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It’s pretty fair to say that I used to know absolutely nothing about Search Engine Optimisation. I knew what Google was, obviously, and I also knew that I wanted my business to be on the first page when people sat down to search for something, but I had really no idea how to get my business in front of the right people at the right time.

I didn’t know what my keywords were, what phrases I should be optimising for, what people were actually searching for, or how Google looked at all of the content on the internet and somehow indexed it usefully for people to find what they are looking for.

This period also, coincidentally, was when my business was going nowhere and we were going broke. Fast.

Then, I found an e-book which literally saved my business. I now have three successful businesses and I have that e-book, and its author, to thank for that.

The name of that e-book?

SEO Secrets. The DIY Guide to Topping Google.

The book is written by Glenn Murray, an Australian guy who owns copywriting business, Divine Write.

Glenn’s a pretty clever fella but he manages to keep the content of the e-book simple, clear and concise, despite it being 194 pages long.

This thing is value-packed. And you don’t have to be a web designer or SEO expert to be able to follow Glenn’s clear instructions and very quickly make a significant impact on your Google ranking.

And that’s what I was able to.

Before I read this book, my travel business, Nick Bowditch Travel – Australia’s Family Travel Expert, was floundering on Google. What I really wanted was for people to search for “family travel” and my website come up on (at least) the first page.

When I did a search of “family travel” myself, the best I could do was see something of mine on the 9th page of Google – which might have well been the 9,000th page.

Who looks past even the first page of Google??

Then I stumbled across this book, I followed Glenn’s advice and instructions TO THE LETTER and then everything changed.

Suddenly, Google knew who I was!

The next 2 blog posts I wrote – using all of Glenn’s advice and tips from the book got me more hits on the blog in 3 hours than for the rest of that week.

After just a few months, I was suddenly on Page 1 of Google when people searched for “family travel”.

Amazing.

And the best thing is, because Glenn’s advice was sustainable and was about putting systems and tools in place for the future, I have never left that first page of Google since.

In fact, at the time of writing this, I am currently the 5th search result on that first page, although from time to time I have been in the top 3.

(It’s also worth noting that the 4 ahead of me: Holidays with Kids, Kids Holidays Online, BYO Kids and KidSpot are all much bigger operations than mine and have been around a lot longer as well.)

It’s also at this time that my business really started to take off. We were suddenly getting a LOT of traffic, a LOT of enquiries, and (thankfully) converting a lot of those enquiries to sales.

I was stoked.

Not really secrets…

The thing is, there are no real secrets contained in Glenn’s book. It’s not like he is telling you something you couldn’t probably work out for yourself if you put enough time and effort into doing all of the research.

But why would you?

It’s all right there in the book.

It includes sections on:

* understanding what SEO really means
* how to choose your keywords
* how to develop your website the right way for search
* how to optimise your web content
* what link baiting is
* a whole lot of other link building methods
* how to monitor your progress
* the future of SEO

PLUS more than 207 references in the bibliography which are links to loads of other great content all included.

Have a look for free…

Glenn is pretty confident you will be happy with the book.

So confident, I guess, that he even gives some of it away for free.

That’s right, free.

If you want to check out a sample chapter of the book for yourself, you can just click here.

And I’m not the only fan of the book. Check out what some other people have said. Darren Rowse, from the blogging authority website, ProBlogger, said this:

And Daniel Benton, who is actually a Senior SEO Consultant himself, working at The Found Agency, said:

But it’s not just the SEO experts who love it. Bronwen O’Brien, owner of The Virtual Assistant, agrees more with me:

So, if you are interested in getting your Google ranking higher and don’t necessarily want to pay a consultant thousands of dollars to get you there – check out the book.

I have no hesitation in personally recommending it.

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Have you had a look at SEO Secrets? What did you think?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

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Often when I speak or present a seminar, the person introducing me will use either ‘Social Media Expert’ or ‘Social Media Guru’ in the introduction.

I am neither of those and I want to tell you why you should be wary of anyone who calls themselves one.

Firstly, how can anyone tout being an ‘expert’ in something that is still in its infancy. Secondly, a lot of Social Media Gurus (SMG’s) I have met know a lot less about social media than you and I.

I AM an expert in how I was able to use social media to build three successful businesses from scratch – using social media and online marketing – but that’s where my expertise really ends.

When I consult with small and medium-sized businesses on their social marketing, I use a lot of the same principles and lessons I learnt through stuffing things up along the way, but I would never claim to be an expert in how you or anyone else should do it.

Before engaging a social media consultant to help your marketing effort – including engaging my services – ask yourself a few really key questions:

1. Do they have a strategy?

This is by far the most important consideration for you to ask a consultant before you engage them.

There are a lot of SMG’s – A LOT – who will tell you that what you need is a Facebook Page. Let them build you a Facebook Page, pay them $500 for it and it will have a great welcome tab with a great image and all of your online marketing problems will be solved.

What happens is, you get your new Facebook Page and then realise that’s actually ALL you have. No idea of how to use it, no idea of how to get the most out of it, and no idea why you even have it in the first place.

Sound familiar?

No social marketing tools – Facebook Pages, Twitter Accounts, YouTube Videos, Linkedin Profiles and so on – should be used in isolation. In fact, if you do that, you could be actually harming your brand rather than building it.

You must have an online or social strategy (or both). What assets you are going to use, how long you have to invest in the running of them each week, how much it’s going to cost, who’s going to make the updates, and why the hell you are bothering to do it in the first place!

“If your SMG can’t tell you this stuff, turn and walk away.”
 

2. Don’t get caught up in the numbers.

With social media, it’s very easy to get carried away with how many followers/fans you have (or don’t have).

Some SMG’s will feed this hysteria by telling you that the optimal number of followers/fans is a million!

I have said before on this blog that I would rather have 100 followers on my Twitter account and 100 likers (fans for the purists) on the main Facebook Page that were actually likely to buy something and engage and interact with me, than a million people on either of them that were never going to actually buy anything or engage my services in any way.

Having said that, if your SMG has 29 likers on their Facebook Page and 12 followers on Twitter, then that might ring alarm bells for you too.

Likewise, if they are telling you that you just HAVE to have a blog, but they don’t have one …?.

3. Are they listening?

You know what I mean here:

You are sitting across the desk from a SMG explaining what you want to achieve with your newly drafted social marketing strategy.

You go into great depth about how you don’t think that Facebook is going to give you the greatest mileage and that a concerted effort on Linkedin and some smart online videos on YouTube is the way you want to go.

They nod with a blank expression looking at the clock and then when you are finished explaining YOUR strategy, they tell you that what you need is a great looking Facebook Page. Not only that, you need 145,896 fans on that Facebook Page, and yes we will get you on to Twitter as well.

Huh?

“If your SMG doesn’t listen to you and isn’t interested in what you believe is important to YOUR business, why the hell would you engage their services???”

It’s our job to fit in with YOUR strategy, ideas and business practices – not the other way around.

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What did I miss? Have you engaged a SMG and experienced any of these things?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

I’ve written more than 150 blog posts now, for my own blog as well as guest spots on other blogs.

And some of them, frankly, are terrible.

Lack of structure, poor grammar, no effort to engage the reader, too long, too short, too boring, not appropriate content for the audience… I’ve pretty much made every possible mistake a blogger can make.

I’ve also done a LOT of split testing of my blog posts to see what works with my readership and what doesn’t. And I reckon that I’ve now gotten to the point where my blog posts have a uniformity and formula that results in the best possible user-experience when reading my blog.

Your blog might be completely different to mine and so might your readership, but every one of my blog posts now includes a compelling headline, an appropriate and engaging image, introductory copy, sub-headings, bold text, lots of links, a blockquote section to break it up, a final teaser, questions to prompt comments, comments made easy, database sign-up feature, Facebook comments and then WordPress comments.

So let’s look at each in more detail:

Compelling Headline

With so many other blog posts popping up every day, what is the first thing that’s going to set yours apart? Especially if it’s read on a social media update or in a newsletter? The headline. And it’s where even the best written and engaging blog post can die a sudden and horrible death.

I try to limit myself to one of three winning combinations for my headlines: make a list (The top 13 ways to increase blog traffic without spending a cent), explain how to (How to use Linkedin more effectively), or share a secret (The secret to designing Facebook Ads that actually make money).

Try not to make your headline too abstract (your image can be) and try to meet a perceived need in your reading audience – if they are wondering, “How do I build a blog post?”, then this post would probably seem pretty enticing to them.

Also, for some reason, in the split testing I have done over the years, making a list with an odd number of points (17 ways to…, the top 9 things…) works better than an even number of points, but I still don’t really know why.

Engaging Image

This is where you can be a bit more abstract and make the reader think a bit. There are hundreds of thousands of free and royalty-free images you can choose from to include at the top of your blog post and I always try to use one that is slightly less than obvious.

For instance, on my post, The secret to designing Facebook Ads that actually make money, I used an image of an arrow hitting a target. The Facebook Ads can be very targeted (in fact, that’s one of the things covered in the post) so the image is appropriate for the post without being too obvious.

I tend to use only one image in the top-left of the post but when I have used images throughout the post, they have also tested well. I’m probably just a bit lazy to keep looking for great images, so I tend to just stick with one at the top.

Introductory Copy

Johanna Baker-Dowdell from Strawberry Communications told me once to always use the journalistic tool of ‘important stuff first and then the rest’, and I always try to stick to that in my blog posts. This is particularly important for me because I use the ‘read more’ feature to entice the reader to open the whole post rather than just reading the featured bit that appears on the front page.

I generally use the introductory copy to lay out what will be covered in the post (regardless of how long it is going to be) and I find that also helps the ‘skimmers’ to just read the bits that they want as well – remember, there is a chance that not everyone thinks what you have written is as vitally important as you do.

Sub-Headings

Which brings me nicely to the next point. A lot of blog readers like to just skim through posts – especially if, like me, they look at more than 20 or even 50 blog posts every day.

So I always try to break my posts up into sections with clear and engaging headings. I make those headings a different colour and font size and in effect make the entire blog post one big list of bullet points that help define the different sections but also make it easier to skim through and just read the bits that are either interesting or applicable to that particular reader.

Bold text

I often use bold text throughout the post to highlight people’s names or links to other articles. From an Search Engine Optimisation point of view, I also like to use bold text on keywords and phrases that might help with the optimisation of the post, although there is some conjecture whether that actually helps Google index your post better.

I also tend to favour bold text over italics in the body of the post.

Lots of links

I’ve spoken before about the importance of having links throughout your blog posts – linking both to your own articles within the blog as well as linking out to authorative sites that are related to your content.

Aside from the SEO benefits of this, it also adds something to the user-experience and helps to engage your readers longer on your site.

Break it up with a blockquote

Did you know … that I always include a blockquote like this one with a reference to something that I do for small businesses or an interesting side-fact about the content I am covering in the post? I always start it with Did you know… and usually finish it with a call to action to get the reader to contact me for more information.

And since I started using this toward the end of the blog post, it has resulted in a lot of readers contacting me, hiring me or buying electronic products from me – plus, it breaks the post up a bit for the reader too.

A final teaser

After the blockquote, I usually have a 1 or 2 line teaser for something else coming up in future posts, or I might ask for the readers to let me know what they would like covered in future blog posts.

I have found this helps greatly in engaging the reader to give me some feedback as well as making it easier when it comes to those times when I am stuck for something to write about!

Ask questions to prompt comments

At the end of the post, I ask two questions, in big bold text, that are designed to encourage the reader to leave a comment on the post. “What have I left out?” or “Do you agree or disagree” tend to work fairly well in prompting the reader to leave his or her opinion in the comments.

Honestly, this is also the thing that I have struggled the most with. Even though I knew I was getting great traffic I wasn’t getting hundreds of comments, and it’s still something that I would love to do better on every one of my posts.

Comments made easy

I’ve also spoken before about the importance of making it easy for your readers to leave a comment. In fact, I think you should remove every possible obstruction from someone interacting with your blog. No sign up first, no moderated comments, just have your say and it will appear.

I also make it quite clear to the reader that that is the case.

And remember, the easiest way to double your comments on a post is to reply to everyone that you get.

Database Sign-Up Feature

This is something that I wish I had done sooner because since professional blogger Chris Garrett told me about it, it has had a HUGE effect on the amount of sign-ups I have, which in turn has lead to a lot more products sold and consultancy hours booked.

And it’s simple. At the end of each post, I offer a free copy of my ebook, 34 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started on Twitter, which normally retails for $39 and which has been downloaded now more than 3,200 times, in return for the reader signing up to my database.

I have a great respect for my database and never spam them or clog up their inbox with crap so I think that helps too.

Facebook Comments

This is something that I have only recently added to my blog. The Facebook plugins for WordPress are ridiculously easy to implement and allow the reader (if they are also a Facebook user) to ‘like’ your post without ever having left your blog as well as leave a comment at the end of the post using their Facebook login – which in turn leaves the comment on their Facebook feed too.

It’s early days for this feature on my blog at the moment, so I’m not sure how it will test or even if I will keep it active there yet.

WordPress Comments

At the very end of my blog posts is my general comments which are supported within the WordPress framework. Comments on your blog are great for SEO, great for referring back to from your social media channels and also offer the reader a more rich experience when reading your posts.

They are also in a lot of ways my greatest challenge (and obsession) when blogging. So do me a favour and leave a comment will ya?

Did you know … that Glenn Murray from DivineWrite and Darren Rowse from ProBlogger have teamed up to create an amazing blogging tool called The Copywriting Scorecard for Bloggers? It’s an ebook that’s over 100 pages in length and is an invaluable checklist for keeping your blogging on track. The scorecard alone is well worth the price and I highly recommend you getting it. You can get your own copy here.

If you would like more posts about the structuring and authoring of compelling and successful blog posts, let me know.

Do you include other features in your blog posts that I might have left out? Or do you disagree with any of my inclusions?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

Nick Bowditch is an Australian online success story. He has built up three businesses from scratch – all without staff, a shop front, and without any mainstream advertising in print, radio or television – instead opting to promote his new businesses using Social Media Marketing. He now works with other small businesses to show them how they can also compete utilising platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and YouTube. His ebooks and electronic products have now been downloaded thousands of times, he is a blogger, author, keynote speaker and has a regular YouTube show called SmallBizTV

This is my 100th blog post on The Bowditch Group’s blog.

(OK, actually it’s my 104th – I forgot about the milestone coming up and kinda missed it. But let’s just pretend it’s my 100th blog post.)

I have taken the opportunity this morning to look back through some of the old stuff and plan for the future as well. It’s really hard to objectively look at your own work and appraise it but even I can honestly say that some of the stuff I wrote early on is just crap.

Also, it’s interesting that a few opinion I fervently gave in the early days are no longer my opinions – due in large part to the other bloggers I have networked and interacted with since kicking all of this off. I have learnt so much from other people and I’m sure I will continue to as well. The blogging community is generally a very generous one and I am grateful for all of the help, advice and criticism I have received along the way.

Here is some of what I learnt when I reviewed the blog over its 6 month life thus far:

I have had 48,267 unique visitors, 194,411 page visits and 672,749 hits in that 6 months. StumbleUpon has been responsible for 16,565 visitors and from other external referrers, Twitter has been the biggest contributor (44%) followed closely by Facebook (31%).

My most-read blog post was 15 things you should be doing on Linkedin but probably aren’t which has to date had more than 10,176 views, followed closely by The top 9 ways to annoy the crap out of Twitter people which has had 10,062 views.

The thing I have been most proud of on the blog is our effort to raise awareness – and funds – for the charity, Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids. At the start of this month, I posted a story about them and declared that I wanted to raise enough pledges for 20 backpacks (at just $25 each) to be made up which are given to kids when they are taken into foster care because that’s usually done in a hurry and if they get anything at all, in a lot of cases, it’s a few things chucked in a garbage bag.

After posting the story, and within two hours of talking about it on my social media channels, we had those 20 backpacks pledged. I revised my target up to 100 backpacks by the end of August and I am proud to say right at this moment we have gotten over 30 donated. There is still time if you want to be involved or if you just want to read the story, click here.

The thing that I was sure was a winner and can’t believe it hasn’t done better? The Small Business Forum I set up also this month. It’s only early days with it of course, but it was definitely one of the times where I have thought I had a brilliant concept that everyone would love and it’s fizzled a bit.

My most valuable lesson? Including weekly recap posts. By posting each week the top 5 most-read blog posts of that week, it had a two-fold effect: it gave people a chance to only read the good parts of the blog if they wanted to, and it was great for traffic as those posts were among the most-viewed on the whole site.

Did you know … that there are more than 120 million blogs circulating the internet now? Can you imagine how many of them are rubbish but also how many of them might be directly competing with you for readers’ attention? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your blog better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

I have learnt so much and gotten so much return on the effort of producing 100 blog posts in 6 months – despite a bit of my writing being pretty ordinary along the way. It does take discipline, creativity and a lot of time but the return on that investment has been massive for me and I would highly recommend it.

What have you learnt from reviewing your own blogging? Or have you read something of mine that you thought was pretty good or pretty awful? I have thick skin …

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

This is the first of a six part series about how to put together a complete online marketing plan for a small business.

I have blogged before about the need, not only to put together a comprehensive online marketing plan, but to really believe in it. And the best way to make sure everyone in your organisation is on the same page when it comes to your online efforts is to give them a formalised picture of it – even if your whole organisation is just you.

This is what we do for our small business clients when they first sign up with us – give them a diagram that represents what we are going to achieve online and which platforms are going to help us do it. It’s important that they are included and that they can see the benefit from which of the 27 points on the plan that we decide to adopt for their business.

There is basically 7 prongs to the overall online marketing plan for most small businesses. I suggest that every small business utilises at least one platform from each of the following 7 prongs: blogging, social networking platforms, complimentary social networking, groups/communities, events/networking, advertising and measurement.

Let’s take one at a time:

Blogging

This is the second most important of all of the initiatives in a small business’ online marketing strategy. Not only is it a great way to boost your brand, personalise your brand and make Google love them just a little bit more, but it gives a great base to link all of the social networking platforms back to.

Social Networking Platforms

Facebook is probably the most obvious, and in some ways the easiest, platforms for small businesses to use to promote themselves online. More specifically, at this level I am talking about developing a compelling, engaging and interactive Facebook Page for the business.

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Twitter is the big mover and shaker in the social media world right now. It is growing really quickly and is a great way to build your brand as well as drive new traffic to your blog. Small businesses can develop a ‘corporate’ kind of account or a more personal one.

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Linkedin is social media for grown-ups. It is the perfect way for professional people to network online and is also great for recruiting and business-to-business communication. The average user in Australia is 41 years old, 80% of them are tertiary educated, and the average household income is $110,000.

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YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine, after Google. It is also one of the best ways to introduce your business to the world and get your blog to rank through the roof! I usually encourage them to record introductory videos, sales videos, instructional videos and so on – all embedded in their blog.

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Flickr is like YouTube but instead of videos, it’s a photo-sharing platform. Most of the photo sets on Flickr are rubbish but occasionally there is something good. A small business can use Flickr much like they would use YouTube for videos – product shots, shopfront shots, staff profiles and so on.

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FourSquare is a relative newcomer to the social networking scene but one that, in my opinion, will become very relevant and more mainstream when more people understand how it works and how it can help market a small business – particularly if that business has a bricks and mortar shopfront.

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Did you know … that I put together comprehensive online marketing plans for small business and also have retained clients who I service from month to month? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help your business, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

In the second part of this series, I will go through the next line of the comprehensive online marketing plan – the complimentary social networking platforms. And, if you would like your own copy of our complete online marketing plan mindmap, click here to download it.

Have you had success with any of the above platforms? Would you include any that I have left out for a small business?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

This is the first of a series of guest blogs from James Hallam, a fellow Aussie blogger who also blogs about small and medium-sized business and how they can make the web work harder for them.

I really like James’ writing style and, although it can be pretty in-your-face, it’s also always sensible, simple and features common-sense solutions to everyday problems faced by small businesses and their blogging effort.

In this post, he goes through the 6 reasons your blog sucks and nobody’s game to tell you.

Reason 1: It’s about you.

Unless you’re Lady Gaga, nobody cares what you’re wearing today. Have a look at your text. How many times do you say “I”, and how many times do you say “you”?

“I’s” should be approaching zero, and “you’s” should total a very big number. Remember that everyone else has the same problem you do – they all think they’re the most interesting person in the world. So put yourself in their shoes and talk about them for a change.

Reason 2: You can’t explain in 10 words or less what problem your blog solves for the reader.

People need to get something useful when they come to your blog, and if you’re not razor sharp on what that is, they won’t come back. This takes constant work. You need to write it down, and remind yourself constantly what problem you’re solving. Remember that logic isn’t what sells – find the emotional words for the problem and talk about that.

I’m constantly refining the problem my blog solves, but currently what you get is the “freedom to make the web work for you”. That’s 8 words. Small to medium businesses need a cost-effective, sustainable web presence, and that’s what they get from me – the benefit in emotional language, is freedom.

Reason 3: It doesn’t have pictures.

People love pictures. Put them near the top of the page, get high quality, royalty free images from somewhere like Shutterstock. Make them humorous, or a little bit racy, or inspiring, or whatever resonates with your answer to Reason 2.

Reason 4: You don’t have a call to action.

So they read a post, and you’re getting traffic. What then? Every post needs to ask or challenge the reader, directly, clearly and for a purpose. Do you want them to comment, so you can create a discussion and relationships with readers? Do you want them to subscribe? You need to work out what comes next after the hook, and keep reeling people in. Every lousy fisherman has a story of the one that got away.

Reason 5: You’ve got a fantastic blog but you don’t promote it.

This sucks the hardest, because you’ve done all the work but nobody knows about it. There are some crappy blogs out there that get traffic because their owners are great at spreading the word through every available channel. Do yourself a favour, read Nick Bowditch’s tips on making use of Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin to promote your blog.

Reason 6: You’re not passionate about your blog and your customers.

People can smell a fake a mile away. They can even smell when you’re half hearted about something, and that’s worse in many ways because it’s wet, insipid and uninspiring.

Have an opinion. Be prepared to offend someone, or if that’s too direct for you, at least be prepared to disagree, and never apologise for your work or your opinions. Be nice, but don’t be weak.

There is a metric sh*tload of work you have to do to make your blog successful, but if you work on the 6 points above, you’ll start to see things change, I promise.  To learn more about getting your blog or website on track, subscribe to my blog and send me an email.  I’ll reply the same day every time.

Did you know … that there are more than 120 million blogs circulating the internet now? Can you imagine how many of them are rubbish but also how many of them might be directly competing with you for readers’ attention? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your blog better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

James will be contributing more blog posts in coming weeks. If there is a particular topic you would like him to cover, let us know.

How many of these 6 things are currently present in your blogging? Do you have other reasons to add to James’?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

James Hallam writes a blog about making the web work for small and medium businesses. James is an internet entrepreneur who in former lives has been a Software Engineer, Sales Representative, Boat Builder, Manager and Business Analyst. James loves to help people “think about things in an unambiguous way” and has a knack for identifying business problems and drivers and converting them to solutions. You can also follow him on Twitter.

This topic comes up a lot with small business and blogging clients. How hard – or easy – should they make it for visitors to their blog to leave a comment on an article?

Obviously, the more interaction and social engagement you have on your blog, the better it is, but I see lots of my clients making it quite difficult and in one case impossible for people to leave a comment on their blog articles and thereby start a discussion with other readers.

Actually, I used to be one of them.

I know I harp on about how good Glenn Murray‘s ebook SEO Secrets – The DIY Guide to Topping Google was for my business but this is yet another lesson I learnt from it – you should make it easy as possible for visitors to leave a comment on your blog.

On most blogs there seems to be one of three options: make the reader sign up to your site before they can leave a comment, let anyone leave a comment but moderate every one of them before they are published, or just leave it to open slather and anyone who wants to comment can – and that comment appears straight away.

The last one sounds downright scary, and yet it’s the one that Glenn advocates – and the one that I have chosen for all of my blogs.

What if nutters leave something profane or idiotic or just copious amount of spam? What if they disagree with me? Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Nutbags leaving weird and profane comments and increased spam on my blog

Since I changed my blogs over (and they are all based on WordPress so I can only comment for blogs using the same platform) more than six months ago AND activated Akismet I have had two spam comments in more than 300 comments. I have probably had another two comments which I deemed were not appropriate for my readership to have to see. That’s not bad odds really.

You still have to monitor what is being said on your blog and in fact, best practice is that you are not only monitoring it, but interacting with it, which brings me to the second point.

What if they disagree with me?

Some people would say that if your readership is disagreeing with you, then you are doing a good job as a blogger. I don’t necessarily believe that’s true but there is nothing more engaging than the presentation averse to how the status quo thinks.

A lot of my small business blogging clients have told me when I have asked them what they do when they get a negative comment on their blog, they just delete it as quickly as they can.

In my opinion, this is the worst thing you can do.

Put it in perspective: if someone rants on your blog comments and is obvious to the rest of the world to be a crazy person, I would probably just leave their comment there (unless it was hateful or profane), after all that’s what makes the world go round.

But if someone presents a well-balanced, thought out opinion that is different to yours, they are presenting the perfect opportunity for you to interact directly with them for all the world to see. Not everyone is going to agree with everything you do (Geez, lots of people will disagree with my advice in this very post!), but as long as you blog honestly and present your opinion in a considered and reasonable way, why wouldn’t you want there to be some discussion – even if it is opposing to your point of  view?

Do you agree or disagree with engaging negative comments? How do you moderate comments on your blog, or do you leave it open for anyone to comment?

Please let me know in the comments below. You don’t need to sign up or anything to leave a comment, just put it in below and your comment will appear straight away.

I am a massive believer in learning something new every day. I am also a massive believer in engaging mentors for your own business growth because nobody knows everything and as soon as you start thinking you do, you are doomed to fail.

Something I know a fair bit about is how to build a well-read, well-trafficked blog and the importance of blogging in terms of Search Engine Optimisation, Social Engagement, as well as building brand awareness.

But I certainly don’t know everything about blogging and I am always keen to learn more about it.

Enter Darren Rowse of ProBlogger fame. Darren is an Aussie guy who is an international blogging success story. What Darren doesn’t know about blogging probably isn’t really worth knowing. I have learnt so much from his blogs and actually a lot of my blogging success to him.

I recently downloaded Darren’s e-book, 31 Days to Build a Better Blog and have just finished reading it. The book consists of a task to do every day as well as “great instruction on both the WHY and HOW of the task” to learn from each day for 31 days.

My clients have always raved about my other must-have ebooks from Aussie online specialists, SEO Secrets from Glenn Murray of DivineWrite and The 21st Century Guide to Promoting your Small Business by Johanna Baker-Dowdell of Strawberry Communications, and for blogging Darren’s ebook is another must-have.

His book is normally priced at $39 but at the moment can be bought for just $19.95. If you are serious about learning how to blog for your small business, Darren is one of the best people to learn it off. To get your own copy of 31 Days to Build a Better Blog by Darren Rowse click here.

Are you something of an expert when it comes to using MySpace for small business marketing? Would you like a permanent guest blogging spot on The Bowditch Group website which will be distributed through the blog as well as through my social media channels to almost 7,000 people?

I am looking for a regular guest blogger who can write about MySpace for my clients and subscribers who keep asking me questions about the platform that I can’t answer! I have had limited experience with MySpace and was under the impression that it wasn’t relevant to small business so much in 2010, but apparently I’m wrong.

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So, if you would like to be our MySpace ‘expert’ (I hate that word), and get lots of links back to your own blog or social media accounts, call me TODAY on 02 8006 2498 or email me at nick@thebowditchgroup.com. Likewise, if you know anyone who fits the description above, let me know and I will chase them up myself.

If you asked someone a question or asked someone for help, and someone spoke back to you or helped you, you would thank them right? Or maybe even continue the conversation?

It’s the same with your blog but it’s a simple part of social engagement that’s missed by a lot of bloggers as well.

I always try to acknowledge everyone who leaves a comment on any of my blog posts – whether that comment is good or bad. If nothing else, it’s polite.

But if you have engaged someone enough to want to comment on your work, why not capitalise on that investment and encourage them to comment again, and again? The other thing is that an ongoing and interesting conversation – even in the comments of a blog post – is something that engages casual readers of your blog too – it’s a free hit.

But is it something that you do?