Here’s Why You Should Definitely Visit TrafficJam.com, Bookmark It, And Visit Often…

For marketers, this is the ultimate research tool. You can monitor blogs by niche and keep up with what type of posts are getting the most interest across the Web. This will make it incredibly easy for you to know what type of blog posts you should be making to get more traffic, interest, and popularity for your own blog.

Now you’ll never run out of ideas for new blog posts!

This research data can help you identify untapped keywords and other opportunities.

You can use TrafficJam.com to find great blog posts for your niche. You can share links to these posts with your readers and they’ll appreciate it. (The nature of the blogosphere.)

You can also discover some new blogs in your niche that you never knew existed. These can turn into potential joint venture partners, or simply just another site to occasionally share some traffic and links. You’ll want to consider participating (properly, of course) on their blog comments to drive traffic to your blog.

But either way, TrafficJam.com can save you TONS of your time and constantly ’show you’ what your target market is most interested in at any given time.

TrafficJam.com is powered by the BlogRush Network. It uses some unique technology to analyze millions of blog post title impressions, average click-rates, session times, and more to come up with it’s live ‘ranking’ system.

We’re still tweaking our algorithm but it has already proven to be a fantastic “filter” to determine the most popular and interesting blog posts (by topic) from across the entire network. (Which continues to add new blogs everyday.)

This was a major piece to the BlogRush puzzle that took a lot longer to develop than originally planned. But this is yet another ‘addition’ to help BlogRush members get more free traffic to their blogs.

Some people were disappointed by the traffic results they received when testing BlogRush, and it’s completely understandable…

And as promised, we’re working hard to improve things.

TrafficJam.com is just one of many services we have planned to help our users drive more free traffic to their blogs. And we’re not done yet.

So go check out TrafficJam.com. Bookmark it and prepare to visit often to keep up with your niche. Initially we’re only going to be updating the rankings about once per day — but that will soon move towards an hourly update.

We don’t want the site to update too frequently or users will miss out on certain posts. So we’re trying to find the right balance of how often to update the rankings.

Want your posts to appear on TrafficJam.com? If you have the BlogRush widget installed on your blog it will happen automatically when any of your posts ’score’ well with TJ’s algorithm.

A big ‘key’ for scoring well, which is the same key to get traffic from BlogRush, is to learn to write powerful, yet specific blog post TITLES. Poke around TJ and notice the titles. Almost all of them are very SPECIFIC.

For example, rather than having a post say, “Today Was A Really Bad Day” it’s more effective if it says, “Why I Almost Smacked My Boss Today” or “Ever Split Your Pants At Work?” etc. etc.

Compelling, interesting, specific titles are what get people to CLICK. Not only on the BlogRush Network but across the Web in general. Write more effective blog post titles and you’ll also get more traffic from Google and the other search engines — because people will be more likely to click on your titles when they show up in the results.

I have reactivated the comments on this blog. Hopefully, everyone can ‘play nice’ this time.

Please do not post BlogRush support questions. (Thank you.) Email customersupport@blogrush.com if you need help with something.

I want to thank everyone for their patience while I was taking a break from this blog. As most people know, I’m not a typical blogger. I just don’t have the time to regularly post to a blog like many other bloggers do. Income.com will eventually have a very active main blog that will contain posts from many people at the company — including myself from time to time.

I hope everyone had a great holiday season and a Happy New Year! I sincerely hope you make 2008 the best year of your life. (At least so far.)

New opportunities are being created online every single day. Don’t wait to take action on any of the ideas that you might have. NOW is the time for you to put in the work and make it happen.

Here’s a quick update for what we have going on…

The first quarter of this new year is going to be extremely busy for us. We’ll be releasing A LOT of new things — things we’ve been busy working on for the past few months.

TrafficJam.com is very close to being released. We were hoping to launch it before the holidays but decided to wait until the New Year to do it — to give our team a much needed break. We are on track to launch it before the end of this month.

The main Income.com site itself we hope to launch during the first quarter of 2008. It’s been a major project that has taken a lot longer than originally planned. (Isn’t that how things almost always go?) We also plan to release Traffic Secrets 2.0 during the first quarter as well. Stay tuned for more info soon.

I took a much needed vacation last month and went to Japan. (One of my favorite countries.) This was my 4th trip to Japan in the last 5 years. Here’s a photo from my trip:

I’m taking a break from blogging for awhile as we’re focused on several major projects at the moment.

Lots of awesome stuff in the works…

EMAIL GOING OUT TO ALL BLOGRUSH MEMBERS:

We’ve received TONS of positive feedback on the release of “Phase 2″ for BlogRush!

Members are really happy with the new Dashboard stats and reporting as well as all the new features — including the new “thin widget” option and “BUZZ” meter. And many are especially excited about the important news we released about our upcoming “TrafficJam” sister site.

TrafficJam.com Is Coming

TrafficJam (which will be located at TrafficJam.com) will take the hottest posts from across the BlogRush network and rank them by category based on our “BUZZ” meter technology. This site will be another way for our users to drive more free traffic to their blogs — we expect many Internet users will start using TrafficJam to keep up with the latest news about the niche they are interested in, as well as a great resource for bloggers to find important blog posts from other bloggers so they can then write about them (and link to them!) on their own blogs.

42% Increase In Free Traffic Sent To BlogRush Members In Last 48 Hours

Since releasing Phase 2 we’ve seen a 42% increase in click-rates (i.e. the free traffic members receive) across the entire network. This is mostly due to the release of the thin widget option. Many of our users had blogs that could not accommodate the standard widget size and were forced to place the widget at the very bottom of their pages — this was contributing to lower click-rates across the network.

And we’re about to make additional changes to dramatically improve the click-through rates which is what will send every member even more traffic…

Widget Performance Monitoring

The #1 reason BlogRush isn’t sending the maximum free traffic to all of its members is simple… many users are placing the widget very low on their blogs where most people won’t even see it.

Did you know that over 1,500 BlogRush users (across nearly all network categories) are receiving average daily click-through rates between 1% and 2% on the BlogRush widget on their blog?

And it should also be no surprise that these users are getting a higher rate of referral activity than everyone else — more bloggers click their “Add Your Blog Posts” widget link and sign up for BlogRush. (Because more people SEE their widget.)

ALL of those users have ONE THING in common… they have the BlogRush widget positioned high up on their blog where a lot of people will see it.

So right now you could be receiving 10 TIMES (or more) traffic from BlogRush, but the reason why you don’t is because so many of our users are placing the widget very low on their blogs where it’s not being seen — and those poor performing widgets are hurting the overall network click-rates.

YOUR BLOG POSTS are only appearing inside those 1%-2% click-rate widgets on rare occasion (which is what will send you the most traffic). The rest of the time your posts are appearing inside widgets that no one can even see! (Which is why you aren’t getting more traffic.)

Here’s What We’re Doing About It

We’ll soon be adding “widget performance monitoring” to our network. Any users that have low-performing widgets will be automatically notified that they need to improve the positioning for the widget on their blogs. Failure to improve their widget performance (which can be done by giving the widget higher placement) will remove that user from the network. THIS IS THE ONLY *FAIR* WAY TO DO IT.

“WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, I KNOW, I KNOW…”

Since we originally launched BlogRush about 6 weeks ago, we encountered some problems that we had to deal with… we had to increase our security measures to stop people from abusing the network, which we did… then we had an issue with low-quality blogs in the network… and we worked very hard to manually review ALL blogs, we had to make some tough decisions to remove over 10,000 from the network, and now we have a fantastic, high-quality network of member blogs, BUT…

Before we fixed all of these problems, the quality and performance of the network was poor and it didn’t send as much traffic to our members — which we were very unhappy about, and the sole reason we’ve worked so hard to fix things. SOO… it has been a “Catch-22″ for many of our members…

“Why should I give the BlogRush widget higher placement when I’m not getting much traffic from it!”

And for those that have this reaction, it’s PERFECTLY UNDERSTANDABLE. *I* would, personally, feel the exact same way.

But we now have the data that PROVES that BlogRush, as a system for driving valuable, targeted blog readers to other blogs, 100% WORKS. It just requires that our members give the widget high enough placement so visitors will see it and can use it.

So here’s what I’m asking all of our members that currently don’t have the widget placed very high up on their blogs… PLEASE immediately move the widget higher up on your blog. (Thank You.)

Just give it a chance as we encourage everyone to give the widget higher placement and at least see what happens. If you aren’t happy later, then by all means, remove the widget from your blog. It’s that easy.

BlogRush was created as a truly COOPERATIVE system to drive tons of valuable targeted traffic to blogs. It only works for those willing to be fair to the other members.

BY THE WAY, if you’re one of our valued members that DOES have the widget placed high on your blog, “Thank You!” You’re doing your fair contribution to the network and we sincerely appreciate it. (And you’ll be rewarded for it.)

Do we require that the widget be placed at the absolute very top of your blog? NO. But if you place the widget so that it is immediately in view when someone loads your blog, or at the very least is seen shortly after someone starts to scroll, you can pretty much guarantee that you won’t be receiving a “widget performance WARNING” from our system asking you to improve the placement.

If you will be unable to give the widget good placement on your blog (similar to what is mentioned above) then please go ahead and remove the BlogRush widget from your blog, because I’m afraid you won’t be able to meet our new widget performance requirements. It’s just not fair for our other users to be giving YOUR BLOG POSTS great exposure on their blogs if you aren’t willing to do the same for theirs.

All Active Members Must Be Displaying The Widget

This is something that we’ve let slide a bit as we’ve been fixing all the major issues we encountered. We understand that many users took the widget off their blog so they could take a “wait and see” approach before putting it back.

But now the time has come to enforce a new rule for the network… if you’re not displaying the widget on your blog you cannot earn or use syndication credits for your account. For any time that the widget is not active on your blog(s) that you have set up in your account, none of your posts will be syndicated and your account will not accumulate any additional credits.

Your referral network and activity will remain intact, as will any existing credit balance, but you will not be earning any new credits (or using any) during the time the widget is not being actively displayed.

This is the only FAIR WAY for the network to work. Many of our members that have been making a great effort to contribute to the network have complained that they click on links inside their widget only to find a blog that’s not showing the widget.

So we’re putting an end to this as it just isn’t fair.

And any members that have an inactive widget for an extended period of time (30+ days) may be terminated from the network and have their accounts permanently closed.

Please know that we are working VERY HARD to help drive tons of traffic to your blog. We’ve got lots of new services and plans in the works! Our success with BlogRush is based solely on YOUR SUCCESS of getting lots of traffic from our network. So please know that all of these “rules” and moves that we are making are with that sole focus in mind.

We are quickly heading towards our ONE BILLIONTH blog headline served!

Maybe we’ll throw a little party when that happens?

And a big “Thank You” to everyone for their patience, understanding, and also valued constructive criticism!

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

BlogRush Phase 2 went live about 30 minutes ago.

Login to your account and check out the new VIDEO. (The link is at the top of the Dashboard page.)

We’re moving the new Phase 2 release until Midnight EST, 9PM PST tonight.

We’re changing some minor configurations on the load balancer — since we’re expecting the site to get hammered.

Thanks for your patience.

IT’S OFFICIAL:

Our massive BlogRush PHASE 2 will be released to the public on Tuesday night (October 30th) at 9:00PM EST.

Here’s Just Some Of What You’ll Experience:

- Per-Post Statistics (Syndication, Clicks, “Buzz Meter”, and more)
- Custom Reports (Enter a date range and see the entire activity for your account during those dates)
- More Categories For Improved Relevancy And Click-Throughs
- NEW 120-pixel Width “Narrow” Widget Option
- And Much More.

I hope to post a “walk-through” VIDEO tomorrow showing all the new features and explaining how to use them. Stay tuned.

I’m kidding. But that’s what some people have been saying.

I apologize for the extended delay. We’re making last minute changes and everything will be ready to go. As mentioned a gazillion times before, it will be well worth the wait.

Thanks so much to everyone for their patience. We had hoped this major update would be released nearly two weeks ago but when you’re dealing with several BILLION (yes, with a “B”) pieces of data it can create some challenges.

Just a quick post to let everyone know that the BlogRush “Phase 2″ is getting very close.

I wanted to release it today but the dev team wants a couple more days to stress-test it.

It’s coming very soon! Thanks for your patience.

We just completed our Quality Control audit. You will now notice that all non-English, spam, and low quality blogs (or others that didn’t meet all of our guidelines) are GONE from appearing in your widget. We removed over 10,000 blogs from our network.

You will enjoy visiting blogs that show up in your widget now more than ever! You should also start seeing an increase in the traffic you receive from the BlogRush network. (More traffic on the way!)

We will be rolling out the new Dashboard and other changes in the coming week — sorry for the delay. It took about a week longer than we originally expected.

* If you were one of our members that had their account deactivated, you will notice that the widget no longer will load on your blog. For now, please remove the BlogRush code from your blog. When you login to your account you will find instructions for how to resubmit your blog for review to reactivate your account.

If your BlogRush account was made INACTIVE recently, please don’t take it personally.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE understand… we had no choice but to move to a strict, quality guideline criteria system. It’s the same thing that many other Internet services use.

And, no, it’s not always fair and impartial. Mistakes ARE made. Good sites can and do end up getting mistakenly rejected. If YOU feel a mistake was made with your blog, as was previously stated, you can resubmit it.

Thank you for your understanding and please do not take it as any kind of sign that we think you’re a spammer or a bad marketer, etc.

If you had a “make money” related blog you should know that we had to be extra strict with that category — because most of the blogs in that category were heavy with ads and promotional material compared with the ratio of tips, techniques, and true unique “helpful” content. Ultimately, it was a judgement call by whatever one of our reviewers reviewed your individual blog.

If you want to see examples of “make money” type blogs that got approved, you can check out the following to get an idea of what we were looking for:

http://www.jackhumphrey.com/fridaytrafficreport/
http://www.andybeard.eu
http://www.internetmarketingsweetie.com/blog/

As your notification stated, you can resubmit your blog after the “suspension period” is over.

Best Regards,

John Reese

We have temporarily disabled the comments on this blog. Understandably, some people are upset that their accounts were made inactive. Unfortunately, a few of these individuals started posting all sorts of profanity and other junk comments on the blog so we have temporarily disabled comments.