Do you want to have certain amount of content or links or images to be constantly displayed on each and every page of your website? If you answered ‘yes’ to this question, then your WordPress sidebar is the perfect place to find all your answers!

Today, lets look at how you can take advantage of your WordPress sidebar to display certain content continuously across all your website’s pages and blog posts.

Your WordPress website has a unique and amazing feature: the WordPress sidebar, which can be very effectively used to display a variety of links and content across all the pages of your website.

WordPress Sidebar: What and Why

Before we delve into the the ‘how-to’ aspect, lets take a quick look at the ‘what’ and ‘why’ aspect of this scenario.

• You might want to display a quick blurb ‘About’ you on every page of your website.
• You might want to put a bunch of links on every page of your website. These can be links to your favorite sites, or other things such as important pages on your website.
• You might want to show an image or a slideshow of images on every page of your website. (This comes in handy when you have a website dedicated to images or photographs, for example.)
• You might want to put links to your social media profiles on the Internet.
• You might want to show off your ‘featured’ products – comes in handy for a shopping website.
• You might want to put a ‘Buy me Coffee’ button or a ‘Donate’ button on your website.

As you have seen, the list of things you might want to display continuously on your website can go on and on. And the reason for having this information on your website’s sidebar is really quite simple:

• Give your website’s visitors instant access to the information you want to highlight.
• Give your website’s visitors a quick glance at certain pertinent information that you want to highlight across your entire website.

WordPress Sidebar: How-To

So, with that quick overview, let us go ahead and look at the various ways you can leverage your WordPress sidebar to make this possible. And the best way you can go about it, is by using your WordPress website’s ‘widgets’ feature. There are a number of built-in WordPress sidebar widgets that come pre-installed with WordPress. Apart from those, you can also install a variety of WordPress sidebar widgets into your WordPress website.

To go to your WordPress website’s widgets section, just navigate to the ‘Appearance’ menu item and click on ‘Widgets’.

WordPress Sidebar Widgets

Without any further ado then, lets look at some of the most useful WordPress sidebar widgets that can make these things happen for you.

Social Media Widget

I have already talked about this widget over here. This WordPress sidebar widget will put in a wide variety of social media links into your WordPress sidebar and help your website’s visitors connect with you across a number of social media websites.

NextGen Gallery Widget

I have written a great how-to post about this widget over here. This plugin also gives you a WordPress sidebar widget, where you can put in a slideshow of your albums or image collections in your WordPress sidebar.

Text / HTML Widget

This is a built-in widget which will help you insert any arbitrary text or html code into your WordPress sidebar. This widget comes in handy when some some websites provide code that needs to be placed in the sidebar of your website.

Pages & Links Widgets

These are 2 separate, built-in widgets. The Pages widget will put links to all your website’s pages in the sidebar, while the Links widget will put the links from your blogroll in the sidebar.

Meta Widget

Another built-in widget, this will put your site’s login and admin links in your WordPress sidebar.

RSS Widget

This built-in, configurable WordPress sidebar widget pulls in RSS feeds from different websites and displays them in your WordPress sidebar. This widget can be quite helpful for those of you who want to display certain news items from other websites on your website.

MailChimp Widget

Although MailChimp provides you with a bunch of code that you can insert into your WordPress sidebar, you can’t quite configure certain aspects of it. Enter the MailChimp Plugin, which allows a lot more in terms of configurability. Now your website’s visitors can easily find your ‘Subscribe to Newsletter’ form on your website!

Twitter Widgets

And if you are a twitter user who wants to show off your tweets and so forth, here are 2 of my favorite Twitter Widget Plugins – Twitter and Twitter Goodies – which you can use, depending on how simple or how complex you want your display to be like.

PayPal Donate Button

This amazing PayPal Donate Button Plugin can really come in handy if you want to put that ‘Donate’ button on your WordPress sidebar.

As you can see, this list is virtually endless too! Ahem! So I think I’ll just stop here.. ;)

In Conclusion…

There are many good reasons why you would want to display a certain amount of or type of content in your WordPress Sidebar, and just as well, there are a plethora of plugins available freely which you can use to put that content in your WordPress sidebar.

So what kind of content do you usually display in your website’s sidebar? What else would you like to display in the WordPress sidebar? Let’s talk about it in the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

Web content writers are constantly required to research on the Internet for information. We are constantly challenged by the requirement to write accurate and well written articles for our clients and on our blogs and websites.

Typically, all web content writers gravitate towards conducting their research on the Internet using Internet based Search Engines, like Google. So, lets dive into today’s article, and learn some simple tips that will help your process of research on the Internet to be better, and more accurate.

As I have mentioned above, most web content writers easily end up on their favorite Search Engines (mine is Google, of course) to do their research on the Internet. And when we do put in a search term in Google, we can end up with literally thousands and thousands of web pages and blogs which might carry the information we require.

So how do we end up sorting out the correct information from all that is out there? And best of all, where else on the vast network of the World Wide Web do we look? Let’s find out.

Research on the Internet: Places to Look

Apart from Search Engines, there are many other places where one can source information for our research on the Internet. Let’s go through a quick list of those places. For the sake of simplicity, I am also including Search Engines in that list.

• Search Engines like Google and Yahoo!
• Online Discussion Forums
• Mailing Lists
• Message Boards
• Wiki based sites like Wikipedia

Naturally, you might end up finding links to these sites from your Search Engine. But you can also look specifically for, say, Message Boards or Discussion Forums for your specific topic as well, and the Search Engine will point you in the right direction.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

Google Analytics is a great way to measure the success of your website. You can know how many people visited your site over a given period of time, and also how they arrived at your website in the first place. With tons of different metrics that will inform you about your website’s reach, Google Analytics is great addition to any website out there.

When you have a WordPress website, integrating it is ever so easy. Today, lets talk about why Google Analytics is very important, and how you can go about adding the Google Analyticator plugin to your website to give you all the important analytics information right in your WordPress Dashboard.

Google Analytics is a very handy tool that is brought to us by Google (an amazing Search Engine on the Internet), and it helps provide website owners and admins with a ton of analytics and metrics about their websites.

Google Analytics: What Information Do You Get?

A quick list of the different metrics provided by Google Analytics includes:

• Information about the visitors to your website, including new and returning visitors
• Information of their visit length, i.e. how long they stayed and browsed around on your website
• Information about the traffic sources, i.e. which sites and links led them to your website
• Google AdWords that led them to your website
• If you’ve set up Goals, then you can learn about their conversion ratio
• The browsers and operating systems are typically used by your site’s visitors
• The geographical location of your site’s visitors
• The pages and blog posts that your visitors saw / read
• If your visitors searched for something on your site, then what they searched for and where it led to
• If you’ve set up Events, then you can learn about their effectiveness
• If your site is an e-commerce site, then you can see the effectiveness of the transactions
• If you have set up any other custom variables, then you can track their effectiveness
• You can see the traffic metrics based on a date range, or on a particular day etc.

Google Analytics: Integrating it in Your Website

Normally, in order to integrate Google Analytics into a website, one is provided with a code snippet which one has to add to each and every page and blog post of one’s website. The presence of that code is what ensures that Google Analytics measures the number of people who visit your page or blog post, and who click on the links that you have put in there and so forth.

When you create a WordPress website however, it is not that easy to add this kind of a code directly into your pages and blog posts. Naturally, we WordPress-ers have Plugins to rescue us!

If you search out there, you will find a number of Google Analytics plugins that were created especially for WordPress. However, there is one amazing plugin that I use, and I most certainly recommend to all my clients. And that plugin is the Google Analyticator.

Google Analytics for WordPress – The Google Analyticator Plugin

The Google Analyticator plugin allows you to easily integrate your Google Analytics account with your WordPress website. The plugin takes care of adding the code to all your WordPress website’s pages and blog posts. Not only that, it also gives you a little peek into your stats by putting a little widget right into your WordPress website’s Dashboard!

Just to make things simple, here’s a video that will explain how to install and set up the Google Analyticator Plugin.

Here, you can see how to set up a Google Analytics account in the first place, and then install the plugin and set it up in your WordPress website.

In Conclusion…

Google Analytics is a great way of tracking your website’s reach and effectiveness, along with tons of other metrics. And integrating it with your WordPress website is just as easy with the Google Analyticator Plugin.

So, have you installed it already? What are your thoughts? Please share in the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

Writing and maintaining a blog can often start out as a very exciting opportunity. However, after a point of time, finding inspiration for your next blog post can become quite difficult, even for the most experienced among us. Today, I am going to share a few ways in which I find inspiration to write the different blog posts.

As the excitement of starting a new blog fades away, putting up regular blog posts and articles on your blog can turn into a very difficult task. Many of us find ourselves stymied by the prospect of coming up with topics and ideas to write that next blog post.

Here are a few places where I find my inspiration, and often come up with ideas and article topics to write my blog posts.

Finding Inspiration For Your Next Blog Post: RSS Feeds

I use Google Reader to subscribe to a variety of blogs pertaining to topics that interest me. Thereafter, I use the Reeder app on my Mac and the Mr. Reader app on my iPad to regularly read the different articles that get posted on those blogs.

Often, I read about things that interest me and inspire me, and before you know it, I have a bunch of titles that I come up with for my blog.

Finding Inspiration For Your Next Blog Post: Other Blogs

This is pretty much similar to the previous method, but with a slight twist. These are articles on the blogs that I haven’t subscribed to in my RSS Reader. Sometimes I come upon these articles casually while surfing the Internet, or while researching for my current article.

Also, I tend to notice the small and large things that the blog’s author may have touched upon in his article, and that suddenly sets a new thought process in motion, eventually inspiring me to write another article.

Finding Inspiration For Your Next Blog Post: Books I Read

I am a writer, yes. But I began my journey as a reader. And I read a variety of books on a number of topics – both fiction and non-fiction.

While I am not going to list my various interests over here, I can most definitely share with you the fact that the different topics that I end up reading about in these books has often served to spark my inspiration and boost my creativity.

Finding Inspiration For Your Next Blog Post: Experiences With Clients

Now, this is a really practical place where I unexpectedly find my creative juices flowing. As you may well know, I write for websites and blogs, and help my clients set up WordPress based websites. Sometimes, during my interaction with my client, I might be asked some seemingly innocuous questions about how to do a particular thing and so forth.

Naturally, this becomes fodder for my running list of article titles, and eventually appears on my blog as a post.

Finding Inspiration For Your Next Blog Post: Personal Experiences

And of course, to save the best for last, this is one of the best places for me to find inspiration the next blog post. I maintain my own website, and run my own freelance business. And during the course of all of this, I often encounter several different scenarios, which end up turning into blog posts on my site.

In Conclusion…

These are but a few of the places where I find inspiration for my blog posts. Of course, you might find inspiration in some other places as well! What are your sources of inspiration? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

There are several reasons why you would hire a web content writer. Perhaps you want content for your company website, or maybe you want articles to put up on your blog. Or maybe you want to revamp the company brochure on your website.

No matter what the reason, there are some things you should think about when you hire a web content writer. Today, I am going to talk about the 3 most important points that you must analyze as you hire a web content writer for your website or blog.

Having to hire a web content writer is an important decision for any company or organization. That being said,

there are certainly a few points that you should consider quite thoroughly before you select the writer that you want to work with.

If you had to concisely look at these points, you would consider:

• The understanding that the writer displays towards your work,
• The past work experience of the writer, and,
• The charges / cost of the services.

Now, lets discuss these 3 points one-by-one.

Hire A Web Content Writer – Understanding

This is the first, and most important point to think about when you hire a web content writer for your project.

Each writer brings a certain amount of understanding to the table right at the outset. Some are smart and ‘get’ things right away, even if they haven’t read about / known about a topic or a subject. While some writers need to spend time researching and learning something, especially if it is new. And of course, there are those rare scenarios where a writer might be an expert in a particular domain, which might not be the domain you’re looking for. You might consider the first two options for your project, and maybe give the third one a miss.

While the writer may have the ability to understand a new topic quickly, he must also be willing to discuss the topic at length. He must be willing to learn. For example, if you are planning to hire a web content writer to write the content of your company’s website, then the writer must be open to spending some time understanding your company and its products / services. This way, he will be in a better position to put all that information in your website content. If a writer doesn’t ask questions, then you know that he isn’t really listening.

Each writer also has a different degree of professionalism. It doesn’t really matter if he has his own office, or sits at home in his pajamas to write for your website. What matters is the kind of quality of work that he can provide.

Another thing to look out for is the time the writer takes to get back to you and answer your e-mail or phone queries. A decent turnaround time translates into quicker service, especially when you need to make some changes or additions to your content, and you have a deadline looming.

Hire A Web Content Writer – Past Work Experience

This is the second most important thing to consider while you hire a web content writer.

Does the writer have any past work experience? How about a portfolio of projects that he has worked on? Or maybe he has a bunch of testimonials from clients who he worked with?

Any and all of the abovementioned information will surely help you understand the kind of work he has done before, and the kind of satisfaction that he has delivered. Especially while hiring a web content writer, you might be able to see the samples of his work online, and you can catch a glimpse of his writing style(s) and approaches.

Of course, I must add that if you are considering a writer who doesn’t have any priors , you should ask for samples. Hey, everyone has to start somewhere, and all ‘Freshers’ aren’t always all that bad! When you ask for a sample page or two of the content you want, you can easily get an idea whether he can deliver what you are looking for.

Hire A Web Content Writer – Charges / Costs / Fees

There is a very good reason why I have included this point at the very last. Most people, when hiring web content writers, tend to make this the first point of consideration, which, let me tell you, is the biggest mistake ever.

My mom says, “You get what you pay for!” and in the web content writing arena, this statement is true in more ways than one.

Sure, we all work with budgets and the cost / charges is one of the main factors, but it should not be the deciding factor.

In fact, if you do end up spending a bit more, you might get results that far exceed your expectations.

Compare the different charges that web content writers work for – and don’t just look in the ‘bulk and cheap content writers’ category. That would be a huge mistake. Compare the charges for writers who fall, more or less, in a similar category in terms of quality of work. Once you do that, you will see the price range and the resultant quality range that is available out there.

Take your decision with these points in mind, and you will be pleased with the choice of web content writer you hire.

In Conclusion…

When you hire a web content writer for your website or blog project make sure that you hire a person who fits in with your needs. In short, the person you hire should be professional, must take the time out to understand your project, and should charge a reasonable amount of fees for doing your work.

If you follow these points, then you will be sure to reap a lot of rewards from your choice, and take your website or blog to greater heights of success.

What are the other points that you would consider while hiring a web content writer? Do write about it in the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

Do a Google search and you will find hundreds (if not thousands) of websites selling bulk and cheap content. They even claim to have several talented writers on board who can churn out tens of articles every single day, and each article is just about perfect for you!

If you are someone looking for a number of articles to put on your website, then you might even find yourself getting pulled into the whole deal. Who wouldn’t? After all, it isn’t every day that you find such a great deal, right?

But, here’s an important question that you might want to ask yourself: is this bulk and cheap content good for your website?

Finding a good deal is a very natural instinct for every human being. If something is priced at a certain price, we immediately start looking
for some place else where you can find that same commodity at a cheaper price.

However, this approach doesn’t necessarily work when you are looking for content for your website or blog. While looking for content writers for your websites, it can be very easy to fall into the trap of such ‘deals’ and spend your money, only to regret it later on.

So be warned: Bulk and cheap content, while at first, might sound like a great bargain, will cost you more than just money. It might just cost you your website’s ratings and integrity.

Bulk and Cheap Content – Is It Really A Good Deal?

Potential clients and customers often read Websites that regularly put out content on their blogs. Apart from that, such websites also draw in visitors who are seeking out more information about a certain product or service that you might provide.

In either case, what you are probably trying to do with the content you post is trying to build trust. You want to build a certain amount of credibility in the eyes of these readers. You want to make sure that these readers keep coming back to your website because they are sure to get valid and good information.

However, with bulk and cheap content, you cannot be assured of such kind of articles. When a writer churns out ten to fifteen articles every single day, you can be assured that:

• The writer has probably not spent more than ten to fifteen minutes writing that article.
• The article might not be researched thoroughly.
• The quality of the language used might not be superior.
• You might find grammatical errors.
• Or worse, the bits and pieces of content in the article have been simply copy-pasted from other websites.

With such glaring errors in the composition of your articles, you might discover, to your utter chagrin, that your site ends up building no credibility or trust amongst is viewers.

Bulk and Cheap Content – A Compromise Between Quality and Quantity

When you do hire people to deliver bulk and cheap content for your website, you are essentially making a huge compromise between quality and quantity. You are sacrificing the levels of quality that your site’s content delivers and substituting it with higher and higher levels of quantity of content on your website.

However, across the Internet, people have become wiser (and so have search engines too, btw), and they prefer quality to quantity.

Even if your site may not have thousands of articles, it doesn’t really matter. Just make sure that whatever articles you do have are rich with information, well written and are original. You will see dramatic results, and gain a lot of appreciation from your readers.

So, What Do You Do?

Understandably, each of us works within a given budget. Money isn’t something that simply grows on trees. And one still has to hire writers to write the content for your website.

Clearly bulk and cheap content is not the right way to go.

So how do you make the right choice?

It is quite simple really. Search for (use Google!) writers who work independently, and who offer high quality articles for decent rates. You might have to pay them a little bit more, and you might get a little bit less in terms of quantity. But whatever content you get, you can be assured that it will deliver the results you require! And you will more than recover your money’s worth from the amount of sales your site generates as a result.

Besides, these well-researched, high quality articles will also boost up your search engine ratings and satisfy the need for quality information of your website’s visitors. The results will speak for themselves. Whatever little extra you end up spending for such good content writers will pay itself off within no time!

In Conclusion…

Bulk and cheap content might sound like a good deal at first, but in the long run will only work to the detriment of your website’s credibility. If you need to hire writers to put informative and high quality articles for your website, then make sure you don’t compromise on quality for the sake of saving some money. You might live to regret it.

What are your thoughts on this topic? Please add your comments below, and lets talk about this very interesting topic.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

You may have a great blog concept, but regularly writing articles on your blog might often end up seeming like a very daunting task. Of course, you might also be aware that before you write your blog post, it is also essential to plan your blog post properly. There are many different ways and methods that you can use to plan your blog post content so that you write interesting and informative blog posts on your blog.

Today, I am going to discuss my most favorite methods that should help you plan your blog post content better.

Before you write and publish an article on your blog, it is very essential that you:

• Research the subject matter thoroughly,
• Mind Map the article flow for clarity,
• Make a note of the different SEO Keywords that you might end up using / want to use, and,
• Create effective and catchy Headings; both for the blog post’s title and for the sub-headings within the blog post itself.

With these four essential points in mind, lets get down to the gritty details of each aspect of planning your blog post content.

Plan Your Blog Post Content – Step 1: Research

This is, essentially, the very first step. Without research, you are not even in a place where you can begin.

And yes, this is still the first step even if you are a subject matter expert.

Researching the topic thoroughly ensures that you:

• Know the topic from the inside out,
• Know enough (or more than enough) to write about the topic in detail, and,
• Know about the topic so well that you won’t miss out on key details when you write your article.

With all the necessary information at your disposal, you can very easily be in a position of knowledge. Thus, when you plan your blog post content, your knowledge will form a very strong base / foundation for your blog post’s content.

Plan Your Blog Post Content – Step 2: Mind Map

A Mind Map helps you to easily define the flow of your blog post. It is a great way to organize the content of your blog post into blocks of sub-topics.

You can refer to my article about Mind Mapping before Writing for more information about how you can go about creating and using a mind map to effectively plan your blog post content.

A mind map will thus help you to:

• Divide your content into manageable / readable chunks, and,
• Define the flow of your blog post’s content.

Of course, this step will also prepare you for the next 2 steps as well.

Plan Your Blog Post Content – Step 3: SEO Keywords

SEO Keywords are a very important aspect of writing for the Internet. Without these keywords, you might as well be writing in a void. These SEO keywords help your blog post get listed in search engines. So when someone types these keywords into a search engine, the chances of your article popping up in the results are increased manifold.

Please refer to my articles about SEO Keywords and how to research for them, and use them in your blog post content.

Knowing which SEO Keywords you are going to use / include helps you plan your blog post content in a very useful manner. This way when you actually write your article, you can include these keywords in a very natural manner, thus ensuring that your article while being technically sound, also reads well.

Plan Your Blog Post Content – Step 4: Headings

This is also a very important aspect that you must consider as you plan your blog post’s content.

Here is an interesting blog post that I wrote about using Headings and Bullet Points for writing Blog Posts which you can refer to, and learn a little bit more about how to go about creating and using effective headings (and bullet points) within your blog post content.

Your blog post’s title and the headings and sub-headings within the article are actually anchors that keep your readers glued to your blog post content. Your headings must be relevant, effective, and very catchy so as to achieve such a status.

These brilliant and catchy headings ensure that:

• Your readers easily grasp the main points that you are trying to make in your blog post,
• Your readers actually read the stuff you’ve written between two headings, rather than just skimming over the article, and,
• Your blog post gets a bunch of social media love with FaceBook Likes, Shares and what-have-you.

Catchy headings must be carefully planned and included within your blog post’s content. Needless to say, the stuff that goes in between two headings should also be of the same superior quality, otherwise all would be lost!

In Conclusion…

There are essentially four easy steps that you can follow when you plan your blog post content. Each of these steps flows very neatly into the other, thus creating an amazing process that gets you to plan and eventually write an amazing blog post for your blog.

What do you think? Does this make sense to you? Have you got any other steps that might add to this process? Please do share your thoughts and opinions using the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

This article is a guest post by Christine Kane.

If you blog for long enough you’ve probably become very familiar with the spam comments that pop up. You know the ones, they usually have some ridiculous statement such as, “Dag naibbt good stuff you whippersnappers!” clearly marked by misspellings and a link to some obscure website. And sometimes the spam comments come in phases, on any given day I can log into my account and have 100 new spam comments waiting for me or zero – it all just depends on what I’ve written and where it’s pinged off to.

And no one wants to sit there and sift through comments marking the vast majority as spam just to reach the one genuine comment. So is there any way to reduce the number of spam comments you receive? Of course! It’s 2011 after all!

1.     Akismet

Probably the most popular spam-blocking tool, this software is highly effective at verifying if a comment is spam or is legitimate. It goes through a very detailed process of checking everything and leaves you a status report identifying how many comments have been marked as spam, etc. The one big drawback is that it can cost money depending on the type of blog you have – but for how effective it is it’s probably worth the financial investment. [Learn More at www.akismet.com]

2.     WP-Hashcash

This plug-in filters spam from genuine comments by having your visitors use obfuscated JavaScript to verify they are not a spam bot.  When used in conjunction with Akismet, the two can pretty successfully block the majority of spam comments that find their way to your website. [Learn More at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-hashcash/]

3.     Comment Limit

Because spam comments are pretty non-discriminatory when it comes to picking posts to comment on, they can end up on posts that haven’t seen the light of day in months. One way to eliminate this is by turning on Comment Limit, which allows you to close comments on posts after a certain number of days (specified by you).

4.     Comment Verification

You’ve probably stumbled across blogs that tell you that “your comment is awaiting moderation” after you try to leave one. This means that your commenters will receive an email to verify that they are the commenter or that you have to go in and manually approve it. Both are time consuming ways to verify comments, but they are effective.

5.     Captcha

You’ve probably seen this feature on hundreds of websites – once you leave a comment you have to type in a word or series of letters to prove that you’re not a spam bot before your comment will be approved. This is my least favorite way to combat comments because it can annoy regular commenters and deter them from commenting but it does work effectively. [Learn More at WordPress.Org]

It’s unlikely that you’ll ever remove 100% of spam comments from your blog, but you can drastically reduce them by using one or more of the above-mentioned methods. Every now and then though when I need a good laugh I’ll go into my spam section to see what they’ve come up with this time – you can’t help but giggle when someone posts something like “Thank God! Someone with brains speaks!”

Author Bio

This Guest post is by Christine Kane, a graduate of Communication and Journalism. She enjoys writing about a wide-variety of subjects including internet providers in my area for different blogs. She can be reached via email at: Christi.Kane00 @ gmail.com

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

There are many different situations where you might want to hire a web content writer. For example, you have a website and / or a blog, or you want to make a website and / or a blog, or you want to promote your new product or service on the Internet. In all of these scenarios, you want to publish your content on the Internet.

But hey, didn’t your marketing department already make that brochure for you? So why do you need to write new content for the web? And why do you need to hire a web content writer for that job?

Today, lets talk about why it is important to actually hire a web content writer in the first place.

All of the content you publish on the Internet (on your blog, on your website, on your social networking sites) is being put there to convince and to convert potential clients into becoming paying customers. That is the job it is meant to do. But, as I mentioned before, you might already have some content ready with you. It’s the stuff that goes into your marketing brochures. So why can’t you use the same stuff on your website as well?

Different Audience – Different Needs

This is one of the main reasons to hire a web content writer for your websites and blogs. Each audience type is different. People who are reading your printed brochure have a different approach towards the content that they are reading. Typically, a sales person talking about the product or service you are offering would have accompanied this brochure. This is a face-to-face experience, and the interaction is on a person-to-person level.

However, on the Internet, you don’t have a live person to do all that talking. It is the content on your website or blog which is doing that talking for you. And, there are different rules for the same game while on the Internet.

A lot of research has been conducted and a lot of studies have been done to understand how the readers on the Internet prefer to interact with the content that they read / experience. A web content writer knows these rules, and knows how to position your content effectively so that your readers get converted into potential clients.

Hire A Web Content Writer – Hire A Specialist

When you have a problem with your tooth, you don’t go to a doctor that specializes in acne treatments, do you?

In the same way, when you are dealing with web content, you need to go to a specialist in web content writing – and that is a web content writer.

As I mentioned before, a web content writer understands how the readers on the Internet prefer to experience their content on the web. A web content writer also knows many other things that enhance the experience.

• When you hire a web content writer, you hire a writer who is an expert in writing SEO content. This means that the content written by such a writer is optimized for search engines, and therefore can be found when potential clients search for related keywords on search engines like Google or Yahoo!
• Readers on the Internet prefer to read their content in a certain way. For example, they prefer headlines that stand out, and use of bullet point lists. Hire a web content writer and you get a writer that can and will write your content using such methods, thus ensuring that your content actually does get read by your site’s readers.

Hire A Web Content Writer – Admin & Infrastructure Benefits

There are other pluses when you hire a web content writer as well. From an admin and infrastructure point of view, it makes a lot of sense to hire a web content writer for your website and blog.

• When you hire a web content writer, you can work within a certain budget.
• Generally, web content writers work on a per assignment basis. So there are no additional employees added onto your payroll.
• Web content writers are often freelancers. This means that they work out of their homes and on their computers using their resources to complete your job. The savings on infrastructure are truly interesting when you consider these points.

In Conclusion…

If you really look into it, you have a number of reasons why it makes sense to hire a web content writer for writing the content of your website or blog. By doing so, you are hiring a specialist to ensure that your presence on the web is as powerful as you want it to be, and can generate good business for your company.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.

Writing a blog post can be as easy or as difficult as you want it to be. However, with a little bit of planning before you write your blog post, you can make the process very straightforward and efficient.

Normally, I have a fair idea of what an article or blog post is going to be all about before I sit down to write it. This is because I use a 5-Step process that helps me identify the blog post’s content and approach before I write the blog post.

Today, I am going to show you the process that I use to plan my blog post content.

Normally, I have a running list of article titles that I maintain as and when they occur to me. Then, when I have to sit and write an article, I look back at that list and choose a topic that I like, and go with it.

So, while I am thinking about the content of the blog post that I am going to write, I make sure I think about the following 5 things beforehand.

Let’s go through these 5 steps, one-by-one.

Purpose: Why are you creating this content?

The first thing to consider is the purpose of the article. Before you write that article, you must understand why you are actually creating this content. You must know why you are writing this article. The purpose of the article will outline the entire approach of the article, and will help you identify the content that you might want to include in the article.

For example, if the purpose of your article is to inform and educate your blog’s readers, then you will write the article a certain way. But if your purpose is to show your blog’s readers how to do something in particular, then your article will be written in a totally different manner.

Audience: Who is the content for?

This is the next thing to consider before writing your blog post. Your content, your approach – all of it will vary depending on the audience that you are writing the blog post for.

Ideally, you can then use a language style that your audience will understand. If it is an industry-specific article, then you can even use the jargon that will be understood by that audience.

Knowing the level of understanding of your audience also helps you to determine the kind of article that you want to write.

For example, if you are writing for someone who is a beginner, you will word your article in a certain way. But if you are writing for someone who is an intermediate level or advanced user, then your article will be written differently.

Media: Where will this content be published?

Once the blog post is written, it will be published somewhere, right? Where will it be published? It is very important to know that, because that will help you define the other parameters of the article like its length and its content.

For example, if you are going to publish the blog post on your website, then you can probably have a longer article (say 500+ words). You might even be able to include a You Tube video. If you want, you can add a downloadable PDF.

But, if you are planning to publish the blog post’s link on Twitter, then you are pretty much restricted to using 140 characters. In that case, you need to make sure you have that content ready with you when you publish the article.

Or if your blog’s content is mainly a video, then you might want to publish the video on your You Tube page as well, and include a transcript / PDF download link for the transcript.

Content: What are you going to say?

This is the actual meat of the blog post – the content. You need to know what it is that you are going to say in the blog post. If you’ve done the previous steps correctly, then by now you should have a fair idea of the content of your blog post.

The important thing here is to be able to organize this into byte-sized chunks that are easy to grasp for your audience, and effectively use bullet points and headings to convey this content.

If you have a good idea of what you want to write in your blog post, then the process of organizing the content comes with practice. When I started out, I used to write and re-write my articles many times. Now, I don’t need to do that much of work – the organizing comes more easily.

Analytics: How do you measure the success of the content?

This is the step that comes after the blog post gets published. But it makes sense to think about this before you write your blog post. Because this too helps you identify and add to the value of the previous steps, and thus will help you tone and word the article accordingly.

Measuring the success of an article is often a very intricate process. You can use tools like Google Analytics to see how many visitors read that article, and then out of those visitors, how many were new visitors and how many were returning visitors. If you use FeedBurner, then you can also see the reach of your article’s RSS feed and learn how many people read the article. If you use an e-mail Newsletter service like MailChimp, then you can see even more data like how many people opened their e-mails to read your article, how many clicked through and visited your site to read the rest of your article, how many people shared your article on other social networking sites etc. If you use this brilliant social sharing plugin on your WordPress website, then you can see right away on your blog how many people shared the article’s link on different social media websites.

Again, it is up to you to decide which metric has more value. Does it mean more for you if your article generates a certain amount of hits, or tweets? Do you want people to ‘like’ your article on FaceBook or does it mean more to you if people forwarded your newsletter e-mails to their friends?

Which statistic matters the most?

Knowing this will help you write the right kind of ‘call to action statements’ in your blog post so that it is geared towards the kind of audience and generates the kind of a response that you want.

In Conclusion…

Understanding these basic 5 steps will help you write a better blog post for your website. If you think about these few things before writing your blog post, then you can be assured that you will write a better, more effective blog post that will appeal to your chosen audience and will give you the results that you desire.

What do you think? Are there any other steps that you think I should include? Do let me know in the comments section below.

Madhavi Ghare is a Web Content Writer, Blogger, Tarot Card Reader and a Tarot Reading Teacher. She also writes short stories and poems, and is currently trying her hand at writing full length novels.

When she is not writing, she unwinds by drinking a lot of green tea, reading all kinds of books, listening to rock music and watching sci-fi movies.