Serang, Banten, Indonesia's (ANTARA News) - Kid of Krakatau volcano in the Sunda Strait has been placed in an "on-guard" status after having shown increased activity during the past three days, an observing officer said.
The volcano had produced 20 tremors and released 80-meter to 200-meter-long white-Grey smoke plumes every hour over the past three days (Oct 24-26), Sigin, an officer assigned to keep a watch, said on Friday.
In a normal state, the volcano produced only five tremors per hour but since last Wednesday the frequency of tremors had increased, he said. Consequently, tourists and fishermen had been warned not to come near the volcano.
But until Friday, the volcano had not sputtered nor emitted lava so that it was still not in a very critical condition.
In 2000, the volcano reached a higher level of activity marked by the emission of hot lava so that it was put in an alert status, Sigin said.
Wednesday 31 October 2007
Krakatau Volcano in Sunda Strait placed in "on-guard" status
Tuesday 30 October 2007
Mount Kelud keeps villagers on high alert
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Authorities in Indonesia's densely populated East
Java province warned residents living on the slopes of Mount Kelud to stay at temporary shelters as the volcano's risk of a major eruption remained high, officials said Wednesday.
volcano logists placed the 1,731-meter volcano on top alert on October 16 and evacuated thousands of people living within 10 kilometers from the crater to makeshift shelters.
However, around 3,000 of more than 5,000 evacuees have returned to their homes on the slopes of the volcano, claiming it wasn't convenient to stay away for two weeks and defying warnings from local officials and scientists that the risk of a major eruption remains high.
"Mount Kelud's risk of eruption remains high, so we warned the evacuees to continue staying at the temporary shelters," Umar Rosadi, head of the emergency response team from nearby Kediri district, told DPA.
Kediri is located about 600 kilometers south-east of Jakarta.
Experts from the nearby monitoring post said that water in the volcano's 15-meter deep crater reached 39.5 degrees Celsius in the first six hours of Wednesday, up from 39.2 degrees Celsius three days earlier. Water temperatures reached 40 degrees Celsius before Mount Kelud's most recent eruption in 1990.
Volcanologists explained that the crater's temperature was among indicators used to predict an eruption and that others, such as volcanic tremors and deformation of the volcano, were also increasing.
Mount Kelud, 100 kilometers south of Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia, has a history of deadly eruptions. In 1990 dozens of people were killed.
Meanwhile, the offspring of Krakatoa volcano in the Straits of Sunda - between Indonesia's Java and Sumatra islands - continue spewing ash and hot materials to nearby areas, leading government authorities to maintain its alert status at Level 3, and a 3-kilometer off-limit zone for visitors and fishermen.
Indonesia has the world's highest density of volcanoes, with 500 located in the so-called "Ring of Fire," in the 5,000-kilometer-wide archipelago nation. Of these, 128 are active
Monday 22 October 2007
BlogRush News Update
Today i get the News from blogrush that my blog was has a criteria to they network, i still not understand why my site got the criteria cause i fell my site just a simple site, so here their mail:
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An Important BlogRush News Update...
- Congratulations!
- 10,000+ Blogs Removed From BlogRush
- Phase 2 Being Deployed
- Busy Week Ahead!
-------------------------------------------------------------
Congratulations!
-------------------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this update because your blog has passed our strict
Quality Guidelines and criteria -- we believe you have a high-quality
blog and we are happy you're a member of our network!
-------------------------------------------------------------
10,000+ Blogs Removed From BlogRush
-------------------------------------------------------------
We've just completed a massive SWEEP of our entire network. We've
removed over *10,000* blogs (Yes, ten thousand) that did not meet our
new Quality Guidelines.
We have done a huge "quality control audit" of our network and have
reviewed all the blogs one-at-a-time. We will continue to review each
NEW blog that is ever submitted to our network.
You will notice the HUGE DIFFERENCE in the quality of blogs that now
appear in your widget. This major *sweep* of our network will also
increase the click-rates across the entire network and you will start
to receive more traffic.
But we're only getting started. We've got LOTS of amazing
improvements in the works to help you get more daily traffic from our
network.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Phase 2 Being Deployed
-------------------------------------------------------------
We're in the process of rolling out our massive "Phase 2" upgrade to
BlogRush. In the next few days you'll see an all-new Dashboard,
advanced statistics reporting, and much, much more.
We're introducing tons of new sub-categories to help with content
relevance (which will increase click-rates and traffic).
We're also introducing a "Thin Widget" option. Many of our members
cannot use the standard widget because it's too wide for their blog.
This new widget format will solve this issue.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Busy Week Ahead!
-------------------------------------------------------------
We have a busy week ahead as we will start rolling out all these
fantastic changes. Thanks so much for your patience! We will
continue to work very hard to help drive more quality, targeted DAILY
TRAFFIC to your blog.
Best Regards,
John Reese, Founder of BlogRush
-------------------------------------------------------------
see that?
Wednesday 17 October 2007
The Mountain Kelud in Indonesia
The head of crisis center of the ministry Rustam Pakaya said that the evacuees were those in the category of high risk persons, such as pregnant women, babies, children, old persons and crippling people.
"Hundreds people have begun to be evacuated. We give priority to secure the high risk population,"Pakaya told Xinhua.
The head of the center said that the removal is due to a fear that the volcano may erupt.
The evacuees would be sheltered in a secure place in the radius of more than eleven kilometers from the mountain, he said.
"There is a possibility that the volcano can erupt,"he said.
Based on its short eruption cycle of once in 17 years, the volcano, which last erupt in 1990 and now in the second-highest alert status, was possible to explode this year, the head of surveillance of the country's Volcanology and Mitigation Center Yan Saut Simatupang has said.
The center has risen to the alert status of the mountain since the end of last month because of because of the increases of temperatures, the contents of carbon dioxide (CO2) and sulfate (SO4) in the waters surface in the crater.
Besides, the rises of frequent of volcanic tremors, number of waters bubble emerging to the surface of the waters in the crater and the change of color of the waters.
The rise of the status was followed by the issuance of a warning avoid the territory in the radius of five kilometers, the center said.
Pakaya said that hundred thousands of masks had been distributed and air quality control was persistently carried out.
He said there is still thousands risk populations living near the mountain in the regencies of Kekdiri and Blitar.
Preparation on the medical treatment, including health facilities and medical personals, has been made in the two regencies, he said.
Over ten thousand people were killed when the mountain exploded in 1586. The mountain exploded
Then the mountain exploded in 1901, 1919, 1951, 1966 and 1990.
Mount. Kelud is parts of the country's 129 active volcanoes, which sixty-six of them are located in high-density population areas, Java and Sumatra islands, according to the meteorology agency.
Source: www.google.com
4G Wireless Technology Beginning To Shape Up
US : Although an official definition of wireless 4G technology will not be released until the 2008/2009 timeframe in the form of the ITU’s IMT-Advanced requirements, there are already clear contenders for the designation, reports In-Stat. The primary 4G technologies of the future are expected to be Long Term Evolution (LTE), Ultra Mobile Broadband (UMB), and IEEE 802.16m WiMAX, the high-tech market research firm says.
“Companies are extremely uncomfortable talking about ‘4G’ technologies, since the ITU has not defined 4G yet,” says Gemma Tedesco ( left ), In-Stat analyst. “However, each of the contending 4G technologies has a cheerleader, with Ericsson touting LTE, Qualcomm preferring UMB, and Intel touting 802.16m WiMAX.”
Recent research by In-Stat found the following:
- Two widely expected requirements for 4G technologies are that they be OFDMA-based, and that they support 100Mbps for wide area mobile applications.
- With the dominant worldwide technology currently being GSM/EDGE, and HSPA and EV-DO handsets not expected to be dominant until 2012, 4G technology roll-outs will most likely start in the 2010-2012 timeframe.
- It is widely believed that mobile operators will initially deploy 4G very slowly, relying on their EV-DO or HSPA networks to provide for more ubiquitous coverage.
- Drivers of LTE, UMB and 802.16m WiMAX adoption will include the following: the re-allocation of older spectrum for 4G technologies; the resolution of any WiMAX IPR issues; the creation of FDD profiles for 802.16e WiMAX; the uptake rate of 802.16e in Mobile PCs; the uptake rate of 3G cellular in Mobile PCs; the continued evolution of the mobile handset; and an increase in the uptake rate of wireless broadband technologies into portable CE devices.
- Realistically, initial implementations of LTE, UMB and 802.16m WiMAX may fall short of throughput and other expectations, with later enhancements, or even some type of technology combination, actually bringing real 4G to the table.
The research, “The Road to 4G: Will LTE, UMB and WiMAX Just Be Stops Along the Way?” (#IN0703689GW), examines possible 4G technologies, and the drivers that will influence the uptake of each of these technologies. It provides forecasts of cellular handset chipsets per technology, 3G cellular modems in mobile PCs, and 802.16e mobile WiMAX chipset shipments through 2011. It also contains background information about contending 4G technologies and analysis of the current cellular and WiMAX markets. Profiles of vendors driving contending 4G technologies are included. In addition to the report, Gemma and other In-Stat analysts provide consulting services on a variety of technical and market topics regarding the semiconductor and electronics industries.
Tuesday 16 October 2007
5 Free Ways To Make Money Online With Ads!
Isn’t that what everyone wants? To be able to make money from blogging? Well here is your answer. Its called Advertisements. There are a bunch of sites out there that allow you to place ads on your personal or commercial website / blog, and earn cash for doing so! So why not? Its pretty much free money, if people click on your ads! So here are some simple secrets / things to know before you get started with making money online with ads!
Theres 2 general secrets for making cash online. 1. Produce good content, so a lot of people will go to your site! The more people that go to your site, the bigger the chance of getting them to click on your ads! 2. Put them on more than just your homepage! If someone clicks on a direct link to one of your posts, and theres no ads to click on that page relating to your content, then you could have just missed a few clicks! The more clicks, the more money. Keep that in mind, and remember not to click on your own ads. (From your computer. Hehe.)
All these services are free. The amount of money you actually pull in, depends on how much traffic your blog gets. Chances are, if you get tons of visitors on your site, you have tons of ad clicks, and you will pull in tons of money.
Here are the most popular choices for advertisements on your website.
1. Google AdSense
Everyone uses AdSense. Whenever you go to a page, and their are rectangles with a picture ad, or a rectangle with small links inside them, thats AdSense! The person that puts those ads on their site, gets paid everytime someone clicks on that ad! Each click could be 2 cents, or it could be up to 3 dollars per click. Remember that many publishers out there make a living off of advertisements. They pay the bills sometimes. All the big bloggers out there, use AdSense most of the time, and they get tons of money, because so many people visit their site and click the ads! AdSense produces ads related to your content, in image ads or text ads.
2. TLA (Text-Link-Ads)
TLA is along the same lines as AdSense. The ads look the same but they wont say ‘Ads by Google’ under or above them. These ive heard, dont bring in as much income per click as AdSense. Its still a great alternative. You can use TLA along side AdSense ads, so you wont have to choose between the two!
3. Yahoo! Publishers Network
Yahoo! also has an ad network, which some might not have known of. This one is fairly new to me as well. Yahoo! ads, are the exact same as Google AdSense ads, but it says ‘Ads by Yahoo!’ instead of Google. Theres no real difference between the two, but Yahoo!, ive heard, tends to bring in more income.
4. AdBrite
AdBrite ads, are the ads you see when you rollover text-links, and a small hover window pops up with an ad in it. These ads are the first ads i was ever exposed to. I remember seeing these a long time ago. They are still live today. Theres a choice between text and image ads, like Yahoo! and Google ads.
5. Auction Ads
Auction Ads, are alot different from the previous 4, in a couple of ways. There are no image ads, and not text ads. Well not in the shape or form that your used to. These ads are in a banner, displaying products that are up for auction on popular sites like Ebay, and Amazon. When the users click on the ads, and buy the product, the site notifies Auction Ads, and they pay you for it! This one is really good for a site that has to do with a product. It will usually post products that are related to your website content like the previous services.
So theres 5 of them, im sure there are more, but these are the most popular. If i missed one, that you think could be essential to this post, let me know! Im open for discussion. Also, all of these services use the same format of placing the ads on your site. You copy a usual java script / html code, and paste it on your site where you want it. Its much easier if your using platforms like Blogger, or Wordpress, where they have simple integration options.
See many more ways or tips & tricks to make money online by going here!
Monday 15 October 2007
Lebaran
If I had a lot of sin or a mistakes from all words that has been pronounce or on my posting please for give me..
so...
Minal Aidzin Walfaidzin, Mohon Maaf Lahir & Bathin...
Tuesday 9 October 2007
2.8. Action Items
Here are some action items for you to take to get started on the road to driving traffic to your web site:
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Understand who is the ideal visitor to your site.
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Discover some interesting stories to tell about your web site.
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Make a checklist and plan for publicizing your site.
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Submit your site to search engines.
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Resubmit your site to search engines as necessary over time.
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Get your site listed in the ODP and Yahoo! taxonomic directories.
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Work to encourage appropriate inbound linking to your site.
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Publish a press release.
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Continue to publish press releases as stories related to your site come up.
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Create and distribute syndication feeds.
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Consider creating and maintaining an email newsletter to support your site marketing campaign.
2.7.2. List Administration
Once you've got more than 40 or 50 email addresses on your list, list administration becomes a challenge. You can install software on your web server to manage your email listPHPList, available for free from http://tincan.co.uk/phplist is a good choiceor you can outsource your email management .
If your email newsletters take on a life of their own and you are not comfortable installing your own management software, an email outsourcer like Constant Contact , http://www.constantcontact.com, provides a raft of features for about $15.00 per month. Besides basic email management, an outfit like Constant Contact can provide some important functionality, including:
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Tracking which recipients click on your HTML email content
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Targeting different content to a variety of recipients with different interests
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Compliance with antispam laws and relationships with ISPs to make sure your emails go through
2.7.1. Newsletters
The best format is a newsletter. There are quite a few email newsletters that have great content, include links back to the publishing web site, and even make a little money with sponsored ads in the email newsletter themselves. A good example of this kind of newsletter is Tara Calishain's ResearchBuzz , which provides great information about research and the Internet (you can sign up at http://www.researchbuzz.com), and I'm certain drives well-deserved traffic to Tara's site.
You don't need much in the way of tools to send out email newsletters periodically. Just use your email client software of choice, making sure to blank copy (bcc) senders so email addresses don't show (and you're not invading anyone's privacy). You can copy and paste your list of bcc recipients so you don't have to reenter it each time.
"It may be smart to use lowest-common-denominator text email for your newsletters. If you send email newsletters in HTML format, some recipients won't be able to properly display it or will have turned it off."
2.7. Using Email Lists
Although they may seem a little old-fashioned, email lists can be a great mechanism for increasing interest in your web sites over time. The rise of spam email, and the creation of increasingly stringent spam filters, has made the use of email lists more problematic and something you may want to approach with caution. Although email remains the most widely used Internet application of all, publishing syndication feeds may actually be a better mechanism for broadcasting information when you don't personally know the recipients.
"First and foremost, you should take care that any email you send out doesn't walk like spam, look like spam, or quack like spam. If it has even a hint of spam about it, at least some recipients will regard your email as spamand be offended."Start by adding only people who have expressed an interest in you or your site to the email list. Make it easy to opt out and unsubscribe.
"Don't rent or buy email lists. These are worthless and have already been run into the ground with spam."Your email list will only build valuable traffic for your site to the extent that you build it up yourself.
"Weblogging software such as MovableType will provide basic email list functionality such as self-service sign-up for notifications when you add a blog entry and the ability to automatically send out email notifications."
Each email you broadcast to your list should provide value. If you send out vacuous pieces of sales puffery in your email, at best your recipients will hit the delete button or add you to their spam filter. (They may also send you nasty emails back, and in any case they won't be inspired to visit your site, the point of the operation.)
2.6.3. Submitting Feeds
The next step is to submit your syndication feed to syndication aggregators and search engines. The RSS Compendium provides a great list of sites for submitting syndication feeds for inclusion at http://allrss.com/rsssubmission.html. The RSS Specifications site also has an extensive list of sites that maintain syndication feed databases at http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-submission.htm.
It's a good idea to continue to submit your feeds as you add content items. Particularly if you are publishing multiple feeds, this can become an unpleasant chore. RSS Submit is a tool that automates this process. Shown in Figure 2-12, RSS Submit is available for download at http://www.dummysoftware.com/rsssubmit.html in an evaluation version or (with free updates) for $35.
The updates to RSS Submit add new syndication indexes as they come online and make sure the submission pages for older feeds stays accurate.
2.6.2. Telling the World About Your Feed
Once you have your syndication feed, the key to getting some bang out of it is to get it distributed. As with a web site, in the long run this requires constant addition of fresh content. You probably should not try to distribute a syndication feed until you have a minimum of a dozen entry items and can reasonably expect to add at least an item a week.
You can (and should) mark your web site with a graphic that is linked to your syndication feed. To create the graphic, you can create a button using FeedForAll 's free RSS Graphics Tool , http://www.feedforall.com/public/rss-graphic-tool.htm, or you can grab a premade button from RSS Specifications , http://www.rss-specifications.com/rss-graphics.htm.
You also need to add code into the head section of your HTML pages to let syndication viewers and aggregators automatically know about your feed. For example, if you include this code in a page, when someone visits your site using a web browser that is capable of displaying syndication, such as Firefox, it will automatically offer to subscribe to the feed.
The general form of the code to be added is:
Obviously, you need to specify the actual location of your own feed when you add this code to the head section of your HTML page. For example, I maintain a syndication feed for the Googleplex Blog at http://www.braintique.com/research/mt/index.xml. The link code added to my page looks like this:
2.6.1. Creating Feeds
If you maintain a blog, it's likely that you are already publishing a syndication feed (whether or not you are aware of it). Check your blog templates to see if there is a template for an index.xml, index.rdf, or atom.xml file. If so, have a look at the root directory for your blog. Voila! You'll probably find a syndication feed. You may want to tweak the template tags to make sure that you are syndicating the content you want, and only the content you want.
Once you've syndicated content, anyone can use it and even build a web site of their own around your content, and there's not much you can do about it.
If you don't have a blog feed, or want to publish content other than the entries of your blog, it's easy to construct an XML syndication feed by hand using a text editor. For example, here's a portion of an RSS syndication feed I created by hand:
The key thing to notice about this feed is that it consists of items. You can tell because each one is wrapped in 
.
You can see that it isn't very hard to create syndication feeds manually just by mimicking the form of the thing and adding your own data as items with links. But this will quickly get cumbersome if you are creating feeds that get updated frequently.
Fortunately, there are also a great many tools available to help you construct your own feeds. Some tools use a Wizard interface, so you don't need to know anything about coding in XML to create a syndication feed.
You'll find links to these tools and to syndication resources in general on the RSS Compendium , online at http://allrss.com/, and http://www.xml.com/pub/rg/RSS_Software.
2.6. Syndication Feeds
As you may know, syndication is a simple XML-based mechanism for publishing content. Syndication feeds come in two predominant flavors: RSS and Atom. From the viewpoint of publicizing your web site, you don't need to worry about the differences between them.
Content is syndicated by encoding it within an RSS or Atom feed. This feed can and usually does include links to the site originating the content.
Subscribers can view syndication feeds in all different kinds of software, including web browsers, email clients, standalone programs, and on HTML web pages. There's no mechanism built into syndication to pay for subscriptions, but once you are subscribed your feed display is automatically updated when a new item is added to the feed. It's up to the syndication-viewing software to decide how to render feeds, but software that can display web pages often shows the underlying pages to which the feed links.
There's some controversy about how publishers can best use syndication feeds, since it's not obvious how to make money from them. (Google has introduced a program allowing publishers to insert contextual ads within syndication feeds, but this is a controversial step.)
However, syndication feeds work well as a device for driving traffic to a site because:
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Feed content is under the control of the publisher.
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Most feeds contain items that are thematically linked (and can be related to a site).
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Feed items provide content along with links back to more content on a publisher's site.
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It's easy to distribute a syndication feed.
In other words, many savvy web publishers use syndication feeds as a kind of teaser for their real web content.
2.5. Publishing Press Releases
It used to be that putting out a press release was a big deal. It required special accreditation and membership in a wire service and could generally only be accomplished by large companies or by using an accredited public relations or ad agency.
As with many other things, the Web has disintermediated and democratized the process of publishing a press release so much so that some large organizations don't even bother with them anymore, figuring that their releases will be lost in the flood of information unleashed on the world by the "little guys."
These days, publishing a press release that will be picked up by wire services is technically free. In reality, to get the distribution you want for the release will cost you
Comments, Trackbacks, and Discussion Threads
The "cheap-date" way to get inbound links is to post them yourself, using a mechanism such as a blog comment, a blog trackback, or a discussion thread. These links do not have the permanence or credibility of a link from a stable site, but can draw considerable short-term traffic if posted on a popular site.
There's nothing wrong with adding a link to a comment on a blog, or in a discussion thread, or using a trackback mechanism, provided you have a valid hook for hanging your URL. In other words, it's OK to enter a discussion if you really have something to say, and it's also OK to link back to relevant material on your site, but don't come completely from left field. It will undermine the credibility that you are trying to build up for your site.
about $30.00 per release. Although my general stance is not to pay for listings, this is usually well worth doing, provided you have the skills to write a good press release and have an interesting story to tell not only will it produce inbound links but also some traditional media may pick up on your site and story.
There are several online services that exist to distribute press releases, including 24-7PressRelease.com (http://www.24-7pressrelease.com), FreePressRelease.com (http://www.free-press-release.com/submit/), and PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com). These sites all work in essentially the same way: an online form is provided for your press release submission, and the service submits your release to wire services, web search engines, and anyone who subscribes to the service's feeds. Free submission is available from all of the press release services, but to get the distribution your press release deserves, you need to buy (in some cases, phrased as a "contribution" or a "donation") premium membership in the service (or upgrades for specific press releases).
PRWeb is probably the best known of these services. To get started with PRWeb, you need to create a free account. Once you've established an account, you have access to a management console, shown in Figure 2-10, which lets you create, edit, and submit press releases and also check to see how many times each of your releases was viewed."The viewing statistics for PRWeb are impressive, typically in the tens of thousands of views for most press releases. PRWeb also tells you how many times your release was picked up by a media outlet, how many times it was forwarded using PRWeb's forwarding service, and how many times it was printed using the printer-friendly version of your release. However, it's not entirely clear what these statistics actually mean, and you should not necessarily expect a corresponding increase in your volume of site traffic."
Figure 2-10. The PRWeb management console gives you access to press release creation, editing, and submission and allows you to monitor release statistics
To create a new release for submission, click the Submit News Release button on the console. In the form that opens, shown in Figure 2-11, you can copy and paste the elements of your press release if you created it as a word-processing document (See "Preparing a Press Release," earlier in this chapter).
You can edit the press release later, but you do need to supply the following elements initially:
-
Headline (one sentence)
-
Summary (two to four sentences)
-
Body of the press release
-
Keywords (don't bother repeating keywords in the release itself, since these will be picked up automatically)
-
Industry
-
Site URL and contact information
Preparing a Press Release
Before you go online to submit a press release, you should prepare the press release using a word-processing program such as Microsoft Word. It's important that you get your release reviewed by several people, including (if possible) a professional writer or editor. Grammar, spelling, and punctuation do count; if your press release is deficient in these areas it will look amateurish.
A good press release should be succinct. Keep it to one page if at all possible.
The press release should start with a summary of no more than two or three sentences. You should also prepare a single, short sentence to serve as the headline for the release.
Next, the press release should tell a story in several paragraphs (See "Creating a Plan and a Story," earlier in this chapter). If possible, you should include interesting quotations from one or two people related to the story. (If no one else comes to mind, what about quoting yourself?)
A final short paragraph should describe your web site, perhaps with links to an FAQ page and related sites. This paragraph can be used as a slug, which means it can be copied and pasted for use in all your press releases related to your web site.
The press release should provide email and phone contact information in case someone who reads the release wants further information. Don't make it hard to find you!
A press release created in this way can easily be copied and pasted into online submission forms.
"To some degree, your industry selection determines to whom your press release is distributed. You need to pick a primary industry when you create the release, but (depending on your contribution level) you can add industry groups after the release has been saved but before it is submitted. You should take advantage of this to get your release as widely distributed as possible."
When you've completed your press release and assigned a release date, click Save Press Release. You'll next be asked to pay for your submission (select a contribution level).
Press releases are subject to a vetting process conducted both by software and human editors. Some kinds of content are forbidden. For example, you cannot submit a press release having to do with adult content and any related industries on PRWeb (see Chapter 6 for information about submitting adult-content press releases).
You can find out more about PRWeb's review policies using the Knowledge Base on the PRWeb site. Generally, besides adult content, PRWeb will reject any outright
Figure 2-11. If you've prepared a press release in your word processor, you can copy and paste into PRWeb's online form
and apparent advertisements, so take care to word your press releases to avoid this stigmatization. If your press release is rejected, PRWeb will refund any contributions as a matter of course. Note that PRWeb does not vet spelling or grammar and does not check factsit's up to you to get these things right. Provided your press release has been accepted, you'll receive email confirmations and a link to your release online on the wire service site.
"For a fee, PRWeb will write or edit your press release for you."
2.4.3.2. Emails should not spam
Generally, you should not send email that reads like spam. Don't send mass emailings requesting links (it will probably get intercepted and marked for deletion by antispam filters, anyhow). Personalize each email with the recipients' names, something about their site, and information about why they should link with you.
It's OK to offer a reciprocal link in exchange for your inbound link. But I think the classier approach is already to have a link to any site you approach. You can set aside a resource page for this purpose. Why bother with trying to get an inbound link from a site that isn't worth linking to? If it is worth linking to, then go ahead and do it on your own without requiring payback. You'll be surprised at how often the other webmaster decides to reciprocate.
2.4.3.1. Finding email addresses
The first step in writing an email requesting an inbound link is to find the email address for the webmaster you want to contact. This can take quite a bit of poking around, but it is amazing how often you can uncover the right email address with a bit of persistence if you just look at all the pages on a web site.
Figure 2-9. Anacubis helps you see which sites are similar to (or already linked to) your site
Six Degrees of Separation
To create a view with the similar sites shown in Figure 2-9, I had to iterate the process. In other words, the initial view of sites similar to www.mechanista.com showed only a few sites. I had to expand several of these initial sites to show sites similar to them to get a greater pool of similar sites. One wonders: if you keep on iterating ad infinitum, do you get all web sites, or are there only six degrees of separation?
"If a web site has a contact form but no explicit email address, you can often find the email address the contact form is mailed to by viewing the HTML source code for the contact form's page. Another place to look for email addresses is within a syndication feed. If the site provides an RSS or Atom feed, the creator's email address is often included as part of the feed."
As you may know, you can use the Whois service of Internet domain registrars to find contact information for site owners, although with multiple domain registrars this information is more fragmentary than it used to be. In addition, some sites intentionally do not publish information about the real domain owners when they register domains, for example, by putting the domain in the name of the web host.
A good first stop if you want to try using a Whois service to get email contact information is Network Solutions (http://www.networksolutions.com), the "classic" Internet domain name registrar. Next, try Whois.net , http://www.whois.net, which has one of the largest databases for Whois information.
If these two sources fail, do not give up! Go to Internic , http://www.internic.netwhois.html. The Internic service will not give you contact information, but it probably will tell you the specific domain registrar who registered a given site and the address of the domain registrar's Whois server. You can then go to the Whois server maintained by the appropriate registrar and usually find email contact information there.
If this sounds time-consuming, well, it is. To justify the time, any sites that you contact should indeed be related to your site.
Back To Index
2.4.3. Making the Link Request
Email is the best way (and sometimes the only way) to request an inbound link to your site.
2.4.2. Finding Sites to Make a Link Request
To find sites that are appropriate for an inbound link request, you should:
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Consider the sites you find useful, entertaining, and informative
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Use the web taxonomic directories to find sites in your category and in related categories (See "Working with Directories," earlier in this chapter)
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Use specialized searching syntax to find the universe of sites that search engines such as Google regard as "related" to yours
If you've looked carefully at Google search results, you may have noticed a Similar pages link (Figure 2-8).
Figure 2-8. You can use the Google Similar Pages link to find sites that might be interested in linking to yours (because they are like yours)
The Similar Pages link is supposed to show you more pages like the one the link modifies. How well it works varies widely (it works better on popular, highly ranked pages and less well on obscure pages). But it can give you some leads.
You can bypass the process of clicking Similar Pages by using the Google related: operator followed by a web page directly in a Google search. For example, entering the following Google search:
related:www.bearhome.comis comparable to clicking the Similar Pages link for www.bearhome.com (and shows exactly the same web pages as the search result).
If you find it easier to analyze data presented visually, a demonstration tool called Google Visual Search, provided free by Anacubis, may be right for you. Anacubis's Google Visual Search Tool , http://www.anacubis.com/googledemo/google, uses the Google Web APIs to (among other things) present a visual representation of the sites similar to yours. For example, Figure 2-9 shows a visual representation of sites that are similar to http://www.mechanista.com, a site about antique typewriters, calculators, and other mechanisms.
2.4.1. The Best Inbound Links
The best meaning most likely to drive traffic in bound links come from:
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Sites that publish content that is complementary and related to the content on your site
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Hub sites that are a central repository, discussion area, and community site for a particular interest group (for example, a mention on SlashDot [http://www.slashdot.org]) can drive huge amounts of traffic to sites related to technology, so much so that the phenomenon of a sudden uptick in traffic due to inbound links has become known as the "Slashdot Effect"
2.4. Becoming Popular
Sometimes it seems like all of life has the same themes as high school: what's important is being popular. A significant measure of popularity on the Web is how many inbound links links from other sites to your site you have.
"Inbound links are an important component of Google's PageRank system, which is a way to order the sites returned from a search."Obtaining inbound links is not rocket science, but it is labor-intensive and does require some thought. The best way to get another site to link to your site is to ask for it, as obvious as that may seem.
"Link farms sites that exist for the sole purpose of providing inbound links to better a page's search ranking will not help your site become more popular and may in fact damage your standing with Google and other search engines."
It makes sense for sites to link to your site when they have similar or related content always assuming the webmaster in charge of the site linking to you likes your content. This is a reasonable thing for the webmaster in charge of the other site to do because it adds value for the other site's visitors. (If your site is not adding value, you might want to rethink its premise.)
2.3.3. Getting Yahoo! Directory Listings
The Yahoo! Directory, a somewhat lesser-known part of Yahoo!, works in pretty much the same way as the ODP, except that it is privately maintained. Sites added to the Yahoo! Directory tend to end up in the Yahoo! index, as well as other important search indices.
Figure 2-4. ODP category pages are where you find the suggest URL links
To suggest your site for inclusion in the Yahoo! Directory , open the Yahoo! Directory's home page, http://dir.yahoo.com/, shown in Figure 2-5.
"You can also find the Yahoo Directory by opening the main Yahoo! home page, selecting Directory as your search category, and searching for a term. The search results you will be presented with are from the Yahoo! Directory (not the Yahoo! web index), and the display will show where in the taxonomy you are, so you can browse through related categories."Next, find the best category for your site, either by drilling down through the Yahoo! Directory taxonomy (shown on the left of Figure 2-5), or by searching within the Yahoo! Directory using the search box shown at the top of Figure 2-6.
Figure 2-5. Yahoo! Directory is not Yahoo!; here's the Yahoo! Directory home page
"You can use directory search results as the starting place for pinpointing the perfect category."When you find the right category page (for example, for a digital photography site, the category page for Directory -> Arts -> Visual Arts -> Photography Digital), click the Suggest a Site link shown in Figure 2-6.
Clicking the Suggest a Site link starts the site submission process. You'll first be asked if you want to pay for inclusion or continue for free. I suggest you do not pay for inclusion.
The next step is to verify that the site you want to suggest does not already appear in the Yahoo! Directory. This is verified using a Yahoo! Directory search. If your site cannot be found, you can continue.
You'll be asked to verify the listing category, and to log in with your Yahoo! username. (If you don't have a Yahoo! account, you'll need to create one.) Finally, you can complete the form with information about your site shown in Figure 2-7 and submit.
"Keep track of the email address you supply on the Yahoo! Directory Suggest a Site form. You'll need the address to change information about any of your sites listed in the directory."
2.3.2. Getting Open Directory Project Listings
The Open Directory Project (ODP), http://dmoz.org, is the most important taxonomic directory on the Web. Formally hosted and administered by the Netscape division of AOL, the ODP is run along the lines of an open source project and is inspired by the Debian Social Contract (see http://www.debian.org/social_contract.html).
The credo behind the ODP is that "humans do it better." The ODP believes that web automated search is ineffective, and getting worse, and that the small contingent of paid editors at commercial web search engine companies cannot keep up with the staggering rate of change on the Webdecaying, stagnant sites, link rot, new sites, sites intended as search spam, and so on.
The ODP is run and maintained by a vast army of volunteer editors. These editors follow internal checks and balances to preserve the integrity of the directory. See http://dmoz.org/guidelines/ for more information about the ODP review process and guidelines for site inclusion.
"You, too, can become an ODP editor in an area of your interest and expertise. See http://dmoz.org/help/become.html for more information about becoming an ODP editor"
The ODP taxonomy (categorization system) and the sites included in the categories are freely available as data for use by anyone who wants to run his or her own search engine, as long as the terms of the ODP's free-use license are complied with (for terms of the license, in case you want to use the ODP data in a search engine of your own, see http://dmoz.org/license.html).
Google, and most of the major search engines, do use information derived from the ODP, but of course they use it in their own way. With Google in particular, information from the ODP is used to form the Google Directory , http://directory.google.com.
"Google uses its own search technology for searches within the Google Directory."
Most significant, inclusion within an ODP category means that your site is very likely to be included within the Google web index (as well as the Google Directory and in other major web indices).
So it's worth submitting your site to the ODP, if only because it's the best way to get indexed (and appropriately categorized) by Google. You'll find a FAQ about how to add your site at http://www.dmoz.org/add.html (this FAQ is also available via a link from the ODP home page).
The first step is to locate the best category for your site. For example, suppose you have a site like Syndication Viewer, shown in Figure 2-3, whose purpose is to catalog and display selected RSS and Atom feeds as HTML.
The best category I can find for this site on ODP is Reference -> Libraries -> Library and Information Science -> Technical Services -> Cataloguing -> Metadata -> RDF -> Applications -> RSS. The category page is shown in Figure 2-4.
You can start your look for the right category (to get close to the best possible category) using a search term, for example, "RSS."
On the category page that you think is best for your site, click the suggest URL link, shown in the upper center of Figure 2-4.
On the Submit a Site to the Open Directory Project page, you will be asked to verify the category you selected (as determined by the page from which you clicked the suggest URL link). You'll need to enter your site's URL, title, a brief site description, and
your email address. As the editors note, "A well-written, objective description will make listing your site easier."
When your listing page is complete, click Submit. This process is now complete, except for the waiting. You should check back in four to six months to see if you've been listed.
"If I make it sound like you might have to wait a long time to get listed in the ODP, well, you might! The ODP depends on volunteer labor, and rumor is that it is getting slower and slower. However, inclusion in the ODP is a virtual guarantee of inclusion in many search engine indexes and other directories. So have patience! The ODP is worth it."
2.3.1. Understanding Taxonomies
A directory differs from the index used by a search engine because a directory uses a structured way to categorize sites, sometimes called a taxonomy. In addition, sites are included in a particular category in the ODP and Yahoo! directories only after they have been reviewed by human editors. You can search within directories (just as you can search in a web index, such as the one compiled by Google). But it's common to use a directory, following its taxonomy by drilling down through subjects to find what you want. For example, suppose you wanted to find resources related to alternative photo processes, such as creating daguerreotypes (a nineteenth-century print technology). Using the Open Directory taxonomy, shown in Figure 2-2, you would drill down through the following categories: Arts -> Photography -> Techniques and Style -> Alternative Processes.
"You can think of the index of the Web compiled by search engines such as Google as being like the index to a nonfiction book. In contrast, a taxonomic directory is much more like the table of contents to the book: it is organized according to the structure of the book, and you can drill down by part, chapter (within the part), heading (within the chapter), and subtopic to find the information you need."
2.3. Working with Directories
2.2.2. Submission Tools
You may also want to use an automated site submission tool that submits your site to multiple search engines in one fell swoop.
It's quite likely that your web host provides a utility with this functionality that you can use to submit the URLs for your hosted domains to a group of search engines. Figure 2-1 shows the results of a site submission using the tool provided by one web host (you'll probably find that your web host provides something similar).
"Before using a site submission tool, you should prepare a short list of keywords and a one- or two-sentence summary of your site as I mentioned in "Creating a Plan and a Story," earlier in this chapter (you can reuse the keywords and site summary as keywords and description data in your "" tags). Alternatively, if you have already created meta information for your site, as I explain in Chapter 3, you can use the keywords and description in your meta information for search engine submissions."
"If the tool is provided by your web host, probably you will be able to submit only your domain, rather than directories within the domain, for example, http://www.braintique.com but not http://www.braintique.com/research/."
If you search Google with a phrase like "Search Engine Submit," you'll find many free services that submit to a group of search sites for you. Typically, these free submission sites try to up-sell or cross-sell you on a product or service, but since you don't have to buy anything, why not take advantage of the free service? The two best-known examples of this kind of site are Submit Express , http://www.submitexpress.com, which will submit your URL to 40 sites for free (just be sure you pass on the various offers you'll find on the site) and NetMechanic , http://www.netmechanic.com, another search engine submission site along the same lines.
2.2.1. Important Search Engines for Submission
The most important it's search engines to which you should submit your site, along with the URL for the site's submission page.
- Ask Jeeves / Teoma (https://sitesubmit.ask.com/Main/login.jsp)
Google (http://www.google.com/addurl/)
MSN Search (http://search.msn.co.in/docs/submit.aspx)
2.2. Submitting Your Sites to Search Engines
Google and most other search engines use several separate mechanisms:
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A program that crawls the Web to find sites, also called a crawler or a spider. Once found (crawled), sites are placed in the search engine's index.
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Software that ranks sites in the search engine's index to determine their order of delivery when someone uses Google to search for a particular keyword or phrase.
To start with, if your site hasn't been found, you won't be ranked by a search engine at all (to state the obvious). So the first task is getting your site into the systems of Google and other search engines.
"Unless you have money to burn, I do not recommend participating in any programs that ask you to pay for search engine listings, regardless of whether these programs are run by search engines themselves or by third parties."If you have inbound links links to your sites from other sites in a search engine's index, then the search engine's spider will find your site eventually. But why not see if you can speed the process up?
"It's peculiar but true: different search engines index different portions of the Web. Also, at any given time, it is impossible for any search engine index to include the entire Web!"
The rub, of course, is that by submitting a form to a search engine there is no guarantee if, and when, your sites will be included by a given search engine. The best approach is to list your site using the search engine's procedures, and check back in six months to see if you are included in the search engine's index. If not, submit again. In other words, this is a process that requires patience and may produce limited results but at least the price is right!
"Getting a site listed in an online categorized directoryparticularly the Open Directory Project (ODP) or Yahoo's directory as I explain in "Working with Directories" later in this chapteris probably the most effective way to get inclusion in the search engines themselves."
Summarizing, search engines find the web pages they index by using software to follow links on the Web. Since the Web is huge, and always expanding and changing, it can be a while before this software finds your particular site. Therefore, it's smart to speed this process up by manually submitting your site to search engines.
2.1.3. Naming Your Site
If you haven't already picked a name for your web site, try to select a name that helps to tell your story. Good names, at least with a .com suffix, are hard to find these days. It's worth working hard to find the right name.
The Cult of Personality
Life writ large with the cult of personality might well describe the times we live in. Paris Hilton, an heiress with an apparently vacuous personality, has a television show, and is famous, because (and not despite) of that vacuous personality. I think the reality is that Paris is a great deal smarter than she seems although another moral you can certainly draw from the Paris Hilton success story is that sex sells.
My point is that people, particularly celebrities, get attention these days. If you have celebrity, have access to celebrities, or have ideas about how to create celebrity, I say: "Go for it! Milk it!" And don't forget to mention your web site.
It's reasonable that people should be interested in people. People are interesting. As the poet Alexander Pope said a long time ago, "The proper study of mankind is man." (If Pope had included both genders, we moderns could surely go along with this.)
It's really very simple. Getting web site traffic requires publicity. Publicity is best generated using stories about people, particularly interesting or notorious people. If your web site has an interesting story about people, let others know about it (perhaps using a press release). Your people story will draw traffic.
Ideally, a site name, as I mentioned, should tell, or evoke, the story of your site and be memorable. Consider these classics:-
Amazon: the world's greatest river meets the world's largest inventory.
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eBay: I don't know why this one works, but it does.
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Google: a very big number fits with the very large quantity of information Google indexes.
2.1.2. Creating a Checklist
In addition, your plan should provide a checklist with specific "to do" items essentially, all of the techniques used to create online publicity described in this chapter. The list should also include offline marketing and publicity placements appropriate to your target audience and your story.
Successfully getting online publicity and generating traffic is largely a matter of focus and keeping track of the details. Creating a checklist as part of your plan will help you make sure that none of these details fall through the cracks.
2.1.1. The Elevator Pitch
You should be able to summarize your story in a sentence or two. (This is sometimes called an elevator pitch .) For example,
Digital photography resources, techniques, software, equipment reviews, and photo galleries
is a story that will probably attract people interested in digital photography. On the other hand,
Ramblings of a grouchy, cranky person who, well, rambles about everything is not a targeted story likely to interest anyone for long.
"Use your plan and story to create a summary of your site, a list of keywords related to your site content, and one or more press releases (as I explain in this chapter, in the "Publishing Press Releases" section). The site summary and keyword list can be also be used to create meta information for your site, as I explain in Chapter 3."
2.1. Creating a Plan and a Story
Many of the steps I suggest in this chapter for publicizing your site are essentially mechanical, for example, submitting your site to a variety of search engines. Even so, you should have a plan for marketing your content sites. No brick-and-mortar business in its right mind would attempt a marketing or publicity campaign without a plan, and you shouldn't proceed online without one, either.
Having a plan will help you accomplish even mechanical steps more effectively. For example, when you submit your site to a search engine or a directory, you will often be asked for a description of your offering. Understanding your site in the context of a marketing plan will help you hone a site description.
The two most important aspects of a plan for online marketing and publicity are:
Chapter 2. Driving Traffic to Your Site
They say (whoever "they" are) that the best things in life are free. That's certainly true when it comes to driving traffic to your web site.
You can spend a great deal of money to send traffic to your site using advertising. One of the most effective ways to do this is to use Google's AdWords program, explained in detail in Part III of this book. But there are also many no-cost ways to draw site visitors, many of which may be more effective, and get traffic that is more highly targeted, than using paid advertising. Even if you are using paid advertising to draw traffic, you should know about free techniquesand you should use these techniques in conjunction with your advertising.
"I'll explain how to optimize your web site and pages to get more traffic from Google and other search engines in Chapter 3."
This chapter explains how to publicize your site and increase traffic using techniques that do not cost money and do not involve tinkering with the HTML code and content of your pages themselves. In other words, this chapter explains how to drive traffic to your site using external mechanisms, such as submitting your site to a search engine, leaving more complex issues of constructing your site so that search engines will like it field sometimes called search engine optimization (SEO) for Chapter 3.
Monday 8 October 2007
Blog Traffic Exchange and AdSense
After doing up nice websites with interesting contents, the webmasters' dilemma is usually one of attracting visitors to their sites. Having more visitors is gratifying; it is a reward that website owners deserve for putting time and effort into their sites.
Traffic exchange networks were designed to promote visitor traffic to websites or blogs. The idea is simple – members of the network surf each other's sites. Upon setting up an account with a traffic exchange program, you will be entitled to earn 'credits' by manually surfing other members' sites. Depending on the program, you may have anything between 0.5 to 1.0 credit for every site you visit. There is a timer at the top or bottom frame of the page to compel you to remain at the site for a period of time. This can range between 10 to 30 seconds. You are then required to click one of the images to correspond with the given image in order to proceed to the next random site. This is to prevent autosurfing hacks that may cheat the system.
With the 'credits' you earn, you can assign them to your blogs. For every visitor you get to your blog, 1 credit will be deducted until all your 'credits' are spent. In a nutshell, the more blogs you visit, the more visitors you get to your blogs.
Alas, no program is perfect. While the concept of traffic exchange sounds good, there are the negative aspects that you should consider as well. I'll summarize the good and bad points of traffic exchange.
Pros of traffic exchange
1. The programs are free, that is if you are not buying the 'credits' but earning them.
2. For some programs, you can specify the category of blogs you would like to view or the sort of visitors you would like to have. The traffic is therefore targeted.
3. While viewing other member blogs, you may come across a couple of interesting ones that you can re-visit or learn from.
4. Since the programs work well only if they have a wide network of members, the administrators often conduct mini contests and games to interest the members. You may find some fun in these communities.
Cons of traffic exchange
1. The biggest negative point is that such traffic exchanges run counter to many advertising programs, especially those that pay you based on impressions you get to your site. A notable one is Google AdSense. If your site's traffic is mainly through traffic exchanges, be prepared to receive reminders like this from the Google administrator:-
“It has come to our attention that invalid clicks or impressions have been generated on the Google ads on your site(s) through users of third-party programs paid or provided with other incentives to visit your site. Such programs may include, but are not limited to auto-surf, pay-to-surf, pay-to-read, or pay-to-click sites.”
2. A number of the sites that register with traffic exchanges are new sites and are not worth the time reading. Many of the established ones that have a good following of readers do not need such traffic exchange programs to boost their traffic.
3. After surfing for a while, you would also find yourself looking at the same sites over and over again, simply because only a fraction of the members are active users. It may be boring in that sense.
4. While I make it a point to read some sites, I believe that many people don't. They may be doing their homework or watching television, and mindlessly clicking the image after every 30 seconds or so. You may be getting more visitors but these are not the people who appreciate your blog contents.
Blog Traffic Exchange sites
If you want to have a go at it, here are the ones I think you can consider.
Blogmad 
This has a 1:1 ratio, which means that for every site you visit, someone will visit yours. The surf timer is 25 seconds and the site layout, ideas, and image icons (with the two big eyes) are pretty nice.
Blog Explosion 
The surf ratio is 2:1, i.e. for every two blogs you visit, one person will visit yours. The saving grace is that they have about close to 50,000 blogs registered, although I have an inkling that only a small percentage of these are active. They do run contests like Battle of the Blogs which add to the fun of using their service.
Blog Soldiers 
Another 2:1 ratio traffic exchange. Nothing fanciful about the site, and the administrators should do more work to build up their membership base.
Blog Advance 
Their surf ratio of 1:1 sounds attractive, and like a few other programs, they throw in free bonus points when you log in or surf. What I didn't like was their lack of response. I raised a technical problem concerning adding a site and despite 2 messages, they have not replied. Such a contradiction to their statement that “at Blog Advance your voice doesn't fall on deaf ears.” Also, I received error messages on a few occasions despite having clicked the correct surfbar images and was unable to proceed to subsequent blogs. I guess there are unresolved bugs in the coding of their program. (Update: This service is no longer available and link is therefore removed.)
EasyHits4U 
This is another 1:1 traffic exchange site that seems to have more commercial sites registered with them than blogs. It has a 30-second timer giving viewers a lot of time to view the blogs. The thing that stands out is that they pay you cash for active surfing ($0.50 for 1000 sites viewed)
TrafficG 
This is not blog specific, and you will see a number of non-blog websites. The ratio of 1:1 is good, and the longer surf time of 30 seconds means that you might get more quality traffic, people who browse your blog contents.
Blogazoo 
They have a 4:3 ratio, and credit incentives to read blogs and find the 'gazoos'. (Update: This service is temporarily not available and link is removed.)
Linkreferral 
I happened to come across this site last week. Essentially, when you register your blog with them, other members can review your site, give a rating and post comments. The more sites you visit or review, the higher your blog rank will be, and the more likely that your blog will be seen by others. Unlike the other programs, you will expect visitors to go through what you write in order to review your blog.
Conclusion
If your blog is new, traffic exchange may do wonders in sending visitors to your site. Surfing other members' sites is also a good way to learn useful tips to improve on your blog. For a wider exposure, you would want to have your blog listed in Blog Directories, Feed Directories, and search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com. Also, submit your Blog to the various Search Engines. Nothing beats content though, and if you have good quality writing, you can be sure that your blog will be read.
source : http://tips-for-new-bloggers.blogspot.com/