Incidentally you can see this information in whatever statistics package you use. For Wordpress bloggers it’s in the Stats Dashboard and for others it is sure to be in the stats section of your platform’s dashboard. Or you can sign up to a free Google Analytics account which will give you more information about your blog’s visitors than you can imagine existed.

Anyway, back to the topic.

There are reasons why some of your posts attract more Google visitors than others. And one of those reasons is probably in your post Title.

Google searches operate with key words or phrases. These are the words that you type into the search box to locate all the web pages that include your search criteria. Unless the key words you type in are pretty obscure, Google will probably return thousands (or even millions) of links to pages where the key words you are searching for appear. There might be hundreds of screens with these links.

Now obviously no one who is searching on Google is going to wade through hundreds of screens to find what they want. Usually they will only go as far as the first handful of screens and select from the links that they find there.

So how do those web pages make it to the first few screens?

Well some of them pay Google for their position at the top of the list, but for most of the rest it’s because they do something called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) on their web pages to get Google to notice them more.

SEO is a huge topic and covers many things but here are a few simple things that you might like to keep in mind when you’re writing your blog posts that will improve their position on Google search rankings.

1 Choose your key words and key phrases

Try to make them not too generic. You’ll have better success if you choose a phrase that isn’t being used by hundreds of thousands of other web sites.

If you look at the stats on your Google visitors you will see which key phrases your visitors typed in to find your site. These would make a good starting point for choosing your key words and phrases.

2 Try to include your keywords in your post title

When Google is searching for keywords placing is very important. Keywords in the title carry far more ‘weight’ with the Google search engine than when they just appear in the content of your post.

3 Include your keywords in your heading

After your Title, the next most important place (from a ‘weight perspective) is in your Headings.

Your Headings should use the headings tags (h1,h2,h3,h4) to count or the search engine won’t realise they are headings. There is usually a formatting icon on your blog’s editing tool that let’s you choose whether your text is to be part of your regular content or a heading.

4 Include your keywords in your content

Sprinkling your key words throughout your content will also help your post rank well for your chosen key words.

Just remember your post is being written to be read by humans so don’t stuff it full of key words so that it’s not good to read.

5 Include your keywords in your tags

Before you publish your post you will have the option to add tags. Make sure that your key word or phrase is one of the tags.

6 Link to the post from other posts

If you have the opportunity to link to your ‘key word’ post in other posts that you write, do it. Especially if you can use your key words to form the anchor text (the text that you make the link on).

Now just start watching your stats to see how many new visitors Google brings to your blog.

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6 Tips to Make Your Blog Posts Attractive to Google

And getting your name right probably seems so obvious that you might not think it worth writing about.

But here’s a tip I discovered a couple of weeks ago.

If your current name is different from the one you were known at school with (such as if you changed your last name when you married), then you should include your birth name in your profile name.

Darn!! I wish I had realised this when I signed up my Facebook account. Because although you can change just about anything else in your profile after your account is set up, you can’t change your name!

So annoying. I’ve had to open another account using my ‘old’ name to that anyone from my past, who might want to track me down, can search on my former name and find me.

What a der-brain I am for not realising this before.

But it is very cool to locate old family and friends with Facebook. I’ve found a couple of cousins from London and hopefully, with my new account in my old name, I might be able to locate some old school friends. How super-cool would that be? To locate an old school friend after many (many, many)decades?

Who knows, they may even be into scrapbooking.

Well wish me luck.

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Get Your Name Right on Facebook!

Now some some readers have been members of the Scraps of Mind community for such a long time that it’s not surprising that they can’t actually remember how they originally found me. After all I’ve been writing this blog for nearly three and a half years, and a few of you have stuck with me from the early days. And believe me, I do appreciate it.

But 36 people did actually have a go at remembering how they found Scraps of Mind and voted on the survey.

Now I generally find that surveys only tend to attract a minor percentage of the total population. But I figure that the percentage of people who do participate are a fairly good cross section of the total. So I’m happy to go with the percentage split of this sample and assume it reflects the total Scraps of Mind readership.

And the results were really interesting.

Click on the graph for a larger view

One of the reasons that I conducted this survey was to see whether all the masses of traffic that flows through Scraps of Mind through Entrecard were actually people who were interested in this blog for its own sake or whether they were all just ‘drop and run’ folk who just hit the site, drop their card and move on. So I stopped dropping on Entrecard a couple of weeks before the survey to see what would happen.

Unsurprisingly my daily traffic dropped significantly. Most heavily active Entrecard users really don’t have time to do more that respond to people who drop on them and don’t really actually get to read the blogs they visit. I totally understand this because I used to be part of the dropping set and when you hit 150-250 blogs a day it’s virtually impossible to actually read many of them. And in fact, I’ve now decided to remove the Entrecard widget from Scraps of Mind and focus on spending more quality time on blogs than just traffic hunting.

So I was really surprised to find that 22% of my readers are people who found me through Entrecard and who have stuck around to visit even though I have stopped dropping. That’s sensational and I thank you and love you all.

I was a bit surprised that only 11% of readers came here through StumbleUpon. I have been pretty active on StumbleUpon over the past couple of years and it has sent a lot of traffic to Scraps of Mind. So I thought that I might have had a higher retention rate that 11%. But for those of you who did stick around, thank you all very much for your support.

But as you can see from the graph, the clear winner as a source of new readers for Scraps of Mind is search engines. In the main that means Google although I’m sure there are other search engines involved too.

Now this didn’t come as a complete surprise to me. I check my Wordpress stats on a regular basis and I get a constant and regular flow of traffic through Google on many of my articles. I try to apply some SEO (search engine optimisation) techniques when I write to give my articles a bit of an edge in the search engines (thank you Blog Mastermind). And the great thing about that is that it keeps on working long after the articles have been posted. I still get new blog traffic on Articles that I wrote over a year ago!

But the important thing for me is that many of you who discovered Scraps of Mind by typing a few words into a search engine have decided that you think it’s worthwhile sticking around and reading on a regular basis.

And for all of you who read Scraps of Mind and especially for those of you who did the survey and who left a comment I’d just like to say a big thank you.

Without you readers this blog is just one woman shouting into the wind.

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Google wins the Readers Survey

I’d like to know how you found Scraps of Mind. Out of all the squillions of sites on the Internet, what brought you to Scraps of Mind?

I’ve been using Entrecard for 9 months now and I know that it has brought a lot of new traffic to Scraps of Mind.

But I think that most of that traffic is ‘drop and run’ rather than long term readers. The way Entrecard works tends to encourage that.

So I wanted to see where Scraps of Mind readers actually came here from.

Please help me out by doing the survey below.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

I stopped dropping on Entrecard about a week ago and of course I experienced a dramatic traffic reduction. And I figure that now all the folk who were ‘drop and run’ have pretty much left because I haven’t dropped on them.

So if I get a significant percentage of readers who found Scraps of Mind through Entrecard and have stayed around then I will happily be proved wrong in my theory.

Given that only a small number of people usually complete a survey compared to the total number of readers, the percentage will be the deciding factor.

I think all bloggers wonder about their readership. Are they interested in what you write? Do they actually read it? How did they find you?

And if you are a blogger then the results of this survey should be a help to you too.

So please help me by selecting which option fits you.

Other Related Posts:

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Where Do Blog Readers Come From?

Well, now Yaro is teaching how to set up a membership site just like the Blog Mastermind teaching program so you can turn your own passion into a business.

This is something that many people in the craft world dream of.

Being able to run your own race. Work your own hours and fit around the other parts of your life.

And to be doing something you love at the same time.

If you think that setting up a Membership Site might just be the way to fulfill those dreams then you absolutely have to read Yaro’s new FREE report called the Membership Site Masterplan.

This report has just been released today and as you would guess, it is a step-by-step guide for launching a profitable online membership site.

You can download the Membership Site Masterplan from here

Having done his previous course on blogging, I have to tell you Yaro’s a great teacher and writer, and whenever he releases a report people always eagerly await what he has to say.

His gift is the ability to take complex subjects and make them very easy to understand. As you will see in this report, Yaro makes the process of setting up and profiting from a membership site so easy, anyone can do it, including you.

The Masterplan is packed full of CONTENT.

It’s not some hype-filled document just designed to sell a product and not really teach you anything.

In the Masterplan Yaro explains how he was able to make $250,000 from just one membership site and then goes on to lay out a plan so you can launch your own membership site.

This is the sort of stuff you’ll find in the report:

• How to find topics for a membership site
• How to develop pre-eminence, which means people
  choose to join your membership site over all the
  other options
• What sources of traffic Yaro uses to bring
  members to his site and build his list
• What technology Yaro uses to deliver content
  (this is so simple, anyone can do it)
• How to make money from a membership site BEFORE
  you create the content for it
• How to fill your membership site with hundreds
  of new members in a matter of days by conducting a
  powerful, yet simple, launch campaign
• and heaps more…

You can download the Masterplan here

This report is amazingly comprehensive and covers all you need to know to set up your own membership site. It’s hard to believe that Yaro’s willing to give this information away.

Naturally Yaro hasn’t put all this work into the report for nothing. He’s launching a training program next week and this report is designed to introduce you to his teachings.

But the Membership Site Masterplan is a complete document. And no matter whether you decide to join Yaro’s program or not, you will benefit greatly from this report if you are interested in setting up a profitable Internet business.

If you’re thinking of selling something online, a membership site is definitely the top choice. It’s a product that you sell once, yet continues to deliver income month after month, so it’s by far the best business model.

But hey, you don’t need to take my word for it. Just read the Masterplan. Yaro has put together a very compelling story and followed it up with a very detailed plan so you can do it yourself.

You can get your FREE copy of the Membership Site Masterplan now.

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Turn your Craft into a Business

A couple of weeks ago we started to explore the world of advertising on craft blogs, and we took a look at direct advertising methods and affiliate promotions.

In this article we’ll have a look at some other advertising options that you might like to consider for your scrapbooking and craft blogs.

Google Adwords

You are probably familiar with the Google ads that can be inserted into the text or the sidebar of your blog. And now they also offer graphic based ads.

The way they work is that every person who clicks on a Google Adwords link on your blog will generate a few cents of income for the blog owner. So in order to get some reasonable income you need to have a large number of clickers.

Google selects the ads based on the context of the words in your post. What this means is that, depending on what you have talked about in your post, the ads will try to match. So if you talked about a scrapbook layout of your son riding his new bike, there’s every chance you’ll find your readers presented with ads about bikes.

You can set your Google Adwords to appear in your side-bar, above or below your post or even in the middle of the post itself. Statistics have indicated that a higher percentage of visitors click on ads placed inside your post than in the side-bar.

I recommend that you monitor your statistics firstly to work out where the optimum ad placing for your blog is, and also to see if they are actually worthwhile at all. I tried Google Adwords on Scraps of Mind in early 2008 and the results were not exactly stellar. So I removed them. After all, if no one is clicking on them, they why give them valuable blog space?

And please don’t stick them all over your blog. As a reader I do find it annoying to keep having the post interrupted by a block of ads. And I’m sure I’m not alone.

Text Link Ads

Text link ads are not as popular as they once were. But many websites will pay for you to host their link on your blog.

There are a number of brokers who will find text link advertisers for you so you don’t have to go looking for them. All you need to do is sign up to a free account with the broker and add some code they provide you in a widget on your side bar. They will then populate the widget with text links as they find the advertisers.

You have the right of refusal if you don’t like the site that your blog is being linked to so you don’t need to worry about hosting porn links or anything like that.

I have previously hosted text link ads on Scraps of Mind from TLA and that generated a nice little income stream.

However there is a downside.

If you are at all interested in your Google page rank then this is not a good strategy. Google frowns on link buying and selling and will downgrade your page ranking accordingly.

This actually happened to me last year when Google smacked me down from Page Rank 4 to Page Rank 2. It’s OK to have links with the ‘no-follow’ tag but the brokers do not use that because it’s not what their customers want.

Advertising Networks

There are a number of advertising networks you can join who will serve ads to your blog without you needing to do anything, apart from add some code to a widget in your sidebar.

Some are like Google which require your readers to click on the ad to generate income, and some are like BlogHer (the network I belong to) which relies on page views to generate income.

These network ads tend to take up a lot of your blog’s side bar and will usually require prime placement. So you need to have sufficient visitors to be able to generate enough views and therefore enough income to make it worthwhile.

I like the BlogHer network because I feel comfortable that they will only serve up ads that I would not be embarrassed to have on Scraps of Mind. And also their ads are targeted more towards women who make up the large majority of my readership. But there are many other networks to choose from.

And if you use an advertising network perhaps you could share some details about it and whether you find it worthwhile or not.

By the way I am not opening this up as a free advertising pitch for networks. I will be moderating to make sure that we are not spammed with advertisers pitching their products. But if you are hosting ads on your blog from an advertising network it would be great if you could share in the comments below your opinion of the network and whether it generates the revenue you expected when you signed up.

In-Text Ads

There are a number of ad networks you can join who will do robot scans of your posts and put links on various words and phrases which will take the reader to other sites selling products.

So if you were writing about your son’s first bike ride you would find all references to bikes would have links to web sites which sell bikes. As well as other words linking to other different sites.

You can usually spot these links as they often have a double underline on the link. And these days many of them have a little pop-up viewer that gives you a little preview of where the link is going.

I must admit I am not a fan of this advertising. I think it is distracting in the post to have links that go off to lots of different sites which don’t actually have any relationship to the article. But I guess that is just a personal thing.

Entrecard

Many Scraps of Mind readers use Entrecard and they will know that Entrecard is a form of advertising.

No cash actually changes hands. Entrecard Credits is the currency in use here. And you can earn credits by visiting other blogs who host Entrecard and ‘dropping’ on them (clicking the gold button next to the current ad-of-the-day). Also by having other Entrecard users come and drop on you, as well as by hosting Entrecard ads in the little widget like the one you can see in my side bar.

Actually Entrecard have just recently introduced a scheme where you can sell your credits for cash. So this can now also become a revenue generating opportunity.

But the purpose of this advertising is to get more exposure for your blog to a wider audience of readers. You don’t actually earn money from it, unless you sell your Entrecard credits. But it would be fair to say that if you can increase the number of visitors to your blog then you are potentially increasing the opportunity for more people to click on your other ads.

Having said that, the real purpose of Entrecard is to be able to access a new audience of readers. And I know that I have been fortunate enough to have gained a number of new scrapbooking readers on Scraps of Mind since I started using Entrecard.

When you visit other Entrecard blogs and drop on them, most times they will return the visit and drop on you. And when you place an ad for your blog on their blog (all paid for with Entrecard credits) then that will also increase the numbers of visitors.

So it’s an easy way to promote yourself, although it can be quite time consuming to visit so many blogs.

Less is More Advertising

So almost every blog hosts some sort of advertising.

But remember that advertising is only going to be effective if your readers can actually see it. So I would strongly recommend that you don’t overload your blog with advertisements.

There is a phenomenon known as ‘ad blindness’ where people see so many ads that their brain just shuts down and blanks them out. And if that happens then your ad might as well not be there.

So give some thought to the amount and placement of your advertising and then the whole experience will be a positive one for both the blog owner and the reader.

And we all love a win/win scenario, don’t we?

What advertising do you host on your blog? Perhaps it’s something we haven’t covered in this article.

And do you find it effective or is it just taking up screen space for nothing?

Other Related Posts:

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Earn some money with your blog

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Advertising on Blogs

So how do you feel about advertising on blogs?

…and in particular on craft related blogs.

For many people this is a topic that can generate some strong feelings.

From a ‘purist’ point of view you might say that if you are writing about the topic that you love then there should be no need to contaminate it with commercialism. That advertising on blogs is crass and annoying.

And from another perspective you might feel that as a person who puts a lot of effort into creating and maintaining your blog for the pleasure of other people it is not unreasonable that you should be able to generate an income stream from it.

I can certainly see the validity of both points of view.

However, if you are reading this article you can see the advertisements in my side bar so you will know that I belong in the second camp.

So how much Advertising is too much?

I do feel though that many blogs don’t appear to give much thought to the advertising that they carry.

Frankly, I think that advertising can be of benefit to your readers, if handled properly. It can provide a useful service by offering them opportunities to view products and services of interest to them that they may never have had the opportunity to know about otherwise.

But there is definitely a line between providing a useful service and beating your readers over the head with the advertising stick.

Oh, and don’t forget, hosting blinkies and banners for friends is also advertising. Just because you don’t get any payment from them doesn’t mean they are not ads.

So with all that in mind, and because there are very few craft related blogs that do not carry advertising of some sort, even if it is for non-moneymaking purposes, I thought it would be good to take a look at the different types of advertising that is available and how you might integrate it into your blog.

Over the next couple of weeks we’ll look at some of the advertising options that you might like to consider if you are a blog owner.

Please remember that less is often more. Too much advertising on your blog will create ‘ad blindness’ in your readers and they will simply switch off and not look at any of your advertising options, much less click on them.

If you are going to have advertising on your blog I think you should be conscious of the need for balance. After all your readers come to your blog for it’s content, not for the ads. So make sure that your advertising doesn’t overshadow your content. It’s important to make their visit worthwhile

Direct Advertising

First and foremost let’s take a look at Direct Advertising.

This is where you have a direct business relationship with your advertisers rather than with a broker or an ad network (we’ll take a look at those next week). Financially it benefits both parties as you have cut out the middle-man. But it’s more difficult to establish.

The first thing you should do is let people know that you are happy to take ads on your blog. Let them know what sort of ads you will host and what the cost and arrangements are and make it easy for them to place an ad.

You can see what I mean by looking at my Advertise Page in the navigation bar at the top of the screen, where all the different packages that I offer on Scraps of Mind are set out as well as the terms of purchase.

I also have a button or link for each advertising option that will take an interested advertiser directly to PayPal where they can easily and securely purchase. I find using PayPal also makes it easy for advertisers to stop their advertising campaign whenever they want to by stopping the subscription in PayPal.

Sounds ideal doesn’t it?

The hard part of direct advertising is to get out there and sell your blog to advertisers as a place for them to spend their advertising dollar. I have to admit that I am not at all good at this. And I know that it is something that I should do more of.

Affiliate Advertising

Many on-line stores and products offer affiliate programs to their members. In fact my Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Program offers an affiliate program.

This is where you are assigned a special link that identifies your account to the product owner. You can then promote the product or site on your blog using this link, and if your readers click through to the product site and choose to make a purchase, you will be given a commission. Commissions can vary from as low as 2-3% to as high as 70+% depending on the product or the program.

Typically speaking, most bloggers who sign up to be affiliates for a product or store  just put a banner in their side bar and forget about it. To be honest, this is very unlikely to make you any money.

If you really want to be an affiliate for a product then you need to promote it. And to my mind, you need to be a user of the product to promote it properly. For example, I am an affiliate for Scrap Girls. I really like their products and use them on many of my scrapbook layouts. This means I can show readers how good their products look by showing scrapbook layouts I have made with Scrap Girls products. I have also written articles about them which adds to the promotion.

Now in my view, sincerity pays off big time here. If you really do believe in the value of something you are promoting then it should be apparent to your readers. So don’t make the mistake of trying to hype something up when you don’t actually use it yourself. Don’t forget your reputation with your readers is your most valuable asset.

I am also an affiliate of Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind Program. As a graduate of the program myself I have a lot of confidence in promoting it to my readers because I know how valuable it was for me. So I know that anyone I send there won’t be disappointed.

But Wait…There’s More

When I started this article I discovered that there was far too much on this topic for me to squash into a single post so I will be completing this in a follow-up article next week. We’ll take a look at the ad brokers and the ad networks.

Meanwhile, how do you feel about ads on craft blogs?

Do you see them as part and parcel of the overall Internet experience or are you violently against them?

And where to you draw the line? Do you host banners and blinkies for friends and favourite web sites on your blog?

Over to you. What are your views on advertising?

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To Advertise or not to Advertise

And the comment spammers are getting cleverer too.

It used to be easy to spot comment spam. Usually it was made up of a lot of porn or medical related keywords and a bunch of links. That was good because it was easy for the spam filters like Akismet (on Wordpress blogs) to spot it and trash it.

But today’s comment spammers seem to be a lot more subtle.

I find a lot of comments that at first glance look almost genuine. But when you look a little closer you can recognise that they’re not.

What does this comment spam look like?

• Well first of all it is a ‘proper’ comment, not just a bunch of keywords.
• Also they don’t put links into the body of the comment so that your spam filter will smack them down.
• When you read the comment you realise that it is very generic and doesn’t relate to your post in any real way. Often they ask you a question that makes it pretty clear that they haven’t looked at your post.
• And if your check the URL that they supply with the comment, you’ll find that it leads to some site that sells product like cell phones or medical supplies or on-line dating (they were the three comment spammers in my mail this morning).
• Or else it’s a site that’s packed with advertising, in the expectation that you’ll click on something there if they can just get you to come to their site. They’re even harder to spot.

And by the way, don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with advertising on blogs or web sites. Apart from the income stream, at can actually provide a service for your readers if it’s not overdone. Heavens, you can see that I have advertising on Scraps of Mind and I don’t think that it’s off-putting for readers.

Is it any wonder that we have all that paranoid captcha software on our blogs to help moderate the comments. I have my Akismet set to have me moderate any comments from someone who has not commented on Scraps of Mind before. So the first time you comment I need to approve it. But every time after that you are recognised as a friend and your comment goes straight through.

I prefer to spend the time moderating that way than have my site flooded with meaningless comments from people who just want you to click on their link and visit their site.

It doesn’t always work and sometimes a disguised comment spammer will slip through the net, but I can’t become paranoid about this. It would take all the fun out of blogging. Even so, I refuse to let Scraps of Mind become a dumping ground for links for these people.

Have you experienced comment spammers?

What’s your techniques and tactics for dealing with them?

I suspect that there’s not much else that I can do. And this is just a sad side effect of Internet life.

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Comment Spam

Now when I say that Mira has reached her one year blogging milestone I want to point out that she has really done it in style. Mira writes no fewer than SIX different blogs! Yep you read it right. Six blogs, including a scrapbooking blog called Scrappy Mommy. The woman is definitely a blogoholic!

So to celebrate her bloggoversary she wanted to do something big and special.

Check out these fabbo prizes.

1st PRIZE
$25 – c/o Random Thoughts
Customized Blog Layout (blogger platform) c/o My Web-Blog Designs
1 Swarovsky Bracelet c/o Yen’s Handmades [Click here to see the ITEM]
$20 + 2000 EC credits c/o Windmill on the Hill
$10 + 500 EC credits c/o My Life’s Journey to Success
$10 + 500 EC credits c/o Things I Did Not Know Before
$10 + 500 EC credits c/o Unique Ideas For Your Beach Weddings
2000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Night Clicks
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o NetFreeSource
3000 – EC credits c/o Random Thoughts
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Dashing Beauty
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Tales of a Pinay Single Mommy
1 Photo Pop Art Make-over c/o Sweety Tots

2nd PRIZE
$20 – c/o Mira’s Web Journal
2500 – EC credits c/o Mira’s Web Journal
2000 – EC credits c/o A Moment to Exhale
20GB Web Hosting c/o http://angelic-melody.net + 500EC credits
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o My Countryhome
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Live Love Pink
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Samantha’s Own
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o 1716 South
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Garage Sale
1 Photo Pop Art Make-over c/o Sweety Tots

3rd PRIZE
$15 – c/o A Moment to Exhale
3000 – EC credits c/o Big Boys Have Toys Too
2000 – EC credits c/o A Taste of Both Worlds
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Kharlota dot Com
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o A Girl for All Status
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o A Fil-Am Journey
1 year text link ad c/o http://glamorous-heart.info
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Symphony of Love
1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Sweepstakes Girl
1 Photo Pop Art Make-over c/o Sweet…Pretty…Naughty

4th PRIZE
$10 – c/o My Barefoot Journey
2000 – EC credits c/o Mommy’s Little Corner
2000 – EC credits c/o My Online Paradise
2000 – EC credits c/o Kinda Life of Mine
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Just About Anything
1 month text link ad Thomas Travel Tales
1 month text link ad Great Finds and Deals

5th PRIZE
2000 – EC credits c/o Wife of a Warrior
3000 – EC credits c/o Life’s Sweets and Spices
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Simply Irresistible
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o My Sweet Haven
1 month text link ad Work At Home Jobs
1 month text link ad Erlinda‘s Wandering Thoughts

6th PRIZE
2000 – EC credit c/o The Solitairy Love
1500 – EC credit c/o My Barefoot Journey
1000 – EC credits c/o My Kitchen Table
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Kalidadis
1000 – EC credits + 1 month 125×125 ad space c/o Cooking is Fun
1 month text link ad CompTechGadgets.com
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Super Celebration Blog Contest

But is your security set up in a way that actually discourages genuine commenters?

Fortunately for bloggers using the Wordpress system, the Akismet security application that it comes with filters out the vast majority of comment spam (at least it does for me) without it clogging up my system.

But for a number of other blogging platforms the only control mechanism available seems to be those annoying CAPTCHAS where you have to enter a string of meaningless letters into a box before you can submit your comment.

Some of them aren’t too bad as they use words with some distortion applied to them rather than random letters. At least then you can read the word and type it in rather than have to keep flicking your eyes back and forth to the random letter string. And some of those letter strings are sooo long.

I find Typepad to be probably the most annoying of these systems. Just when you think you’ve submitted your comment and you wait for the page to refresh, it bumps you to another page where you need to enter the CAPTCHA info. I get caught by this all the time as I flit from tab to tab, not realizing that I haven’t actually completed my comment submission.

The most recent trend in comment submission controls seems to be a little drop down box where you identify which blogging platform you use before you can leave a comment. This is similar to the Blogger requirement where you identify if you are a Blogger user or not.

As someone who publishes on my own server I often find this frustrating. And frequently I am prevented from leaving a comment because the blog owner has not set up their system to allow owner-bloggers like me to leave a comment.

Now I know that pretty much everyone who writes a blog is excited when they get comments and they would want to encourage them. So I’m assuming that these bloggers don’t realise they are actually slamming the door in the face of potential commenters.

This could be you, and you don’t even realise it.

So perhaps you should take a look at your own blog security setup.

Are you inadvertently discouraging commenters?

Remember there are more people out in the blogosphere who use blogging systems other than the one you use. Why not let them into your blogging world too?

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Are You Driving Blog Commenters Away?