One of the biggest time wasters a blogger has is dealing with spam comments.

Many bloggers don’t like people who post a comment on their blog just for the link back to their website or blog. They call that spam. I don’t. It’s part of life and business on the web. As long as the comments are really relative to the post and/or comments that others are posting, then it does me no harm for them to have a link back.

There are paid services where clients pay someone to go out and post comments on blogs for the links back to their website. Again, as long as they are relevant posts, I have no problem with it.

What I am talking about is drive-by spammers and bots.

Drive-by spammers use stuff like, “great post!” “I have something similar at my harley davidson website” with a link back to their harley site when my blog was about birdseed.

They are pretty obvious and as long as you moderate comments, you can delete them.

The bots are relentless. Automated software putting links into the comments on thousands of blogs each day. I’ve found that the Akismet Plugin works very well to catch these and I can mass delete them by pressing a button.

If you know of other ways to prevent spam on blog comments, post them here to help us all get rid of this blogging annoyance.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

The other day we talked about different blogging platforms that are available to use.

Here I’m going to add one to the list because it’s unique. If you manage a forum using vBulletin, they have added the ability to integrate a blog into your forum. There is a vBulletin Wordpress Bridge explained here, but it doesn’t look easy to use.

I’d much rather use wordpress, but if I had a vBulletin forum, I’d likely go with the plugin they provide instead.

From www.bloggingtips.com

Last month, VBulletin released their first ever official add on, the VBulletin Blog. Retailing at $50 (and $20 every year thereafter), the vbulletin blogging add on is a fantastic addition for forum owners and well worth the price.

Compared to Wordpress, this blogging add on is low on features and lacks in a lot of areas. However, this add on should not be compared to a dedicated blogging script in my opinion. If you are looking to give your forum members a journal then I strongly encourage you to set $50 to the side as this is one of the best VBulletin hacks I have applied. The members in my poker forum are loving it!

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Even if you just know a little html, you can customize certain aspects of your blog template.

The 404 page is one of the first things you might want to customize. A link does get misdirected from time to time and the default 404 page doesn’t do anything for you at all. If you don’t even have a 404 page then it’s just the browser telling people your page does not exist.

In wordpress, there is usually a file called 404.php. By looking at the code you can find simple ways to customize that page. You can simply add some text that says, this page doesn’t exist, but click here to go back to mymainblog.com and link it back to your blog’s home page.

Another thing you can do is completely redesign the 404 page to advertise something you sell. Anyone who types in a missing url would find your sales pitch for your product or service. You can add a link back to your blog for those that don’t buy anything.

If you know how to alter your htaccess file, you can put in code that just redirects people back to the main page of your blog automatically if a missing url is typed in. So there would be no 404 at all.

Those are just some of the options. If you have more ideas for customizing the 404 page or can show us some examples of great 404 pages, comment and let us know.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

I’m making a list and checking it twice.

We all do pings and trackbacks, but do you also go and bookmark your blog posts at social bookmarking websites?

Do you have someone do that for you?

Do you just depend on trackbacks and pings and ignore social bookmarking?

If you do bookmark your posts, which sites do you use and why?

Do you feel it is necessary to social bookmark at all.

Anything at all that you have to share about mixing blogging and social bookmarking is welcome. I’d really like to get a working group going on this, so comment away and share what you know and what you think.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

If you are using wordpress or typepad and hosting your own blog, you have a choice of different link structures. You need to have access to your .htaccess file to make permalink changes in most cases. If the htaccess file is writeable, you can do everything from the wordpress admin area.

Permalinks are the full urls to each blog post. Click the headline of this post and it will take you to a new page with just this post on it. Look at the address in your browser’s address bar. That is the permalink to this post.

Here are some choices that are built into wordpress for your permalink structure.

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/?p=123

That is the default permalink structure for wordpress. Search engines ignore everything after the question mark. Plus there is nothing after the question mark that would help you with seo anyway. I do not recommend leaving the default permalink structure for your blog.

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/2007/09/09/sample-post/

This permalink structure has no question marks or special characters that might inhibit the search engines from reading the full url. sample-post is there in place of your blog post headline. I use this permalink structure, so the url for this post ends with permalink-structure-does-it-really-matter.

If you use good keywords in your headlines, you end up naming files with those keywords. It has some seo benefit. The date keeps me from duplicating headlines. When this blog is a few years old and my alzheimers gets worse, I might end up headlining a post with the exact same phrase I have used some time in the past. The date portion of the permalink structure above keeps that from becoming a duplicate post title or url.

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/archives/123

Again, nothing to keep the search engine from reading the full url, but it doesn’t say anything to the user and doesn’t really have any benefit from an seo standpoint.

Last, but not least, you can create a custom permalink structure. You may want the headline to be the end of the url, but you might like a particular word or phrase to always be in the url, such as;

http://blogmarketingjournal.com/blogging-tips/2007/09/09/sample-post/

I’d like to see some other custom permalink structures some of you use, so join in and post if you use a custom permalink structure.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Yesterday, I posted about different types of blogs and different types of content. Today, I’ll write about some of the different blogging platforms you can use to start your blog.

Wordpress, MySpace, Blogger, Movable Type, , LiveJournal, Wordpress.com, Bloglines, Tripod, Squareplace, and TypePad are a few of the choices that are out there.

Some of them are free, like wordpress from wordpress.org, blogging at wordpress.com, blogger, and bloglines. Some you have to pay for, like typepad, tripod, and squareplace. That can affect your decision as well.

All have their pluses and minuses. I’m not a big fan of using any of the free hosts. In other words, blogger, wordpress.com, myspace, etc. Simple reason is that you blog under someone else’s terms of service rather than your own. Terms of services can change without notice. You are not in control. The upside; You don’t need a domain name or hosting.

Tripod and squarespace are only mentioned here out of kindness. Both perform badly compared to any of the other platforms mentioned.

Bloglines is more for you to add your blogs and manage them from there. You can add all your favorite blogs and read them from that website. You can still post there so I did include it even though it wouldn’t be my choice for my blogging platform.

Typepad is very popular. You have to add a plugin to make your blog searchable. Other then that, there is nothing wrong with using typepad at all. It’s small monthly fee is the only real downside for people just starting out.

That brings us to my favorite, wordpress from wordpress.org. I mention it that way because wordpress.com is a free blog host like blogger, at least when it grows up it will be.

Wordpress.org is where you download the wordpress software. It’s free. You need to have your own domain name and hosting, but I recommend that anyway. You control the terms of service on your own domain name.

Wordpress comes with the search function already installed. There are 1000’s of themes to choose from or you can have someone design one for you. It’s easy to administer from the backend. Not a large learning curve at all.

Plus I know that from an seo standpoint, wordpress blogs do very well in the search engines. If your wordpress blog is not performing well, such as not getting search engine saturation, try changing the theme and testing again.

I have found the simpler themes without as much AJAX, javascript, etc. perform better than those with all that extra code.

Anyway, hope that helps. If you know of other blogging platforms worth mentioning, make a comment.

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Got your attention, didn’t I? There are a lot of definitions of what a blog is, depending on who you ask. There are a lot of definitions of content, again, depending on who you ask.

I’m going to talk about different types of blogs and different types of content here because different types of blogs may need different types of content. Make sense?

I’m going to use that all-knowing Genie, Wikipedia, for the definitions of different types of blogs, then add a couple of my own.

Blogs can be defined by By media type

A blog comprising videos is called a vlog, one comprising links is called a linklog, a site containing a portfolio of sketches is called a sketchblog or one comprising photos is called a photoblog.[14] Blogs with shorter posts and mixed media types are called tumblelogs.

Now, a video blog can have original content, but is it necessary? Will there be duplicate content penalties if you use a video from youtube in your blog post? I don’t think there is, however I would recommend that you write some original text to go along with the video. Remember your keywords when writing that text and I believe you can use all the videos you want and still rank well in the search engines as well as add a personal touch to your visitors, encouraging them to comment.

An Artlog is a form of art sharing and publishing in the format of a blog, but differentiated by the predominant use of and focus on Art work rather than text.

Again, the artwork need not be original, as long as you have the rights to use it. Also, I see a need for original text to go along with the artwork. Just as with a vlog, you want to encourage viewers to comment, plus you need some descriptive keywords to help the search engines display your post as a result for someone who is looking for that type of artwork. Alt tags are not enough.

A rare type of blog hosted on the Gopher Protocol is known as a Phlog.

Hmmm. Someone needs to tell Phlog.com that their name actually means something else. I’ll skip this outdated form of blogging.

Blogs can also be defined by which type of device is used to compose it. A blog written by a mobile device like a mobile phone or PDA is called a moblog.

Ahhh. Skipping that one too because the content discussion isn’t really relevant to the type of device used to blog with.

Blogs can also be defined by Genre

Some blogs focus on a particular subject, such as political blogs;

A Political blog usually uses a mix of original content and quoted text. So not every post has to be 100% original content. It is customary to blockquote a portion of a news story or something another blogger wrote, then comment on it with your own original opinions or thoughts.

But how much copying is too much? I don’t believe using 2-3 paragraphs of text from elsewhere is violating anyone’s copyrights. Link back to the source. That is extremely important. Also make sure that if you use 3 paragraphs of text, that you write at least 4 paragraphs of original content to go with it. Your blog posts need to be at least 60% original text, preferrably 75% or better if you want to do well in the search engines and you do not want to be seen as just a copycat blog where you just use quotes. Many would ask if you do not have anything to say, why are you blogging?

travel blogs and fashion blogs would be much like an art or photo blog where your pictures do not necessarily have to be original content as long as you have the rights to use them. However, the text should be.

legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs, can vary. They may be reprinting court documents, which is not original content but would have a legitimate purpose. They may be legal opinions, discussions, or debates.

While not a legitimate type of blog, one used for the sole purpose of spamming is known as a Splog. This is where the copycats live. If all of the content on your blog is taken from somewhere else, either by copying and pasting or automated software is pulling in rss feeds without permission of the sources, then you are stealing or scraping content and you are a splogger. Nuff said.

A Slog (Site or website log) is a section or ’slice’ of a regular business website, which is seamlessly integrated within the regular website structure but is produced with blogging software. Which has no seo benefit that I can see at all. If the same comany took the time to write original content to the blog, their customers would love them and the search engines would love them as well.

A company blog should be like your store window. If you owned an offline store, people shop at your store, but do not necessarily see every product you have for sale. So you take the items you want to sell and want people to notice and make displays or put them in your store window.

Your company blog can be used in a similar way, to display products you want more people to see. Maybe you are having a christmas sale or giving a special offer. This is a great way a company can benefit from blogging and although you use some content from your website, you are adding original text to each post.

The bottom line is that you want to try to use as much original content as you can for your blog

Do not think that every blog who quotes other sources is doing it wrong or violating someone else’s rights or that it is stealing content. Copyright law does not mean that you own every word of what you write. Copying the entire content of a blog post or news article is not advised, but using a portion, then commenting on it is fair use. This isn’t really a copyright discussion. It just needed to be addressed.

This post and Wikipedia barely addresses all the types of blogs that are out there. What are some other types of blogs not mentioned here?

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.

Welcome to the new blog from Nick Stamoulis and Brick Marketing. This new blog will be all about blogging. We will offer tips on blogging, how to use technorati tags, how to setup a new blog, plugins for blogs, rss feed tips, and much more. Bookmark us and come back for daaily news and tips about marketing your blog!

Affordable Internet Marketing Services, including SEO, Pay Per Click, Blog Marketing & More! For More Info Call Expert Nick Stamoulis at: 877-295-0620.