I have a blog, well a couple of dozen blogs on various topics so I get to see the comments from two perspectives.

1. As a blogger I find comment on other blogs in my niche.
2. As a blog owner I moderate comments on my own blogs.

For me it’s pretty straightforward. After writing a comment I simply ask myself if I would keep that same comment on my own blog. If the answer is no I start over and do it right.

Below is a comment that I get all too often. How would you moderate it yourself?

Comment: “I visited your blog, would you visit my blog?”

DUH!! Even though they sometimes add the phrase “You have a nice blog.“, it’s just a ploy to stroke your ego but it’s still just spam and adds nothing to the post. So it’s always outta here with just a click. Makes me wonder if it’s automated and if they actually read any of the post.

I work my online business 5 days a week, Monday thru Friday and each of those days I get comments to moderate that are just plain useless and need to be deleted or marked as spam. I am sure it took them longer to write the few words than it took me to delete it along with all the others I get like that. So they have wasted their time.

I used to get right stressed over comments like that, wondering why they wouldn’t just take the same time to write a few sentences that ask a question or add to the post. Can’t be bothered getting all worked up about it these days.

What Does This Tell Me About The Blogger?

• The blogger doesn’t care a lot about comment etiquette.
• The blogger isn’t too concerned with their time, as they waste it leaving comments that will just get deleted.
• The blogger is at the point of desperation.

My Goals As A Blog Commentor And Owner

1. Getting links to my internal pages.
2. Getting Blog Visitors and Owners to visit my blogs.
3. To add value to a bloggers posts that makes me look knowledgeable.
4. To link from blog posts to relative posts on my own blogs.
5. To increase my PageRank.

My strategy for commenting on blogs in the same niches as I am is simple. It requires some thinking, a bit of work on a regular basis and patience.

Take The Time To Plan Your Comments For Best Results

I use Bloglines RSS Feed Reader to follow more than 100 blogs on various topics, fishing, gardening, travel, horseback riding and many other niches. I can see at a glance any blogs that have new posts I haven’t seen so I save a lot of time by not having to go to each blog individually.

I check out Bloglines every day or two to see who has new posts and if any of those posts interest me enough to comment.

When I find a post worth commenting on I then check to see if I have a post that is similar that I can link to. That’s an important one for me as it makes my comment far more relevant and more likely to get people to click through to my own blog.

If I don’t have a blog post that is relevant I will take the time to create one. That’s how important it is to follow through on comment planning.

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Image by beachwalks via Flickr

Even in today’s technology driven world, word of mouth marketing is a very powerful way to get tons of new customers to your business. The concept behind word of mouth, or any other type of marketing campaign for that matter, is simple – you reward the person who brings you new business. What makes this kind of marketing so highly effective? We can just take a look.

Many people like to get rewarded for their actions. People especially love to get recognized for what they do as well. Combine these couple of things together and you have got a good incentive for a word of mouth campaign. In this type of marketing campaign, you reward people who give you new business in two ways.

1. You would give them a reward or incentive. The items are countless – service credits, gift certificates, or money.
2. You acknowledge them for their great effort. You can feature their names and thank them for their efforts in your weekly newsletters.

These two things can make people very happy and satisfied – happy to get something useful and satisfied to know that their effort has been successful.

Here are some very useful tips to help you initiate your word of mouth marketing campaign the right way.

1. The incentive that you give should be useful. Money is the most obvious choice, but some people might feel uncomfortable with cash rewards. In my opinion, gift certificates are the best choice you can make. You can get multiple denomination gift certificates from Amazon – they are always an excellent selection. You can also give free food passes for your customers at local restaurants, wine clubs, spas, movie theaters, and so on.
2. Make sure you let your existing customers know that they are being rewarded for their referrals. At your place of business, put a cork board on the wall and list the names of people who have brought in new business on it. This way, your customers can see their names on the board each time they come to your business and this will make them feel really appreciated.
3. When you send out business newsletters about your word of mouth campaigns, you can mention the names of people who have referred a lot of high value customers. Your newsletters reach everyone in your mailing list and you can imagine how happy your customers will be if they see their names in there. This clearly shows your customers that you care about them and you appreciate whatever they have done for your business.
4. If you are conducting a sales event or a meeting, simply ask your existing clients to bring their friends along and offer them some form of incentive for doing so.
5. Whenever your customers bring some new clients, thank them immediately. Call them, send them a mail, send them a text message, or send them a thank-you card. It is important to make sure they understand that you appreciate their effort.

This is pretty much what you need to know about word of mouth advertising campaigns. Keep in mind – the cost is minimal, they increase brand awareness, and increase your customer base exponentially. So, if you want to get the best results, make sure you set up a marketing campaign today.

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I Blog For Profit And Wordpress Plugins Make Me Happy

After using Wordpress for a few years I have to say I am more in love with them than ever. It just keeps getting better and the plugins, well they are the main reason I stay so in love with Wordpress. It seems like ever week there is another plugin that I just have to try. They don’t all meet my needs but they are easy to install and just as easy to remove so I don’t mind giving them a try.

Note: Even though I have a real fondness for Wordpress blogs I would not host on their servers, basically for the same reasons I wouldn’t host with services that let me control my own content.

Now I did have a blog on Wordpress.org and had absolutely no problems with them but I can’t say that for blogger.com. Someone complained about my site, falsely I might add, but did anyone from blogger.com check it out for themselves, NO, they just shut my site down and left me a message for me to see the next time I logged in. They couldn’t even send out an email.

The message was simple. You have been temporarily shut down, do you want a human to check your site? Well DUH!!

I responded, not in a nice way either. They checked my site, the complaint was false, they turned it back on. That doesn’t work for me and I will not work on their server again and I guess I will also have nothing good to say about them.

So for me it’s Wordpress all the way with my hosting accounts.

Sharing Wordpress When I Can

I was on a fishing trip a few days ago with a new fishing buddy who found my web site, contacted me and we have been friends since. He even started a blog a few months ago, I just wish he had talked to me first because he chose to use blogger.com.

On our little trip there was a lot of exitement about fishing as this was our first time out this year but there was also a lot of talk about having a web site online. That’s when I told him how much I like Wordpress and explained my story pointing out that I would never use blogger.com again.

The subject moved around to why I get so much more traffic than he does. Well the simple answer would have been the fact that he has only had his site for a few months and mine has been live for more than a year. Once I told him my story about blogger.com shutting me down he started regretting he started with them.

I told him to give Wordpress a try with another domain and to start a similar site on blogger. Then I would show him how to use the plugins that have helped my blogs and see what happens to both sites. That sounds like a fair test although I have my money on Wordpress and the Plugins he will be using.

I will make another post to keep track of his progress and link to it from this post, although one of the plugins I use does that linking for me automatically.

Free Wordpress Plugins I Use Daily

Below you will find a list of Wordpress plugins I have been using on my blogs to help me in so many ways. Read up on each plugin to see what it can do for you. After all not every plugin will be useful in your blog but they are so easy to install and use that you can easily and quickly use them and then remove them if you don’t feel the need for that particular plugin.

1. Akismet – is already install, but not activated, on each Wordpress install. Use this plugin to monitor comments and to remove spam for you. I use this on all my blogs and it removes 90% of the spam I get as comments saving me plenty of time with far less stress.
2. All in One SEO Pack – this is a great little plugin and does a lot of the search engine optimization automatically for me by default, but also has a lot of other setting that you can modify to make it even more focused.
3. Better Blogroll – Pulls a configurable number of links and their categories from the WordPress 2.3 Link Manager and gives you more control of your blogroll. I love the idea of having 20 or so links but the ability to only show 5 or 6 at a time randomly. NOTE: This plugin works through your widgets.

   Contact Form][ - is a drop-in form that allows site visitors to contact you. It sure beats messing around with giving out an email address and having it spammed.

4. Darren's Related Posts - This is one of my favorite Wordpress plugins as it automatically determine related posts, based on keywords.
5. Google XML Sitemaps - This plugin will generate a sitemaps.org compatible sitemap of your WordPress blog which is supported by Ask.com, Google, MSN Search and YAHOO. Configuration Page By Arne Brachhold.

   Kontera Integration - This plugin adds the Kontera script to the bottom of the page. Also you can choose which posts to omit from targeting, this is very useful when you use PayPerPost. By Karol Krizka.

6. Most Commented - Retrieves a list of the posts with the most comments. By Nick Momrik.

   Page View - Allows the insertion of code to display an external webpage within an iframe, along with a title and description. The tag to insert the code is: [pageview url "title" description] By John Godley.

7. Recent Comments – Retrieves a list of the most recent comments. By Nick Momrik.
8. Recent Posts – Returns a list of the most recent posts. By Nick Momrik.
9. Subscribe To Comments – Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry. Based on version 1 from Scriptygoddess By Mark Jaquith.
10. What Would Seth Godin Do – Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and another to return visitors. By Richard K Miller.
11. WordPress Related Posts – Generate a related posts list via tags of WordPress By Denis.

Paid Wordpress Plugins I Use Daily

The links below are for my paid plugins therefore I will be showing my affiliate links. After all I am online to learn but also to earn.

1. Wordpress Affiliate Pro 2.1 – Wordpress Affiliate Pro is the Swiss army knife for all affiliates. Automatically translate any keywords to affiliate links you define and turn all your content into a cash making machine within seconds. Forget about manually editing your existing blog posts whenever you want to promote a new program. Forget about adding affiliate links when posting new articles. Wordpress Affiliate Pro will automatically do the grunt work for you. Advanced click tracking comes in by default so you can see at a glance what are your best performers and adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. Control the number of links and how they look down to individual affiliate link without touching a single line of HTML code. Explode your income with this no-brainer tool, and switch your focus from intensive manual labor to making more money. If you’re serious about affiliate marketing then you need to have this plugin activated on all your blogs. By WP Affiliate Pro.
2. Caffinated Content – Looking to automate your content then this is the plugin to work with. You can get content automatically, from several places, based on keywords.

Utilizing these Wordpress plugins can make a huge difference in the attention your blog gets.

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