Image is Everything

These pictures are business networking cards, listed on Entrecard. They are suppose to represent their blogs category. One card is listed in gaming, one in careers and the others in making money online. I can decipher the marketing behind using a hot girl to influence a click, but nevermind how degrading and humiliating it must be to have to use that image in hopes of clicks. What about the guy pics? Do those images really say "click me, I know the way to make money online?" Your image represents you, your blog and what you have to say to the blogosphere. Do we really take these blogs seriously upon first looks? Are you clicking out of curiousity or do you believe they have the answer you're searching for? I'd be surprised if they were pulling in hundreds of visitors because the image told me it's a waste of time to visit these make believe blogs. And those blogs might have the answer; Originality and fresh perspectives.

Image is everything. It's your first impression or your last introduction.

John Chow Controversy Is Good Marketing

Everyone must know the comment John Chow made about Entrecard credits. How many people mentioned it in their blog? How many devoted an entire article about it? Well Kudo's once again to John Chow for hyping his name and getting everyone to talk about him. This marketing genius made one controversial comment and spun a web that touched thousands. The JohnChowlogist were upset that you were talking about their leader and tried to clarify his Entrecard comment; The antagonist wrote articles about it, therefore providing free advertising and tons of traffic back to his site; And his pseudo-followers, who have no interest in him, other than replicating his success, took a back seat and commented on everyone’s site looking for a backlink.

At first, I didn't understand why everyone was in an uproar over this comment. I visited John Chow dot com, read the article and continued onto several sites that wrote about this Entrecard comment. There were so many write-ups that I wondered if John Chow would rebutt, and he didn't. He watched everyone talk about him; mention his name and give him attention. He thrives on his name being thrust into the blogosphere. But the question remains, is John Chow's comment accurate? And did bloggers dislike the comment or the commentator?

The Big3 Review

Today, I'm pointing out the Big3 to visit. CK Marketing, MakeMoneyOnlinewithEJCooksey, and ImpNerd.

EJ Cooksey recommends information to help build and monetize your blog. Affiliate Marketing to Link Love and Traffic, you’ll find a wealth of information to help you. Now, as you already know, all of the marketing and money making blogs will offer you the same basic information. It's about different perspectives that you should look for. Each person has their unique way of building their site, so while the idea *may* be the same, you want some different concepts and different research methods to help you. Colin King, aka CK Marketing offers up advice and recommendations on things we've forgotten, such as "Deep Linking Comments" and “Social Networking.” I came upon ImpNerd’s website and love the easy flow and design. Simple and easy to read, no overbearing advertisements and the articles are fresh and new. Although, he is a typical Wordpress lover, I did enjoy the article “3 Easy Ways to Create Templates.”

So why do I recommend these 3 sites? Because all 3 offer help to make life easier for the novice to the more advanced. I give all 3 of these sites a Wink and a Nod. They all deserve a rank of 4.

I’m begging for someone to please add some tips for the “Blogger” AND the Wordpress sites. I know you’re a lover of Wordpress but hey guys! Many newbies use blogger! Cumon! Please!

Bloggers Magazine...Visit this blog!

One of the best up and coming blogs you must visit is the Blogging Magazine. His categories range from Making Money to Increasing Traffic and everything in between. It's definitely a journey you want to take to help build your site.

The home page jumps out at you with his impressive lists of 26 Wordpress tools to help build your blog. But I must admit, my one concern is that he leans solely towards Wordpress. I'm sure there are many "Blogspot" readers that would enjoy learning tips and tricks. Next, one of his articles that stand out is the "11 Tips for Leaving Comments on blogs Which Get Noticed." He provides something new and different to read and shows that he is thinking out of the box. I thoroughly enjoyed this site. You can see how much effort he puts into this blog. The design is sleek, no overbearing ads and flows nicely. While this site is too new to get pageranked by Google, I suspect the site will grow dramatically in the next 30-90 days. He is Worthy of a Wink and a Nod. I give this blog magazine a rating of 4 and look forward to some tips for "Blogspot" users that will complete this site.

Forgotten Blogs

These blogs have not been updated in more than a year, and the domain names are not available.

Last year, I wanted to start a blog called, "BloggingforDollars", but the name was already taken. This happens to the best of us and we move on to our next creation. But lately I began to wonder, what happens to those forgotten blogs that we become disinterested in and leave behind? What becomes of the domain name? It's much different when you purchase your own domain because you get a notice informing you of expirations. However, the free blogger systems don't expire the domains you choose. So although you have forgotten that first blog and sadly left it behind, the name continues on. The problem? Unless you delete that blog, no one can use that domain name. What a worthless effort to have a great idea and the name you intend on assigning your new blog is being held hostage; What's worse is to find out the blog that bears the name you desire has not been updated in years. The last entry is from 2004? The easy route is to see if any email address is listed and send a message to the owner. And finally, try emailing the host system and see if they can help you free that domain and make it proud!

How Now John Chow?

The Bloggerazzi stalks hundreds of blogs per day, separating the worthy from the wannabe’s. But blogging is big business where traffic rules. Affiliates will back crappy sites with the hopes of clicks and forget good content. Our blogging evangelist, John Chow encourages his disciples to create cookie-cutter sites, throwing up ghost-written articles and monetizing. Is that the expectations for today's blogging preneur? What about instrucing them to write quality content that they didn't cut and paste from another blog? Darren Rowse once quoted the internet being a place for elitists; however, I believe that message was lost in translation. For the founding bloggers whom became successful, it's about content and serving as a resourceful authority. The message becomes cynical when the evangelist, John Chow can get comments from his disciples after reviewing a restaurant. And more and more idiots bow and follow him, and he laughs all the way to the bank. Most of these newer blogging preneurs are nothing more than wannabes, serving no function other than advertising mirrored rip offs, all in the name of the Benjamin’s. Blog after blog delivers a "money making, traffic building" message that we clearly understood during our visit to the first 5 blogs we ventured into. And how many sites must I visit to understand that I can make money writing reviews from PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews and ? So I ask, How Now John Chow? Your disciples need wisdom to thrive with new ideas.

BlogZenith.com

Another site where your expectations are met. BlogZenith.com taglines says it all. “Blogging Essentials for the Beginning Blogger.” Several articles caught my attention, but one that stood out was “Bad Neighborhood,” which includes a link to a text link checker. Pay attention to this article. It’s worth reading. It details which sites you are linked to and which ones are detrimental to your page rank. A bit of humor or perhaps intervention is well mixed into the site and you should check out “How Addicted to Blogging Are You.”

My only apprehension is that the site leans to WordPress users and doesn’t incorporate more information to other free blogging programs. If you are providing the essentials for beginning bloggers it should represent a broader audience or change the tagline to include for WordPress. For example, in the article “What are WordPress Permalinks,” it obviously instructs only WordPress users how to benefit from their permalinks; however, I would like to see a mirror article for those using Blogger.com. This would present this site to become an authority for beginner bloggers. Overall, BlogZenith.com contains useful information and links to many blogging tools. The articles are easy to read, short and to the point. The design of the site flows nicely and boasts some healthy traffic numbers. This site is Worthy of a Nod. I give it a rank of 3 for now.