Images can work wonders, and I see a lot of people overlooking that. First of all, I mentioned before why people should include images in every post, and one of the main reasons is because it’ll catch people’s attention and it can help bring in traffic. But have you ever found yourself visiting someone’s site or profile based on just their picture? Of course you have!

Let’s take all social networking sites for an example. If you see their avatar that has a picture of them on it, you’re probably more prone to click on their profile rather than someone that doesn’t, right? Because without that picture, you may think that profile is spam or never updated, and you wouldn’t want to waste that extra moment.

Me neither!

Now think about if that picture of that person was very attractive, or maybe half naked – who cares? I’m pretty sure a high percentage of people will end up checking out that profile or site because that simple image caught their attention. Just check out how many comments I got for putting up a hot girl on this post!

Also, I’m very confident that 99.9% of you guys have an account on MySpam, I mean, MySpace. Try putting a picture of yourself, or just a picture of a beautiful person. If you already have it as your main image, try doing the opposite. If you do the opposite, watch your visits from newcomers slowly decrease. Unless, of course, you already have 674,978 friends. Which I’m sure most of you guys do!

I mentioned a while back that attractive people are taking over the blogging world, and that’s not the only thing they’re taking over. Wait, I think I was supposed to add an example of something else they’re taking over… eh, I got nothing.

But I caught myself on Mybloglog the other day going through people’s profiles and noticed I wasn’t bothering with profiles without images because the handful of ones I did click on, they were never updated, never added any content, websites or anything! It was almost acting like a turn-off like there was nothing to grab my attention besides the name. And unless you have a display name like “Luckily you suck!” or something you don’t see often, I probably will just skip over you. And I’m sure I’m not the only one!

Another example; I recently joined Twitter and I was adding people that I knew from around the Blogosphere. Of course, most people never keep the same username for every single networking site, so luckily, you have avatars. And yes, I found a whole bunch of people just because I recognized their avatar from somewhere else.

In the very beginning of my Blogging life, I was told by numerous people to just put a picture of myself (as my avatar) to show I was a real person. Of course, I tried that for a day but decided that I didn’t want to scare people away! So, I did a mini-experiment with putting a hot girl as my avatar and so far I’ve done wonders around that. As you can see, I still have one for most, if not all, of my avatars.

The bad part of doing that is the fact that a few people thought I was a girl until they read my profile and it says “Name: Jason.” But most of those people (I think?) end up checking out my site and sticking around.

I mean, I can tell you that I’m not the only one who does this. For instance, Maki of Doshdosh almost always puts up images of anime women on his posts and look at how successful he has become. (And it’s from his content but the images!) Though, it’s funny, on his “About Me” page he does state “One last thing. In case you were fooled by the numerous beguiling pictures of cute anime girls on Dosh Dosh, I’m actually a guy and not a girl.”

In conclusion, I know putting a hot girl as my avatar may be misleading but it got you to my site, right? And most of you guys are beautiful anyways so you can just display a picture of yourself.

But hopefully when you do manage to make it to my site, you’re just not disappointed because when it comes down to it, it’s the content that makes you stay and continue to come back and not the hot women, right?

Well, hopefully that’s the case.

Warning: Before you continue to read why you should sign up for Twitter, by doing so, you are taking a risk of becoming more addicted to it than blogging! Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Most of you guys already know about Twitter, I mean, the last few weeks all I seen were Twitter posts and how you can “increase your traffic with Twitter” or “use the full benefits of Twitter!” So, I guess it’s my turn to tell you why you should sign up for Twitter, huh? I will just say, “because you will get noticed!”

I have only been a member of Twitter for a couple days and I’m already interacting with some great bloggers (and non-bloggers) and that includes a couple of A-listers. Twitter is definitely a good way to get noticed by your peers and definitely to expand out to build a bigger readership. I mean, who doesn’t want exposure for their site(s)?

Just picture yourself in a big chat room with fellow bloggers just sharing thoughts, stories, ideas or just showing how crazy your personality is. *Cough* Garry Conn *Cough*

Twitter allows you to interact and show people what’s behind that blogger-mind of yours. I mean, how often does a little blogger like me get to leisurely chat with Darren of Problogger or Maki of Doshdosh?

I know they’re busy and all, but here’s the secret… and don’t tell anybody! Psst… come closer… they’re busy because… they’re on Twitter all day! And there you have it ladies and gentle-fellas! The true reasoning behind why bloggers are so busy when they’re not blogging.

Hey, Twitter shows me A-listers are just like any of us – bloggers, normal people, Twitter addicts!

Okay, sorry, I’m getting a little off-track with my ass kissing. And now you’re probably wondering, “who cares if I get noticed by an A-lister?” Fine, that’s understandable that there are tons of people who could careless. But Twitter will benefit you more than just getting noticed, you will get guaranteed traffic!

Personally, I’ve gotten about 30-40 unique visitors from yesterday to today. That’s not saying much, but then again, I didn’t drop a single link through my ‘updates’ and I only been there for a couple days. On top of that, Twitter visitors average about a minute and a half with a 56% bounce rate.

Wow, compare that with my Entrecard traffic the past couple days – average of 2 seconds and a bounce rate of 96%! (no exaggeration on those stats, I’ll screenshot it again if you want).

Obviously, there’s no comparison.

But according to 45n5, Twitter is their #10 referral. Given the fact that they’ve gotten over 20,000+ uniques this month, that’s pretty good!

Also, if you do get the attention of an A-list blogger, sometimes they’ll share your link to their readers. Additionally, if you’re lucky, you’ll get some link love on their blog.

Don’t believe me? Well, then you must’ve not been to Problogger because the other day he simply asked his ‘followers’ to “nominate their best post from the last week” and he gave them link love.

You still think you won’t get noticed with Twitter? Hey, I got noticed by a bunch of people who I just met for the first time. So feel free to add me when and if you do sign up!

Special shout out to some of my Twitter noobs buddies: Brunette, Garryconn, Ericablonde, Gorillasushi, Saphrym, Rhyswynne… and if I forgot to mention you here, just let me know!Twitter LogoTwitter Logo

As a lot of you guys already know, I recently switched to Wordpress and my own hosting server last week. Remember, my site was down for a couple days and we had the picture of the lovely Eva Mendes bookmarking my homepage. But let’s not get off track here, but if you missed the nice picture and want to see it, click here.

It has only been one week since I officially switched to Wordpress, and besides all the additional features that you couldn’t do with Blogger, my stats also increased.

Coincidence? I think not!

Okay, I’ve been procrastinating about switching to Wordpress for a few months but I finally did and couldn’t be any happier. Honestly, some people kept making fun of the fact that I wasn’t getting comments because Blogger’s comment feature, um, pretty much sucks. On top of that, my design was so nice that a lot of newbie bloggers couldn’t find where the comment button was!

Of course all the Wordpress users are probably like “Well Jay, obviously Wordpress is better!” But damn, I didn’t know it was going to improve my stats so quickly!

The Stats…

I only posted three official times since I converted to Wordpress and since then, I have received almost 50 comments (excluding mine own replies). The week prior to me switching, I had about 24ish and a majority of that came because of the “If You Didn’t have Entrecard, Your Blog Would Have No Visitors” article I wrote.

So far so good, twice the comments which shows the quality of my visitors!

Now the visitors… well, the visitors in quantity was slightly down, but then again, I didn’t really hit the social media sites and when I didn’t, I started to get more quality visitors and it boosted my Alexa ratings. (Alexa daily was hovering around 40-50,000 and the week prior was around 80,000)

And since my switch, my pageviews has been almost three times higher than before!

Okay, you must’ve did something different Jay!

I guess, but I haven’t been marketing my articles as much as I usually do and my stats are still increasing? So, the difference, I guess I did less marketing than I normally would.

Hmm… so stats went up since switching to Wordpress… coincidence, I think not!

So, what in the hell was the point of this article? Well, if you want to increase your visitors, comments, interaction with your readers, boost your Alexa ratings, etc, you might want to consider switching to Wordpress.

Hey, I did it and so far it’s been wonderful. Matter of fact, I had a lot of first time commentators.

Now I wonder was it because of my “top commentators” plugin or the “comment luv” plugin? Eh, either way it’s helping you guys as well as me!

We all do this, it’s more common than you think; we tend to not comment as much as we should on other blogs. I mean, there are tons of reasons why people should, but we all have to remember the small things that will help us in the future. I mean, the hard part is to read the entire post. Once you get over that little hump, the easy part is to take 10 seconds to make a quick comment.

So, why should I leave comments?

The obvious reason is because you’ll get the attention of the blog owner and possibly get in good with them. But that’s not the only reason why you should.

First of all, you will get guaranteed traffic. The guaranteed traffic has a few variables, of course. If you participate with an in-depth, interesting comment, you’ll catch other commentator’s attention which will draw them to your site. Also, it depends on how big the blog is. For instance, I commented on Doshdosh once and simply from that one comment I left, I received double-digit visitors.

Just make sure you include your website URL or no visitors for YOU!

Also, with the guaranteed traffic, most blog owners (including myself) has the “comment luv plugin” which displays your most recent post through your RSS Feeds. This works just as good as including a link within your comment or signature.

You’ll get rewarded. Uh huh, you will. There are so many blogs that reward their top commentators with a backlink to their site. Matter of fact, I just installed that plugin so you’ll be getting a backlink from my PR4 site! This will help you with your own pagerank and .

Not only will you get rewarded with backlinks, but some people hold daily, weekly or monthly contests in which it’s just as simple to enter as commenting! Hey, if you were going to comment anyways, you’ll just increase your chances of winning in a contest you might have not known about!

Lastly, you will get noticed! I mentioned this already, but the more you comment on a particular site, I guarantee you that the blog owner will notice. But the more you comment, the more you’ll get noticed. I mean, look at it this way; all these big name bloggers read each others blogs – whether it’s for competitive reasons or because they’re a fan – and just by commenting, you just increased your exposure to them.

Also, commenting does not only apply to blogs. Commenting on social bookmarking and media sites will increase your chances of getting exposure to your profile which leads to your site!

Don’t worry; I finally switched over to Wordpress so it makes it easier for you guys to comment. And not only that, I installed “comment luv” and “top commentators” plugins.

So, what are you waiting for? Start commenting already!

It’s March Madness! And no, I’m not talking about NCAA basketball. This is March Madness for blog contests – and it’s getting crazy in the Blogosphere! I swear, every other day I’m hearing about a brand new contest that has tons and tons of sponsors that’s totaling prizes from $500 to $10,000+ yes, $10,000+!!! That’s crazy!

I’ve been approached by a couple people to become a sponsor for their contest but honestly, how many contests can I actually support, you know? Though, if you are a dedicated reader and a fellow blogger friend, then I will be glad to participate in sponsoring… just as long as I get a chance to win too!

But before I get to all the crazy contests I’ve seen this month so far (and I’m only going to mention ones that has prizes totaling over $500), I am also looking for sponsors for my upcoming contest. If you would like to sponsor anything worthy of giving away (please, no dirty underwear or half eaten candy bars), please leave a comment here or e-mail me at whojaybe [at] datmoney [dot] com.

So far, I have two sponsors. Again, it can be anything worth giving away! And no, boogies from your nose or things you would hand down to your little brother or sister is not exactly what I had in mind.

Okay, enough about trying to get sponsors for my blog (which would be greatly appreciated!), here’s some crazy contests that might be worth checking out. But hopefully these contests don’t compare to mine that I’m going to have!

Winning the Web – Gyutae has definitely outdone himself this time! This crazy, crazy man with all these WTW t-shirts has gathered enough sponsors to total $12,201 in cash and prizes. I’m not going to lie, I entered but I wasn’t too thrilled about being “required” to sign up for his mailing list. Who wants to bet he’s going to spam me?

Etienne Teo – Etienne is getting his name out there, and he has $5,641 worth of reasons to help you remember his name. Matter of fact, I’m one of his sponsors! If you win, you’ll have the change of winning custom made designs by me and some Entrecard credits.

The University Kid – Jason is definitely dreaming of money in class, but this time, he’s gotten enough sponsors to make some peoples’ dreams of money come true. His current contest has over $2,000 worth of prizes as well as 20,000+ Entrecard credits. Hey, it’s easy to sign up. I mean, I’ve been meaning to sign up for his RSS Feeds for a while, now I have an extra incentive too!

Feed Flare – Collin is celebrating his grand opening contest with $500 of prizes. Just remember, it’s only his grand opening, I’m sure there will be more to come! And yes, I am one of the sponsors for his contest so good luck to you all!

If there’s any huge contests that I should know about (to sign up and win!), let me know and I’ll add it here!