Category Archives: Online Promotions

May Madness – how mad?

How mad do things get in May?

Well, how about 15% of feature listings at Save Time Online, or 25% off a Business Mums magazine subscriptions, or 10% off a custom made water tank or even a $4.95 a saving saving forever with a My-shop store?

That is just a sample of the mad offers being made as part of Save Time Online’s annual May Madness celebration.

And what does it cost to take advantage of these offers? Absolutely nothing! Well, nothing more than the time to read an offer and decide it suits you anyway!

So go mad!

PS If you run a business, it is not too late to add your offer either. Just contact us with the deatils now!

Million blog list

This is an interesting idea – and it will be interesting to see how long this ends up taking, too. This site is trying to get 1 million blogs added to their blog by the other blog owners.

In their words, ” It is said that there are over 70,000,000 blogs in existence. This is an experiment to see how long it will take to get 1,000,000 blogs to list themselves on our site. Will it work? We think so. The experiment is to see how long will it take. What do you think? take our poll. We started April 10th, 2008. “

The Save Time Online blog is listed at number 895 so they still have a few more blogs to go, lol!

Why would you add your blog?

  • it’s fun!
  • it is an extra link to your blog which helps search engine rankings and gives you more exposure
  • it is free and easy to do

Mentioning the list on your blog is optional – however, if you do mention them, you can bold your site in the list and may get selected as their random ‘blog of the week’ for additional exposure.

Yes, mentioning them gives them more traffic, but it may make for an interesting post on your blog. And if their site gets popular, linking to them can’t hurt your page rankings! And then. blogging is about community and joiing in, so being part of this fits tthe blog world anyway.

What do you think about the list? Will you add your blog to it? And will you link to them from your blog?

Why offer RSS feeds on your site/blog?

Did you know that you can use RSS feeds to add your blog content to other sites? You can offer it for others to add to their sites (for example, look in the meta data section the right of this post – clicking on ‘entries RSS’ will set up the RSS feed for you) or add it to another site manually.

But why would you add your blog content to another site?

  • gets your content in front of more people so it spreads your message further
  • it links to your blog so it can increase your traffic and site rankings 
  • it builds your credibility as an expert in your topic
  • it is a form of free promotion to your blog (and business if applicable)
  • may be picked up by different sites which may not have found your actual blog post
  • it helps build the community aspect of blogging and communicating with people

An RSS feed can only occur if you allow it and it is still seen under your name – it isn’t like someone blatnatly copying your content for their own pursposes. And of course, teh copyright remains with you as the creator of teh content.

So keep an eye out for opportunities to share your blog content through an RSS feed…

Give rice to the starving

This is the sort of thing that makes the internet so wonderful – you can help others quickly and easily, and it doesn’t even have to cost money.

Visit the free rice site, test and improve your vocabulary, and 20 grains of rice goes to the UN to defeat world hunger. Work on more words, donate more rice.

It is very clever, too – with each correct answer, you earn points towards a harder level so you can improve your vocab; if you find the words tough, it moves you to easier words. The aim is everyone can learn without getting discouraged. What a win win!

However, we must warn you – some people find these site addictive! But at least it is in a good cause!

 

** If you run a business website, you may be interested in joining the free rice campaign as a donator, too. It is like paying per view of your banner on other sites – each time your banner shows under the vocab test, you pay for it. Unlike other advertising options, you know your money is helping the truly needy.

Online magazines

Have you noticed the increasing number of magazines that are going online instead of having hard copies?

There are obvious advantages to this for the publishers

  • reduced costs of printing and layout
  • longer deadlines can be allowed – without having print times, the magazine can be prepared closer to publish dates
  • the ability to refer to older articles with a link so readers can access multiple articles on a topic with ease
  • greater ease at measuring popularity of sections through website statistics

Online magazines also use up less paper and energy in the printing process, which is why many of these online magazines announce they are green. Of course, there is the energy of establishing, running and visiting a website but this has a smaller impact than cutting down trees, making paper and printing on that paper.

On the other hand, there are some advantages to a hard copy magazine, too, and publishers need to consider which group of advantages best suits the needs of their readers.

A hard copy magazine:

  • is easy to read anywhere – in the bath, waiting for an appointment, while using a treadmill or exercise bike, sitting in the park with the kids
  • is easier and quicker to read than onscreen information
  • can be ripped apart to store valued sections (e.g. a recipe or craft pattern) – of course, an online magazine can always have these sections printed!
  • has a feel and smell that some people enjoy
  • arrives in the mail as a treat for subscribers – a nice change from bills and ads!

So which do you prefer to read? Which do you think is the better option moving forward? If you were to start a magzine, which way would you present it?