Chris Brandrick

As a blogger or website owner no doubt you will have an RSS feed (like mine) which you want to promote. If so you may want to continue reading, as in this post below is a list of 10 websites that will help promote your RSS feed for free, and all you have to do (in most cases) is simply insert your feed address! Promoting your feed like this is a simple quick and easy way to spread the word about your blog or website. So start adding your address to the below sites, and benefit from the potential of more visitors and subscribers:

• RSSFeeds.com
• Feedest.com
• ReadABlog.com
• WeBlogAlot.com
• FeedBase.net
• BlogPulse.com
• MillionRSS.com
• Plazoo.com
• FeedFury.com
• Octora.com

It wont take long to add your feed to the above sites, and within minutes your feed will be in several blog directories ready for others to find.

Did you like this blog post? If so subscribe to my RSS Feed to get updated when I post next!

Back in December I posted that in till the end of January I will be offering free blog reviews here at ChrisBrandrick.com, well that offer is almost up, so if you want your blog reviewed for free, be sure to check out my offer as it expires in only three days.

I have received over 50 requests for reviews so far, so keep them coming. I consider this free blogging offer to be a success, considering the amount of requests I received, these reviews provide not only content but possible backlinks and writing experience for me. Please remember that not all blogs will get reviewed, but over the next few months a majority of those 50 will be. 

Only a few days remain, so get your free review now.

This is the third post in my series of BlogReviews, if you are interested in receiving a free blog review, please click here to find out more information.

ReviewBunker is a relatively new blog which launched in November of last year. It has a simple yet ambitious goal to review ‘everything’. It would probably be more appropriate to say that ReviewBunker will review ‘anything’.

To those new to the site you are instantly greeted with a simple yet concise blurb of text as to what the blog is about, which contains links to other sections of the site, this is a great way of letting visitors know what your about, although a suggested addition to this front page presence would be to add a link to the ‘request review‘ page.

The content on ReviewBunker is random to say the least, and for those of you looking for a review blog which concentrates on a specific area then this blog is not for you. ReviewBunker covers a wide range of products, websites and services from things like Brownie Cake Mix, Office boxes, even movies and restaurants. Despite this random mix, the writing is very concise and informative as well as pleasantly informal. If you do happen to find a review that takes your interest then I recommend reading it, as without a doubt it will be helpful.

ReviewBunker also offers readers the opportunity to become a guest blogger and review anything for the blog, so if you are looking for an outlet to review something, or anything, then this may be worth checking out.

The site uses a free blog design, which is customized with an appropriate header image, the colour scheme is easy on the eyes and overall flows well, and boasts well integrated AdSense adverts. Oh, and it has the Entrecard widget, which is great.

My only concern for ReviewBunker is that its content area is to broad, and it may be wise to cut this down, visitors will never know what to expect. Maybe even just reviewing offline products exclusively, and not reviewing websites. Reduce confusion.

A well written blog, with potential to shine. Focus and concentrate your niche to a more specific area, and keep up the good work.

http://www.reviewbunker.com/

Affiliate Lounge is the blog of Phillip van Coller and he blogs about making money online via affiliate programs, and other web news. This useful blog is currently being super useful to Entrecard users as it is offering 500 entrecard credits to whoever makes a blog post like this, and links back to Affiliate Lounge.

Check the blog out now and be sure to enter the giveaway if you are a Entrecard user. (Only 40 spots available)

What’s a Favicon?

A favicon (short for favorite icon) is an icon which when added to a website (by the webmaster) appears in the address bar of most modern browsers. Adding this image can help users identify your site from a list of bookmarks or on a open tab, and could help in increasing your brand recognition. Adding one is simple, and I recommend you do it. Check out this Wikipedia entry for more detailed information on the favicon.

To begin with you need to create your favicon, you can either create it in image creation software like Photoshop, or use an online generator like this one. Creating your image yourself is recommended as the end result will be more personal and individual to you and your sites image. The file you need to create is 16 pixels wide by 16 pixels high. Once you are happy with the appearance of your favicon save it, but, be sure to rename the file name from the standard extension to .ico, the file will need saving as a .ico file. Some browsers do now support other file formats like png and gif but it is best practice to use the most widely accepted format .ico.

With your favicon file saved, it is now a simple case of uploading the file to your server and then including this simple html code in the <head> tag of your page:

<link rel=”shortcut icon” href=”http://www.chrisbrandrick.com/favicon.ico”>
<link rel=”icon” href=”http://www.chrisbrandrick.com/favicon.ico”>

It’s that simple, your site should now be displaying your favicon on your webpage, if not try refreshing your cache. Readers of ChrisBrandrick.com should now see my favicon in the address bar!

A simple way to add more personality to your site, try it out!

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I recently outlined my plans to be making £100 ($200) per month from this blog by the end of 2008, and although this may not seem like much to some bigger bloggers, I think its a realistic goal that I have good chance of reaching.

In order to monetize my blog I decided to sign up for various review networks and try them out, and recently I got approved for Smorty. Smorty describes itself as a tool to connect various advertisers with bloggers like myself. Smorty works in a similar fashion to other advertising networks in that advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinions and thoughts in a post and link back to the advertisers site. With smorty you get paid to blog.

Upon signing up, my blog got approved rather quickly (impressive), and without little hesitation I logged into this blog for money service and was instantly greeted with four money making opportunities, some I will take others I may not, but either way you will see the results here at ChrisBrandrick.com. Whether the opportunities will continue to roll in is yet to be seen, but Smorty has a sleek interface which is easy to use, navigate, and offers you your current opportunities at a glance. Simple.

Once you have earned enough you can get paid via PayPal, and for those of you with multiple blogs Smorty supports you to.

Smorty - Get paid to blog. Check it out, what have you got to lose!

Whether you just comment on blogs or run one, you should know about gravatar’s.

Gravatars stands for globally recognised avatar, and as you may have guessed it acts as your avatar when commenting on a wordpress blog. Most wordpress themes include gravatar support as standard, although some blog owners do choose to replace the gravatar space with a MyBlogLog (or other similar service) avatar area. Either way, if you actively comment on blogs and want to attach a visual representation of yourself to these comments, gravatar is the way to go.

Getting yourself a gravatar is simple, its free and all you need is an email address, just head on over to the official website and follow the simple instructions. Once you have uploaded an image (80×80) which represents yourself online, you then simply attach the image to any email addresses you may use when leaving comments, once confirmed, your gravatar will appear on the comments section of any blog you have commented on with gravatar support. Simple!

If you want to add Gravatar support to your blog, or if you just want to learn more check out Wordpress’ documentation here. Why not make a gravatar now, and come back here to test it? Just leave a comment.

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The high definition market is huge and is finally starting to spread it’s wings here in the UK thanks to Sky HD and the upcoming Freesat service. Me and a partner of mine currently hold several HD related (mainly .co.uk) domains which are currently for sale. The domains available are as follows:

5hd.co.uk (Channel launches Autumn ‘08)
channel5hd.co.uk (Channel launches Autumn ‘08)
fxhd.co.uk (Channel launches Spring ‘08)
luxetvhd.co.uk (Available on Sky HD)
luxetvhd.com (Available on Sky HD)
mtvhd.co.uk (Channel launches Spring ‘08)

Some of the domains have been appraised by top appraisal service Sedo and fall in the £xxxx range. If you are interested in the possibility of acquiring any of the above domains please feel free to email me using the below form:

Apologies for the downtime last night, I had some issues with my host and all is now resolved!

This is just a quick update informing you guys that I have now installed the Wordpress plugin flickrRSS, as you can see it is now displaying the last four pictures from my photostream on my sidebar. Be sure to click through have a browse and maybe leave a comment or two.

The pictures on my flickr have been taken with my new D40 Digital SLR.

It’s been nearly a month since I installed the Entrecard widget here on my blog, and I am more than happy with the benefits gained from adding it.

Haven’t heard of Entrecard? Here is a brief description of what to expect from this social blogging tool:

Entrecard is the first and only free exchange network for 125×125 ads. Through this revolutionary platform, you can advertise your own 125×125 Entrecard on any blog in the network, for free, for a number of days.

Since installing the 125 by 125 widget here at ChrisBrandrick.com my visitors numbers have doubled, with a good majority of that new traffic coming directly from Entrecard. This increase in visitor numbers is also down to me blogging more, but still the incoming traffic sure is encouraging and proves that this advertising system works. For the traffic benefits alone Entrecard is worth looking into, but it offers so much more than that. In the month I have been a member I have found several new blogs which I now regularly read and enjoy checking.

I highly advise installing this hot widget, not only for traffic but to increase your RSS count, readership and earn new blogging friends.