Popularity: 7% [?]

Its a well known fact that if you blog and provide valuable information on a consistent basic, leverage the effect with a few other marketing methods, you would be able to generate truckloads of traffic. Sounds easy enough. The problem arises when there is a lack of quality content to blog about. Every blogger faces the same problem, the problem of “Blogging for the sake of putting something up” Vs “Blogging and providing valuable content”.

Then again valuable content is subjective, for every niche, there are varying degrees of levels that your readership will comprise of - from beginner to advanced. And if you are positioning yourself as a certain authority within a certain niche, it is inevitable that sometimes the thoughts run dry.

Here I must admit, due to the heavy workload of projects that I have on hand. I haven’t been providing as much valuable content as I would have wished. Especially since this website/blog is not even meant to monetized (You don’t see affiliate links or google adsense galore do you?) as my money is made in other niches.

Hence there are moments that I envy those bloggers that just keep blogging daily non-stop. One of them I know is Charles Lau, even though he’s not a prominent blogger. He still finds the time to blog lengthly posts daily, sometimes even 2 to 3 posts a day. Without saying, his efforts are paying off and it sure seems like traffic to his blog has jumped by leaps and bounds. He was also kind enough to do a free video review of of this blog here. So if you are interested in having a video review done for your website/blog, you can engage his services for a small nominal fee.

Popularity: 11% [?]

We are proud to have our Strategy Vs Tactics article included in SharpBrains’ Blog Carnival titled: Carnival Of the Capitalists With a Brain. Packed full with nuggets of wisdom, you would definitely be able to relate the the meaningful articles covered there and apply them to your business. Special thanks to SharpBrains.com and reposted here for your benefit.

First, a puzzle. Why do we have the brains we have? specifically, why do humans have proportionally bigger and better connected frontal lobes (the blue area behind our foreheads) than any other species? The answer: to be able to learn and adapt to changing environments during our lifetime. Neuroscientists say that the frontal lobes are the “CEO of the brain”, and that we need that type of frontal lobes to exercise our so-called “Executive Functions” that enable us to 1) Understand our environments, 2) Set goals and define strategies to accomplish our goals, 3) Execute those strategies well.

Now, let’s see how all these carnival contributors are putting their frontal lobes to good use. Given the volume of submissions received, we had to be really selective. Enjoy!

1) Understanding our environment: macroeconomy, real estate slowdown, and lobbying.

James wonders, “Can the Fed begin as it must to cut the target rate and still avoid Tim’s slippery slope? I think so, and here’s how.”

Ian presents a forceful case that No, Greenspan Doesn’t Get To Rehabilitate His Reputation, at Firedoglake. Very timely post, given that Greenspan is releasing his book today.

“The recent sub-prime mortgage fiasco and its effect on our investments prompted us to reconsider our portfolio’s risk tolerance capability”, says FIRE Finance, outlining these Investment Risks at a Glance. Along similar lines, we can read that “I am not hoping for the market to get worse. I just know it will, because that is the nature of market cycles” at Is The Housing Crisis and Stock Market Decline Bad Enough Yet?, by My Wealth Builder.

If you wonder what may have contributed to the real estate mess growing so big, you may enjoy reading Pork: Wha’ss On The Barbeque In Congress Is Your Future. The Agonist says: “In the United States today, the simplest, easiest and safest way to make money is to bribe the government to pass laws or subsidies favourable to you. So let’s take a closer look at the intersection of capitalism and political corruption, American-style.”

Matthew presents the optimistic side of the coin: Why the Real Estate Market Slowdown is great for Consumers posted at Getting Green. “The housing correction we’re seeing will actually be quite healthy for the country, because it will move the country back to a place where home prices are more affordable for the average person.”

2) Setting goals and defining strategies:

Strategy Vs Tactics by Alvin: “Without a well thought out strategy, your business is merely like a person walking aimlessly in the dark.”

3) Executing those strategies: what to do, and what not to do.

a) At the Organization Level: systems, marketing messages and promotions, sales comissions.

Wally asks, “What do Toyota and the Roman Army have in common? They both rely on systems instead of heroes and talented geniuses to produce results. They both created systems that enabled ordinary people to produce world-conquering results.”. More on Romans, Toyotans, and Taylorians at his great post here.

Ever thought “OK, enough corporate blah blah blah”? Charles presents When On-message Marketing Makes for Off-trust Sales at Trust Matters, saying, “When you let your marketing department control your sales messaging you are likely to harm your sales because sales requires conversations, not “on message” robots who don’t engage with their prospects.” Pity that Al Gore didn’t read this post years ago.

Silicon Valley Blogger, over at The Digerati Life, dissects an example of a bad marketing promotion. Don’t do that-use your brain.

There is no business without revenues. There are little revenues without sales efforts. Still, Wayne needs to make the case for Sales commissions: Expense or investment? posted at Blog Business World.

b) At the Individual Level: words, puzzles, decision-making under fear, training our brains.

Edith presents 7 Phrases Successful People Would Never Say. This is is probably a stupid question, and you probably don’t have time for this, but can I go to the bathroom?. I hope I may.

Dawn at The Journal Blog has a thoughtful post titled This game of business: “running my business is a lot like solving a puzzle…just like the way I play Mahjongg, I’ll keep doing that over and over again until I win.” She may well be exercising her brains more than her five boys (fMRI picture shows active frontal lobes).

Brett at TraderFeed helps us Make Sound Financial Decisions Under Conditions of Fear. “Quite simply, our brains function differently under conditions of fear (and greed!) than under cooler emotional conditions. As a result, we can make decisions with our money that later (in our more calm modes) seem puzzling to us.” He suggests some great techniques.

Finally, I interviewed Dr. Judith Beck on How to Train Your Brain to Think Like a Thin Person. Even if you are not interested in weight loss, you will enjoy her insights on how to train our mindset to acomplish our goals…including managing that fear that Brett talks about.

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of the capitalists, which will be hosted at The Virtual Handshake Blog, using this carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

Popularity: 10% [?]

With the intense competition to get your online business a one up, its refreshing to be able to read magazines pertaining to internet marketing rather reading ebooks, listening to mp3 interviews etc. It sort of makes our job feel more “mainstream”, even though the money raked in does make it real.

Here are 2 internet marketing related magazines that you can get delivered to your door for free in the U.S (non-US residents can get their digital version for free).

Website Magazine

Got to know about this from Alice Seba of Internet Marketing Sweetie.  Because I’m not based in the U.S, i’ve been reading their digital version and it has tons of information including info about search engines, pay-per-click ads, software and lots more. You can pick up your free subscription to Website Magazine by clicking here.

Revenue Today Magazine

I only managed to get 1 copy of Revenue Today in one of the major bookstores in my country Singapore, but never got the chance to even see it on the magazines shelves again. Pity though, it was filled with nuggets of information. Revenue Today focuses on all aspects of the online marketing experience including, key business strategies, innovative marketing methods, effective online advertising techniques and emerging trends in technology. And with a huge portion always dedicated to affiliate marketing. So it’d probably be very interesting for majority of you out there.

You can pick up your free subscription to Revenue Today by Clicking Here.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Popularity: 7% [?]

John Reese the Million Dollar Day Man has just released “BlogRush”, a blog syndication network.

It promises to be “The Fastest And Easiest Way To Instantly Drive a Flood Of Targeted Readers To Your Blog…Absolutely Free!”

So what is BlogRush all about exactly?

Its basically a widget that you can add to your blog. And whenever your blog page loads with this widget, the widget will refresh and display 5 clickable blog post titles which link to other blogs. This links open a new browser window to the other blog so that your visitor doesn’t really leave your blog.

The blog posts shown will be related to the category you have chosen for your blog and customized according to proprietary technology used by BlogRush. At the moment, here are the categories that you can sign up under

• Automotive
• Business Career & Jobs
• Celebrity
• Computers & Internet
• Education
• Entertainment
• Environment
• Finance & Investing
• Food & Drink
• Health & Medicine
• History
• Hobbies
• Home & Garden
• Humor
• Law & Legal
• Lifestyle
• Marketing
• Music
• News & Media
• Parenting & Family
• Personal
• Diary
• Pets
• Philosophy
• Photography
• Politics
• Real Estate
• Religion & Spirituality
• Sports
• Technology
• Travel
• Writing & Literature
• Video Games

How is it beneficial to you?

That’s after all, the more important question. Each time your blog page loads, a new set of 5 posts are loaded in the BlogRush widget. And each time the BlogRush widget loads, you earn 1 syndication credit for your blog post to be displayed once on other blogs using the BlogRush Widget (related to your category).

Hence the more pages are viewed on your blog, the more syndication credits you chalk up which in turn leads to more exposure of your blog posts displayed on other related blogs.

So far it sounds like a pretty normal traffic exchange network. But here is where it gets really nasty and viral.

After you have the widget set up, say Visitor A clicks on the “Add Your Blog Posts-Free” or BlogRush Logo displayed. Visitor A would be taken to the signup page for BlogRush, and should he/she sign up. Visitor A would be placed as your “referral”. And if he/she were to use the BlogRush widget on their blog, you would get additional syndication credits based on the number of times the BlogRush widget loads on Visitor A’s blog.

And say Visitor B visits Visitor A’s blog and signs up for BlogRush too. You would be credited the syndication credits for the number of times the BlogRush widget loads on Visitor B’s blog too.

It doesn’t stop there! Not only will you get syndication credits and exposure from your own traffic, Visitor A’s blog traffic and Visitor B’s blog traffic. But also everyone that Visitor B refers, all the way down 10 generation of referrals. It’s basically like an MLM traffic network that puts your blog traffic on steroids. Here is the complete breakdown for the syndication credits that you will get across the different levels.

Your Own Traffic = 1:1
1st Generation Of Referrals = 1:1
2nd Generation Of Referrals = 1:1
3rd - 6th Generation Of Referrals = 1:4
7th - 10th Generation Of Referrals = 1:8

With estimates of 50 million blogs (source: technorati) online, it makes sense to Sign Up Now with BlogRush to make sure you are the pioneer batch. It’s pretty obvious, just like how the most money are made in MLM by the guys at the top of the pyramid chain. You can get the most out of this blog syndication network by getting in early so that there are more opportunities for people signing up under you or your referrals.

Signing up is free, and all you need to do is to register, fill in your Blog Name, Blog Address and RSS feed. So what are you waiting for? BlogRush certainly looks like a powerful viral traffic tool that you can definitely use for your blog, with unlimited potential returns and no risk. It’s a no-brainer to try it actually.

I have some gripes though, it’s probably because the network was just launched today. It’s still fresh from the oven and hence the syndicated blog posts showing up in the BlogRush widget have probably been planted in advance. And it might take a few days before its working full force. The confirmation email that they say they will send you also never arrives. But don’t mind that. Just bear with the little bugs here and there in the meantime while John and team clears them all up.

Other BlogRush Reviews by A-List Bloggers:

• DoshDosh’s BlogRush Review:Using Widgets To Get Traffic To Your Blog
• Andy Beard’s BlogRush - Free Blog Traffic - Indepth Review
• ProBlogger’s Find New Readers To Your Blog - BlogRush First Impression Review
• John Chow’s Increase Your Blog Traffic With BlogRush
• Mashable’s BlogRush: 8 Reasons to Be Wary…and Optimistic
• Marketing Pilgrim’s BlogRush Offers Free Syndicated Blog Traffic

Popularity: 21% [?]

A few days ago I mentioned that Dr Mani would be conducting a 24 hour Mini Blogathon to raise funds for children in India who need financial help for their heart surgeries. He is already 6 hours into the Blogathon and the theme for his posts will be “How To Be Happy - ALL The Time”.

What I have come to realize in life is that nothing makes you happier than being able to help someone else. The joy of unconditional assistance to someone in need. The joy of knowing the benefit and impact you can bring to another less unfortunate person. The joy of seeing that smile. Its pure bliss…

So do drop by and lend your support at:

http://www.ezinemarketingcenter.com/blog/

Popularity: 8% [?]