ExposeYourBlog! – What is it and why?

A year and a few months ago five people got together at my request and we put up a web site, http://exposeyourblog.com, as a traffic exchange service to help get our blogs and your blogs seen by others. We are down to two of the original admins, and one new one, but the service is still up and running and plans to be for the long term. We are not in it for the money but to help our blogs get seen by more people and to see other great blogs.

So, what is ExposeYourBlog! all about? ExposeYourBlog! is a Traffic Exchange Service that allows you to put your blog(s) in a queue to be seen and read by other people on the net. It provides another avenue to help get your site seen. This service is not like MOST traffic exchanges out there, in that it only allows for blogs to be put in rotation. Each blog in rotation is on your screen for from 20 seconds to 35 seconds giving you a chance to glance over it to see if there is new content to read. After reading and commenting, you have the option to click on a color or text to move on to the next site in rotation.

To make it work for you, what you must do is spend some time each day or week reading other blogs. As you do this, you earn credits that are automatically assigned to your blog(s) so others see yours. You do not see your blog(s) while you are surfing (so you don’t use up your own credits). So, the more you surf, the more your blog goes into rotation! Also, the more you surf, the chance of getting an extra 5 to 500 credits comes along every few surfs (~33) in a row! Don’t worry though! You will not see the same blog in a continuous three hour surfing session! Now, if you leave for any length of time over say 3 hours you may see some of the same blogs again, but that is because you have gone outside of that three hour window!

Why upgrade to a paid account? Free accounts are set to have a counter of 25 seconds for their blog(s) to be seen before the next blog can be selected. Paid members blog(s) get a counter of between 30 and 35 seconds, depending on the Pro level selected. Also, paid members get a reduction of time required to wait on other blogs of from 2 to 5 seconds, again, depending on the level of paid membership. Free members earn 3 credits for every 5 blogs they see. Pro/Paid members earn 1 credit for every 2 blogs or 1 for 1, depending on their level. (Each credit earned comes out of the viewed blogs owner’s credit using them up as the other person surfs. (Make sense?)) Free members can only have two blogs in rotation at a time. Paid members can have from 5 to 50 (ok, I know, who has 50 blogs, you may be surprised!!) blogs in rotation at any time. Free members may only have banners that point to blogs (unless they buy commercial banner credits), while paid members may put any banner in rotation. Free members only get one banner. Pro/Paid members can have 5 to 15 banners in rotation!

A VERY important reason to be a Pro/Paid member is that there is a greater chance, by 10%, that your blogs will be seen first! Yep, being a Pro member you blogs have a weighted chance of 10% better viewings!

Why have banners? Banners give you a chance, with a flashy banner, to get another chance of having the surfer look at your blog(s)! PLUS, if you keep an eye on the banners each time the surf bar loads, you stand a chance of getting from 1 to 5 extra credits added to your account if you click on the banner before the notice slips off! After it slips off the banner, you don’t get any extra credits, so look at the banner first thing!! Also, I am using those banners in rotation on other web sites soon! Remember, all banners MUST be 468X60 in size to be seen correctly! If you have banners, keep an eye on the credits available to you banners, as you may need to convert some of your surfing credits to your banners to get them seen!

Why surf daily and for at least 35 blogs each day? Well, for one, it keeps more credits in your account so your blog gets seen more often! Those that surf daily raise their blogs visibility by 5% for that day, meaning that it will be seen 5% more often that day than those accounts that have not surfed that day, so if you are a Pro/Paid member surfing daily, you are at 15% instead of 10%. After very 33 blogs you surf you will come upon a verification page that will allow you to receive from 5 to 500 extra credits, some cash and other benefits! Plus, you get to read some great blogs as you go! So, come join us and SURF AWAY!!

A busy time!

Like most of you (not that there are that many readers I’m sure!) I have a lot of projects I’m working on:

First and foremost is my home based business Watkins. This is a “self employment” process that I have been working for roughly 10 years now, and when I am active, it does good, and I’m active again, or at the beginnings of being active anyway! If you are interested in working for yourself, go here. An income stream that I control per say.

TDBell Enterprises, Inc., the second part of my self employment in which I do two things: Help Start Up business find money, and fix computers (software mainly, but hardware too). Again, a revenue generating practice to increase my income flows via multiple streams of income.

While it is on hiatus at the moment, Circular Wind Ryu, which is my martial arts school. Another self employed job. Here teaching martial arts. I plan on re-opening this aspect of work in the very near future.

ExsposeYourBlog.com. I am the owner and one of the admins of this blog exchange where you sign up (free and paid options), surf five blogs (read five blogs) and then post your blog or blogs on the site for others to read. Each day (hopefully ) you surf a few blogs, leave comments on those you like and earn credits so others can come see your blog when they surf. With this project I also have up a forum I work on, and both aspects take time in coding, fixing, monitoring and surfing. (GREAT blogs there worth reading on a daily or at least weekly basis!)

During they day, Monday through Friday I work as a OR Supply Technician until I can get into the IRM (Information Resources Management) department. This, for now, is my main income source. Not what I want to be doing, but hope to change that soon. (See top three jobs listed here. )

I am a Sir Knight (4th Degree Knight) with the Knights of Columbus, which takes up several hours a month in various functions and events, and I’m the web master of our site (http://www.kofc1487.org).

And I am studying theology on the side via reading and researching. I plan on taking this up formally once my income stabilizes and I have enough left over each month to take the next step.

What does your week look like?

Chat is Open Again!

Well, it seems through “non-use” the Chat page wasn’t working. I have it back up and running, and actually plan on using it when I’m at the computer going forward! I have also tied it in to my Martial Arts blog, http://www.ciruclarwindryu.com/blog, so if you are on either page, you can chat with each other.

Hope to chat with you there, if you aren’t on ExposeYourBlog!’s chat page!

I’m bummed…

For the last few years I have been using bloglines.com as my feed aggregater for blogs that I have been interested in, but that I didn’t want to go to each day unless there was something new there. If the blog was in Blog Explosion or now ExposeYourBlog! I didn’t need it there, but there are some that weren’t/aren’t in either place, so I used BlogLines.com.

Well, as of October 1 they are going to be closed down. BUMMER!! I liked the service, I liked how they were set up, and I used them daily to check on my blogs of interest….

Now to find another aggregater to use… Any recommendations?

Half over…

…and I want to double the time off!

Well, my week off form work is all but half over, and I’m already wishing for more time off.

It has been a busy week of traveling to Ohio for a medical appointment to make sure my bad knee, given to me by the US Army, was still bad, and if to see if I could get a bump up in how bad it was (more money, and it is in pain ALL the time these days, gives out often, and I’m in a brace most of the time now), fixing the code behind ExposeYourBlog! and WORKING on getting Surf&Chat back in place (not quite there yet, but getting closer) in a manner that the system doesn’t bog down like it was. I have also been busy cleaning out my dresser, night stand, car, and closet. My wife wants me to clean up my books too, but there is no place to put them, and I’m not wanting to get rid of them…. I have also added more music to my music selection, equalized all the music in my collection so it all comes out with the same volume when it plays, and updated the autoDJ at Radio ExposeYourBlog! today.

Tribal Blogs and ExposeYourBlog! have joined up in partnership in what I think will be great for the blogging community! I look forward to this relationship growing stronger each day! (And if you don’t use either service for your blogs, you should sign up for both, and actively use them!)

Tomorrow I get to go to the dentist for a cleaning, anyone want to go for me? Please? Pretty please?

Busy times. But I’m having fun, and I’m getting some reading in to boot!!

Happy Days! (Till I go back to work Monday…)

Next Week..

Next week I am on leave from work, and I plan on staying pretty busy working on ExposeYourBlog! so if you have anything you want to see added (or removed) please be sure to comment here or on the forums and I may consider it. I have a couple of surprises I hope to release during the week!

I will also be busy on a couple of other web sites I manage, and hope to keep this blog and my other three blogs current as well.

I plan on working on my “workout schedule” as well. I need to get my fat behind back in shape, like it was 10ish years ago, or as close to it as I can!! I hope to be getting a mountain bike (pedal kind) next week as well, so that may help.

Looking forward to a week of from work that is for sure… Was supposed to go to Florida and get what is left of my stuff out of storage down there, but my Mother-In-Law broke her hip, and while she is now home, we felt it was better to hang here just in case. Good thing too, because the VA decided to make an important exam for me, as I try to up my compensation for my service connected disability, and they made it for the middle of next week!! (Good thing I don’t have to use up sick leave for it!!)

Anyway, if you have anything you want to see changed on ExposeYourBlog! Let me know!

I don’t get it???

Ok, as I hope ALL of you know, especially if you have a blog, I own and run a Traffic Exchange for Blogs. In the process of checking out the various scripts out there to manage and run an exchange program, I have visited many sites to see how they set up their software, and to get a feel for each of them from the user side. After a week or so, I set on one, and purchased it and now we have ExposeYourBlog!. It’s up and running and it is niche based, meaning it is only for surfing blogs. It is there to help blog writers to get others to read their blogs, and surprisingly most of the bloggers read the blogs, comment on them, and are enjoying seeing the other blogs.

What I don’t get is the majority of the exchanges I’ve been on, especially the ones you can “earn money” on, are exchanges of exchanges. Meaning, every site in rotation on one exchange is another exchange site with other exchange sites on it. It is almost like they are making money off of one and giving it to another to make money off it to give it to another to make money of it. I just don’t get it!?

Find a niche category of websites, and I don’t mean other exchanges, which granted is a niche, and target that niche and go from there.. WILD!

Wow, what a two weeks…

This past two weeks has been pretty busy for me. And, while a lot of that busy has been on line, I really haven’t been able to surf much on ExposeYourBlog!, post here, post on Watkins Ramblings, or Daily Readings. I’ve been busy working on the back end of ExposeYourBlog! (some surprises coming in the near future there!), and on the Council web page for the Knights of Columbus that I belong to.

Add on to that all the work at work, restarting and re-building my Watkins business, working on Circular Wind Ryu building it up, and then last weekend and this weekend going to Knights of Columbus related events (last weekend doing service work at a Missionary Church, and this weekend going to Knights of Columbus training). Busy times.

Monday of next week, I will get to (I wish I could say back to, but I just haven’t been doing it!) doing daily postings on both Watkins Ramblings and Daily Readings. With Daily Readings I plan on going back in and filling in the missing days, all the way back to the first day I started it. (That will take some time though… )

See you all Monday!! Be safe and have fun, and if you have a blog, be sure to come to ExposeYourBlog!