Goodbye BlogRush, Hello TopSpots!

It was time for the Monetizer to kick that BlogRush widget to the curb. BlogRush seemed like a helpful widget at first, but Entrecard is a better idea. I've seen better traffic, an increase in subscription rate and networking opportunities all thanks to the Entrecard widget. On the other hand, BlogRush is only good if you had a good wave of traffic coming through. That's just my belief, because it gives you more credits. More credits gives you more times your headline shows elsewhere. So a John Chow, ShoeMoney or ProBlogger would have headlines showing everywhere, and that's just fine. Some people are swearing by BlogRush. Others claim Entrecard isn't so great to use. It's all a matter of personal opinion. I've seen good things from Entrecard and nothing much from BlogRush. So 1 widget survives the cut and the other must go.

In the absence of BlogRush, I have now added the "TopSpots" widget, available from Scratchback.com. You've seen this popular item on several other blogs, where it allows you to pay to add your site's link onto the blog's top spots. It's a good idea for those who want to get their blog or site noticed more. I've set the starting price at a very reasonable $5 on a Monetizer blog that has steadily improved in terms of Alexa traffic, PageRank and subscriber count. It's up to you to make that investment and your link will display for a full 30 days. So if you're interested head to the sidebar and grab your top spot, while it's still priced low!

If you'd like to add your own Top Spots widget to your blog, head over to Scratchback.com and sign up! You can choose from several colors and styles of widgets including seasonal holiday themes. There's also an option to download a Photoshop template of the widget so that you can customize it for your blog. Several other blogs have taken advantage of this such as 45n5.com, ZacJohnson.com and now The Monetizer. They also offer a blog directory, yet another way to get listed and get noticed!

Special thanks to Jim Kukral for helping me get the widget customized and up and running!

Find Your Web Hosting Choice!

The following is a sponsored post. Web hosting is something The Monetizer is very aware of, and definitely will be in need of in the future. As this blog continues to grow, I'd like to be able to better modify it and add new elements to the design. When it's time to make that move, finding adequate and reasonably priced web hosting will definitely be key to this.

A site I just learned about is webhostingchoice.com. They offer a search engine and directory listing full of Web hosting plans, based on the criteria you specify. You enter your monthly price you'd like to pay, disk space and bandwith allotment you'd like and your set up fee (usually this should be $0). From there webhostingchoice.com will return several results based on your criteria, and hopefully one will suit your needs. I did a search on $5 a month hosting with no set up fee, and HostGator was amongst the listings as well as several others. The site also offers a FAQ section, a guide to scams online, info about domains, servers, bandwith and more. The site has a very easy to use interface and is a great source of information on web hosting considerations.

So maybe you're in a similar situation as The Monetizer with a blog hosted on Wordpress or Blogspot right now. It might be moving time. If you'd like to check out some of the top options for web hosting, head over to http://www.webhostingchoice.com and start your search today.