Or maybe just my two sites do?
Rant about BL0GEXPLOSIONS Rent my BL0G to follow. You’ve been warned.
I think it’s become almost a full time job between deciding on who gets to be my renter of the week on each of my sites, and trying to find a rental space for myself.
Over the weekend both of my sites came up for rent and I ended up having to pick just two new roomies out of the 23 hopefuls who bid on my sites. I hate having to deny people, but all I can say is keep trying and keep working at putting in bids on all the sites that you’d like to rent from, eventually someone will give you a spot.
Now, getting back to putting in bids on sites. I’ve been working hard to get spots for both this site and Odd Planet. I put in bids for each site every single day.
Just for the heck of it I decided to see just how many bids I put in during the month of May. Here’s the breakdown:
denied – 59
expired – 8
deleted – 1
accepted -14
total = 82
52 of those bids were for this site, and 30 of those bids were for Odd Planet. Odd Planet is a harder sell – not as many sites pick up humor sites I guess.
So far this month I’ve already put in 31 bids with only two being accepted.
Now since I put in multiple bids I sometimes get accepted by more than one site in a week. Well this site does, Odd Planet rarely finds a home. I don’t mean to take up multiple spots, it’s just that as you can see from the bidding history that I’ve listed above I’m denied more often than I am accepted so it’s better to place a bid with more than one site at a time to increase your chances of being accepted.
What we really need is more renters so that there would be more spaces for all of us trying to promote our sites.
Actually we need more good renters.
I could have bid on a lot more sites than I’ve listed but I didn’t. If your site is only going to bring me one or two visitors yet take 20 to 200 credits from me why should I rent from you? To give my credits away for nothing? Nope, I’m not even going to bother with placing a bid.
There are a lot of sites out there that don’t end up sending a lot of visitors to their renters site. Sometimes it’s not for lack of trying because they do have the rental space showing prominently on their site, and they do make at least one welcoming post to their new renter. No, sometimes they just don’t get all that much traffic to their own site so their stats aren’t that great. I don’t mind so much if I only get 20 clicks or unique visitors when I paid 40 credits. At least I don’t mind if the renter tried to get some of their visitors to visit me.
But this post really isn’t about what happens when you rent, it really about the sheer work it is to try to secure a rental spot. Never mind how good or bad that promotion goes when you’ve been accepted. That’s yet another rant.
I really think that if more people started creating a rental space this would be easier. I’d also end up denying fewer people because they’d be able to secure a space much much more quickly.
I think I’m going to make my own job of selecting renters a tiny bit easier. If the people that bid on my site have a rental space on their own site then they will be considered eligible for a spot on one of my sites. If you don’t rent to others why should I let you take a spot away from someone who’s going through the same dilemma that I am by having to deny far too many people a spot each week as well.
How do you feel about the “rent my BL0G” business?
Do you have to put a lot of effort into finding sites to bid for, only to be denied repeatedly?
I’m curious. Leave me a comment and tell me what you think of this.
My friend, from Pointless Drivel, the famous and most fabulous Mr. Fab himself has been going through his own renting dilemma. If you think I’ve had a hard time choosing go read what he had to say about his own problems.
Oh yes, it’s click and comment Monday isn’t it? If you are a participant please feel free to leave a link to your site below .. but if you leave a link you need to leave me a comment too, and then I politely request that you visit my renter! A great way to participate in click and comment Monday is to visit each sites renter or a site on a persons bl0groll. Leave a comment at each site that you visit. Try to visit at least 5 sites if you are participating.
Thanks!
Oh, I hate having to deny people, especially you! 🙁 I know sometimes I take it personally if I get rejected, depending on my mood. I am at the point, though, where the people who have been kind enough to accept me as a renter is wanting to rent on my blog, so I will go by who accepted me first.
Also, to make it easier on me, I have made up themes for each week. So far, I’ve had men only blogs (as I’ve had 3 chicks prior to that) and now comedy type blogs. Next will be photoblogs, then something else and so on.
I noticed there are few that really use the rent my blog feature well. There are heaps that only end up providing a couple of clicks throughout the week!
Finding a renter SUCKS!…. it’s so manyheadaches.. but I love it.
This makes me realize just how much the “rent my blog” has saturated the BE community. I LOVE the idea and I think, as I did learn, many should lower their rent a bit.
I have gone as high as 350 but as low as 10. I realize that it’s well worth it to do it lower because you get a different rental base.
I think I’m sticking to lower rent now and I’ve even had others email me to save a spot for a future week. The last two renters I’ve had were prior arrangements…
I know now when I do get rejected not to take it personal. Maybe word will get out and others will follow and lower their rent and have some fun with it instead of trying to make credits. I think it’s okay at times to be up there and really promote a renter as in the past I would go a little above my traffic amount sometimes (not a 1:1 ratio) but they would get mentions in a post and several perks like that and all credits I was given by said renter went to advertising and such. I think that’s fair too.
Our site is pretty new to renting, but I can’t stand when sites repeatedly let our bids expire. That dirves me nuts!
I have some pet peeves with RaB too. First, are the people that want to charge crazy prices for 5 clicks — riiiight. Second, people that let my bid expire more than once. I try to make mental notes of these blogs because I’m just not going to bid there. You don’t want me fine, just go ahead and deny my blog and free up my credits! Third, I don’t need a big splashy write-up, but at least once mention a week would be nice!
I try to pick people that are new to me and I also don’t pick blogs that I see on several other sites — especially if I read those sites a lot because chances are we have a lot of the same readers and we’ll be hurting that renter’s numbers. Denying people really sucks. I don’t take it personally when I get denied, but I take it personally when I have to deny 20 -30 bidders. I agree with you, if they have RaB on their site, that gives them a little more weight in my decision. And heck, sometimes I just throw everyone in a hat and draw!
Funny, I had the same problem deciding who I wanted to pick when I got 24 bids. I didn’t think I’d get any since I had no history. I’m hoping my promotion gets the clicks the renter is looking for. I’ve battling as much as posible to get traffic for me and her.
Also funny, you were a bidder last week and had I not taken the easy route and picked the first one in I would have picked you. So here’s the deal. You bid again next week and I’ll pick you for sure. Either blog.
~Mary
I gave up on the whole mess. Mostly, I just got tired of hassling with it.
Out of approximately 50 bids, I’ve been accepted 3 times. The 2nd time (my last rental) was the PITS! No mention, no nothing. She didn’t even blog the entire 7 days. My current “landlord” only rented to me because she’s my best friend and I threatened her with extreme bodily harm if she didn’t. I love the whole concept. I think it’d be better with the number of participants increased but that’ll come with time I suppose. As for me, I’m just going to keep bidding and eventually I’ll make it. At least I get all of those credits back. It’s like finding money in the washing machine! Have a great day!
I’ve never actually rented space on anyone’s blog – though I’ve read over the whole premise many times and begged myself to give it a shot. My one drawback? Worrying that all “landlords” will take the same stance that you mentioned, and give more consideration to people who also rent space on their blog.
My blog is rather new, and thus the readership is quite low (and even when I do get quite a few visits, I’m doing good to gather one comment a week.)
I don’t rent out space on my blog (yet), because I don’t want my renter to be disappointed if I can’t assure them the same high exposure that other renters do.
I think that’s kind of sad, too (and this is NOT meant personal at all) – but if the idea of RaB is to gain more exposure and newer readers, why would “landlords” not give more credit to younger, lesser read blogs…would they not be the ones who need use of the service more?