Another reason that blogs have trouble getting their readers to comment is simply the lack of features. If you venture around and visit other blogs, of those with high comments on the postings, you’ll notice they usually have a sophisticated blogging comment software and/or plugin installed. The problem with this type of method is that many of those softwares or plugins can be pretty intimidating to those not familiar with them.

So, with that said, I’ve come across IntenseDebate which is a very simple yet in-depth commenting plugin for Wordpress.org platformed blogs. It has all the bells and whistles of the most popular commenting software/plugins on the market, yet, it’s very simple in design and in no way would it be deemed intimidating to any novice blog reader. Some of the key features are comment threading, commenting via e-mail, allowing readers to have user accounts, comment voting, integrated Twitter and FriendFeed support which end up driving more traffic to your blog…along with many other features. Along with that, the comments are stored on your own Wordpress Server so you never need to worry about losing them if something goes wrong with your blog.

To download IntenseDebate, click here.

You’ll notice that when you visit a website and/or blog, sometimes the blog URL will read “http://www.sitename.com and at other times it will read “http://sitename.com”. I never really thought this was much of an issue. I actually never even gave it a second thought. But apparently, I should have. The problem with this situation is that most search engines treat those addresses as two different domains, splitting your backlink count. That in turn effects a variety of things, especially your PageRank and where you place on search engine index’s. Now, be aware, not all websites and/or blogs have this issue but a fair amount do.

So the question begs - how do you fix it? Well, there are two ways to go about this. The more difficult way is to create a 301 Permanent Redirect using PHP which the average blogger simply lacks the knowledge to do. So, for those of us who need the easy road, there is Enforce www. Preference plugin. This plugin is extremely easy to use. Simply install it, activate it, and it will automatically create a 301 Permanent Redirect page for you and you’ll no longer need to worry about search engines confusing your website/blog as if it were two totally different webpages.

To find out more about Enforce www. Preference and/or to download it, click here.

I highly recommend this tool.

First off, let’s look at this from a financial situation. Newspapers need money - always have and always will. If you have the extra money, one thing you want to look into is taking out an add in your local paper. Now, depending on where you’re located (big city, small city) you’ll find a variety of different options and prices. If you’re a sports blogger, you’ll want to take an advertisement out on the sports page. If you’re a entertainment blog, you’ll want to put it near their gossip column. If you’re a business blog, you’ll want to put it in the business section. It’s very important that you match your blog niche to the correct section of the newspaper to make this an effective marketing strategy.

If paying for a full out blog advertisement isn’t something you’re interested in, you’re still not out of luck. As I mentioned before newspapers and online publications are always looking for content - especially free content. What you’ll want to do is contact somebody from the newspaper or online publication and let them know you’re interested in writing a small piece on a relevant topic that matches that papers needs, but, that also compliments your blog. Simply asking what they need in terms of content might not be a bad approach. Making “friends” with your contact is the most important part here. Once they’ve given you a topic to write about, hopefully they’ll publish it in your local paper or on an online publication and you’ll get free promotion using that method.

It’s actually something I’ve seen done before and I can’t understand why it’s not used on a more consistent basis. It’s a very cheap and easy way to promote your blog to thousands of people, if not more.

Give it a try!

However, thanks to the good guys at the Divine-Project, we average Joe bloggers now have the ability to do it our self. They’ve released a very impressive piece of software that will now allow you to covert your PSD Photoshop files into workable Wordpress Themes, for free. Yep! For free! Now, I should note it’s currently in beta so you might run across a bug or two and it is only available for Windows computers (sorry Mac’s!), but with all that said it’s very much worth the download.

I’ve seen a few people who’ve used the product and they’ve fallen in love with it. They report that it’s functionality is incredibly easy to use and so far, they’ve ran into no problems with bugs or glitches.

To visit the Divine-Project website, click here.

To download the program, click here.

If you’ve ever read a very long blog posting, it’s one massive, long, column. And if you haven’t ever read one, chances are, the appearance of length scared you off. With the new WP Post Columns, not only will you improve the look of your article and overall blog theme you’ll also intice the readers with a much more readble article. You are free to create as many columns as the width of your blog posting will allow as well, which is an improvement over the past version which only allowed a maximum of two columns.

I should add for those concerned about the entire posting being two (or three) massive columns, don’t be. You can write  normal next above and below the columned writings. So, for an example, if you were reviewing a book you could write a normal paragraph, followed by two columns of text from the book and then normal paragraphs below. By no means are you restricted with this plugin.

WP Post Columns is perfect for any magazine/newspaper style themed blogs which are becoming more popular by the day.

To download WP Post Columns or to learn more, click here.

You can also find examples of the plugin on that above page as well.

How does it work? Simple!

First, you visit Blog Upp by clicking here. Once you’ve done so, you’ll then put in the link to your blog in the requested space and click the “get widget” button. You’ll then be given a code which you’ll copy and then paste into a “text” widget in your sidebar. That’s it. It’s really that simple.

When you return to your blog, you’ll now see a your live widget which will display a random blog that also signed up for the service. Every time you refresh, a new blog will appear…and as long as you keep that widget on your page, the same thing will be taking place with your blog on somebody elses page. It’s like blog promotion on autopilot.

There is no private information involved, no need to create an account, no annoying e-mails, nothing. It’s as simple as copy and paste and your blog will now be promoted on other blogs. A very sweet deal if you ask me, especially in this day and age of everybody trying to nickel and dime you.

There is also a 10:9 blog ratio, which means that for every 10 blogs shown on your blog, your blog will be shown 9 times on other blogs which is a very solid ratio for free promotion. And no need to worry about losing traffic. If somebody does click a link to another blog, it will open in a new tab/window so your blog is still on their page.

To visit Blog Upp, click here.

Now, you’re most likely wondering what the advancement of cell phones really has to do with you blogging. Well, for anybody that’s ever attempted to visit a blog on a mobile phone - it’s not fun. I’d almost venture to say it’s pointless, or at least was until recently. A few developers have released some plugins for Wordpress.org users that will make their blog “mobile ready” so people can visit your blog while they’re on their phone. This might not seem like a huge deal but trust me, it is. Think about all the time that people spend on their phone, waiting around at doctor appointments, for a child’s party or practice, etc. People spend a lot of time on their phones and it’s important you cover all of your bases as a blogger. Below are a few plugins you can try out that will make your Wordpress.org blog into a mobile phone ready blog. And I should note, this does nothing to effect your overall appearance. Your blog will look exactly the same as it has. It simply fixes up the way it’s displayed on mobile phones.

To download one of the below plugins, click the plugin name.

Wordpress Mobile Edition - This is an extremely popular plugin that benefits from it’s super clean and simple interface. You can even change the settings for particular phones, such as the IPhone, etc.

WordpressMobile.mobi - Another popular choice, this version makes your blog more mobile friendly and reduces load times along with configuring your pages properly for a mobile display.

MobilePress - One thing that MobilePress does that I’ve never seen before is that it allows the user to create their own “theme/template” just for mobile surfers. If you’re looking for that sort of thing, this one is for you.

WP viewMobile - This Wordpress plugin has a variety of features included, one of my personal favorites is that it will attempt to resize pictures to fit your mobile page - and does so successfuly many times. While the other plugins attempt to do this, WP viewMobile seems to have the most success doing so. A very nice feature.

All in all, you can’t really go wrong with any of the above mentioned plugins. It’s simply a matter of personal preference, and as always, download them all and try them out. That’s the beauty of the Wordpress.org software.

1) Simplicity - As I stated above, there is a reason most simple domain names are gone. You need something easy that everybody can spell. In this situation, the shorter, the better. My best suggestion would be to keep your domain name below 10 characters. It’s also best to keep your domain at one or two words. For example, “BloggerInstitute” would be a “two word” domain. However, “BloggerInstituteOfTechnology” would be a “four word” domain and pretty much be totally worthless.

2) Easy To Remember - This is similar to the above need to keep it simple, but you need to find a name that not only you can remember but one that everybody else can as well. Just because “Auatua.com” might be a short name, it doesn’t mean people will remember it. How many websites and blogs do you visit off the top of your head? Many. So make sure you keep it simple and easy to remember.

3) Spelling Issues - This again could be thrown into the first idea of keeping it simple, but, we’re not just saying to avoid incorrect spelling of words. We’re also saying to avoid hard to spell words. For example, a word like “cappuccino” is difficult to spell for most people, so, you’d want to avoid a commonly misspelled word in your domain name.

4) .Com domain - This one is a little tricky in my book. Do I think it’s necessary? Not right off the bat, no. This is something you’d want to look into further down the road if your blog becomes a success. The reason for this however is because people will always think “.com” in their brain when they’re looking for a website/blog. Hosting companies charge a lot of money for available domain’s that end in a .com address, and with good reason. Stick with a .net or .org domain for now, but keep an eye out on an eventual move to a .com domain.

The most important idea you’ll need to keep in mind is that honesty is the key. We all get tons of spam mail and we all know what it looks like, so, make sure YOU don’t sound like spam when you send out e-mails to potential viewers.

Many times I see e-mails from bloggers that look like:

“Hello - There is a great new website which I think you’ll enjoy! Check out www.SITENAME.com here!”

That’s really the equivalent of walking up to somebody on the street you don’t know and trying to force some product on them. More times than not they’re going to ignore you and move on, and the same thing is going to happen in the cyber-world. A more effective approach would be:

“Hello Blogger - Today I wrote a posting that really meshes with the article you wrote on *insert topic*, which you can find here (put link in). I’d love to know what you think about it, and if possible, maybe you could share it with your readers as well.”

The blogging community is one of open arms, generally (although you’ll have your bad apples as usual) so, use that to your advantage. Contact bloggers - introduce yourself - say hello - make friends…it’s not difficult at all. It does take some time and effort, but the reward is worth it in the end. Just make sure to respect boundaries and always be honest and upfront. You do this and you’ll go quite far.

But now, Eugen Rochko from Anime2 has created a plugin that will allow the main author to add in all of the other authors that helped him on the blog article. It’s an incredibly simple and easy plugin to use and is quite the resource if you co-author blog articles with your friends or fellow bloggers.

I should note, it would be beneficial for you and the co-author(s) to register at your blog and have them fill out their profile. That way, there is a little biographical information about them as well as a link to their blog/website which really is one of the main purposes of this plugin. I will also recommend that you put an area on your blog that lists all of your co-authors and a link to either their blog or a little biographical information. It’s very important as a blogger to create a sense of “humanism”, for a lack of better terms. You connect with your readers on a much deeper level if they can get a little more information about you and your fellow bloggers. A picture works great as well.

To download the plugin, click here.