Welcome. If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Don't forget to leave a comment. I * DO * FOLLOW so you get a link back.

Only 1 out of every 100 readers of this post are likely to interact with it by leaving a comment…

The most common way for interaction on blogs is through comments. Most people have an opinion on any given topic, but fail to express their opinions through comments on blog posts they read. On most blogs, the ratio of readers to commenters is huge, so I got to thinking: what kind of person comments on a blog, and why?

The Upside to Comments

I personally think commenting is the best part of blogging. Comments add value to your blog. I like to hear others’ opinions on what I have written and learn a lot about my readers from comments left on this blog and occasionally, even meet some new friends through them.

Getting people to comment on your posts helps to create a community at your blog. They also help you to be more accountable as a blogger (if you’re not getting a lot of comments, just post inaccurate information or something very controversial and you’ll probably notice a significant rise in comments).

Comments add to the content on your blog. The more comments you get the more content you end up with.

The Downside of Comments

The downside of comments is dealing with comment spam. Most bloggers moderate their comments to combat comment spam and this takes time, particularly if you get a lot of it. There’s also resources and plugins that help to combat comment spam. Nobody, including your readers wants to read a bunch of comment spam. It decreases the value of your blog not only to readers but in the Search Engines.

You’ll also get a lot of comments from people promoting their own blog and hoping to get hits from comments they leave on yours. This doesn’t bother me as much as the real comments spam and I normally don’t delete them unless they are serial trollers. Flaming in comments can be an issue also and you can develop a comment policy to deal with these issues.

Finally, people are motivated more to comment on things they disagree with rather than things they agree with. This doesn’t have to be a negative as long as the disagreements don’t become flaming and name calling.

7 Ways to Get More Comments

Approximately 90% of people who use online communities are lurkers (read without contributing). Only 1% of the remainder are active contributers, with the other 9% contributing a little. So 1% of your blog’s users are actively engaging with your blog and the rest are at best occasional contributers. To some extent you’ll just have to accept the fact that most of your readers will be lurkers, but there are some things you can do to encourage more interaction on your blog. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 2% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

34 Comments »

Main Entry: mogul
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: owner
Synonyms: VIP*, baron, beef, big cheese, big gun, big shot, big wheel, czar, executive, key player*, king, kingpin, lord, magnate, merchant, prince, notable, personage, potentate, prince, royalty, sachem, top brass*, tycoon
Source: Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)

I have participated in a lot of “make money online” forums and one thing I’ve noticed is that when the newbies come in, some fresh from reading a “get rich quick” type of ebook such as the Rich Jerk ebook or others, they are still completely clueless as to what it is they want to accomplish and how they will get there. They’ve been sold a bill of goods … the “make money online while you’re sleeping” bill of goods, and they’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

You can see the amateurish looking little splogs they throw together and release into cyberspace, and then they sit and wait for the dollars to start rolling in. After as little as a few days after their “big launch,” they begin to ask questions in the forum like …. “my site is up, where’s the money?” They’ve fallen into the trap of putting yet another review splog together, thrown a few banners onto it and they’re ready to be the next Dot Dom Mogul.

Perhaps some of these are just really lazy people who are looking to make money without putting much effort into it, but a lot of them have been sold this dream of “easy money” and honestly believe it. Just look at the title and domain of the blog I created when I first got into Internet Marketing and I fell for the same crap. Now I’m stuck with the domain. I’ve got a pagerank 3 and my Alexa rating is on the rise, so I don’t want to just abandon all that.

These Get Rich Quick gurus are gaming you. If you are a newbie and anxious to achieve Dot Com Mogul status or at least just make a ton of money, the hard reality of it is that like any other job, blogging for bucks or Internet Marketing is work and it takes time to build a successful online business. So … who am I anyway? Am I a Dot Com Mogul that carries authority and someone you should believe? Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 4% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

No Comments Yet »

I’m a bit disappointed in the services that are available to help bloggers sell their “real estate.” When I first began blogging, I ran across all the paid review services and applied to them. In the beginning, I was promptly told that my blog did not meet their rigorous quality criteria. Well, now it does and I’ve been accepted into all of them. However, the problem I am now finding is that their advertisers don’t meet my rigorous quality criteria … with my main gripe being … they are cheapos.

Going to PayPerPost to the available opportunities for a blog that hasn’t acquired A-list status yet, I find review after review for $5-$10. The graphic to the left is today’s “Featured” opportunities. The $35 one requires that your blog be at least a pagerank 5 — ha ha ha —. Are they not aware of the Google slap that stripped some of the top blogs of a lot of their pagerank? And do they think that an A-list blog will review them for $35? Not likely. Quite simply, I’m not going to do an in-depth review of someone else’s product or website for 5 bucks. That isn’t the way I want to position this blog. I spend a lot of time writing content and a paid review is not exception. My last paid review was 450 words with two graphics and numerous backlinks to pages within the site. It is well written and I had to research the site and company before writing about it. It’s on another blog I write, but I was paid $25 for it and that is acceptable to me. I can live with that at this time, but if these companies think they’ll get that level of attention for a measly 5 bucks, it won’t be here. You also cannot list more than one blog until you’ve accepted and completed 10 reviews. I’m also limited to 10 reviews per month …. hahahahahahahahahahahah … I seriously doubt that I’ll find ten reviews a month that I’m interested in. Read the rest of this entry »

Popularity: 3% [?]

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

1 Comment »