Don’t be a spammer’s paradise. But don’t annoy your readers either. I’ve been getting a WHOLE lotta spam on my blogs lately. Luckily none of it has slipped through to the publicly seen comments, but that has involved deleting it by hand, which can be a very tedious process when you’re averaging 100 spam comments a day. Not to mention that I sometimes spam a real comment in the process, and that is just a little embarrassing.

So how to get rid of or prevent spam comments on your blog? There are two methods: front-end registration or user participation or back-end plug-ins and programs.

There are several different front-end techniques for filtering comment spam, more or less palatable and intrusive to the user. The first is registration- you have to enter your name and email address. This is usually OK, as often there is the choice of staying anonymous, and the cookies in your computer can remember the information for your next visit to the site. There is also comment approval, usually a first time commenter requires the site owner’s approval of the comment before the comment is published. This too is not that intrusive and usually fairly acceptable to the user. Finally there is the word captcha, where the commenter needs to type a random series of letters or numbers before the comment is published. I intensely dislike this method, as it often takes me two or three times to get my comment through. I tolerate it only on blogs I love, and for whom I am willing to jump through the hoops, but I refuse to install this on my own blog.

Back-end solutions prevent spam without the average reader being aware of it. These are things like plug-ins or administrator privilege. Administrator privilege is the blog administrator’s ability to delete or spam comments after they have been left (but also before they are published) from the admin interface. There are also a lot of plug-ins, especially for WordPress blogs. I’ve tried anti-spam plug-ins like Askimet before, except that they are complicated to use and still require sifting and sorting through the comments, in order to catch the false positives. The other day, however, I discovered and installed a new plug-in on Almost Frugal, which so far at least, has done a remarkable job of filtering comment spam. My only critique is that you can’t go back and double check that legitimate comments aren’t getting filtered as well.

So there you have it: two techniques for keeping your blog spam free. How do you handle the problem on your own blog?

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Useful Links

by Kelly

Don’t forget to check out Del.i.cious for my favorite links of the week… and stay tuned (or better yet subscribed) for Monday’s announcement on Almost Frugal… I have a superb gift giveaway for you all!

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Heidi from Little People Wealth contacted me for a blog review, saying “I would love to have my blog reviewed :) I just changed a ton of things and forwarded everything to a new address/name so I could definitely use the feedback. Thanks!”. Here were my recommendations.

1. If you really want to get serious about blogging and about making money from blogging, then you’re going to have to switch to a self-hosted blog. This means paying for at least a custom domain ($10) plus potentially monthly hosting, about $5 or $6 per month. It sucks, but the fact of the matter is that .BlogSpot and .Wordpress blogs aren’t seen as professional as self-hosted blogs. If you think at all that you are going to want to move to a Wordpress blog in the future, then DO NOT buy your custom domain through Blogger (Google) as it will only cause you heartaches. On the other hand, if you are happy with Blogger, and don’t ever anticipate moving, then by all means buy your custom domain through them, as it is very easy to do and then you won’t have to pay hosting charges.

2. To see if your keywords are working for you, where your visitors are coming from, where they are going etc, think about installing Google Analytics.

3. You need to rework your tagline. Your title says ‘little people’ but your tagline says ‘creating wealth… investment… make money’. That doesn’t say little people to me. Something like ‘Savings and Investment Advice for those of us on a budget’ is better.

4. The girl in the header and the picture for the ‘about me’ widget don’t look anything alike, and it’s confusing. Which picture is you? Make them both look like you.

5. I love the header image, but I’m not wild about the Georgia type in italics AND bold. How about using something like Bradley hand, Castellar or French Script.

6. You have a huge footer, and nobody is ever going to look for that information there. It all needs to be moved to a sidebar. You WANT people to see your archives.

7. You need a search bar. Just below the subscribers buttons is best.

8. I would recommend moving the archives to a navigation tab, and moving the category tabs to the sidebar. As it stands, you have two ways to get to several different categories, when those tabs could be better used for different pages ‘About’, ‘Archives’, ‘My best deals Ever’ etc.

9. You need a good about page. Something that makes you stand out from the rest. You’re in Biotech? Doing what? How many kids? What’s your hubby like? Where are you from? There are a lot of blogs like yours (and mine) out there, the about page is going to let your readers identify with YOU, not someone else. It’s also the second page the majority of people visit, after the home page.

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Helpful Links

by Kelly

I’m starting to bookmark all my favorites on del.i.cious, so instead of linking to them here, you can visit my favorite links on my account there.

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A reader recently wrote me “I would love to pretty my blog. I feel like I am all over the place with it…. I don’t want to spend any money on blogging until I have increased traffic. Suggestions please!”

I replied, “Not paying for your blog is a double edged sword! I know that I didn’t actually start to experience real growth, or earn any money, until I switched to Wordpress (with a hosting fee) and bought Thesis. It was expensive, but worth it.”

The sad truth of the matter is that blogs aren’t seen as professional if they have a .blogspot or wordpress.com address. Silly but true- even though your subject, content and style doesn’t switch by having your own domain, you are viewed differently.

If you want to boost your blog a bit, without having to invest in hosting or have the technical knowledge necessary for Wordpress, you can always buy a custom domain through Blogger. Then you will have a custom address, but not pay hosting fees. Of course you must then be absolutely sure that you want to stay with Blogger because transferring your custom address to Wordpress from Blogger is difficult.

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I have a guest post on Blog Coach today: What do you want readers to do on your blog?

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Helpful Links

by Kelly

CopyBlogger has ten effective ways to get new subscribers and five common mistakes that make you look dumb.

Digital Bliss on Blissfully Domestic shares how to create a StumbleUpon campaign to spread the word about a new blog.

Get Rich Slowly shares what he’s learned from eight months of professional blogging.

How to Create a Favicon at Daily Blog Tips. Also at Daily Blog Tips: Ten Ways to Brand Your Blog or Website Efficiently.

Gidget goes off on the apostrophe.

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