This week saw two new articles: Creating Stop Signs for Site Traffic and Keep Your Mouth Shut. They both brought in a lot of traffic, and created some exciting conversations among readers. I enjoyed reading and hearing everyone’s opinion on the Keep Your Mouth Shut article.

From the discussion, it’s safe to say most believe a blog should not veer too far off course. It could lead to ostracizing our readers. However, some feel it may be too stringent a rule. A rule that’s better left to those with large subscription rates and established blogs. I don’t think the topics dead by any means. I’m sure to revisit this topic from a different angle soon.

Others Writing about Jason Boom

I did receive some nice reviews this week. In particular, a blog entitled Small Fish Big Money did a write-up about my site. I’ll be returning the favor in the coming week, so be sure to look for a new Powder Keg Review.

My site also appeared in the Entrecard blog this week. The writer, Bruce Hollingdrake, wrote about my site in regards to his idea of simplicity and balance. I was grateful to have made the cut.

Upcoming Explosions

Now that my throat has cleared of any viral blockage, I’m fairly certain I’ll get a new podcast up this week. I also will be revisiting the stop signs series to include two new sites. I enjoyed doing the first installment, and believe its a valuable perspective for any site owner to read.

The site will also have another Powder Keg Review and maybe one other post in the coming week. I would love to hear what you want to read about, so if you have post ideas or any other comments regarding blogging and writing please let me know in the comments.

Other’s Explosions

Gyutae Park was accused of vote rigging on Sphinn this week. He’s been offering multiple ways to enter his huge contest, and a recent way was to sphinn an article of his. The article received hall of fame status on the site, but was pulled by an editor.

Si Philps is doing a podcast easter egg contest. You could win a Flickr pro account or one year web hosting. It’s worth a shot, right?

Jeff at Buzzmyblog did another installment of his Ask a Pro series. This one received remarks by Zac Johnson, Maki (DoshDosh), Shoemoney, and Darren Rowse. It’s a good read for sure.

This edition of the Powder Keg Review series examines the impNERD web site’s explosiveness. The name for the site makes me think of little green men running around with black framed glasses. After reviewing the About page, I realized “imp” is an acronym for “Internet Marketing and Publishing.” So you won’t be getting your hands on little impish men, but on some quality Internet Marketing and Publishing content.

Gary Hess runs the impNERD site. The archives date back to October 2005, but Gary didn’t start blogging prolifically until September of 2007. Since then, the posts have focused on information any blogger or website owner should know about. The content contains helpful information on using Wordpress, monetizing your site, joining affiliate networks, and the ins-and-outs of social networks. It’s packed full of content relevant to today’s bloggers. From the latest post, it appears Gary will be reining in the posts published per week to focus attention on marketing the blog, and to give each post a chance to breath. Not a bad idea at all.

The impNERD site houses Wordpress plugins as well. Gary gives back to the WP community through his unique creations. He offers the following plugins on his site:

1. Keyword Snatcher
2. Random Ads
3. Featured Posts
4. SEO Tip of the Day

I’m planning to install the Keyword Snatcher plugin. It shows you the keyword density of any article inside the administrative area of Wordpress. This a great tool for SEO writing itself. The best part — it’s free. The other plugins look good as well. I encourage you to check them out for your own blogs.

The Layout
I like the subtle grays and the easy-to-read site text. impNERD also makes good use of their own creation — the Feature plugin — on the frontpage, which right now illuminates the Keyword Snatcher plugin. The wide adspace along the right compliments the two columns below. This valuable ad space should be a steal for the price he’s asking. Be sure to grab the $15 dollar spot for quality exposure.

I especially like the header where you can find more information about impNERD, see the popular posts on the site, view the available Wordpress plugins, and subscribe to the blog. I only have one complaint. I could not find the search feature. I wanted to search for a keyword to see if anything was written about the topic, but couldn’t find it. I think this is crucial to blogs as they grow in size. The more content we have — the more options we should offer to find that content.

Conclusion
I think it’s safe to say the impNERD site will continue to grow with quality content for bloggers, site owners, and affiliates. Gary’s contributions to the WP community, his insightful commentary on social media, Internet marketing, and web development should carry the site through the coming months and years. I have subscribed to his feed. How about you?

This edition of the Powder Keg Review series looks at the Yimto Affiliate Marketing Blog.

I actually have a little history with this blog. I ran across it before my own blog came into creation. The Big Bang was yet a twinkle in the Blogosphere’s eye. What captured my attention with Tim, the creator of Yimto, was his honesty on his about page. He details his story from University student to marketing journeyman.

The Yimto Story
Tim knows affiliate marketing. He details the relevant services on the market, including those that have been around for a while, for us beginners. He constantly shares with his readers the new information he learns along his journey to financial independence. For instance, he recently talked about an affiliate marketing ebook, and I walked away from the review feeling like he explained its benefits clearly.

His posts have a candor not common to Internet marketing blogs. He tells you straight up he might not be the best at certain practices, but he’s learning. He captures the journeyman voice quite well. And his posts somehow carry an authority to them, even though he claims to only be learning. I think he balances teaching and learning quite well in his posts.

The Yimto Site
The site utilizes a two column right sidebar layout. The theme, while minimal, presents the information quite well. I love the stylish logo, the dark tone, and the easy to read text. The whole theme works, down to the sparse use of widgets in the sidebar to the curling vegetation at either end of the inner column.

Like many bloggers, Tim is very active in blog communities like Entrecard, MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog. The Yimto site sports widgets from these blogging communities.

The Yimto site lacks one thing, though. Ads. There are none on the site. You will find the Entrecard widget on his site, but no advertising, not even Adsense. I’m surprised — pleasantly, of course — as most affiliate marketers riddle their site with ads.

Yimto Reviews
If you visit Yimto, then you know he does reviews on sites and ebooks relevant to affiliate marketers. While many sites claim to give valid reviews of ebooks, I have a feeling that Yimto’s reviews carry more than just the slapped on sticker value. For instance, only one ebook had a rating of “Golden Opportunity.”

One ebook review fell into the lowest category — in the red. Before too long, I imagine more ebooks will find their way to that bottom category. (Maybe that’s my cynical outlook on marketing ebooks though.) I can rest assured that Yimto’s take on a specific affiliate marketing method will be honest, and not an attempt to drain my wallet for a quick buck.

Conclusion
I jumped over to Technorati after seeing Yimto’s authority listed on his site. He has a whopping 351 at the time of writing this. Tim started this blog in October of 2007. I’m sure if he continues to engage his audience with compelling blog posts on affiliate marketing his blog will continue to explode on the internet. His site is a definite powder keg.

Do you know of a site, service, blogging tool, widget, plugin, or advertising opportunity that has gunpowder spilling from its barrel? Write us a quick message to let us light the fuse.

Have you heard of the TNX.net site? The text link advertising site may be just the thing your blog needs. Are you looking to boost back-links, drive traffic to your site, or become a publisher with the chance to make money? The TNX.net site offers web publishers and advertisers a unique service that I’ll take the time to discuss in this Powder Keg Review.

How Does TNX.net Work?
Most everyone should be familiar with text link advertising. The TNX.net text link advertising system works on a simple scale for upcoming blogs to gain momentum and earn credits. For instance, a publisher can join the TNX community for free, and then begin displaying the text link ads on their site. This earns the publisher credit, which they can use to purchase text links on other sites or withdraw for some cold hard cash.

Are you looking to monetize your site? TNX can help you make money by buying back the credits you’ve earned on your site. The payout scale works like this: 1000 TNX credits equal $0.74. Five dollars is the minimum payout. This seems like a great opportunity for sites with quality traffic to earn some extra money.

The TNX System
The TNX site greets users with an easy to sign up process and a pleasing design. Once you login to the member’s area, you can instantly find the areas dedicated to publishers or advertisers. As a blogger, you may wish to check out both to know how everything works. We are a curious lot. Publishers and advertisers can register for free at the TNX.net site.

How Flexible Is the System?
I signed up for the program, and it literally took me two minutes. No big deal. I thought it would be a long registration process, but it wasn’t at all. I was happy about that. The price for text links can’t be beat either. The system enables advertisers to target specific keywords on a large volume of sites in a matter of minutes. For those with a specific online service, the advertising a specific keyword across many blogs may be just the marketing boost needed.

Advantages for Publishers
As we mentioned previously, the system allows web publishers to integrate the text link advertising system throughout a site. This means specific keywords on your posts could be bought by someone and used to link to their site. The editorial process at TNX ensures keywords are relevant to your site, and don’t conflict with their terms of service.

Once a publisher logs into the system, they will be greeted with various options, including getting the code to have the links working on your site. Your site’s host must support PHP and Perl, which most hosts do.

After the webmaster has placed the code in the site’s template, he or she can return to the TNX dashboard to activate the site. This can only be done after the site’s code is in place.

A site with the code in place should begin seeing credits rather quickly. This all depends on your own site’s traffic. Once you accrue enough credits you can sell them to other members or back to TNX.

Advantages for Advertisers
The TNX system enables advertisers to quickly and easily setup keyword campaigns within thousands of sites. This means your non-reciprocal links will be widespread on the internet in a matter of minutes. The system can be used to target specific keywords, helping you reach the frontpage or number one position for a keyword if used properly. The folks at TNX have put together a free tool to help links look natural to Google.

TNX makes no guarantee on how well the keywords will boost search rankings, but it should be known that this practice should not hurt your site’s search results.

TNX’s Ad wizard makes creating ad campaigns simple and intuitive. You choose the site’s performance criteria related to: website categories, geo-location, number of Yahoo Backlinks (YB) and Google Page Rank. After choosing a category and rankings of the site, you then create the link to be displayed. The link does have a keyword, but it also contains a lead-in and lead-out. This means the keyword is surrounded by text. I presume this method makes the link more viable and less conspicuous to search engines.

All in all the process doesn’t take more than five minutes. You can be up and running in less than fifteen minutes with a well constructed keyword campaign.

Conclusion

I think the TNX link site definitely has a lot to offer advertisers and publishers alike. It will be exploding on the internet in the coming months. I’m sure we all will be hearing the name TNX.net over the next few years.

If you’re still questioning whether to sign up or not, you can always take advantage of the 5,000 free link promotion going on now. I’m sure that would help any blog explode across the internet. For blog owners, you can introduce others to the TNX.net site to make some extra cash. Simply join their affiliate program today.

Can you remember when you first saw a good brand online? In the past few months, I’ve seen a turnip, a droopy eyed character, and a suave, dark haired boy. That suave, dark haired boy was none other than Mr. Javo. I think I first ran across Mr. Javo through Entrecard. I noticed his business card and was intrigued. I visited his site and after only a few minutes, decided to subscribe.

The design of Mr Javo dot com certainly helped make that decision to subscribe to his RSS feed. I’m often times surprised by how casually we overlook the theme of our site. The Mr Javo dot com site exudes the kind of professionalism a make money blogger should display. The logo and brand work well. The clean and crisp typography of the site works. The layout of the theme works. You can easily find out more about Mr. Javo and his mission by flipping through the various pages of his site. For money making blogs, he keeps his content to the right topics.

Mr Javo dot com caters to bloggers trying to make money online. He has ‘Young Internet Marketing’ as his tagline. According to his about page, Javier is a young marketer from Venezuela. He started his blog to help other bloggers make money.

Mr. Javo dot Com is a authentic blog with online marketing information. I make money online and I help to other bloggers to explode their potential, because like me, you can earn money online with your blog.

You know I love anyone who claims to explode others’ potential.

What Can You Expect from Mr Javo dot com

I’ve been an RSS subscriber to Mr Javo dot com for at least three weeks. While I haven’t seen every post of his, the ones I have read detail good practices for bloggers to monetize their blog and to get the word out about their blog. He does writes reviews, tutorials on increasing your blog traffic, web design, and sometimes writes about Wordpress.

If you are like me, then you plug your blog in multiple arenas online. It seems every new site I find, Mr Javo has already been a member and networked with bloggers there. I admire his persistence and dedication. So if you haven’t checked out Mr Javo dot com, why wait?

Do you know of a site, service, blogging tool, widget, plugin, or advertising opportunity that has gunpowder spilling from its barrel? Write us a quick message to let us light the fuse.