I’m not saying Goals are wrong in fact I have written multiple posts on the subject and how valuable they are, but this post is kind of a rant because i’m getting tired of these newb bloggers who don’t really blog just to blog.

What I mean by the question of this post is simple, what makes someone a real blogger, is it success, making money, having subscribers? What is it?

None of the above, what makes a real blogger is the pure fact that someone will write and putup kick butt content just because whether they make a dime or not. I will admit when I first started my blogging career I was into the hype to. However a year and a half later after making money having lots of subscribers and such blogging is really just something I want to do and I am currently doing it without pay simply because I love it that much.

Its one way to de-stress but it also allows me to post and write when I feel like it, not when I have people breathing down my neck for more content constantly.

I run more then just this blog to and I look at them all the same, if they make me money AWESOME but if they don’t I will continue to post when I feel like it.

That’s all I wanted to say today but I will be posting a real content post soon so stay tuned guys oh and BTW COMMENTS make me want to post more just an FYI!

Granted, identity theft can happen to anyone at anytime so staying on the lookout for it is always smart whether you are a blogger or not, however you may be asking yourself “how do I know if I am at risk for identity theft?” Easy, you put personal information (sometimes more then others because your a blogger and its your job to do so) out onto the net for the public eye to see.

Things like earnings reports, showing off that fancy new sports car or even talking about your new house, phone, computer or gaming system are all red flags you are throwing up to possible idenity thefters. Haven’t you heard of people who twitter they are leaving for the weekend and then there houses get robbed? Same principal applies here guys.

I try to follow one simple rule (need to know basis only). If your readers don’t NEED to know something then you have every right to keep it a secret and to yourself.

Don’t willingly divulge information that could put you at risk such as earnings and showing off those new toys you have acquired, your just asking for trouble.

So you may be asking yourself, what if I already have (shown off) but wan’t to correct the issues that are now haunting me (ie identity theft). I am so glad you asked

Believe it or not there are actually tons of people and places online that can help you, so many in fact its sometimes hard to find out where they are and who the best choice is. Its really pretty simple, you can checkout reviews of the best identity theft protection providers. They are some of the best I have seen on the subject and really worth looking into!

With all that said, identity theft is a growing problem and we really have to help ourselves if we want to see any changes. Don’t wait, start making smart choices about what you put online and be sure you are protected!

That question actually sparked this post, because although that one plugin does a fantastic job it takes more then 1 to tango! Today I will be listing some basic spam prevention techniques for comment spam!

The Plugins

SI CAPTCHA Anti-Spam This is the plugin that puts the nice Captcha code on my comment section that MUST be filled out in order for a comment to get into my system. It works great and has eliminated about 90% of spam comments that I was getting! I highly recommend it! You can download the SI Captcha Anti-Spam plugin free of use!

Good Ol Akismet This is the old standard for WordPress blogs but it works wonders, already blocked over 4,000 spam comments for me! You can read all about it and get install instructions from this website.

AVH First Defense Against Spam Plugin This was an extra little plugin I installed just because it has proven to work for me and some friends since it came out. This plugin basically checks ips of spammers from the past and blocks them from commenting all on the fly. Worth installing! Checkout the download site and install it right away!

As with almost all the wordpress plugins out there, you can now install plugins on the fly from your wordpress admin panel. Read this post here that I wrote for a basic overview on doing that! Its under the “New Comment Protection (& Cleaned up Spam)” section of that post.

I will end this post with a video!

I hope you enjoyed learning how to prevent spam from getting onto your blog. Return the favor by signing up to my newsletter and be sure to tell your friends as well!

These spam comments can reach into the thousands and its time consuming to go through them all and delete by hand.

So today I am going to show you one quick simple method to delete all the comments currently in your pending section of wordpress comments!

Before I did this my database was upwards of 100mb which is very hard to keep track of if I ever need to move servers or anything like that. A large % of that mb was because of all these spam comments I had waiting in the moderation que.

Its vital for me to get rid of these so my database will work quicker, backup easier and overall be more efficient!

Step by step how to do it!

1. Open up your cpanel.

2. Open up MYSQL section.

3. Open PHPMyAdmin

3. Find your database and back it up. Here is a video tutorial on how to backup your database through PHPMYADMIN.  I will assume you can figure it out by following this tutorial but if you can’t just comment below or email me for further help and directions.

Video Tutorial – Backing Up Your Database

4. Now that your database is backed up, return to the main PHPMyAdmin page and open up your database.

5. From here select the wp_comments table.

6. Once in the table click the SQL button at the top of the screen.

7. You will be presented with a box and a “Go” button in the bottom right. Inside this box enter the code below that is green. Make sure to enter it into your SQL box exactly as shown so nothing gets messed up.

DELETE FROM wp_comments WHERE comment_approved = 0

8. Make sure to enter it exactly as its shown above, this will select and delete all the pending comments in your que. Simply click the “Go” button to make it happen, after you do it will return results saying xxx number of comments deleted. (SUCCESS).

All you have left to do now is log into your wp-admin panel and see how clean and pretty it looks! My suggestion is to install some GOOD comment blocking plugins so you won’t have this problem again!

If you found this useful return the favor by commenting below and by joining my newsletter like tons of others. Enjoy your spam free day!

The problem is most bloggers don’t follow a simple blogging plan with each post, nothing is formatted or in a easy to checkoff list. Your visitors want what they can get not what they can give you (stop thinking they do).

Here are my 4 ways to improve internal traffic of your blog!

1. Link to older posts in each new post you create. This one can be tough at times I know, however its really vital to get people clicking deeper within your blog. When I link to other posts it really helps my traffic and stay time go up but it also helps improve internal seo rank and power giving lots of pages in my blog link juice! I made a post about internal linking before for page rank bleed down that you can read if you want to know more about this.

2. Add a search bar to your sidebar. I know this may sound silly but you wouldn’t believe how many blogs I see that don’t offer at least the stock wordpress search widget you can place on your sidebar. Not only does it allow your users to find more content they may be interested in but it also allows you as the blogger to search to relative post topics that you can link to like in step 1 above.

3. Write great opening text. The first paragraph of text for each new post you write should entice visitors to your blog, this will hopefully draw there attention to stay on the post and read the whole thing!

4. Add images, video and graphs to your posts when possible. By adding more interactive / visual stimulants into your posts readers will naturally look at them out of curiosity (video is getting bigger and bigger read how to start video blogging a post I did awhile back).

So apply these strategies to your blog and be sure to comment below if you already have or if you have more ideas to help others improve internal traffic! Don’t forget to signup to my newsletter and receive my eBook that guarantees you can make money today!

The problem is a blog can take 4+ years to truly ground itself as a valuable resource on the net. It can be done quicker and in a lot of new big idea cases it takes very few months to get a site big.

So after we are bored with a blog we tend to not put in the daily maintenance to the comments section, we stop posting, stop responding to emails and although advertisers may continue to pay for even several months after your activity drops off eventually they stop paying as well.

This is bad because we want to make income from our blogs even when we aren’t working them with our nose to the grind stone. Its tough to stick with one blog project for more then a year making several posts per month and hopefully making money by the end of that year.

This happened to me this last year right here on this very blog, this is actually the first post in a few months.

I figured since I was learning to do this myself anyways I could shed some light on what I am doing to rejuvenate this blog and get it popping again (I didn’t lose any rss or newsletter subs “actually gained some while I was gone” however comment activity dropped off as did all my advertisers (why wouldn’t they after all).

So your probably saying to yourself (Stop wasting my time and tell me how to rejuvenate my blog foooooool)….

Haha, ok, ok well here is what I have done so far in no specific order:

New Blog Design (No Advertisements now) – This one is kind of up to you, however if your rejuvenating a blog its activity has probably dropped off and I don’t see that advertisers will want to pickup where you left off last time. They will want to see the blog growing and thriving again. However I decided not to list any advertisements on my new design, I went with a more standard blogging / news look that I got for free off wordpress.com. It is of-course your choice, if you do go the no adverts route like I have be sure to change your advertisement page to reflect whatever changes have happened. You can read up on how to make a good advertisement page so you can get back into the swing of making the money.

New Comment Protection (& Cleaned up Spam) – This is kind of a big one, more then likely you have let your blog go and its admin panel is filled with thousands of spam comments (some good ones to hopefully) but who has time to search through them all and approve or dis-approve them? My suggestion is you just scrap all those spam / held comments, instead of wasting your time to go through them all and find the good ones just start fresh from here (comments don’t make or break a blog) so don’t be OVERLY concerned with that one. When you are rejuvenating your comments section and how your blog will handle comments from here on out one of the biggest tips I can offer you is re-Capatcha comment spam protection. I will assume on this rejuvenated blog you are using wordpress 3.0+ and if you are under the plugins section of your admin panel you can now search, locate and install tons of awesome working plugins all on the fly! Simply do a search for “comments” in the plugin section and it will bring up lots of options for capatcha and even threaded comments plugins! Try them out by installing them all on the fly! WORDPRESS I LOVE YOU.

Re-organized my Categories – Since the blog kind of has a new direction some categories are no longer necessary. Others need name changes and some need to be moved for more of a spring cleaning effect which I have written seems like dozens of posts on before. Checkout my haircut for your blog post that although a little unorthodox title does provide great info on doing just that (cutting the hair of your blog that continues to grow).

Re-did my page (About, Contact) – After not being in the blogging world for a few months I have changed my contact info, my life has changed, I have a new direction on things etc.. I needed to update my about page to reflect those new things and I needed to update my contact email so everyone can still get a hold of me (be sure to read my post about not losing your contacts because its a goldmine when rejuvenating a blog!

And that’s about it, this took me all about 3 hours or so to do here on InfectedByBugs and its still not perfect but its a start to getting this blog back to where it should be.

Here is a vlog about my current statuts!

Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter for updates and awesome make money online tips!

Once you’ve gotten all your ducks in a row and figured out how much your blog is worth and what you want to sell it for, you might want to consider the follow sites for listing your site.

1. WebsiteBroker: At Website Broker, you can buy or sell a website as well as utilize helpful resources in making decisions regarding the acquisition or sale of your business. On the resources page you can utilize the “Website Evaluation and Valuation Guide”, make use of the “Website Valuation Calculator”, review “Legal Forms and Business Documents”, and read their “Tips and Suggestions”.
2. BizBuySell: Self-proclaimed as “The Internet’s Largest Business for Sale Marketplace”, BizBuySell.com focuses on a variety of businesses and services to buy or sell, including internet businesses. Claiming to have “connected over 30,000 sellers with the company or person who ultimately purchased their business”, BizBuySell could be a site to consider for selling your blog. You can also use their “Value a Biz” tool to help you determine what your blog might be worth.
3. DealaSite: With a bid-type structure, DealaSite.com offers the ability to put your blog on the auction block so-to-speak. According to the site, when your bid session expires, you can “choose the best offer or none at all.” You may also converse with potential buyers through a public comment system.
4. BuySellWebsite: Among some of the touted features of selling your site on BuySellWebsite.com are “High Visibility”, “Worldwide Reach”, “Top Search Engine Rankings”, and even a “Sell Guarantee” where if your site doesn’t sell in your purchased two-month listing, “you’ll receive a one month extension free!” You can also pay (the fee is based upon the monthly income of your site) to have an appraisal done on your site.
5. eBay: Yes, of course eBay has to make the list. Would it be an article regarding ‘selling something’ without mentioning eBay? This sale option could leave a lot of the smaller details and legalities of selling a business up to you though.
6. Flippa: Flippa.com advertises “100,000 Unique Visitors per Month” and “30 Million in Websites and Domains Traded and Growing”. If you’re wondering about pricing, they currently quote a $19 listing fee, a 5% success fee if your site sells, capped at $498, and a minimum success fee of $5.
7. BuyBusiness: Choose from “Standard”, “Featured” or “Spotlight” ads to help sell your site. The level of ad package you choose will determine your cost as well as the features you receive and how your business is showcased.
8. InternetCompanyForSale: Searching for a site to sell your blog with no commissions? Then you might want to swing by InternetCompanyForSale.com. They tout their commission-free pricing and offer several listing categories that may fit your needs.
9. WebmastersMarketplace: With reasonably low listing fees, you might want to take a look at Webmasters Marketplace as a site for selling your blog. According to their fees page, listings are 0 credits and you can purchase upgrades with credits (i.e. Featured Listing on Homepage = 10 credits, Highlighted Listing = 5 credits, etc.). To clarify, 1 credit = $1 USD.
10. List on Your Own Site: Maybe you don’t want your site being sold to any random bidder though. Maybe it means too much to you and has a sentimental value that you just can’t put a price on. This may be a good time to consider advertising on your own blog site in hopes that a loyal follower might pick up the torch and carry on your ideals and values. As a consideration though, this option will indicate to your followers that you are selling the site, which could have an adverse impact upon your blog. This may also mean that much of the negotiating and legalities could largely be left up to you to handle.

Tom Walker is an editor and contributor to the CreativeCloud, a blog about design and advertising owned by a UK based supplier of printer ink. He particularly enjoys writing about vintage ads and book art.

For all of my long time readers you have probably noticed there have been no new posts from me in some time.

I have been very busy at my now full-time job along with my beautiful girlfriend who keeps me pretty busy (blame her not me), when I have time I post about myself and her on my personal blog www.shannonlilly.com (check it out).

In regards to updates and whats up with IBB and where its going…

While I love blogging I am pretty busy so I don’t know when I will be posting new MMO related posts. My time is taken up with my newest project PixelForLife where me and a friend create photoshop and webdesign related tutorials.

We are marketing through YouTube and already have 500 subscribers!

So I guess the best I can say is… Stay tuned for the comeback when I have time!

Man its been awhile since Ive posted I apologize but I am happy to see people are still commenting (new people to) as well as my faithful subscribers (which count is going up some by the looks of it).

I love you all and I hope you still find use out of these posts

OK so today I want to talk about all the connections Ive made in the blogging sphere. I know so many people but when I went blog a-wall there for awhile I lost contact. That doesn’t mean anyone forgot me (in fact quite the opposite) but it can happen.

I did however lose contact in the sense that I lost there email addresses and info about what we were discussing at that time.

My main point is to encourage you to save and backup all this info “right now” so this doesn’t happen to you.

Its a simple point but a vital one you will thank me for, seriously you never know when you may need a guest post, sell an advert etc… If you keep all those email contact info’s you can do so pretty easily

Enjoy and have a great day!