There are simple ways on how you can get readers to comment on your blog posts. Yes, writing high quality content and promoting it are necessary. But sometimes, it may not be enough. Adding some elements to your posts can do the trick.

Below are some of the techniques to get more blog comments.

1. Invite readers to comment. If you haven’t tried asking your readers to leave comments, it is now time to start doing so. Although readers can comment anytime, they seem to ignore or just simply forget the idea. Non-bloggers may not realize the importance of blog comments. Thus, invite them to comment and their response may just be the trigger you are looking for.

2. Leave a question for your readers to answer. A good blog post talks “with” the readers, not “at” them. So, ask questions and encourage sharing of opinions. You can start by using a question as a title. Then, by the end of your post, ask a question interesting enough to make your readers decide to answer.

3. Leave the ending open. If your post already has it all, your readers may no longer feel the need to share their opinions and ideas. Yes, you need to provide informational and valuable content at all times, but you can always ask your readers to add more ideas, tips and recommendations if they have some. This way, you can make them feel appreciated and they are given the chance to be somewhat an expert on the niche too.

4. Interact, reply to comments. Once someone comments, keep the thread alive by replying to it. This way, ideas and opinions will keep on coming and everyone else will be encouraged to leave their own comments too.

5. Make it easy for readers to comment. Do not complicate the method of commenting. There are some blogs that require logging in before one can comment. Some readers may find registration either a waste of time or a dangerous way of giving their personal information away. Although registration for comments is necessary to avoid spam, your reader might just end up leaving your blog without leaving the comment you want. It would be best to leave the battle against spam to captcha.

But Google Chrome has since caught up with it in this landscape. In fact, there are now a whole range of browser extensions that can make your online experience the best it can be. In this article, we’ll give you a list of the top 10 add-ons you should have if you’re into internet marketing:

PageRank

The PageRank (PR) is the “authority level” that Google assigns to a website. Although many argue that this metric is no longer that important, knowing the PR of the websites you’re visiting remains a quick way to judge its relevancy. There are a number of browser add-ons that automatically shows this information.

Bitly (URL shortener)

With social networking sites like Twitter at the forefront of the web marketing landscape, it has become important for web marketers to use URL shorteners. It significantly lowers the characters of your URL, allowing you to post it anywhere with no hassles.

SEO Analysis Extensions

Check out the SEO for Chrome extension. It inspired a whole range of copycats yet remains one of the best SEO tools there is. This add-on lets you see the backlinks on competing website, traffic stats, and indexed pages among others.

Awesome Screenshot

Are you still using the Print Screen function on your keyboard? If you are, then you’re way behind. There are many easy-to-use add-ons that let you take the screenshot of the web page. Of course, people will install it only if it provides other “awesome” features. For example, this tool lets you do simple editing and write annotations quickly.

SEOQuake

This is one of the best and most popular add-ons for Firefox. Now, there is a version for Chrome as well. This extension basically pulls all the data you want to know about competing websites. A comprehensive competitive analysis can be done in a few seconds.

DISQUS

With its powerful and user-friendly features, DISCQUS can step up your blog’s existing comment system. It allows readers to post comments using their Twitter or Facebook accounts and add video commentary. Another good thing about DISQUS is that it recognizes your account whenever you visit a site that uses its service. It lets you leave a comment without the need to sign in.

Sexy Bookmarks Plug-in

Although lots of plug-ins enable your readers to share your posts with any social networking site, nothing’s more appealing than Sexy Bookmarks. It enables you to display the social sites of your choice and change the “Sharing is Sexy” text. Moreover, each Sexy Bookmarks icon animates whenever you hover your mouse over it. If you can tweak its backend, you can also track your URL shares by adding a Bit.ly Application Programming Interface (API).

TweetMeme’s Retweet Button

It is said that comments are the blogger’s treasure. But more often than not, superb content only generates a comment or two. Fortunately, TweetMeme’s Retweet Button was created. It provides an easy way for readers to share your post on Twitter, while driving traffic to your content in return. Other than that, it also determines the number of times that your post has been re-tweeted. As a result, your readers will be compelled to read your content! Another good thing about TweetMeme’s Retweet Button is that you can add it anywhere on any page, whether it’s a blog or not.

Twitter Follow Badge

The Twitter Follow Badge is a crafty little button that makes is easy for you to grow your Twitter followers. The badge also stays on the page even when your readers are scrolling down through your post. The good thing about this social media add-on is that you can customize it with your blog’s color scheme and decide on what page you want it to stay.

To wrap it up, integrating add-ons to your blog will encourage social media activity. The easier it is for your readers to share your content, the more people will likely reach you.

Users are solely responsible for the security of their blogs. Fortunately, it is not difficult to boost your web security. A number of plugins have specifically been designed to deal with hackers, fraudsters, and scammers with bad intensions. Here is our list of recommended security plugins:

Stealth Login – considered as one of the best plugins against hackers, this tool allows you to create customized URL to log-in onto your site. It deters hackers who are attempting to wreak havoc by figuring out the password to your site. It replaces the standard wp-login.php on WordPress with a custom URL of your choosing.

Better WP Security – as its name implies, this plugin provides better security for your blog. It can catch and fix security problems on WordPress. This tool also allows you to ban bots and selected IP addresses from accessing the blog. Remember to back-up your files first before applying a patch using the Better WP Security plugin.

WP-DB-Backup – this plugin creates backups to your database and other tables on your blog automatically. Set the plugin to make the backup on an hourly, daily, or once weekly basis. The files can be saved on the server or downloaded into your computer. With this plugin, there’s no excuse for failing to get your site up and running again in case something goes wrong.

Firewall 2 – create blacklists and whitelist to block common forms of web attacks with this tool. This firewall keeps your site safe and secure. Make sure to update your site regularly to protect against new threats. Firewall 2 is also designed to send you an email whenever an attack is detected.

Antivirus – can WordPress really benefit from an antivirus plugin? It certainly can with this plugin. This plugin monitors for spam, worms, and infections. It tests suspected programs and clean up the problems immediately.

These are just some of the security plugins you can install on your WordPress blog. Check out more selections on the WordPress plugin page in case you need specific protection for your website.

image: http://www.mad4mobilephones.com

Click it. I dare you.

It has to work for your design taste, your branding, your industry, and (perhaps most importantly) your preferred color scheme. Luckily, there are themes for every color of the rainbow and then some. Here are some of our favorites from all the popular core colors.

Red: Wedding Rose

The Wedding Rose theme manages an appropriate balance between being stunningly luscious in its red shade and not distracting visitors from the core content in the blog. With its red rose header, the unmodified version of this theme is clearly meant for romantically oriented sites.

Orange: Feed Me, Seymour

Feed Me, Seymour is a theme that uses orange appropriately — which is to say, neither too much or too little. The vibrant shade doesn’t go too far along the dazzling end of the spectrum, but still garners the appropriate amount of attention.

Yellow: WP-Gold

WP-Gold is a clear theme that creates a beautiful and clear layout from the precious metal shades. If you’re looking for a “rich” design, this is a great theme to download.

Green: Green Stimulus

If you’re looking for a theme that captures all the verdant connotations of the color green, then Green Stimulus is an ideal pick. It’s professional, attractive, well-organized, and free of charge to boot.

Blue: Irresistible

Irresistible describes itself well in its own title. The design has well-constructed “scrapbook” elements and a graceful combination of several different shades of blue.

Purple: Thistle

Purple is difficult to work with due to its subtlety, but Thistle manages to create an elegant theme that isn’t overbearing. The lilac tones and the flower elements make this an excellent choice for anyone who wants a blog with a more sophisticated feel.

Black & White: Business Turnkey

The world of “black and white” works well for those who want to drive focus to their content. Especially considering how important this is for company blogs, Business Turnkey provides an excellent service by filling the slot of a free, business-oriented theme.

Brown: Vintage

Vintage showcases a look that’s both interesting and direct, perfect for anyone who’s up for an old-school artsy site design. It also reminds us that brown, on its varied shades, can create a fantastic design without bringing in other primary colors.

Pink: Pink Orchid

Pink themes have a reputation for being excessively… well — pink. Pink Orchid creates an exception to this rule, providing enough pink to exploit the beautiful effects of the color without being nauseatingly… well — pink.

There are certainly plenty of other options for each of these colors as well, but this list will at least give you a start. If nothing else, they can serve as a reminder that good themes do exist — regardless of stylistic preferences, number of columns, or primary color.

Author Bio
Lorna Li is an online marketer who writes about green seo. Visit her green business blog for great green marketing tips.

In addition to this main benefit, open source programs are also less expensive to run and support. This is due in large part to the participation of groups of developers that work tirelessly to develop and support these software programs.

Let’s take a deeper, more in-depth look at some other reasons to use and support these programs.

Reliability

Cost aside, the reliability of these programs is paramount. Reliability to many of us means that we won’t experience any failures or incorrect operational functions of the software. Because of the support of the development community, any sort of functional irregularity or “bugs” can be addressed and fixed — often within just hours of becoming aware of the issue.

Support from commercially developed packages can take far longer — weeks, months, even years. In some cases, commercial vendors may not even accept that there is an actual flaw and may choose to ignore it.

Stability

Most companies and users may consider software a “necessary evil.” Rarely do users actually ask for changes to the software. However, commercial vendors who need to keep that revenue stream coming in will change their packages, even if the users don’t see the need for or want the change- we’ve seen this with cloud computing. Not everyone necessarily supported it at first but now it’s slowly becoming mainstream … “to the cloud!”

These vendors will often change file formats that requires an upgrade. Additionally, they may pull support for older versions, again requiring users to upgrade to a newer version.

With open source software, there may be changes, but they will be incremental and are often made just to provide more stability for the program. Using open source software will reduce the need to make huge upgrade changes that can upset the end user.

Additionally, because businesses have access to the software’s source code, they can choose to provide support and changes only when they deem it necessary. While maintenance upgrades will always be needed, they can be less of an issue when using open source programs.

Adaptability

When using commercial software, users must trust the vendors that the software is secure and free from malicious codes. They must also trust that the program meets standards and will be flexible enough for any future needs. Because users do not have access to source code to verify the vendor’s claims, they must simply trust that the vendor is telling the truth.

Because open source code is freely available, users can examine the code and verify for themselves that their programs are secure and free from bad coding and malicious programs.

CONCLUSION

While using open source may not make you taller, more attractive or healthier, it will allow you to reap the benefits that may not be offered by commercial software. The continued support of open source programs by users will ensure that we can all benefit.

Lorna Li is an online marketer who writes about green seo. Visit her green business blog for great green marketing tips.

Contrary to what others think, blogs need branding, too. We all know that, as a blog becomes public on the World Wide Web, the owner bears the initial concern of attracting his or her initial readers. To gain a reader base more easily, a blog should have the proper branding.

Branding is the process of putting an identity on a certain product, business and service; branding also allows a blog owner to give his or her blog its own identity, for it to have uniqueness and character. Normally, blog branding is done before anything else, even before choosing a domain name. It is executed before a blog’s launching, before its first reader is able to see it. Branding aims for recognition, identity, and individuality so that a blog can have its distinctive place on the World Wide Web, especially with its target niche. It is the first step in attracting influencers to your blog.

The blog’s name. Once you register a blog’s domain name, you can’t change it. Though blog owners should think of branding before anything else, the only thing you can do in such a case is to give your blog an appropriate name. You don’t have to be an expert at advertising to think of a good blog name. You just have to relate the name to your blog’s niche, or at least to your blog’s domain name. The blog’s name will have an important role in your blog’s future, since it will be used for many optimization campaigns. So giving your blog a name should not be taken for granted.

The blog’s design. The blog’s design mainly involves your blog’s visual attributes. Use styling details (colors, fonts and photos) that somehow relate to your business and niche. For example, you can opt to use color themes in brown and green if your blog talks about ecology and nature. Combine common sense with creativity and you will definitely nail this aspect.

The blog’s layout. Now that you have chosen the right look for your blog, you’ll have to make sure that all elements on your blog are properly arranged. Although this process is usually outsourced to professionals, you can do it on your own. The World Wide Web is a great resource for websites that offer free ideas on how to design your blog and how to use image-editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop and Corel Draw.

Blog extras. Logos and avatars involved in commenting formats will play a great role in the blogging process. Though these are always considered as minor details, ignoring them can put you on the wrong path. Some perfectly-designed blogs fail to attract and sustain readership because of incorrect commenting formats. Extend branding to these so-called minor details and you’ll have the power to utilize these to reach a wider sector of your target audience.

The blog’s language or tone. Make sure that your ideas and thoughts are written in a proper, non-offensive language. Uniformity is also important. Minimize language differences among your blog posts. Avoid using a condescending or overly sarcastic tone; this may cause readers to think that you’re arrogant. Choose your words wisely; doing so ensures that readers understand and respect your opinions and thoughts.

For the sake of this guide, we’re going to assume that you’re using either Windows or Macintosh; or, rather, we’ll assume that any Linux users out there are already tech-savvy enough that our advice would sound a bit silly to them.

Option One: Just Pay for It

The option for those who don’t want to go through the arduous process of jailbreaking their iPhone or going through any of the other complex processes is to simply pay for an app that lets you transfer files. This includes options like DiskAid, an app that allows you to transfer any file type directly to your iPhone’s hard drive. These utilities will let you manipulate basically anything you could want to with your iPhone. However, there isn’t any application that does this that doesn’t cost a pretty penny — at least, not yet.

Option Two: FTP Your Files

If you’re just looking to get files from your computer to your phone, one great option is to set up an FTP server and use a standard FTP client like FileZilla (the free solution available for Windows, Mac, and Linux). You can easily load your files to web space, then download them by simply visiting the appropriate web address from your phone. The downside? You have to have web space to send files to and you won’t be able to interact with the root files and folders of the iPhone, which restricts you from important operations like installing apps directly.

Option Three: Jailbreak

Jailbreaking the iPhone isn’t the easiest process in the world, but it’s a fairly popular one. By jailbreaking your phone, you open up resources that were previously restricted, get access to applications that Apple doesn’t normally allow, and are able to manipulate the files and folders to your heart’s content. To jailbreak your phone, simply follow one of the many guides already available on the web to walk you through that exact process.

Once your iPhone is out of prison, you will need to use a computer utility specific to your desktop OS. For Mac users, AFP gives great iPhone access using the Netatalk utility. This will allow you to easily connect to your mobile phone at any time from your Finder. Windows users, on the other hand, have a program known as iPhoneBrowser which is designed for this exact purpose.

Regardless of your level of expertise with technology, file transfer, or jailbreaking, you can find an option that lets you manipulate your iPhone. Once you have full access to the storage, application, and other resources of your phone, you’ll find a limitless world of possibilities sprawling out before you.

You can’t trust just a general analytics tool, such as Statcounter. The most successful sites are able to convert only a small fraction of their visitors- so you should utilize conversion tracking to log your micro and full conversions. You should use something extensive like Google Analytics.

These three little words will make your brainstorming sessions a little easier (and no, it’s not ‘i love you’):

Analyze, clarify, and strategize.

Who are you targeting, and who is your competition?  Identify your niche and go with it when strategizing the makeup of your site.

What is the first thing you look for when you visit a site?

A website has to be user friendly. First, you should clearly state what your business does- I know this seems like common sense, but you would be surprised at how many blogs actually leave out an “about us” page.

Most people won’t give a business or it’s blog a second glance if they’re unsure of what exactly it is trying to do or sell- and it works the other way too. Many consumers will realize what you do, and then dive deeper to find out if you’re right for them; thus spending more time on your site and increasing the chances of a full conversion.

Try having a potential customer critique your blog and tell you what works and what doesn’t. There’s two ways to do this.

1. Meet with 5 potential customers and simply ask them for a site analysis.

Ask them what they would like to see differently, what is lacking, where they would tend to drop off once they’re uninterested on your site. Use this data to understand what steps in the conversion process you need to really put more effort into. Find out what loses the users interests.

2. Use polls, surveys, and other tools.

There’s many ways to do email surveys, phone surveys and user polls. You can go the route of using pop-up surveys that take over your screen, but many times (okay, most of the time) users will end up x’ing this out because they don’t appreciate being bullied into taking a survey and having it pop up right in front of their eyes.

Use something like KISSinsights- an online survey software that allows a small box in the bottom right corner of your business blog to pop up and ask a question. Users can then let you know what kind of trouble they’re having on the site, what they would like to see, etc. It’s unobtrusive and completely voluntary. Most users frequenting your site will be excited to have the opportunity to give input this way.

3. Getting a second opinion from another small business blog owner is another good idea.

If it’s your site it will always look good to you, but you may have missed something important that another copywriter will catch. If you’re speaking with a non-competitor, often times they may let you know chances that they’ve done to their own site to increase conversions. Of course, this will vary from industry to industry within the business world, but a little insight into another business owner’s blog setup won’t kill you.

4. Test all the links on your site to ensure they load correctly.

This ALSO might seem like common sense, but really. You don’t want to get messages from customers or potential customers letting you know that you have broken links on your site. They don’t want to play a guessing game with finding where the section lives with no working URL.

Who wants to visit a site that doesn’t work?
5. If you’re selling a product make sure the checkout process is simple and easy to navigate.

Try using Google Checkout, and have a live chat feature installed for any customer who may have questions. Nothing will drive a potential customer away faster than a difficult checkout process.

6. Always back up what you say with facts, figures, and examples.

Your readers aren’t going to take your word for anything. If you can’t back up your own information, why should a reader believe it?

7. Providing contact information for your company is also essential.

Readers want to visit sites run by people they trust, and if you’re willing to provide your contact information you will be seen as more trustworthy.

Make it easily accessible from several locations on your blog and site so readers and potential customers don’t have to go on a treasure hunt to call you.

6. Take into account the appearance of your blog.

If you’re hosted on WordPress.org, there’s no excuse for having a hideous theme. You can browse online to find clean business themes:

Business Turnkey

Demo – Download

Several3

Demo – Download

Yellow 3

Demo-Download

On a final note, consider adding a testimonials section. Site visitors will be more likely to return if they read positive feedback from other readers similar to themselves.

Adding all of these elements will certainly help you along the path to increasing conversion rates for your small business blog.