Real Talk NY is the premiere blog for the latest in new music, fashion, and hip hop culture. Created by Nigel Degraff, the site is a part of the Rawkus network and averages 30,000 unique visitors a day, raking in over 18 million hits in a little under two years.So what is his secret to success?

Nigel sat down with The Urban Blogger and gave the inside scoop on what made his blog successful as well as tips on advertising and advice for the new blogger.

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Tags: Nigel Degraff Real Talk NY Interview

Dalia of designs-express.com blog sent me an email inquiring about marketing her blog and if sending out Newletters were overkill. My answer to that was “absolutely not”.Email marketing is probably one of the best tools you can use to gain loyalty from your readers and keep them coming back. How many times have you visited a site and almost forgot they existed before you received a “What’s New On <insert site name here>” message from that site and clicked back on it for the updates? Newletters (if done right) keeps your readers informed of certain changes to your site, special promotions and exclusive content.

If you are thinking about starting an email marketing campaign, there are certain things you should consider: Continue Reading »

Tags: Blog Marketing, Email Marketing

Lowkey, the voice behind YouHeardThatNew.com is a force to be reckoned with when it comes to obtaining exclusive tracks on the internet. Pegged one of the most popular mp3 blogs online, YouHeardThatNew.com is the source to go to when it comes to getting new music weeks before radio has a chance to get their hands on it.

In this exclusive interview, he talks candidly about his site youheardthatnew.com, the impact of blogs and how his site resulted in a job from BET.com.

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Tags: Bet.com, Lowkey, YouHeardThatNew.com

I’ve been fielding questions through email over the last few weeks of topics to cover on The Urban Blogger. The question I have been asked the most since my site (NecoleBitchie.com) started is “How Did You Market and Traffic To Your Site??”. I’m gonna be honest when I say that I haven’t marketed my site since early January. I used to do my blog rounds, coupled with myspace bulletins, facebook, newsletters etc but I don’t do any of that anymore. Strange enough, when I stopped all the hustle work, the and the site numbers kind’ve grew organically. I’m sure if I go through the proper channels to market my site, the numbers would triple but I have to contribute the majority of my growth to relationship building and link exchanges.You can promote your site day in and day out but there is nothing like another site endorsing you. Building a link relationship with other bloggers will probably be one of the top traffic drivers to your site. There are three ways I recommend to build a relationship: Continue Reading »

Tags: Link Exchanges, Link Relationships, SEO, Technorati

In a prior post, I talked about Building relationships among bloggers and Link Friends. For those who are looking to draw a lot of traffic to their sites, one of the most important things you can do after writing a great blog post is submitting it to a social bookmarking site. There are quite a few of these on the web that I will cover throughout the next few weeks but today I want to introduce you all to Digg.

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Tags: Digg.com, Social Bookmarking, Social Media Networking

My name is Necole Bitchie and I am a ProBlogger. People sort’ve laugh when I tell them what I do for a living and I even get the “I don’t consider blogging a real job” from time to time so it was very important to me to have the opportunity to give my testimonial on my experience as a “blogger”.

Just a year ago, I had no idea what the term Problogger met nor did I know what a blog was. It wasn’t until I played around with my own site on blogger, and then wrote for a popular online blog that I realized that I could turn a hobby into a career and make a substantial income doing so. I first made my income from blog consulting, marketing and ghost writing for other sites and then in December 2007 I started my own blog NecoleBitchie.com. Continue Reading »

Tags: Necole Bitchie, Urban Blogger

I have an announcement…..I’m running for President!! I know…it’s a little late and everyone has a bit of a headstart on me, but for some reason I think that the Presidency might rest more on leveraging new technologies than deep campaign dollars…of course leveraging new technologies AND having deep pockets at the same time certainly won’t hurt (see my.barackobama.com). Campaign 2008 has introduced several new tools necessary to win the presidency that were previously nonexistent. Sites like Myspace, Youtube, and Facebook have certainly changed the political landscape, but the driver behind content distribution through all of those platforms is the BLOG….or when fused with Politics “Blogitics” as many have been calling it.

Simply Google any of the candidates candidates that matter and you’ll immediately see the impact that blogs have on politics. Let’s take a quick look at how candidates are using blogs to their advantage: Continue Reading »

Tags: Black Bloggers, Politics, Presidential Race

Kevipod Music a very popular mp3 blog was shut down by Blogger.com after leaking Mariah Carey’s new single “Touch My Body”. A concerned blogger emailed Kevin, the owner of the site, in which he responded:

Yeah, i was the one who deleted my new URL and Myspace site. I don’t want to give really any details i just will say that something “serious” happened to me yesterday. For that reason, i deleted all the sites related to “Kevipod”. I’m afraid i won’t be able to comeback to the blog business for REAL REAL long time.

I’m currently working on sending emails to all my visitors to tell them the exact thing i’m telling you now.

kev.

Until now, mp3 blogs have been used by independent artists, producers and some label reps to leak songs to create buzz around a release. This poses a serious question. What is the future of mp3 blogs?

Update on Kevin and his Kevipod Site

Another One Bites The Dust

Tags: Mp3 blogs, music Labels