Should I Moderate Blog Comments? – Three Thoughts
Further to the now 2-week old discussion about treating other bloggers blogs nicely, Katherine Reschke wrote:
I don’t let strangers into my home and likewise I moderate all comments that come to my blog. It is a lot of extra work but unfortunately whilst there are asses who would trash my home given the opportunity and even more asses who would trash my blog, I think if we want to keep the internet free speech(and I SURE DO!)then we have to take a pro-active stance.
I think she has a very good point on the stranger thing. After all, we don’t let strangers into our homes…but we do so on our blog. Regardless, as far as moderating comments goes, I’d never do it.
Here are my 3 thoughts on why I don’t do it and maybe it will apply to you as well:
1. Way too much work and the Spam Karma 2 plugin installed here is very good at flagging most spam (Lynette may have done something else to keep it bay, but that’s all behind the scenes and I don’t know about it…LOL). As a result, most of the spam I have to deal with seems to be manual submissions and there are just a few bad apples in the bunch.
3. It disrupts the flow of conversation. If everything is moderated, it means that new commenters cannot see the comments prior to theirs until they are approved.
4. Most importantly, I think it discourages my readers from commenting. I know that once I see a blog moderates comments, I think twice about coming back. I don’t know what it is, but I think we want the instant gratification of seeing our comment go up…and we also don’t want to be left wondering whether our painstaking efforts will be approved or not.
I believe that I noticed on Lynn Terry’s blog that she moderates first-time commenters (based on email address, I believe). In that case, I think it’s fine, but I was do a little modification to let the user know that it’s a one-time thing and you’re simply checking that they’re a real human being (which you’re sure they are).
Overall, I don’t think you should make it hard for real people with real things to say. My blog readers are very valuable to me and I know they are a major source of contribution here. I gotta treat them right.
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A Comment Inspired Action – Go LaTara!
Last week, when I wrote about Armand Morin’s Driving Traffic Call, LaTara Hamying of Vegan Family Living wrote this comment:
“I just listened to the recording and Armand gave some very valuable information. I love what he had to say about Article Marketing and how to present your product. I also was glad to hear about the importance of “running” your affiliate center.
I am guilty of not running mine well and closed it down for a couple of weeks. I spoke with someone who know affiliate management well and read a lot of Shawn Collins information as well as yours Alice’s. It all helped me tremendously.
I always learn something when I attend Armand’s seminars. He is one of the few who I think is honest in his approach and really does want to see people succeed.”
You know what LaTara did right after this? She started working on her affiliate center. How do I know, I follow her on Twitter and there she was announcing the work she was doing. Awesome LaTara!
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Whatcha Doing Thursday?
Mark your calendar now, because Frank Kern is putting one impressive webinar this Thursday (thank GOODNESS…not another video!)….and he’s going to be sharing more of his brilliant “Mass Control” techniques.
Link is here:
-> Click it here
BUT what caught my attention is that it’s not just Frank, but he’s got Eben Pagan (aka David DeAngelo), of “Double Your Dating” fame on board for this one.
I first heard about how brilliant the guy behind “Double Your Dating” was about 4 years ago. Everyone was raving about the ingenious marketing and just how WELL the company was doing in the dating market market. I mean they were and continue to do REALLY, REALLY well.
So back then, on a whim I hopped over to see what this “Double Your Dating” was all about. The target audience is single guys looking to be more attractive to women. Clearly, I am not that target, but I was IMMEDIATELY sucked in by the conversational, empathetic and yet very persuasive tone. They had me opting in right away and nearly ordering the first product…and I had absolutely no use for it! It was something else I tell you and since then I’ve paid attention when I heard Eben’s name mentioned.
Problem is, his name is often mentioned in conjunction with very high-priced seminars that require travel…so this Thursday’s freebie from the comfort of your home is something jump all over to take advantage of.
Frank may be the one guiding all the mass control teachings, but you can bet both of them are going to share some pretty amazing insight and stories.
The webinar / call is this Thursday at 6:30 Pacific Standard Time and I’ve already registered myself.
It’s your turn to register now:
-> Click here for the free registration form
I don’t know for sure, but I’m guessing that if you can’t attend live (like…for example, if you’re on the East Coast and you’ll be half way through the season premier of LOST), you’ll probably get the recordings…so most definitely sign up.
Me, I’m a West Coast gal, so the timing is perfect for me. 
Still, I hope you can make it.
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Tough Question Tuesday – “Clear Your Cookies”
I know this is usually the type of thing that applies to the Internet Marketing to Internet Marketers Crowd, but since you are probably the recipient of these tactics now and then, I thought I’d ask a question brought up on a forum yesterday.
Here’s what the original poster wrote:
There’s a number of big launches going on. Big launches = big commissions.
This is not a hypothetical question – I’ve seen it done – see below. It’s not something I personally would do. But I’m interested in the opinions of this community.
Would you send an email to your list asking them to clear their cookies and sign up for a launch, so you (and not a former-cookied affiliate/JV) would get the commission?
Certainly people are savvy enough to do it (for bonus reasons, or preferred marketer, whatever), but …
Would you *ask* them to do it?
I posted my opinions on that thread and they’re summed as this:
I think it becomes unethical when the affiliate program is set up to be a first-in type of thing. In other words, Joe Marketer created an affiliate program and for whatever reason, he decided the rule is the first person to refer gets the sale. In that case, you are stealing sales.
Of course, most programs seem to operate on a last-referrer policy. And in those cases, it’s not actually necessary to tell anyone to clear anything. If they click your link before ordering, you’ll get credit. In campaigns where I was offering bonuses, I was very careful about insisting the people click my link to order, but I never saw the need to ask them to clear their cookies.
So, in my mind it’s either unethical OR unnecessary, depending on the situation.
And then someone said that it becomes problematic when bonuses are offered and people want to order through your link, but are already cookied elsewhere, so I wrote:
Yes, it does happen, so if you’re part of a launch you should ask/insist the person running the program has a last-in referral policy. Then nobody has to resort to used car salesman tactics.
What do you think? And don’t let my opinionated self sway your opinion. Obviously, there’s more than one way of looking at a situation.
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Web 2.0 is Now…If You Don’t Know Every Site, You’ll Die! MYTH CRUSHER
It’s nothing new that the Internet Marketing world is abuzz with words like Web 2.0, Social Networking and Social Bookmarking. It seems like everyone is scrambling to learn about each and every site and find a way to exploit them as an Internet marketer.
This can be seen in all the Internet Marketing guides for sale on Twitter, Digg, MySpace, Facebook and more.
You see it on Internet Marketing forums when people with good intentions post 150 links to various social bookmarking sites.
You see it on Twitter (where I do like to hang out), people are constantly talking about other places like Utterz, LinkedIn and more.
Haven’t a clue what I’m talking about? Good news! I’m here to tell you it probably doesn’t matter.
Just like yesteryear (and maybe still now) when forums and Yahoo groups were a distraction for entrepreneurs, now people are getting all wacked out on social networking in the often false name of “expanding my business.”
You don’t need to know about every social networking/bookmarking site and you don’t even be a member of the most popular ones.
Here’s a few reasons why:
1. Although you may expand your network by belonging to a bunch of different sites slightly, chances are you’re seeing the SAME people over and over again.
2. Instead of spending your days posting to bookmark and networking sites to generate traffic, you’re better of spending that time DOING something worthwhile IN your own business is that is WORTHY of the buzz.
Many people say that in order to get people talking, you have to get the ball rolling and do a little bookmarking and talking about yourself. Maybe, but if that’s a regular part of your business, you’re going about this in a labor intensive way. Of course, you can hire people to do it for you, but then you might end up looking like an ass like this guy…so be careful.
The point is, a solid business is built on building something worthwhile and yes, we all embark on our own publicity campaigns and they may include social networking sites in their execution. But if the focus of your day has become posting to websites belonging to OTHER people/companies, it’s time to come back home and do something that is truly going to get people talking.
What can you do?
-> Make a report, a video or something that’s hilarious, informative or otherwise grabs the attention of your target audience. And yes, you can post the video to YouTube…I’m not saying NEVER to these types of sites…I’m just saying be smart. 
-> Be controversial with a blog post and get a few other bloggers to write about it too. But don’t sit there all day running around voting for yourself at every social bookmarking site under the WWW sun.
-> Make AWESOME products that people WILL talk about all on their own. Of course, to get things going you can absolutely give them incentive to talk about them by creating an affiliate program or a referral program that earns them points, discounts, etc…but the best comes from geniunely pleased customers that talk about you just because.
In other words, be GREAT. You don’t need everyone on Facebook to know who you are to run an incredibly successful and profitable business, so stop trying.
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The Most Important Sales Letter EVER! – Silly Sunday
Here’s a unique spin on the ultra-hyped up Internet Marketing sales letter. I like this one! But obviously, they have a pretty amazing artist on board. We don’t all have access to such talent. 
Visit You’re a Poor Loser to view the whole incredible offer.
This week was the first time I’d seen that one, but it goes well with the classic “Buy My Stupid Ebook“. Not quite as pretty, but maybe even funnier.
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Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer – Freebie Friday
I came across this one when someone posted it at The Warrior Forum. It’s an interesting tool that helps you analyze the Emotional Marketing Value of your headlines.
To tool here is: Emotional Marketing Value Headline Analyzer
You simply type in your headline and the tool gives you a score, expressed in a percentage. You can put in up to 20 words, but realize that the shorter your headline, the easier it is to get a higher percentage. BUT that doesn’t mean a shorter headline will outperform a longer one.
Out of curiosity, I swiped a headline from Michel Fortin to see what would happen:
and his 18-word headline produced a pretty nice score:
As I mentioned, I found the tool from a post on the Warrior Forum and you can read about the members little experiments with the tool here.
But what was most helpful on that thread is when Hakim Chishti, the man behind the tool took some time to explain the science behind the whole thing. His explanation really helped show how this can be a very helpful tool in increasing the emotional value in your headlines…but of course, there are other factors that go into a good headline. After all, you can use the headline to make a totally nonsensical headline and get a score of 100%.
Go ahead and read the post, where you can read Hakim’s full comments, but here are a few helpful snippets that I picked out:
“This analyzer is not meant to tell you specifically which headline is “best”. Nor does a ’score’ of 100% or more necessarily mean the headline is good.”
“When the headlines are six or more words, revising the words to produce results in the 40-60% score range, produces measurable improvement in conversions. Scores of less than 20% do not often perform well in advertising messages.”
“We have analyzed tens of millions of words of advertising copy, from past and present copywriting “greats”, online and off-line. The ad copy for most all of the best known copywriters seem to perform at the 30-35% of EMV words. ”
After reading, I went back and submitted my own headline from Affiliate Marketing Sweetie (which exceeds 20 words) and came up with:
You’ll notice that in addition to giving a score, it marked my copy as more “empathatic”…where as Michel’s headline was labeled as “intellectual”…and likely quite appropriate for our respective audiences.
Now if you’ll excuse me…it’s time for me to grab some tissues and get a little bit more emotional with my headlines.
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Armand Morin’s Driving Traffic Call – Three Thoughts
Last night, Armand Morin held a teleseminar on driving traffic. It was free and if you were on his notification list, you would have received an invite.
But don’t worry, it’s not that exclusive…
If you didn’t get an invite, you can listen to the call online now. I just finished listening in and it’s got some decent stuff and it’s actually quite motivational.
Besides Armand’s admission that he’s not the “sharpest tool in the shed” (I don’t believe that!), he also talks about:
-> Article Marketing: Why it’s a long-lasting promotional plan and why you shouldn’t worry about duplicate content.
-> The Holy Crap Factor: How to get people to talk about you and your products, without any compensation.
-> Building Your Affiliate Force: Very solid advice here…and some good motivation to stop being a wimp with your own affiliate program.
-> Conversion Tips: Your traffic is no good if you don’t convert to sales. He provides some very practical tips to start using on your site right away.
-> Writing Sales Letter: He has some practical tips to help you put together sales letter without so much headache.
Now, those were Armand’s thoughts. Listen to the call and then here are my 3 thoughts on some of the things Armand had to say:
1. Just a clarification on Armand’s thoughts on duplicate content. I agree that duplicate content isn’t as big an issue as as people sometimes make it out to be, but if you want the official wording from Google (which he just paraphrased), here is a snippet:
“Duplicate content on a site is not grounds for action on that site unless it appears that the intent of the duplicate content is to be deceptive and manipulate search engine results. If your site suffers from duplicate content issues, and you don’t follow the advice listed above, we do a good job of choosing a version of the content to show in our search results.”
And Google has now dedicated a full page to the discussion of duplicate content that will help you ensure the content you want shown to search engine visitors stays indexed in Google:
-> Google’s Definition of Duplicate Content
It is definitely worth reading through as it will likely ease some of your fears and help you approach the issue of duplicate content.
2. Your Affiliate Program Doesn’t Run Itself. I think that’s one of the main points Armand was trying to make about getting your affiliate program going – and I absolutely agree. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to be a slave to your affiliate program, but if you’ve set one up…do something about it. Contact people, train your affiliates and get them motivated. If you’re guilty of only putting a link to your affiliate program at the bottom of your page, now IS the time to get things in gear.
3. Here’s another perspective on asking your readers to buy more than once in a sales letter. I have seen differing advice on this and obviously, the answer is to test your own results – but I do find it interesting that two people who test A LOT and are famous for improving conversions have differing advice.
John Reese insists that it’s a mistake to ask more than once in a sales letter. His opinion is based on testing, but his logic is that putting a sales link too early in the letter can kill a sale. In other words, you’re asking for the sale before you’ve done your job of convincing your potential customer.
Again – how do you know what you should do? Test it.
Overall, Armand provides some very useful strategies that are easy-to-implement and after listening, you should have at least a few action plans to start improving things for your business.
If you’ve listened, please feel free to share your takeaways or thoughts.
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