Your recent blog statistics showed that the number of readers is dwindling. Those who visited do not stay long. Why doesn’t anyone read your blog, you ask?

Especially after you spent so much time and effort, not to mention funds on building a website. Well, chances are it’s the same reason why students fall asleep during lectures. Or someone trying to avoid long queues (did you know that in some parts of the world, people get paid to queue for others?). I think you got the message!

Yes, your blog is probably B-O-R-I-N-G to others. No offense but not everyone is interested in what you had for lunch today. Or to read a 2,000 words posting on quantum physics. But having a boring blog is only one of the few reasons why some blogs have no readers. There are many other reasons.

But don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world. I’ve list down 5 main reasons why no one reads your blog except perhaps your family and your best friend. I have also included ways to overcome them.

1. Boring Blogs

A few years ago, you could get away with a not-so-interesting blog. Back then, blogging was still a fairly new concept and there were not that many around.

Fast forward to today, there are countless of awesome blogs and in order to stand out, you need to create an edge. People need a reason to want to come to your blog. So if your blog has:

• all text with no or few images
• monotonous writing or academic sounding posts
• a sitting-on-the-fence approach to a topic

… then you are sending your readers a boring message. And eventually, even the most enthusiastic reader too will tune out.

How to overcome:

In today’s blogging world, just like most things in life, the laws of attraction works. Give your readers what they want to read, or benefits to visit your blog. It could be reviews of the latest technology or the hottest gossip in town or even controversies, depending on your blog type! On my web hosting blog, I always share great web hosting deals – for example a huge discount on Bluehost hosting plan at $3.95/month (instead of the standard $6.95/month)! Satisfy those what’s-in-it-for-me needs.

A blog is a two-way communication unlike traditional print. Write your posts as if you are talking to your readers. Let them know that there’s a person behind that blog of yours. Engage them by fielding questions and asking for feedback. Also, response to the answers you get.

Img credit: http://heartifb.com/

2. Not Posting Often And Consistently

How often do you post? Everyday? Once a week? Once a month? No specific time? Well, if you are not posting often enough, your readers would eventually grow out of the habit of clicking on your blog URL. Even those frequent visitors who had been visiting your blogs previously, they would over time, forget about your blog too!

How to overcome:

Easy. Post regularly. Make sure you consistently publish fresh and quality contents. Give your readers a good read every time they check back at your blog. You would find that the more you publish, they more readers you get.

If you don’t have enough ideas on what to post, just hop over to some of your buddy’s blogs or blogs of similar topics for inspiration. But, if you found that you don’t have the time to write, do check out our 5 Productivity Tips.

3. Too Many Advertisements

Ever been to those blogs that has tons of advertisements that shout at you? How did you feel? Having some advertisements is alright but crowding your blog with banners and links would turn off your readers.

Moreover, blogs with lots of advertisements usually take a long time to load, which I’m sure you know, is not good for SEO purposes.

How to overcome:

While I am not against having advertisements on your blog, there should be a limit to these. If you do put up advertisements, it pays to ensure that your blog is optimized to ensure speedy loading and also that your hosting provider has enough bandwidth to support them.

If you decide to write “promotional posts”, then do draft them out in such a way that your readers would benefit from them too e.g. providing valuable information within that post.

4. Your Blog Design Leaves Much To Desire

I’ll be honest here. Blog design does play a crucial part in drawing new readers and persuading them to stay. Take a step back and review your bog design. How does it fare? You can also ask your readers whether they think you need a makeover. That’s an engaging post there!

How to overcome:

Select themes that go well with your blog topic. For example, if you have a photography blog, choose a theme that offers a lovely gallery and a home page that allows you to showcase your works. If you have no clue where to get such a great WordPress, you can start your search at Elegant Themes.

Other design features to take into consideration include typeface (whether it’s legible) and choice of colors (striking or easy on the eye combinations). Your choices would depend on your target audiences.

5. Lack Of Exposure

On the other hand, you may have developed the best looking blog and publishing great posts every other day and yet still experience low readership and traffic. What could be wrong? Well, it takes more than design and good writing to draw readers. You need to market your blog. People need to know that it exists!

Poor promotion leads to poor SEO and poor traffic. If your URL is buried deep in the 7th page of a search, chances are no one will find you.

How to overcome:

Learn how to SEO your blog and raise its ranking e.g. inserting proper keywords, building backlinks, installing WordPress SEO plugins and fine-tuning Permalinks. You can look for more tips at our SEO articles.

Another effective way to promote your blog is to guest post. This way, you build a relationship with other bloggers. In blogging, it’s about being part of a community. They come to visit your blog and you drop by theirs. They comment on your posts and you leave your thoughts at theirs. The more blogs you visit and leave comments, the more people are aware of you and would return the visit.

When your readership increases, so would your pagerank and traffic. The higher your pagerank, the more new readers you will attract. The cycle goes on.

Other than that, you could also develop an email marketing list or make use of social media. Just drop an email or tweet or update Facebook status to let your friends know about your new post.

A lack of readers is quite demotivating to a blogger, especially after all the hard work poured in. But the good news is that you can certainly do something about it, as shown in the above. Hopefully, you will be able to boost your blog readership through implementing these suggestions.

Do you have any other tips to add? Feel free to share them below.

There is so much that a blogger needs to do. First, he needs to write a post. A really good and engaging one, not just any ordinary boring post. Next, he’d need to market the blog and then network with the readers and fans. Of course, these do not include the time and effort coming up good topics and ideas before subsequently promoting the blog via various methods such as social networking sites, visits to other blogs and interaction on forums. And that is just blogging alone. A blogger has a life to live too – chores, commitments, relationships and most likely, a full-time day job.

There is so much to do but so little time. So just how does a blogger get the best of his/her time?

1. Create goals and write them down

Creating goals are not just applicable at the office. How can you achieve something without even knowing what is it that you want? You will achieve better success at blogging if you know what you are working towards. You can make your own WordPress website checklist which will guide you through your business goals. For instance, you might want to set a goal of having a conversion rate of 5%, which is the percentage of product orders out of the total number of site visits. With this objective set clearly, you can then start planning your efforts to achieve that result. And don’t forget to write your goals down. It’s even better if you can stick them at a place where you can always see them.

2. Create a schedule

You can think of blogging as a “job”, where there is a fixed time for it. Creating a schedule works for me because without one, I tend to dilly-dally because I feel that I have all the time in the world at home to blog. I do, but this isn’t being productive at all. It is best to set a fixed time, say 2 hours, to write and publish a post. This way, you are unlikely to wander (physically or mentally) as you have given yourself a deadline to complete a task. And of course, once you have a schedule, make sure you stick to it. Mitz’s blogging routine might help you get on track!

3. Use tools to help you

Why spend time and effort doing things yourself when there are a myriad of tools created by nerds and geeks to assist you? For example, you can use Evernote to compile interesting articles in one place, so you don’t have to Google around anymore to look for ideas. Once you have posted your latest article, tell the whole world about it automatically by using Twitterfeed, which tweets your blog posts as well as of other blogs that you are a fan of. Finally, use ScribeSEO to SEO your blog posts. These are just some of the tools that I have found useful; there are many more out there waiting for you to discover and utilize.

4. Set up a home office

Having a home office works for me because whenever I enter the “office”, I feel focused and am ready for “business”. If you are having trouble working with children screaming in the background or when you’ve just heard that your favorite TV programme is about to start, you might want to consider setting up a home office. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy; a quiet corner where you can work on your PC is good enough. You can make it as conducive as you want by putting up soft lights, playing your favorite music, whatever, as long as there are no disturbances when you are working there.

5. You don’t have to be perfect

A lot of time is spent when a blogger tries to be perfect – you don’t have to be. I speak from experience as I have rewritten posts numerous times for the fear that the readers would not like them. And then I spend more time selecting the “ultimate” layout and theme for my blog. You must realize that you can’t please everyone, for “one man’s meat is another man’s poison”. What looks good to you might not sit well with your readers, so just do whatever you think is alright and don’t spend too much time rewriting and revamping.

There you have it, five tips for improving your blogging productivity. Hopefully with that, you’d be a better blogger with the least time and effort invested. Happy blogging!

What’s In A Brand-name?

Have you ever been shopping in a grocery store and got into a frustrating thinking battle of “should I get this one or that one?” This usually happens when you see something you absolutely love and they have the store brand which may slack a bit in taste but you’ll save a whopping 35 cents if you buy it.

I experienced this the other day in the meat section when I decided to take the Butterball turkey bacon instead of the Wal-Mart brand losing out on saving 19 cents.

So why did I go with Butterball even though I’ve bought the other brand plenty of times before? Because Butterball has branded themselves to be a top producer of meat thanks to kooky humored commercials. I had the other brand in my hand in dropped it once I saw Butterball sitting there.

Besides being a bunch of letters put together, a brand-name is a direct representation of you. In the blogging world, it will take a number of things to build a brand.

A Brand-name is:

• Expectancy
• Quality
• Efficiency
• Reliability
• Advertising

Figuring Out Your Brand

Figuring out your brand is just a matter of figuring out what you want to do or what’s important to you. Perfect example is one of my brands; Dennis Knows. All my life, I’ve been a know-it-all and when I got a hold of Google; lets just say there’s not much I don’t know now.

Now people call me Mr Dennis Knows and there’s even a catch-phrase going around to the tune of “can’t believe Dennis didn’t know that“. I love it and get a kick out of it simply because people know who I am.

Me aside, we can look at one of the biggest brands in the world being Apple. They named their company after a fruit and have the loyalty of millions from around the world (including me). Do you think they chose the apple because of the “apple a day” phrase? Who knows… (No I don’t know. )

Figure out what you want to do with your blog. Put all your ideas on paper and just brainstorm a few names. Throw them at some friends and family to see what they think. Don’t take their advise too much; just get an honest opinion on the name. You can even ask me if you want. I’ll be glad to help you out.

Time For Complete Domination

Once you figure out your name, you need to go to your nearest registrar and lock a domain name in. Don’t talk too much if at all, about your brand-name on the internet. I would hate for you to run into a savvy domain flipper that picks it up and then resells it to you for a quick flip.

After getting a domain name, your next step is to lockdown Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, WordPress.com and Blogger. There are many more you can do if you want. If this sounds like a bit much, you can just do Facebook and Twitter. I like to take care of everything to prevent anyone from profiting off my brand-name. Facebook owns everything Facebook name on the web and even fb.com.

You will also, at sometime, want to take care of getting your brand-name  trademarked and copyrighted. This will protect you from any thieves in the future trying to profit off of your brand-name.

Put Yourself (brand) Out There

After you have your blog ready to go (with WordPress of course), it’s time to do some marketing; not just your blog but you (or your brand).

A picture is worth a thousand words

A great suggestion from a huge influence in the blogging world by the name of Andy Bailey, was to make your branding image very well known. You can start this process by using Gravatar.com. Their free service allows you to attach an image to an email address. Now anytime you use that specific email, your image will show up.

I suggest using an image of yourself as people feel more comfortable when they can attach a face with words. If you’re a bit shy, then I suggest creating a cartoon image of yourself. Many do this and it works out quite well.

Guest Blogging

I’ve come to find guest blogging as a very good way for branding. Some stray away from it thinking selfishly but truth be told, I get a lot of my traffic from people that read my guest posts. Put quality information on someone else’s blog and they can only imagine what you have on yours.

Don’t think you have to be a total expert on your niche either. Your goal is to know more than most people know; not everything. Be game and guest post or enter a blogging contest. All of this is great for branding!

Commenting and Forum Posting

Get out there and comment. Every-time you leave a comment, because you used Gravatar.com, your image shows up in your comments. Now people will recognize you as they browse the web. I’m branding myself as “that guy with the red glasses” and soon, after seeing my face everywhere, they’ll make a trip over to my blog.

You have to leave good comments though. Don’t just say thanks and leave it at that. Read the article and tell what you liked most about it. You can even ask a question. Bloggers love when visitors ask them a question. I know because I’m a blogger.

Posting in forums is great because they get tons of traffic; at least the good ones do.This is more chances for people to see your brand. Get in there and answer questions, ask questions and make suggestions.

Social Media

Now some people still don’t get Facebook or Twitter but with them being in the top 5 websites in the WORLD, I think it’s very important you use them to help build your brand-name.

I’ve devoted an hour a day on my schedule to social media. This includes talking with people, answering questions and even getting a laugh or two from some of the more hilarious tweets.

What you have to realize is social media is a way for you to DIRECTLY connect with your readers. Top bloggers may not be able to answer your emails in a timely manner but you can shoot them a tweet and they’ll write you back almost instantly.

In Conclusion About Using A Brand-Name

Where most people make their mistake is trying to make everything perfect from the beginning. You will commit “success suicide” if you try to focus on making everything perfect. You’ll never get started.

I challenge you if you’re a perfectionist. Look at every successful blogger’s beginning compared to what they are doing now. You’ll see PROGRESS. No one started out perfect. It’s a matter of creating a ladder of success in taking the necessary steps (mentioned above) to achieve them.

I look at some of my old videos on YouTube and boy was I BORING. I put myself to sleep. Now when I shoot videos, I’m full of life and energy. Allow people inside your brand to see your progress and they’ll follow you forever.

This was my first guest post on this blog and I look forward to bringing you many more. If you enjoyed it, please share and comment as they will be the steam I need to power my locomotive for producing great content.

Thanks again for reading and best wishes with branding yourself. Have a blessed 2012.

Everyone knows that I absolutely love WordPress and always build my websites using this content management system. Really, is there anything else?

Well WordPress is always being updated but this particular version attracted my attention. WordPress has actually added in some really great features that I am about to list, even though you have probably noticed these updates yourself.

What new features are included in the latest version of WordPress?

I am only going to talk about two main features.

Easy access to your WordPress admin area

If you are signed into your WordPress website (previously logged into your admin area) and you are viewing your website, there are now quick access links to take you back into the admin area. See the screen shot below.

I am viewing my website but can enter the admin area to add a new post, edit and existing one, or anything I choose to do. For example if you are viewing a post you will see a link on the WordPress toolbar above to edit. If you press on the edit post link you will be taken directly into your admin area and straight to that post to edit.

Easy internal linking

This is my favorite new feature in the latest version of WordPress..

When you are creating your post you can select text that you want to make into a link by making it blue and then clicking on the little chain link icon. A huge box will appear with loads of options.

Add a keyword into the search section and press the space bar or the enter key to start the search process. A list of articles will be displayed underneath. When you choose a post to link to it will be automatically added in above for you.  Then press on the Add Link button below and that’s it! Now the text you previously selected will be linked to that post.

I love the fact that I get to choose from all my articles to link to internally. This is great for implementing your onpage SEO techniques and this new feature just makes it so much easier.

Watch this video to see the new features in the latest version of WordPress:

What features do you like in the latest version of WordPress?

This is one of my best kept secrets about building a WordPress website, creating a free mind map for all the steps involved. I cannot tell you how helpful these maps are and how they keep you on track with your daily tasks.

Here is an example of a mind map I made showing the steps to building a WordPress website. Unfortunately I do not think this map will ever be finished because this process changes all the time. You might have to promote a website in a different way or maybe one day you will not even need to get back links. Either way you will need to be flexible and move with the times.

I made this mind map with a free program called Free Mind. You can download it and make your own mind maps for building websites or any steps to achieve absolutely anything.

Download my building a website mind map

When you have made your mind map you can export the content to PDF, JPEG, PNG, and more. I exported my mind map as a  JPEG and inserted that file into a Word document. I did this so I could add my own writing along with the mind map, then I saved it as a PDF.

Exporting your free mind map to PDF or JPEG file format:

See the screen shot below.

1. Go to the file menu at the top.
2. Choose Export from the menu.
3. Choose what file format you want to export to.

When building a WordPress website what mind maps might help?

• Steps to building a WordPress website as I have above.
• An entire linkbuilding mind map.
• A mind map of tasks to do for the month.
• A blog commenting strategy mind map.

What do you think about using a mind map when building WordPress websites?

In this tutorial I’m going to show you how to add Google Analytics code to your WordPress website. It is an absolute necessary task to perform for a Webmaster that is serious about making a successful website. It is all about the numbers and statistics when it comes to developing a website. You need to know what is successful and what is not.

What is Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free tool that Google provides for Webmasters that allows them to view detailed statistics about their website. To use Google Analytics you simply have to add the Google Analytics code to your website. This is invisible code and is only inserted for tracking purposes. Here’s how to find your Google Analytics code. Google will provide such statistics as:

• Detailed information about your website visitors.
• Keywords people have used to get to your website. Here’s how to find keywords to target.
• AdSense statistics.
• Advanced settings which will track conversions and sales.
• And loads of more valuable information.

Google Analytics is so detailed that I cannot even explain how many things it could possibly do for you. One being that it is good for is to check your website bounce rate on Google Analytics. It is amazing how far it goes into analysing your website statistics. I recently wrote a post about how you can find the highest paying keywords for AdSense on your website. This fact alone amazed me, as it was not only telling me what keywords were used to find my website, it was telling me how much these keywords made me money-wise.

Will the Google Analytics code be seen on my website?

You do not have to worry about the code being seen on your website because it is an invisible tracking code. If it does appear on your website, this can mean that you have not copied the code correctly. Sometimes it is necessary to copy the code from the Google Analytics website and then paste it into a notepad before pasting it into your website. If you have pasted the code correctly it does not show up on your website.

How to insert the Google Analytics code into HTML website?

If you have built your website using HTML code and you are not using something like WordPress, then it is still easy to paste the code into your website HTML section. All you have to do is paste the code into each page of your website, or not a common border that appears on each page of your website. The code can be pasted anywhere in the HTML, however the best place is just before the closing code at the bottom </body> and </html>.

How to add Google Analytics code to your WordPress website?

First you will have to get the Google analytics code from the Google analytics website. Most WordPress themes now days have a section in their dashboard where you could just simply paste the Google Analytics code into. If you do not have this you can simply place the code into a text widget in your sidebar or footer and then your job is done. The code does not show up as anything on your website, therefore you can almost place it anywhere you like.

Now we need to place this code into a text widget in the sidebar.

1.       Click on Appearance in the side menu of your website dashboard.

2.       Then click on Widgets.

3.       Grab a text widget and drag it into your sidebar. Mine is called the primary sidebar in the picture below.

4.       Open the text widget by pressing the tiny drop down arrow.

5.       Paste your code that you copied into the widget.

6.       Press save.

The screen shot below shows where you can paste your code into a text widget.

Watch this video below to see how to add Google Analytics to your WordPress website. It also shows where to find the Google Analytics code because sometimes it is not that easy as it is a very detailed website to navigate.

What are the benefits of having Google Analytics code installed on your website?

• You can see where your website visitors come from and what they are coming to see.
• You can see which keywords are bringing your website visitors.
• You can see which pages on your website make you the most money.
• You can identify which links are clicked the most.
• You can check your website bounce rate on Google Analytics.
• You can identify which advertising space is more valuable.
• You can also see what operating system your visitors are using. This can be useful as people with older operating systems may not be able to view certain content like videos, or large images.

Using this information you can fine tune your website and keep it growing. It is easy to find out what your website visitors want when you are using Google Analytics code.

I am going to share my list of secret tools that help me create guaranteed website success. Of course, if we face reality, we have to realize that they are not really secrets, but tools you do need just like in any other profession. For example a builder needs tool to build houses, a plumber needs tools to lay pipes, and a surgeon needs tools to operate. I am guessing that you get the idea.

Unfortunately in this website game we are temped with new products and sure fire ways to make millions. But how can you tell what to really spend your money on? If you plan to have a successful website you will have to buy certain things that will make your life easier, however most programs and products you see are a waste of your time and money.

These secret tools that create guaranteed website success are a must. Some are free tools and some, you have to pay for. Don’t worry though, as I was lucky if I even invested $1000 into my internet business and now it makes me that over and over. This is the best investment I have made. There is no avoiding the inevitable.

With these tools that create guaranteed website success you will also need knowledge, however that it another subject all together. For now we will concentrate on the tools for website success.

Tools That Create Guaranteed Website Success

#1.  Access to a computer.

This one is of course the number one tool. Without a computer, creating website success is not possible. This whole business of building websites revolves around you using a computer. If you do not like computers or do not know how to use them then your business will be in trouble from the start. You will also need to know how to communicate with people over the internet, browse the web, create documents, and use WordPress. All this information can be obtained for free online is you simply Google it.

#2.  Hosting.

To really make a website or blog that makes money that is a solid and true business you need to buy web hosting. I definitely do not recommend that you start a serious business using free web hosting. You are not in full control of your website if you use free hosting.

Website hosting is so cheap! You can get Unlimited Domain Hosting Only $9.95 a Month. Therefore you buy your web hosting and use this for all your websites. I personally use Hostgator and in the beginning I signed up for the cheapest plan for only one website to see how I would go. Later I upgraded to an unlimited plan so I could have more websites. What a cheap business? Imagine paying $10 a month to rent space for ten shops? Isn’t that crazy?

I always go for reliability, support, and up time when it comes to choosing a web hosting company. I also make sure they use cpanel hosting as it makes everything easy for you.

#3.  A Domain Name.

You need to buy a domain name to suit your niche and I like to use the keywords in the name. I also prefer it to be a .com name. If you look at my domain name above, as you can see, I have even added a dash so that I could get the words that I needed. There are so many places to buy domain names. I use Namecheap.com and sometimes www.GoDaddy.com.

#4. WordPress.

Ahh what can I say about WordPress. If you are not using it you have a problem. It is the best content management system there is and it is free. Google loves WordPress and you can install it within two minutes using cpanel web hosting. Why go for the complicated content management systems when you can just get on with building your website.

#5. WordPress Theme.

It is not entirely necessary to buy to a WordPress theme because when you are first starting out there is no harm in using a free WordPress Theme. There is one problem though, free themes do not come with support and therefor customizing and tweaking your theme takes a lot longer. I did not learn how valuable a paid theme was until I was n my second year of building websites. I now use the Socrates for most of my websites as I get the best support which saves my precious time, and Socrates provides the best stability. If I had known the how important these benefits were when I started out, I never would have messed around with free WordPress themes.

Socrates allows me to swap my website layout around in matter of seconds, and customize everything at the click of a button.

#6.  Wordrpess plugins create guaranteed website success!

I cannot live without my plugins! WordPress plugins do half my job for me and I have both paid and free ones installed in all my WordPress websites.I have researched all the plugins I use and they are stock standard on every website I have.

Free Plugins: All in One SEO Pack, CommentLuv, Digg Digg, Fast Secure Contact Form, MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer, Simple XML Sitemap, WordPress Related Posts, WP Super Cache, Akismet.

Here is a video on how to install the Maxbloggpress ping optimizer into your WordPress website.

Paid Plugins: These are my absolute must have WordPress Plugins.

• Affiliate Camo This plugin creates cloaked affiliate links and tracks their performance for you. This is an easy way to monetize your website automatically.
• Subscribers Magnet This plugin ads optin forms to various parts of your blog. See what results I got after installing Subscribers Magnet.
• SEOPressor This is an onpage SEO plugin that helps me write posts that are search engine friendly and loved by Google. See the screen shot below. When I installed this plugin my average score on my posts was around 30% and now I am optimizing them to above 80%.

#7. Using your mind as a tool?

Yes that’s right. Your mind is a powerful tool that I believe will lead you down the path it chooses. Now if you want to have a say in which path you take you better start taking charge of your mind and steering it in the right direction. See Who do you need to be to become a successful blogger?

#8. Outsourcing work

Getting other experienced people to do work for you is a great way to fast track your website success. This is a great tool but it is not easy to master. People make it sound easy. You just hire someone from Elance or Odesk and when the jobs done you pay them. Unfortunately the process is not always that rosy and it can become a huge headache and time waster. When you hire someone new you never really know if they are indeed experienced or can do the job to your standards. This is why I recommend you start with small paying jobs and find reliable workers that you can call on again to get the job done.

#9. Using other websites as a tool for website success?

Other websites are very important on the path to website success. You might be using them for educational purposes or even link building SEO purposes. For example I use the Warrior Forum for educational purposes and I use Ezine articles for link building purposes. Youtube is another great website to learn how to do anything you are interested in. See more webmasters resources.Fish

Tools That Create Guaranteed Website Success

As I have stated, there are no secrets here, however these tools might be secrets to you if you do not realize the value of them. I personally wish that someone had just told me these simple facts when I first started building websites. I always saw the newest thing and thought that I needed this to make my business work. Even the educational courses are tempting but not always the necessary thing to get your business going.

I really hope you can learn from my mistakes and only pay for the tools that create guaranteed website success.

If you are looking at building WordPress websites like I do but are having problems getting off the ground, I have the solution for you. I have something that will give you that kick along you need to get the ball rolling.

It all started when one of my close friends wanted to start a money making business online like the one I have. She wanted to go to sleep at night and earn money but she could not seem to actually start a website or contribute anything toward this goal.

I did not have the time to help her so I told her to check out TheBlogGrinder.com. This is a service that provides you with one fully researched niche website all up and running for you each month. They even choose some appealing affiliate offers to promote. So it is all basically handed to you on a platter.

My friend was quite excited about this and signed up. She is in her second month now and has two websites up and running.

I had a sneak peak at the member’s area which is great for beginners as there is so much info there, including marketing and traffic ideas, yet it is all given to you in a way that doesn’t create “information overload”. It is also helping my friend understand everything about affiliate marketing and how to profit from it. She is really enjoying it as there is something getting done while she learns at the same time.

The best thing about The Blog Grinder isn’t the member’s area though… it’s the blogs that they create for you. They found my friend a great, profitable niche using keyword research and delivered a very attractive blog in just a few days.

Well, guess what? Her blog is ALREADY receiving traffic – and not just one or two visitors a day! She is really excited about her progress as it would have taken me a lot of explaining to get her to that stage. I would recommend The Blog Grinder to anyone that wants to start profiting online. Why? Because you don’t need to do anything to start earning – they will do everything for you!

I will try anything to get rid of spam comments on my website and having a comment policy message on your website is a good idea.

Just a simple message just above the comment form does wonders. Here is the example I used.

Website comment policy:
**Please be aware that all comments made are moderated and SPAM will not be published.
**Comments must relate to the post topic. This website is here to help people, not for your advertising purposes.

I placed this in the comment.php.

Watch this video tutorial to see how I embedded this message into the php code of my WordPress website.

CODE I USED

<div>

<b>Comment Policy in force from 01 Nov 2010</b>

**Please be aware that all comments made are moderated and <b><i>SPAM will not be published</i></b>.
**Comments must relate to the post topic. This website is here to help people, not for your advertising purposes.

</div>

Does a comment policy message work?

In a nutshell, yes. Besides all the monster spam protection plugins, small amounts of spam commenters were getting through. This way it makes them think twice before even bothering to put a comment that will only get deleted in the long run.