This is a sponsored review of the Publicity Wheel that is based fully on my opinion and is not biased in any way for or against the service provided.

With all of the traffic-exchange programs out there on the internet, it’s refreshing to see an idea that puts a fun “spin” on the free traffic services industry. There’s been a major backlash against popular services like Entrecard and SiteHoppin in recent weeks. While I still stick with the EntreCard system, I want to suggest a brand new platform that could soon compete with the leaders. It’s a fun way to increase your traffic just like hitting the front page of Digg or getting a massive StumbleUpon bump, and it’s called the Publicity Wheel.

What is Publicity Wheel?
I got a pleasant surprise after checking out this website and signing up. With an awesome web 2.0 design, the Publicity Wheel is a brand new traffic-exchange program that promises huge results if used effectively. Instead of relying on a direct exchange of traffic like the typical systems, you essentially rack up “publicity points” which are entered into a raffle that takes place every week. Once they “spin the Publicity Wheel,” the randomly selected websites (more points, better odds) from each niche are promoted excessively for a full week. This means that if you hit it rich, you are going to get an insane amount of traffic that could bring you from zero to hero in just a week.

How to Collect “Publicity Points”
Obviously, to increase the odds that your website gets randomly selected to be featured you need as many points as possible. The great thing about this system is that you can keep building your number of points week after week until you get featured, at which point you go back to 0. This means that if you work hard, you are nearly guaranteed to hit it big sooner or later.

I really like the system used to collect points. There are basically two ways to rack up as many entries as possible. The first way is a simple referral system. Every member that you invite to join will score you a quick 20 publicity points… which puts you in prime position to win already. The second method of accumulating points is to insert a code on your website to feature the winner from your niche. Every time someone clicks on your ad, that’s an instant 5 credits to your account. Last week, two users won with just 5 points, and a few with just 10 or 15… so you really don’t even need to participate a whole lot to get a win.

Different from the “Standard” Traffic Exchange?
Yes, there is in fact a difference between the normal traffic exchange programs and publicity wheel. While they sound much the same at first glance, you need to remember that in a traffic exchange, websites with more traffic are going to receive more referred traffic from the system based on the way things are laid out. Publicity Wheel is based on one site receiving all of the traffic at once. In this way, there is no playing favorites and you can receive an out-sized ratio of traffic from the amount that you actually referred over. This is a beautiful thing for smaller blogs, but a bad idea for blogs that are already popular.

The Best Way to Win the Publicity Wheel
Unless you are starved for traffic, it is actually a lot better for your time and effort if you just register and snag 5-20 entries (a few clicks). Why? Well this is working back to the time-tested lottery theorem. I don’t want to get too mathematician on you guys… but the basic theory follows that if there is a lottery and you buy just one ticket, you are better off just owning one chance than trying to rack up multiple entries to “increase your odds” in a lottery format.

Let’s use an example: say I’m in a lottery (like Publicity Wheel) and I own just one ticket. Now as an example, let’s also figure that there are 25,000 other entries worldwide. My odds of winning at this point are 1-in-25,000 or 0.004%. If I were to try hard to win and got four more tickets, my odds would improve only slightly to 5-in-25,000 or 0.02%. Sure, the odds have “improved,” but in reality you are really not much more likely to win than by just owning one ticket. This obviously has more of a factor the larger the pool of entries is, and you can dramatically increase your odds of winning in a small pool of 50, but it is something to keep in mind.

The Downside to Publicity Wheel
In all honesty, I personally wouldn’t consider using this system for TheNetFool.com. Why? Well my blog is already semi-popular… so a system like this would not benefit me. In the grand scheme of things, bigger blogs will only benefit from a traffic-exchange if things are weighted such that more referrals = more traffic. In addition to this disadvantage for bigger names, it is a bit hard to predict just how large the effect will be of getting a featured weekly spot on the publicity wheel since things are still new.

The Advantages of Publicity Wheel
If you own a small or even mid-size blog, you are going to be at an advantage over anyone that has more traffic than you and is registered to win. Because it is a lottery, having bigger names in the mix with you is a good thing if you have less traffic. Again, it’s a bit hard to predict how much traffic you will actually get because of the “newness” of the system; however, this could actually play out in your favor since it is going to be easier to win while still in a beta stage.

Bottom Line: At the very least, I definitely recommend checking out the Publicity Wheel and what they have to offer. Other systems like Entrecard and SiteHoppin have gotten bloated and distorted, but the pure idea behind the Publicity Wheel is such that can never really be abused and will always give you a favorable spread in winning a good amount of traffic if you end up being chosen to win. So give it a try, and give that publicity wheel a spin!

-The Net Fool

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You knew it was coming…

The Net Fool’s July Contest is a REFERRAL EXTRAVAGANZA! In honor of Blogging Idol (a contest that I perennially rag on but still support) this month’s theme is all about getting referred subscribers to theNetFool.com. You get the most email subscribers (including yourself) to sign up with theNetFool.com… and you will win yourself a brand spankin’ new $200 Flip Mino video camera!

Once again, when I needed an enticing product to get you guys active, my wing man Market Leverage wholeheartedly through an entire video camera my way. Wow! Market Leverage is my favorite affiliate network, and they have the best payouts in the business. Not only this, they have the best referral bonus in the industry with a 5% kick-back from everyone you sign up underneath your account. I highly suggest that you give Market Leverage a go, and at least take a few seconds to sign up so that you can see what they have to offer. Who knows, maybe you can form a great relationship with the friendly staff like I have!

The Competition
The July Referral Extravaganza is going to be held right here, with all of the entries tracked through an easy-to-use script I threw together for this purpose. Simply CLICK HERE to start referring as many of your friends as possible. For everyone you refer, an email will be sent to their email account with a link to sign up to my email-driven RSS feed. I have a way to keep track of every email address that is supplied, and once I cross-reference it with a list of email subscribers, I’ll credit you for every match! Sounds fun, eh? The contest starts now, so start getting in those entries.

Tell A Friend About theNetFool.com & Win!

No longer are things left up to random chance, if you put more effort into recruiting subscribers than anyone else… you are going to find a shiny new video camera on your doorstep come August! Remember that the email address you send to needs to match up with the email that subscribes. This competition is going to run from July 17th to July 31st… a full two weeks for you to finish ahead of the pack.

Flip Mino: This camcorder is packed with easy-to-use technologies that let you capture memories as they happen. No manual settings and instant playback options make this camcorder a fast and fun way to record important events.

• 2x digital zoom
• 1.5″ color LCD display
• VGA (640 x 480) resolution at 30 frames per second
• Easy one-touch recording; instant playback, pause, rewind, fast-forward, zoom and delete functions
• Rechargeable Battery: Yes
• 2GB of built-in flash memory holds up to 60 minutes of MPEG-4 video
• No manual settings required: auto-adaptive exposure algorithms analyze the scene and adapts to the changing environment
• Child-safe mode lets you share your camcorder with your kids by preventing them from deleting videos by mistake
• USB interface provides a connection to a PC or Mac; TV output and included cable let you watch your videos on your TV
• Built-in microphone
• Built-in software lets you view, edit, share and e-mail video footage and capture still images from video with ease
• Includes wrist strap, TV cable, carrying case and quick-start user guide

The Flip Mino is a really nice camera. I have my own, also courtesy of Market Leverage, and anyone who is looking for a high-quality camera that is simple and easy to use is in the right place.

BONUS ENTRY ALERT!
Keep this on the down-low. I’ll be giving an extra 5 referrals to anyone who makes a 350-word blog post about this contest with 50 or more RSS subscribers and uses the anchor text “making money online” to link back to http://www.thenetfool.com. It’s as if you got five more people to sign up under you!

How to Enter (Summary)
Whoever refers the most email-feed subscribers to theNetFool.com in the month of July (July 17-July 31) will receive their very own Flip Mino video camera for free. But you must use the link below so I can track it!

Tell A Friend About theNetFool.com & Win!

There may be an extra way to get a few entries as well (cough cough), but let’s keep it short and sweet. Good luck to everyone this month, remember you have two-weeks starting now to get your entries in to the competition. Whoever ends up with the most points at the end of the month wins!

Good luck to you all, and stay bullish on the net!
-The Net Fool

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If you’ve been noticing some downtime over the past 24 hours… this was because I was in the process of transferring theNetFool.com over to a brand new server hosted by Host Gator. The deal that I received was really great, so if anyone else is looking for a turbo-boost of your own… shoot me an email and I’ll set you up with a deal!

I want to thank a lot of you for sending me instant messages. I know it might be annoying to get messages saying “hey, your website is down” every ten minutes… but it’s a true testament in my opinion of how well-run this site has become. User interactivity drives blogs, so I’m really stoked that you guys are so interested in the website’s performance. The comments-per-post ratio speaks for itself.

The Results
From my old hosting with LVCS.net, I really wasn’t optimized very much at all. The hosting package was unbeatable thanks to a personal relationship with the administrator, Ed Carpenter (my hero), but it was time to move on when I saw that my average load time was well over 3 seconds. After weighing my options, I decided to go with Host Gator to drop a few hundred dollars on because they offered superior customer service, already service over 1 million other websites and came at a steep discount to competition. Not only that, but they will be providing a 100mbps connection speed. That’s a heck of a lot faster than my old guys!

As you well know, loading time is one of the most important factors of your overall performance and traffic. If you have a decent web hosting account already and are just looking to speed things along, why not check out my post on how to speed up your blog or website? When it comes down to it, sometimes it pays to have a premium hosting account with an industry leader. Now that my loading time is pinned under 1 second (0.83 seconds on my test run), I’m confident that I made the right move.

Enjoy the faster loading times!

WordPress 2.6 Is Released!
As long as I was going through the painstaking process of transferring my blog from one host to another, I figured I mine as well check out the latest release of WordPress. WordPress 2.6 was released just a day or two again, so it’s fresh out of the box, and I highly recommend everyone who is running a website based on the platform to upgrade as soon as possible.

I haven’t had a chance to look through all the improvements yet, but it is all drawn out quite nicely on the official WordPress.org announcement page. From what I can see, it makes things a lot easier to organize. For example, I noticed that all of the plugins I have installed are now separated into two sections: active and inactive. This may sound ordinary, but its a great help when you are running 10, 20 or more plugins and things get crammed together. There is also now a live display of your comments and a lot more statistics.

The best feature I know of is the new word count. No more guessing on how long your posts are, or having to transfer things over to another word editor just to find out, it’s all embedded right in the editing software and updates while you go along… cool! What’s cooler is the new image uploading tool. This may have existed in 2.5, so I’m not going to claim it’s 2.6-specific, but I just noticed the sleek dynamic design and I gotta say I absolutely love it!

With some “stronger, better & faster” versions of the WYSIWYG editors, config pages and other management tools, this is actually a bigger step up from 2.5 than the one-tenth of a point would have you believe.

Now that things are all set up, I’m looking forward to some solid posts. I already have an awesome money-making technique in the books that I am working on getting out to the public, and I will be announcing the process for the quick-and-simple Flip Mino giveaway tomorrow. Three cheers to Host Gator for a successful server switch at top-notch speeds. Stay tuned for the contest post, one killer money-making scheme with no risk of loss or saturation and stay bullish on the net!

-The Net Fool

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Another late link love post? No excuses here! I was out all weekend from Friday to Sunday at beautiful Penn State University for the annual Arts Fest. It was a pretty sudden move on my behalf, but any time I can get back to visit friends at college is a plus in my mind.

I try to maintain daily posting, but sometimes it’s just not in the card. Many bloggers advocate writing a stock-hold of posts and saving them as drafts so that you can fill blank days with pre-designed articles. I probably spend about twice as much time per post as your typical blogger though, so setting aside 7-8 hours for three good posts isn’t worth my while. It’s never a smart idea to post for the sake of posting, so I decided to take a break. On to a new week, fully refreshed, and ready to go. Let’s uncover some of the best posts for the week ending July 12, 2008.

• The University Kid - How To Tell When Someone Is Faking It
• Ades Blog - Firefox Plugin: Gmail Multi-Account Switcher
• Affiliate Confession - Facebook Ads are a Disappointment
• Zac Johnson - Where Top Affiliate Challenge Went Wrong
• Stephan Miller - I Wanna Be an Ass Hat SEO, Please

In all honesty, this is one of the best week of posts I have seen and I really enjoyed a lot of them. Jason from The University Kid went over how to analyze a blog to see if they are faking any stats. Affiliate Confession went over the pitfalls of Facebook ads. Zac Johnson had a smart post on the big “Top Affiliate Challenge” competition’s downturn. I caught a hysterical response post from Stephan Miller about my black hat seo techniques post, and even a cool FireFox plugin from Ades Blog.

Stock Market
The roller coaster 2008 stock market continues with the close of another week in the red. This time around, things were caused mostly by Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, two firms that have faced major concern over a government bailout despite the constant assurance that they are accurately capitalized. On the breaking news front, the Federal Reserve has spelled out a Fannie-Freddie rescue net plan that would kick in liquidity in the event that things take another turn for the worse.

Pending home sales came in at 4.7% below April’s levels, which was a bit worse than expected. However, many are using this opportunity to claim that the housing market has bottomed out and is in repair mode as things improve. Other than the housing market, we had some slightly positive news regarding an improving trade deficit. This week, expect to hear about the PPI and CPI inflation report as a big week in earnings releases kicks off when we hear from the likes of Microsoft, Google and Coca Cola. This week could set an overall tempo for the rest of the summer!

Blogosphere
As I went through some of the better posts of the week, I continue to support the claim that things are improving as the summer progresses and people get more settled in to their roles as bloggers. Despite the fact that this fool keeps leaving you unexpectedly for breaks (haha), it would appear that the Top Affiliate Challenge and Blogging Idol competitions have largely blown over as people turn toward self-improvement.

Speaking of the Blogging Idol competition, have you seen my recent rant post about how the contest is unfairly biased?! Or how about my run-down of the method I used to successfully execute the classic “link bait” article. Hey, it got me tons of attention, links back, conversation, traffic and almost 70 comments. I like to see a break away from the standard tutorial posts every now and then, and I feel that a quick lesson in orderly debating can serve you well. Definitely have a look at the two when you get the chance.

The Week In Focus
This week, I’m going to be putting out a small contest. And by small, I mean that I’m giving away another Flip Mino video camera to the winner. Sound fair to you!? Not to distract from content (as I constantly protest), I intend on publishing a money making method or two that should offer you the chance to boost your stats and income. We’re in the thick of summer, so why not earn some extra spending cash to get out and about every now and then!

-The Net Fool

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If you are stuck in an endless cycle of tutorial posts, product reviews and website observations on your blog, perhaps it’s time to mix things up! One thing readers enjoy is a bit of controversy, and nothing promises more traffic and interactivity than a good old fashioned rant post. Let’s figure out how to make an effective link bait post!

Why It Works

Writing a “link bait” post, or what you should think of as anything published on your blog that will carry some shock-value for discussion, is one of the top ways to for you to get an insane amount of traffic delivered straight to your blog with little work. By targeting a website or blog that is an authority in your niche, a well thought out rant post can command powerful debates and advantageous “top-down” linking from the authority site. Put simply, writing something a bit “off the wall” or controversial will naturally spark some debate if written well. Having a debate running on your blog, even if you appear slightly insane, is always a positive move for your rankings.

What Do You Need To Write an Effective Link Bait Post?
In order to accomplish the effect we are going for, which is essentially a massive overreaction that fires up a heated debate, you need to have two things: a killer idea, and a blog that is popular enough to command some authority. The plan here is simple: publish a post on your blog or website that differs from common opinion in such a way that certain people will agree with you, and certain people will be offended.

We need to offend people. If you write a controversial article that everybody agrees with, you aren’t going to find any traffic bump or interesting links back to your website in the near future. What is important is that things are not taken too far over the edge, so always remember to keep discussion as polite as possible. An effective link bait post is not a personal attack on someone you don’t necessarily like, it needs to be backed by legitimate and verifiable information (trends, numbers, percentages, history, etc.).  If you have a blog that has enough exposure that people will start to notice your post, a simple rant can potentially double/triple/quadruple your daily traffic flow.

Coming Up With A Killer Idea
The driving factor for the success or failure of your link bait post is the topic you are covering. I would recommend using a current event, such as a contest or promotion, though you can find just as much success turning to a program, company, website or even person. In my case study, I decided to exploit a blogging competition happening at DailyBlogTips called “Blogging Idol” because it had over 100 blogs entered, a lot of buzz around my market niche, and absolutely zero criticism.

If you have a great topic but someone has already attempted to present a controversial spin on things, you are better off looking elsewhere. Even if the blog isn’t so established, nobody likes a copycat. You might get lucky and have nobody bring it up, but you will look foolish if someone posts a link to the same discussion that took place a week ago on another website.

In addition to being a current topic, it should also be a “hot topic.” In the ideal case, you would have an event that has already gotten a large amount of press around the blogosphere. The more times mentioned, the better, as someone that has already written on the subject is a lot more likely to visit in order to see your spin on things than someone who hasn’t been involved. Hitting that “hot” issue doesn’t necessarily mean celebrity gossip or anything like that, just something current that has people talking.

Coming Up with a Title That Rocks
Again, in our ideal case, we want an overreaction to what you have posted… yet not to the point that you are belittling anyone. We want people to read the post and immediately take a side. Setting up the dominoes for an all-out debate is the best method to carry your website into the spotlight in a short period of time. One of the first steps to take, and arguably the most important, is writing your title. Even if the title doesn’t exactly match up with the views expressed in the post, we need things to sound outrageous from the get-go.

Let’s take a quick example. When I wrote about the Blogging Idol competition in a rant post to get some traffic, I didn’t really consider the contest to be a total flop. In fact, I still maintain that the competition is a great way to get people blogging more effectively, and it has a solid foundation. True, my belief is slanted toward the a negative view of the end-result of the contest, but I decided to write the blog post as if the blogging competition was a virtual cesspool for cheaters around the world. My title of choice was “Blogging Idol is a Joke“… so that if you had known about the contest and heard nothing but praise, you need to be thinking “I’m reading this one” at this point. Make the desire to read, and discussion/traffic will follow course.

Lay Down Some Effective Content
So now that we have a title destined to reek havoc on the blogosphere, we need that all important content. By this point, you might be considering an all-out warfare… but I actually advise against this. I believe strongly that the content is where you turn things down a notch and discuss your views in a controlled way with lots of evidence and logical arguments for your side of things. Again, if your rant is targeting a website, company or person, you need to make sure that you make things clear that you aren’t trying to enter into a war. I recommend some kind of peace offering, and maybe even plug the blog/person/company in a positive light before you turn the page. Nobody likes a jerk, and you don’t want to risk anything with legal consequences.

Other than forming your opinions in a non-offensive manner, you need to write effectively by using plenty of research, evidence and experience to pull readers to your side of the coin. You want to be able to convince enough people that you are indeed correct to spark a debate. There will always be those opposed to your view if you are writing something controversial, so the most important element is going to be your ability to convince your audience.

There’s not a lot of actual guideline as to what to write; however, it’s really essential that things are structured and fully explained. Make sure to first discuss what you are talking about (for example, I explained what Blogging Idol was) before proceeding with any sort of argument. Even if you think that everyone reading knows the subject you are referring to, it is necessary to refresh people on the topic before beginning.

The Powerful Results of a Well-Run Rant Post
As you know by now, I have tested this method before making this post by arguing the case that the Blogging Idol competition was poorly run. In less than 24 hours, I have over 50 comments (my average is  around 8-15 per post) and tons of page views. In fact, I had more returning visitors than ever before with 94 people checking out my blog more than once. 874 page views trounced my average, and I saw 573 unique visitors on the date of publication along. What’s better is that it seems to have caused a big debate, where I may see several links back to the post in the near future. It’s a win-win situation by all means!

Now that you have the know-how to create an effective rant post of your own, why not set out on forming one of your own? What should be clear from my traffic results is that people crave discussion every once and awhile, and will give your blog the attention it deserves if you throw a bone their way. Be creative, be smart and you’ll have a jump in rankings in no time!

-The Net Fool

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