Jude’s Eclectic Resources

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic seems that’s all I think about anymore and since finding out about Entrecard that seems to be all I’ve been doing. It can get tiresome dropping cards especially if you have more than 1 blog. I’ve been reading a lot of different blogs about their likes and dislikes with this unique program and what they have and haven’t gotten from it.

Every one has a different idea about what works, but I still haven’t gotten it worked out for myself. I have tried the power dropping and that goes a lot quicker, but I don’t get to enjoy the blogs. I used the socialcardster blog roll for a couple weeks until I realized half of them weren’t bothering to reciprocate.

Reciprocation is the whole idea or advertising on other sites so you don’t have to drop as much. At this point I am using my drop inbox and going back to page 12 and working my way to 1 sometimes I start on page 14 because many are the same sites on different days and if I get tired I simply whip out the power list and finish it up.

On occasion I use the chain dropping technique, but I think I like the inbox best because those people did take the time to drop on my blog. Since I have a lot of different interests I like looking at blogs from all categories instead of just sticking with the one I’m in. I do leave comments on other blogs, but not everyone I visit. I can’t get over how many blogs there are out there that are devoted to Entrecard alone.

I’m debating on buying credits, it would make it so much easier and I wouldn’t have to drop for three blogs. The problem I found when I went nuts with advertising this past week was advertising on the sites that I want and the price hikes. Also I try not to take it personally when someone declines me because I have declined some myself for various reasons.

I have just been racking up credits since I started with Entrecard and like I said I went nuts and didn’t even check the blogs that I advertised on which was a big mistake, but I wanted to splurge and try advertising. I always okay as soon as possible, but I noticed many don’t. I gave several days for approval and when they weren’t approved I simply canceled. I’m still learning and hopefully I’ll figure it all out soon.

Some days I feel like I’m brain dead and wonder why I’m even wasting all my time and money. I’m debating with myself about deleting 4 of my websites because they are simply sitting there and I do absolutely nothing with them. I sometimes think I’m going broke online.

I know I haven’t worked on them for a couple years so it’s silly to pay for domain names and websites that are useless even though I’m sure the information is probably helpful to the visitors that Google sends. Since taking up blogging I have neglected many things, but at least I’m not wasting my money on programs any more.

I have wasted so much money online since deciding that I could actually make some and a hundred of that was to a program called The Best Traffic Of  Your Life or TBTOYL and what this program did was redirect your websites or affliate links through their program and they claimed that it would help your traffic also. Well it didn’t and it was a real pain to use so I don’t use it any more.

I really don’t do much affiliate work any more so I don’t need the redirecting. If your not careful you can spend a lot of money to make money. Many people succeed online by using free programs and services and silly me I even paid for that information that I could have found by myself, but that was when I first started out.

I work within a budget now so all those great new programs that come out I simply block because I know I don’t need them and I wont ever use them just like the ton I just got rid of. I can never understand how to use these must have programs anyhow. Hide your credit card because it’s way to easy to whip out and go broke.

Small businesses need all the breaks they can get because when you’re first starting out you try to economize on everything. Every dollar counts and we find ways to stretch that dollar. You have to advertise and that can make or break a small  business, but if you can find quality for a budget price then you’re well on your way.

Everyone must have heard of VistaPrint by now and they have so many good deals for small businesses or anyone else for that matter, even small home projects and you can’t beat their deals or can you? There is now a new site called VistaPrint Coupons and  they feature none other than vistaprint coupons of course, what else?

When you go through this site you can pick up some phenomenal deals up to 50% and 80% off business cards, checks, address labels, pens, calendars, stamps, magnets and anything else that they they print. You can’t beat this company for the small business prices that they afford so you can compete with the larger companies.

If you haven’t signed up for their news letter on  their regular site which I did a long time ago then I urge you to bookmark this site so you can check for the best priced coupons that they offer on a regular bases. I get free offers in my inbox quite frequently and you can’t beat free. It’s easy to choose your designs and logos and design whatever you choose and need.

Does anyone belong to Sk*rt? I joined last year sometime and submitted a few of my post and then grew away from it like so many of the others. You can submit pretty much anything you want and like many of the other programs people vote on it or not and it was one of the ways I used to gain new traffic.

Depending on the category and how interesting your news worthy item was the more votes you would receive. They have many different categories you can submit to and it’s not difficult, but I tend to forget half the programs I join. Even though it was female gender based the male gender was also accepted.

I still see some of the Sk*rt badges around, but like everything else there has to be change and so it is with Sk*rt. They have changed their name and location now to Kirtsy so all of you that didn’t vote on the new name change are now aware that they are the same. It must be my age because I hate constant change especially if I have to do alot of work.

What pains me is the fact that all those people with old badges will now have to go back and change them all to the new ones and of course any track backs from the other site will be obsolete. Actually I never really thought about it because I’m not technical, but would you have to delete those or would they just disappear?

They also have a contest going for anyone that helps them spread the word, but I’m not leaving a comment on the blog to enter, but I did want to make sure I did my part to help and besides it gave me something to post about. Thoof is another program that I joined and used for awhile, but I pushed that one to the back burner also.

I’m just glad I didn’t have those badges all over the place. Too much to do, too little time.

This weekend I went to Staples and bought a WD Passport which is a 120 GB external hard drive and deleted all the programs and unnecessary junk I had on this one after backing it all up on the portable just encase I needed something later. If my computer goes under I will have everything saved and can use the portable hard drive on someone else’s PC which secures all my information and doesn’t leave a trace on their PC.

I was going to reinstall the whole system on this one and then just use what I needed from the external one because this PC has really slowed down over the past 4 years, but instead of reinstalling I decided to do a complete recovery and that seems to be enough right now. Everything seems to be running smoothly and I recovered the system tools that disappeared over the past few years.

Of course I had to update a lot of things, but it’s not making that God awful noise anymore and I’m content with that. I’m going to get that laptop I’ve been wanting sometime this week, but since I’m not familiar with them and everything I need I’ve been doing some research. Everyone seems to have an opinion as to what works best for them. I’m leaning toward either a Gateway or HP.

I really don’t need a large hard drive since I bought this external, but I would like the 3 or 4 G memory, but I’m sure I could upgrade it. I don’t think I will be downloading any more programs and if I do I will make sure I am very selective. I kind of like not having all that clutter on here and I realize I never needed all that junk that simply sucked up resources. When I get the laptop I can just use what I need from the passport and then just disconnect.