Direct Traffic to Your Blog for Free

Are you looking for traffic to your blog? Many blogs have joined Entrecard for this reason, then things changed at that website, and many people have decided to drop out of Entrecard altogether.

So how do we get traffic to our blogs besides paying for the ad space on other websites? There are many free ways to bring in readers, such as signing your blog up at different blog directories, bookmarking your sites, and get links exchange for your blog.

Try this website to direct traffic your blog for free:


This is one of the easiest ways to expose your blog to World Wide Web. Click on the link above, type in your blog URL, grab the widget codes, put it on your blog, and you are done!

There is no sign up requirements, and no placement of ads to fuss about. You don't even have to return favors to the people who visit your site, but it is always good to play nice though.

If you want more exposure to your blog, write a post about BlogUpp, and send it to the editors at BlogUpp.

For me, it is so worth the effort to promote and help the founder, who in turn helps me promoting my site for free! What could be better?

Blooming Crab Apple

My crab apple tree is finally blooming with flowers! This tree is tucked in the back corner of our house, and is not visible for others to view.

At this time of the year, this tree is at its best, and is a home to varieties of birds, and squirrels.

Just One

I like the soft pink in this flower, and as I look up; I have a perfect shot of just one single flower, with a little green and a bud behind it.

A Full Branch

When this tree is in bloom, it goes all out! Some branches are just full and heavy with flowers. This branch has one opened flower, one just opened, and many buds.

Stretching Out

This one branch stood out with two buds at the end, and has one flower near them. I like how the branch stretched and showed off its uniqueness.

Still Shy

These babies are tucked low and closer to the fence! They look secluded and apart from the rest of the branches. Since it received less sun light, their color was almost red.

Up Close and Personal

Depending on the light of day, these crab apple flowers show different shades of pink. I took this picture early in the morning light, and these flowers have such a nice tint to them.

Above My Head

This branch above my head is full of flowers. They grew in a cluster, and the color is just magnificent. I can stand underneath this tree all day, because I love the way it looks at this time of the year.

If you can recall, this is the same corner of our house that Joey took the pictures of the birds, and the squirrels, with only the seasons changed.

Three Easy Steps to Get Alexa Ranking for Your Blog

Do you know anything about Alexa Ranking for your blog/site? I don't, and I didn't think it is important at all to my blog until I sign up with paid ad review sites.

What I found out is your Alexa Ranking is very serious, and it determines the rating of your blog when you apply for ad review opportunities. The higher the rank of a blog, the more tasks/assignments you will receive, and the more money you can make.


After reading many articles on Alexa, I found three easy steps to increase blogs ranking. As you can tell, I am on a quest to earn money while enjoy blogging.

Step One

Click on this link, type in your blog address, and click submit. Next, it will take you to another page, and you will need to click on "Request that Alexa crawl...(your site). If you want to, you can also click on "Update contact information..."

Step Two

Click on this link to go to Widget site, where you will scroll down the page to find what widget you want to put on your blog. For me, I chose to install the Alexa Traffic Rank, and Alexa Site Stats Button.


Hit Build Widget, then copy and paste the codes on your blog. Since I changed my template twice in the last six months, my ranking, and stats are just pathetic!

The reason why you should put the widgets on your blog is to let Alexa knows the traffic coming to your site.

Step Three

Download the Alexa toolbar for Firefox or Internet Explorer, and set your blog as your Home Page. The toolbar allows you to see other similar sites, traffic trend, and enhanced search.

I hope you will find this post useful/helpful to increase your blog ranking. Even if you are not into making money doing ad reviews, it is good to know that your blog brings enjoyment to other people.

Extra Information to Read

• SEO Book

• 20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Ranking

Bursting Out

This series is called bursting, since the flowers are exactly like that. While shopping at a fruit and vegetable market, I could not resist snapping some pictures of this flower.

Some flowers are still growing, while others are already near their end. I meant to write down the name of this flower in my note book but I didn't have a chance to do so, because people shoved me aside as it was a very busy day at the market.

Bursting

This flower has a little touch of orange color and all the petals are pointy at the end. It is very different since I am used to look at rounded petals.

Bursting 1

This flower is all bursting out! As I clicked the button on my camera, someone nudged me in the back, and part of this photo was out of focus.

Bursting 2

These two pots were put next together, showcasing their burst of energy, beauty and amazing uniqueness.

Bursting 3

A different view on a different angel! I would have love to be able to bring them more into focus, but the situation was in the "push and shove" mood at the market.

Bursting 4

I am pretty sure this flower is in the Gerbera Daisy family. Deep pink color, pointed petals, and beautiful center are what taking my breath away. Again, you don't want to know what I said when I got push out of focus!!

Bursting 5

A closer look at a different angle! This photo showed the remarkable beauty of their colors, and their centers. Each petal on these flowers also showed different sizes and shapes.

Tell me the name of these flowers if you know...

The Casualty of Today's Wave Weaver Blog

The email came last night from Today.com editors, that I will not get pay per post anymore. I'm no longer a VIP blogger for various reasons and among these lame excuses are: popularity, productivity, quality, and potential.

Ha...I would have appreciated a straight and truthful reason than these bogus mass produced letter! Something like: we just want to lure people in with our pay per post, get them to drive traffic to our site, and then push them down a level. Wouldn't that be more honorable?

Every three months or so, they go through their "review" process, and toss out as many VIP bloggers as they can. Hey, how can they afford to pay $1 per post a day to thousands of bloggers after all? You do the math!!!

I made my first paid out at Today after three months. Whew...at least I got paid for all the time that I've spent on that blog!!


Here is my advice to all Today bloggers out there: write a post everyday while you are still in the VIP status. After you get kicked off the system, do whatever you want.

Today.com still has a decent paid out for traffic: $2 per thousand unique visits. I only wish that they were more straight forward and honest in their pay per post advertisement.

I also want to send out my apology to those people who had signed up at Today because of my persuasion. Forgive me, please...This is a good "live and learn" lesson for me.

I will remove Today's advertising from my blogs to prevent people from signing up under fault assumption!

Finches in the Cage

Albert, Joey's bunny, was out of food, so we took a trip to the pet store to look for a bag of pellets. When we got there, Joey found himself at the birds' area instead. He knew that I carried a camera in my purse, so away he went.

Babies in the Nest

This nest was hanging down from a huge cage, and opened on both sides. These baby finches were quite comfortable staying in it and waited for their meals to deliver.

Around this huge cage, nests were hanging everywhere, and different baby finches were in each of the nests.


This baby finch perched out, called for his/her mother, and had a quick look at the world when the picture was snapped!

All in the Family

In this cage, families of different finches were all together. There were society finches, spice finches, zebra finches, and cordon blue finches.

These finches were having a meeting about the boy who kept snapping pictures of them. They were quite startled.

If you look closely, you can see different finches on this branch! It was a difficult task to get them all together. My son had me stood on the other end of the cage to get them all in one spot.

After many shots, the birds seemed to calm down and were not bothered much with the flashes going off any more. They were really fascinating to watch.

All photos belong to Joey, if you use them, please link it back to this blog!

Orange Roses

I've always love looking at photos, and taking pictures. These past two years, I am obsessed with macro photography.

I like to see things up close because I can truly see the beauty of the subject in every little detail, or maybe I just hate admitting that I'm getting older.

Since having terrible arthritis in my fingers, I cannot hold a heavy camera without shaking, so I carry a small point and shoot camera with me.

These are my orange roses collection. If you want to use these photos, please link them back to my blog!!!

Curly and Lovely

I love the curly and delicate petals on this rose! The soft light in this photo makes it look so romantic. (This was taken in May, 2008)

Two-Tone Rose

This rose actually has two colors: dark and light orange, and in this light, it almost looks reddish. (This was taken in June, 2008)

Strong Beauty

What a soft and beautiful color this rose is! I like how this one turns out most! (This was taken in July, 2008)

Define Beauty

I zoomed in on this rose while the petals are still all wrapped tightly together! I love the curve shape of this rose! They are so crisp and clear!

Getting Old

This rose shows sign of distress on its petal, but nonetheless, it stands strong, and holds its cluster of petals very tight! (This was taken in September, 2008)

Pretty Alone

Each rose is different, from the way their petals fold, to the feel and look. (This was taken in April, 2009)

With macro photography, you can see the rose in its own entity.

HAPPY EASTER, to all!

Problems With My Feedburner

Most of us, bloggers, sign up with Feedburner to provide readers a way to subscribe to our blog, but what is wrong with its system?

Everyday, I find that I've lost more than half of my readers overnight! Why? This is frustrating! What is the deal, or better yet what is wrong with the numbers?

Photo by elusiveboy

Reach Beyond Limits has at least 48 subscribers two days ago, but it only shows 11 readers today. My blog cannot drop that far below the mark for 37 readers to unsubscribe. After all, my blog also has a Google Page Rank of 3!

Wandering Thought has 28 readers, and now I have 14! Why oh why? My Google page rank of 1 had also disappeared. Does this have anything to do with template changing? What am I doing wrong?

While we are on the subject of Feedburner, I have some questions below:

1. Can Feedburner send traffic to your article or site? I read an article before where the author said she received around 200 views from Feedburner. Is this possible?
   
2. Can we burn every single post or article that we write?
   
3. How does Feedburner works, really?
   

I don't know whether I should believe the numbers in my feed, or how to improve my blog to retain readers. If you have any suggestions, I would love to learn from you!

The Craziness on EC

If you checked into your account at EC these last couple of days, you will be shock to see an amazing request of adverts. It is absolutely chaotic!

I don't get in a habit of approving ads before checking the site out, so yes, more time has to be invested in this matter! Right now, I have 21 ads in queue, and 34 ads waiting for my approval. Come on, Mr. Langdon, these will push people over the edge, don't you think?


As bloggers, we would like to have time to write, and visit our friends' sites too. Something is not right with this new system. It has become too much, and not enjoyable anymore! Well, now I totally understand why Today.com bailed out, and so happy that they did.

What is not working at EC

The ads are all messed up. For example, in my dashboard at EC it shows a different ad, and on my blog it shows a totally different one! (This one is on the bottom of my list!!!)

The amount of credits requires buying ad space on my blog, remains the same!

I lost control of my own blog, because EC will put whatever ad they want on my blog once I approve the ad! This is totally suck!

All the regular blogs that I have approved will be tossed aside, and the paid ads will take priority without my saying.

There are ads on my blogs that I didn't approve, which are not fair to those that paid with their credits before these last two days.

I like to only accept blogs that using their credits, not paid with money, but I also understand that the company must make money to pay for their expenses too.

I will hang in there for a week or two to see if EC can straight out this problem! If not, I will have to delete my blogs from their system. It is not worth loosing control of my blogs.

MY APOLOGY

To all Entrecard droppers, I am temporarily stop visiting your sites for now, since I can't seem to make sense out of this new system. If your ad got kicked off my widget, I'm very sorry!!!It's very unfair to you, but I have nothing to do with it!

Music Station at Science Night

I love music and the many wonderful ways people come up with creating the instruments.

For example, you can take a paper towel tube, cover one end, pour in some beans, then cover the other end, and you will have a shaker for your child to make music.

Musical Pipes

These are different sizes and colors of pipes! When the children pick it up, and gently drop it on the floor, each of them makes a different sound. There is a musical sheet on the table that shows the children how to play a song by using the right pipe!

The Chain of Sound

Using the paddles to tap on the mouth of the tube creates a chain of sound at this station. Though it is soothing to play with this for a while, we must move on since the line of people is very long.

This musical instrument is not fancy, but the music it makes is just as wonderful. Note how science has to do with the placement of these tubes.

Vibration Music

Joey is holding the so-called "drum stick", and by using this rubber end drum stick to hit the bowl, you can hear the vibration in musical rhythm. It is a neat thing to play with.

This is the front side of the vibration station. This simple bowl was placed on a rubber mat, and uses a little rubber ball at the end of a stick to create an amazing feel and sound!

The Science of Sound


A teacher shows this student how to use these metal instruments to make music. The different weights of these metal Y-shape instruments create different sound and wave.

Sound Waves

Another fascinating creation of sound waves! My son and I have to skip trying this instrument since we have the cold symptoms. It is not right for us to put our mouths on the tube to spread the germs.

We thoroughly enjoyed Science Night at his school. At the end, we had to fill out a survey to tell the coordinators how we feel, if we will come back next year, and our experiences.

I sincerely recommend everyone to come to Science Night next year! It was a wonderful project for parents and kids to get involved in.