Blogspot Comments Settings

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I’ve encountered quite a number of Blogspot sites on which the Comments settings remain as per the default, and this means that many people are unable to contribute to the topic under discussion.

The default setting for Comments on Blogspot sites is for ‘Users with a Google account’ (Blogger ID), however, this is frustrating for those of us who do not have, or do not like to use, a Blogger ID.

If you’re uncertain how your blog’s comments are set up, I’d like to recommend that you follow this exercise.

Sign into your Blogspot dashboard, and select Settings tab, then select Comments. For the second option down, ‘Who can comment’, you need to select the first option – ‘anyone’.

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SAVE your updated settings, and you’re away — it’s that simple.

Hopefully, you should now receive more comments to your blog than previously, so be prepared to respond to them all!

Of course, if you have a Blogspot site and don’t want any ol’ Tom, Dick or Harry commenting on your posts, you can completely ignore this.

Happy blogging.

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 9% [?]

Working From Home Getting A Tan!

This week, Londoners have enjoyed basking in brilliant sunshine and, as if overnight, my garden has become a jungle, requiring a skilfully wielded machèté to traverse it to the far end!

In the time it takes to blink, the lawn (using the term in its broadest sense) is knee-high, and new foliage is sprouting all around. Blossoms are readying themselves to burst, and I’m especially thrilled that my Magnolia is smothered in buds, as it didn’t flower last Summer.

A smattering of bluebells sprung up this year, but they’re now shrugging off their bright petals to reveal seed pods, which will soon drop, ensuring a more abundant display next Spring.

New life is profoundly inspiring, and a comforting reminder that every living entity renews itself, and that everything has its time.

Yesterday afternoon, I enjoyed a thorough physical workout, attempting to tame the backyard jungle, and today my arms, shoulders, back and legs all attest to how much I am in need of ‘away from the computer’ activities!

I’d just started to cut the grass, when it occurred to me to take a photo - my apologies for the quality.

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Below is a shot of the garden last Summer, after I’d started to knock it into shape.

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There was a spell yesterday when I took a break from hacking down the grass and pulling up weeds, and I sat in the dappled sunlight, listening to the melodic birdsong, and contemplating whatever came into my mind.

Then I realised how privileged I was to be seated in the sun, smelling the fresh cut grass and glimpsing the tiny frogs leaping about their newly-disturbed world.

I’m privileged to be working from home building my own online business. Internet marketing offers many options for making money online, however, my recent experience with blogging has taught me that many people start a blog thinking that they’ll be making money (a full-time living) by blogging alone — this is rare. Making money online with one blog alone is very rare.

Diversify. Your blog can be used as an internet marketing tool to help grow a mailing list, by offering a subscription to a newsletter, updates, or special offers. But don’t immediately start promoting products to your list, first you must gain people’s trust and respect — you have to convince your readers that they can rely on your opinion and recommendation.

They say that an internet marketer, actively promoting to his or her list, earns a minimum of $1 per month for each name on it. That’s why the internet marketing gurus with multiple lists of 50,000 plus are millionaires!

When you have established a reputation, you can email the occasional promotion — your own product, or as an affiliate marketer you could promote other people’s. But be careful. This is an area that’s been highly abused, and I don’t hold with daily mailings, promoting each and every ‘latest and greatest’.

Internet marketers practising this type of email vomit-a-thon in my Inbox don’t retain my name on their list for long. A surprising number do send too many mailings, which makes me wonder if they are making good sales, because people succumb to the pressure. I’d prefer not be making an income by annoying the contacts on my list, and I’d rather retain some dignity, too.

Recommend products that you have purchased, and genuinely consider to be quality and worth the bucks. Once again, I soon unsubscribe when I’m frequently sent recommendations for products from the marketer’s ‘good friend’ who has just launched some new something that he thinks I shouldn’t be without. Phoney, baloney.

Diversify. Develop your own product to promote or, as an affiliate marketer, you can save yourself a whole heap of effort, and earn generous commission, promoting other people’s products.

So many internet marketing strategies can be managed via auto-responders and, once set up, they require the minimum of maintenance. You could be making more money online by doing the same amount of work!

Step back from your blog, view the bigger picture, and apply leverage.

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 12% [?]

Internet Business Guide Announces Winners

After some delay due to illness striking down both Marcus and his wife, the winners of The Internet Business Guide’s Contest have been announced.

Reward Rebel donated 5,000 ECs, which has been won by Amy Lilley Designs, and a copy of Reward Rebel LOOT goes to sezwho.multiply.com

I have sent congratulations to Amy via Entrecard, however, I have no contact details yet for sezwho, so if you’re reading this… contact me via details at top right of this page.

A rather nice surprise was discovering that I had won the DVD “Building An Internet Business From Scratch” by Marcus Hochstadt, a One Buck Wiki page at SiteHoppin Blog and a 10 card account at Send Out Cards so I’m stoked!

Congratulations to all the winners, and commiserations to those who weren’t lucky on this occasion. There’ll always be the next contest!

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 13% [?]

A Blog Is For Life!

I don’t know if the new blogger just can’t resist all the bells and whistles, but there are certain elements of website wizardry that should be left on the back burner until the new website has built content, traffic and a readership.

Examples of my particular dislikes include:

1. a Feedburner button — “Readers: 1”
2. a Technorati button — “Authority: 3”
3. an Alexa button — “Traffic Rank: 4,689,417”
4. a Page Rank button — “PR (blank space)”
5. a widget stating “My blog is worth $4.82”.

These buttons and widgets aren’t intended for use in this way, they are supposed to be used to publicise positive aspects about the site’s traffic, authority or page rank, not proclaim loudly that it doesn’t have much of any of it.

Why do people do it? Do they just get carried away?

Something else that I find strange is when people start a blog, and sign up to Entrecard and start dropping cards before they have actually added any content. Just a couple of days ago, I saw a blog that displayed the Entrecard widget, but the only post on it was “Hello world, this is my first blog post”. That was it. Period.

Naturally, I appreciate people can become excited, and their enthusiasm is beautiful, but the blogger has to respect the time, and intelligence, of visitors to their website – each new visitor is a prospective long-term reader, don’t alienate them.

If you are new to blogging, or perhaps you’ve been thinking about starting your own blog, don’t jump the gun, and don’t get carried away with all the buttons and widgets. Build some content, enough to engage the visitor, and then start driving traffic to your site.

There’s no rush to do everything straight off. Building a website and its content takes time, as does building a readership. The more thought you put into the project from the start, the greater the rewards you’ll enjoy over time.

Happy blogging!

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 19% [?]

Google Page Rank 2 Attained

I am in celebratory mood. Why? Reward Rebel is basking in the glory of having attained a Google Page Rank of 2, and from little acorns….

The timing is amusing, as it has popped up like an exclamation mark at the end of my previous post!

Although I haven’t been considering quitting, I had been thinking about a subtle, discreet amendment to the site’s direction, as well as building on new keywords.

But no such thoughts are hovering now. A Page Rank is just what the site needed, to reassure myself and my readers that I’m a competent driver, and am steering in the right direction!

Whoop-diddly-doo!

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 18% [?]

Don’t Throw In The Towel!

As I often emphasise, blogging isn’t my ‘thing’, it’s part of my internet marketing ‘thing’ – a requirement of the modern online business.

During the past few weeks, I’ve been heavily involved in developing new projects, and haven’t been as active with Entrecard as I had previously been. However, during the past few days I have tried to allocate some time again to networking with the Entrecard community, as it’s been a good friend to this site.

To shake things up a little, I decided to open my Inbox and drop my card on blogs which had visited me way, way back when, but I was in for a surprise.

Within just a couple of days I have found myself time and again landing on a blog that hasn’t posted for anytime between several weeks and a few months.

When I first started building an online business, including blogs, I read about the high proportion of drop-outs after the initial 3-6 months. This is the first ‘wave’ of quitters I’ve personally witnessed, and it’s disappointing.

Did they just run out of things to say? Were they expecting to earn bucketsful of cash overnight? Have you tried making money online in the past and given up?

I’ve felt fed-up with it all sometimes, particularly the endless series of new technologies to get to grips with. I don’t have the residual funds to outsource, so when something needs doing, it’s me doing it, or it doesn’t get done!

I had to teach myself everything, and I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished so far, both in new skills and abilities, and the progress of my online business.

If you find yourself feeling like giving up, try to remember how you felt about making money online – whether via blogging or broader internet marketing techniques — back when you first became interested.

Remember your initial enthusiasm, and the plans you had for your life, which you felt an online business could bring to fruition.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself down, and start all over again. Keeping on, keeping on is the only way you’re going to succeed!

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 19% [?]

The Art Of Internet Marketing Promotion

Finally, I’ve received the first couple of Derek Gehl videos of the 4 Day Build-a-Biz Challenge.

I’ve been a fan of Derek Gehl from when I first began researching internet marketing and making money online. He is the millionaire CEO of the Internet Marketing Center, and qualifies as an ‘internet marketing guru’, and I’m not generally a fan of the IM guru.

However, I have some excellent IM training manuals from the Internet Marketing Center, and they cost me very little (although I got collared for $120 customs duty, it was STILL a good deal!), so I don’t like to knock the man or his company.

Internet marketing gurus don’t spend their time and money on projects in which there isn’t an investment in the bigger picture. After all, this is how they have become millionaires — boy, can I be naïve sometimes!

Of course, the 4 Day Build-a-Biz Challenge is a vehicle for promoting a new product. Derek is using new software called Bebiz that enables the entrepreneur to create an online business from scratch.

So far, I’ve only watched the first video, and am disappointed. I’d hoped to witness Derek conducting his niche-identifying market research via the routes we are familiar with, like Google Labs, Amazon database scrutiny, Yahoo Answers, forum foraging, and then see him develop his keyword list.

But every step of the creation of his new online business is accomplished via the new software, in which I don’t have the slightest interest.

I’m not particularly keen to watch the remaining videos, but I’ll try to fit them in, just to be fair, as I started this ball rolling, and should see where it winds up.

Sorry there are no wonderful internet marketing revelations!

Reward Rebel

Popularity: 20% [?]