Spam in comments: the problem!

You may find your posts are raided with unwanted comments. Often comment spam scripts auto-generate comments in the attempt to get approval and links on your pages. By default your comment filter settings with capture any of these comments with links and put them in a queue ready for your to approve or delete them.

How do I know what comments are Spam?

Generally spam has excessive links, is not related to the subject of the blog or appears to be a business not a person or customer.

How do I stop spam in my comments?

There is a spam filter plugin and service available through wordpress that can be activated: Akismet. The first thing to do is register with wordpress. Obtain an API key. Once you have this special key please keep it private and then contact JapanWebStart.jp for advice about how to turn on the spam filtering service provided by wordpress.

It is well documented that blogging on a consistent basis is a good idea and a good blogging technique. I want to remind everyone of its importance.

How often do you read blogs? Perhaps once a day, or maybe even once a week. Blog readers like everyone else develop patterns and get used to your blogging techniques. Keep it consistent and maintain a standard. How much is a good amount? That really depends on your content. For a serious blog related to your business or your field of interest, once a month may be suffice. Once a week of course is far better. There is only so much a reader can digest so don’t over do it. If you can do this, you will notice subscribers jump to read your articles each time you publish them.

So consistent blogging is a fundamental we should all remind ourselves of when maintaining our blog.

Your front page is usually the first thing people see when they visit your site. It get’s the most traffic and needs to have the most impact. Search engines use your front page to crawl to other pages and determine what content you have on your site. So what makes a good front page?

Gone are the days when a nice graphic or movie with a click here to enter button was the norm. It may look nice but has no real way of communicating what the site is about. Most people bounce a site which means they visit the page and if not completely satisfied the content they are looking for is there, they leave. So a good front page is all about good communication of the site’s content and doing it simply and quickly so the general concept of the site can be grasped in a very short time.

So how is it done?

• One very nice way is to link to each of the main areas of your site. Communicate clearly what is in each section of your site using samples of content from each section. This could be an image or a title and a link.
• Write a summary of exactly what it is you want people to know when they visit your site. Sound simple? Well it is but this is often left out of a front page. Within this summary link to other parts of the site.
• Show something dynamic on your front page. News that is updated regularly or recent articles you have written. Give the person viewing your site an excuse to come back.
• Provide an easy way for someone to register with you. Subscription to an email list or a subscription to an RSS feed.

We provide this type of setup on all the sites we do but it is up to you to think about the content of your site and organize it so we can best highlight on your front page.

Recently I designed a site for Spencer Sternberg game audio professional.

The front page communicates exactly what he does in many of the above ways.

• Graphics which communicate the message of sound.
• There is a clear and easy to understand summary of the site in large readable text.
• Samples of his audio are in clear view and can be played on the front page.
• Recent articles and news shows the viewer he is actively using the site.
• There is a subscribe form with a free track to download as incentive.

take a look at the Spencer Sternberg site.