As I’ve been pondering the new BlogRush traffic building service (which I did a first impression review of earlier) over the last few hours I am increasingly thinking that it has potential to help bloggers find new traffic.
The bones are there for it to work – but how can you leverage it to increase your chances of converting for you and squeeze out some extra traffic for your blog. A few ideas (all untested at this stage) come to mind:
1. Optimize Your Titles – there are a number of things that will increase the chances of getting someone to click on a link appearing in someone else’s blog – but the title of your post will be most important. You have around 40 characters only to play with (before the widget cuts off your title) so think carefully about what you’re communicating about your post – particular in the first few words.
2. Choose the Right Category for Your Blog – when you sign up you’re given a list of categories to assign your blog to. My hope is that BlogRush will add more (as the more focused they become the more relevant ads will be). If your blog spans a couple of categories run with one for a few days and then swap to the other. I suspect that some categories will out perform others significantly due to the type of readers that they have and their tech savvyness.
3. Promote it Early on – this system is one that will be most beneficial to early adopters. While some are already spamming their referral links out to other bloggers via mass emails – one way to promote it and possibly pick up a few extra referrals is simply to place it in a reasonably prominent position on your blog and even to draw attention to it in a post. If some of your readers have blogs they’re likely to check it out too – which will exponentially increase the benefits for you. Just be aware that if you get spammy with your promotion of this (or any) service you could actually do more harm than good to your blog.
I’m sure there will be more tips – but my suspicion is that titles will be particularly key in the success or failure of BlogRush for many.
Do you get more “credit” if someone clicks on a link? I think you should. I know you get “credit” if you refer someone to sign up though.
I’m already seeing a change in my traffic since yesterday because of BlogRush. About 200 more unique visits than normal.
I put the BlogRush widget on my site and I’m really excited to see the results.
Like Darren said, title optimization is key issue to have success with BlogRush. I’ve noticed that my post titles aren’t that creative, but now I have a good motivator to create better titles :)
I have some concerns about BlogRush, although I’ve signed up and installed it because it does favor early adopters. I’ve written to BlogRush for answers to a couple of questions, the main one being: Does BlogRush accept paid links?
They don’t say that they do, but they don’t say that they don’t, either. They have to pay for operations somehow. They don’t even have a FAQ yet as I’m writing this.
I am giving it a test drive. It free why not?
Why is John Chow getting slammed again this week? Read my blog post to find out. You’ll be shocked!
My self I like this idea of having blogrush on my site. Building traffic seems to be a pain staking process and anything that will help is more then welcome.
So far I have received 6 separate emails from “Bloggers” lists asking me to sign up through their referral link. While it creates buzz it also flags it in my mind as spam. More so the way it is being promoted through 3rd party email.
For this to be useful to bloggers in generating traffic you need to find your hook to get the click to explore more than just the post they land on. Brings it back to prominent placement for RSS and showing your wares to keep the site sticky.
An interesting test will be to see what value the Blog Rush traffic brings.
Thanks For these tips
The problem with blogrush is that if your blog does not get enough traffic then blogrush wont help you much. I think the tool needs some work yet.
4.) Make a blog post about promoting using BlogRush.
I’d like to follow up on my previous comment. You can view more details on my post Second Thoughts on BlogRush, but basically:
John said on his blog that BlogRush does sell and display paid links (I had overlooked it). He spins it as selling leftover inventory, but I think that was the intention all along. I mean, you’ve got to have a revenue model, right? I have no problem with that, I just call ’em as I see ’em.
The lack of categories is perhaps my biggest grievance against this widget. Though there are others that you can read about in my post titled “What’s the rush?”. Hopefully they’ll hurry up and make some much needed changes. I believe the potential is huge, but it’s just not quite there yet.
My guess is that, unfortunately, sploggers will start to use it, overwhelm the BlogRush crew, and it i’ll become just like every other program out there… spam.
Some great tips, Darren. Sadly I’m not expecting to receive too many referral sign-ups. Being in charge of a video gaming blog obviously means I don’t receive all that many webmaster visitors…
Steve
I added BlogRush to my site and find that it suites my site just fine. I think that this is a great idea to share traffic with blossoming bloggers. No traffic yet. I agree Darren, the idea is a great founding start.
The links I’m seeing on my site are currently pretty good, and definitely right up my readers alley. Hopefully it doesn’t get overrun with spammers!!
My understanding is that they will have both automatic and human review, to try to keep out the splogs. Otherwise, it will never work.
Hmm, haven’t really spammed, I mean promoted by referral link yet. Will look into this later on.
BlogRush, yet another thing to keep us bloggers blogging like crazy.
I’ve joined but I hit a snag.
On one of my blogs it worked fine, but on the other blog I added the code but it keeps telling me I haven’t added it. There seems to be a problem with their system – perhaps because the second blog is a blogger xml blog with widgets and I added it using widgets. Can’t see why that should be a problem, but it frustrates me.
I’ve written to them so we’ll see what they have to say and monitor the traffic… If there is an increase that would be great!
I hit a snag using Blogger — the widget is too wide for the sidebar, so to keep from cutting it off you have to give it space at the very top of very bottom, at least using my template. Hopefully they’ll come out with some other widgets soon.
I agree that eye-catching titles are very important for anyone using this widget. But I believe that being one of the early adopters is even more important. This way you’ll get the best of the system before it is infected by spammers, which seems very likely to happen. On the other hand, John Reese is a competent guy, so let’s hope that his team will find effective ways to fight spam.
I won’t jump on this too early. I’ve had similar promises from BlogMad and other traffic exchanges, and little has happened. I want to hear some reviews first. Risky? I know.
Hmmm, I don’t know about this one. While the concept sounds great and, in theory, should bring in a good amount of traffic is used right – I’ve seen other such “traffic exchanges” and the traffic you do get from them is one-time hits so users can build their own credits. In other words, the traffic isn’t very sticky.
I’m also very wary of putting a third-party widget on my blog. I’m very careful what goes in the side bar. It seems like there’s a potential for a lot of spammers to take advantage of this fledgling new service.
I’ll keep an eye on it, but I’m gonna wait before signing up. I want to see how they respond to issues like spam, etc.
Am not too sure if targeted traffic ends up here
Another great post with much insight. I plan to try this service out soon so that I can be on top of the game here. I trust ProBlogger to keep me informed. Thank you!
No changes in traffic here, but my blog is still very new (only 1 week old) so I’m not really a good reference
It seems that it is not possible to remove a blog from the BlogRush account. Due to software malfunction my other blog was added twice …
I don’t understand why the rushed so much to launch the site. I looks as if they didn’t take care of basic stuff like deleting your blog, a customizable widget, etc, etc..
I think the others here have a point. This new site seems a little rough around the edges, and will it really help to get people to your site that want to be there? I have been trying all sorts of things lately to get traffic to my sites, and the biggest problem is getting people to stick. I am sure that a big part of that is my content, but also the places I get the traffic have a large effect. I have experienced very little comments from people on my blogs, but have gotten people to visit my site a decent amount. Traffic doesn’t really count if it doesn’t stick. I am new at blogging and website traffic, so I am going to try just about everything to see if I can get anything to work.
One main way I see of people abusing the credit system is to generate fake traffic to their sites (or perhaps to one post only) so they can build up their credits for other posts. I suppose BlogRush will deal with them soon enough (unique pageviews?), but does anyone know if they already do that?
So far I’ve just seen a ton of “Work From Home” ads which hurt my credibility (as a career blog). I’m going to give them several weeks to work out the kinks and refine their categories – then I’ll make a decision to hire or fire them!
does anyone already have some traffic report to share?
Thanks, I’m also giving this a test drive, used your referral link.
I am still on the fence about this… I think especially Andrew G.R.’s comment is the type of thing I would be worried about. I also am hesitant since you can’t remove an account from the site. I am anxious to hear some reedback after a couple of weeks of use from people. I just would hate to be an early adopter and it backfire with my blog being such a new blog and a passion project.
Hi,
I agree with most of these comments. This type of service needs to be ironed out before it can be presented to the public, since spammers are always going to be around and the categories need sub-categories, so that we don’t get traffic that we don’t want to our sites. Any traffic is good, but the traffic that is best are the people that want to read on a regular basis.
Thanks,
Richard
Thanks for the tips Darren; my blog, Blog Attack, recently just signed up for this so I’ve been looking for some pioneering bloggers with tips.
Beware of the use of blogrush. We were sceptical about the use of such a “traffic exchange” program and sent a question to adsense about the compliance with adsense TOS. Here is their reply;
Thanks for checking in with us. We don’t encourage or endorse the use of a program like this Thus, we’re unable to give specific advice regarding BlogRush.
I appreciate your understanding regarding this matter.
For additional questions, I’d encourage you to visit the AdSense Help
Center ( http://www.google.com/adsense_help ) or the official AdSense blog ( http://adsense.blogspot.com ). Alternatively, feel free to post your
question on the AdSense Help Forum (http://groups.google.com/group/adsense-help?utm_source=txft ).
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team
Prevent Fraud: If that’s true, that would certainly suck for Blog rush.
I Also Use This Tactics In Recent Past Times…. And Its Really Worth….Try It Guys….
My blogrush stat is Up!
I received more with my referral Network. :D
Credits Earned Last 30 Days: 6,304
From Your Traffic: 2,906
From Your Referral Network: 3,398
Hi Darren, now that the blogrush stats are out, will you be giving us a review on what you see for your stats; click through rates, the number of levels in your network, etc?
I’m going around blogs to gather information about these to complete my blogrush review lens at squidoo. “Heavy hitters” bloggers such as you are great candidates to be considered ;)
For me, I’m getting like 300 impressions to 1 click…hmm, and that’s after optimzing the titles and such.
Also, I don’t believe that it’s easy to reach 10 levels of referral; but maybe that’s just me. The thing is that this has a big implication on what the company claims as only getting 10% of the left-over ads space – I think it’s much much more than that if most heavy hitters are the company’s direct downlines (such that there’s no levels above them).
Of course, how much stats to reveal is your prerogative.
With an average view gather from these data, we can at least know how effective it is and that’ll help everyone in weight our options against other similar widget.
Thanks for considering!
Cheers,
Hans
I’m real excited about this service – however, when I tried to get the code it linked me to an email that is not even running anymore. I’m real frustrated. How do I get the code – I already sent them an email and haven’t heard back from them. Could you please contact me and help me with this? Thank you.
Hello,
I added the blogrush widget to my blog for test, but I don’t see results of increasing my traffic.
All good things,
Al
I was just doing some looking today. I clicked on some of the links in my BlogRush widget and almost 90% of the blogs that were listed on my site DID NOT have the BlogRush widget installed on their sites, ANYWHERE. How can that be? I know – this is probably beating a dead horse to death, but it seems a tad weird.
Nice article – I would like to see more tips like these. How about strategies for promoting it through commenting on others blogs?
So..I am hearing people concerned about blogrush breaking google TOS, Anyone have some insight on this? I do not see how, considering it is justa networked blog roll.
Actually, BlogRush has worked very well for me so far. Here’s the audio commentary I did on it recently:
BlogRush Audio Commentary
I just hope that they continue improving things, as well as listening to bloggers’ suggestions an comments. They seem to have done a fair job of that so far.
Shine on,
Aaron
One wonders why Mr Reese has disabled comments on the BlogRush blog. Now there will not be “bloggers’ suggestions an comments” Aaron.
Strange.
I have tried Blogrush and find it doesn’t offer nearly thr value of Stumbleupon. The nice thing about Stumbleupon is that is a great tool for the end-user (finding new sites and rating stuff they like) but also a very nice marketing tool for the blogger as well. Its rare that a social networking site would benefit both sides so equally. I’ll keep my eye on Blogrush (love the name) but I would bet including my link here will generate more clicks than they do. (lol click thru and let’s see!! but on the other hand, dont click if you are easily offended!)
http://iblogfat.blogspot.com/
Been thinking about trying it but waiting to see reviews like the comments in this thread. Google didn’t exactly give it an A OK.
Why can’t they give a straight answer to anything?