It’s not an easy game to play and I think this would be one way to level the playing field a little and maybe a little voyeuristic to see what other people are doing to market their sites within your niche… or whatever takes your fancy.

It’s not even that I meant to write about this, it was just really trippy that someone out there thought my site would be seen as competition. THANKS! It was just the ego boost this lady needed to know that I’m going in the right direction and maybe I need to turn on the PPC again - currently I’m doing alright, we’ll see how this month’s stats turn out. I’m looking to do a bit more 125×125 marketing since I’m seeing good clicks from those I’ve bought from so far.

The Keyword Spy program looks interesting and I’ve signed up to their affiliate program (as you can see) and I’m thinking of giving it a spin when the time comes to up the game a bit. I think apart from being slightly pissed that it’s so easy for someone to find the keywords I’m bidding on (after all that work), I’m kind of happy I found this software now, because I’m all for saving time. It’s a bit of a double edged sword I guess. But I’m leaning more towards trying it out. See where it takes me - see what new keywords I could try out on my limited budget, but it’s a start right. That’s what I need.

Anyway… I’m still happy that someone sees me as competition

Popularity: 21% [?]

Over at Shoemoney, you might have heard about EntreCard.  EntreCard is kind of like a virtual way to drop your “business card” on other sites that carry the EntreCard javascript code.

I figured I’d give it a whirl, because I saw this as a way for free advertising.  So I signed up and put the code on my site.  I was a little confused going through the site at first, because I was looking for what I needed to do to build up my points.   The more points you have the more places you can advertise on.  It didn’t take me too long to realize that to earn points you had to visit other sites that had signed up and “drop your card” on their site - and voila you get a point.

Handy thing is that this costs you nothing.

The business cards are 125×125 images.  This doesn’t seem so bad, since most sites I’ve come across lately have this as a method of advertising as well.  This also gets your site out there and on other sites that would probably cost a bit of money.

You get 1 day of advertising - and then they’re rotated through per day - all automatic.  All we have to do is approve the ad to be put on the site.  The approval system is easy and once you’ve kind of floated through the site, it’s not hard at all to get things going.

So far my only frustration is that some of the sites that are signed up do not have the javascript on their site.  So when I want to stop by and drop my card and earn a few points - I can’t because there isn’t anything there.  A bit of a time waster.   On the other hand this doesn’t happen … all that often.  But it is a pain in the butt.

Other than that, it’s a free way to market your site and get it on sites that you might never have heard of or figured was way out of your price range for advertising.

So far I’ve got it on two sites and I’ve managed to find quite a few cool blogs that I would never have heard of before.  Bonus for me

Popularity: 10% [?]