Nowadays so many internet marketing strategies revolve around setting up a blog to promote this and that. Creating a blog can be done in as little as 5 minutes if you use a service like blogger. The problem with using blogger is that you do not have full control over the system you are using. Also the domain is not yours. Blogger could go belly up and all your work is gone.
A better option is to use blogging software like Wordpress, TypePad or Movable Type hosted on your own domain. By using one of the previous blogging software programs you can install them on your own domain. By going this route You also have total control over the site.
If you do decide to go with this option the problem that you now face is that you have to manage all of this yourself. You need to know how to register a domain, setup hosting, setup the blog and then design and optimize the blog, and that is all before you even think about what to write.
If you have a technical background all of the above is quite simple, however you may just end up with an ordinary looking blog as it takes some skill and experience to take your blog to the next level.
Sherman Hu is one guy who knows what he is talking about when it comes to blogging. I first heard of Sherman through my involvement in Stompernet. He is on the faculty. More recently he became a Facebook friend and I have been keeping an eye on the stuff he is working on.
Just the other day I came across an interview Sherman did with Jerry West. Sherman is asked 10 important blogging questions as asked by Jerry West or his members at WebMarketingNow.com. You can listen to the interview or read the transcript if you go to ShermanLive.com.
It is well worth a visit as there is a lot of great content relating to blogging. I suggest you head over and check it out.
If you are like me and really want to get inside Wordpress and learn from a pro, Sherman has a great site dedicated to taking you to the next level with Wordpress. You can see for yourself at WordpressTutorials.com. It is worth a visit just to sign up for the free tips.
Comment Spam – the ugly side of blogging
I have a few blogs here and there around the internet. One mistake I have made recently is to setup my comment settings with a notification email for any comments in moderation. This started off ok as I got notified about some legit comments that I went in and approved.
But then things changed…My blogs got noticed by comment spammers. Suddenly I was getting 100 emails a day, 200 a day, then all of a sudden in the thousands. This was all from just a few blogs. The spam boys had hit me big time. At first I just ignored these but over time my email download time was being taken up with all this crap.
It was now time to take action. I had to go into my blogs and turn off the notification. I had this happen to me in the past and things got so bad I ended up deleting the post that the spam comments kept getting added to. These people obviously use some automated stuff to seek out blogs they can leave a comment.
I guess they get some return from this activity as why would you do it otherwise but boy is it annoying. I do have akismet to try to filter out this crap but so many get past. I guess there are options I can tweak to make the akismet filter more effective.
Does this type of thing happen to you? If it does how do you manage the situation? Love to hear from you with real comments.
If you are interested in sport you can check out my sports blog. I don’t really give it the attention it deserves but hopefully you will be entertained by my posts. The one topic I always cover is the Socceroos World Cup qualifying matches. If that is something you want to follow head over to the onemansportsnetwork.com blog