If you are a blogger, then getting quality content to your readers should be your first priority. However, interacting with your readers should come in at a close second. After all, there’s no better way to keep readers coming back and recommending your blog to friends than to create a personable experience for them when they express an interest in what you have to say. Unfortunately, spammers are on to you, and will take advantage of your open call for reader feedback. It’s important that you take measures to nip spamming issues in the bud so that you don’t waste your precious blog management time dispelling spammers. Here are some tips for how to control blog content spam:

Plug-ins. It is possible to install a plug in into your blog that will prevent comments from posting until you have had the change to view them and either approve or reject them. You may even adjust the plug in settings to automatically delete comments that you have not approved over a certain period of time, which can be a real time and effort saver. One example of such a plug in is Akismet, which is compatible with WordPress blogs.

Blacklisting. In most blogging platforms, it is possible to blacklist certain words from your admin dashboard. That means you can set parameters that automatically reject user content that contains words you deem unacceptable and likely to be spam. Just beware that blacklisting a word like, “ass” will also result in a blacklisting of all words that proceed from that truncation, such as assimilate, assumption, and assume . . . which could resulting in you spamming some insightful and useful reader feedback.

Pay attention. A common practice these days is for spammers to hire real people to post comments and guest posts on blogs an discreetly insert linkbacks to spam sites. Pay close attention to your reader contributions. If they are poorly and/or superficially written and they list URLs that seem suspicious, then chances are they are spam, and you don’t want them on your site. Be especially cautious of comments on extremely old blog posts, as these are more likely to be spam-related.

It is important to catch spamming on your blog because spamming makes your blog look cheap. It also steals from your blog’s credibility and, what’s more, it tells search engines that your blog is not high-quality content. Therefore, spamming can be more than a nuisance; it can be a danger to your blog’s well-being. Take these measures to protect your blog from spam.

Blog domain names say a lot about the blog they represent. Before anyone has read a single one of your posts, they’ll generally be able to surmise a great deal about what your blog is about and the types of opinions they’ll be reading about. However, proper naming of your blog is vital if you intend to correctly inform your future readers what they’ll be getting when they open one of your posts. The following are a few things to remember before you name your blog, so you don’t end up regretting the name you choose later on.

The Domain Name Should Be Pronounceable

As great as tongue twister names and difficult foreign or long words might be, they won’t impress anyone. They’ll also make it harder to think about and less likely to gain traction, simply because describing such a blog and saying its name will be too much of an effort. People don’t read blogs for a major intellectual challenge, but rather to help them solve a major issue they have. An extra benefit of an easy name is that it’s typically easier to type. More

Congratulations on your decision to start a blog Now what? Well, for starters, you have to create the website where you will post all of your rants and ramblings. New to the whole website development thing? Don’t worry – you are not alone. Many bloggers find the myriad options when it comes to blogging platforms to be anything but helpful – they can actually be downright confusing. What’s best for you and your blog? Here are some pointers for how to choose the right blogging platform:

Free hosting. There are many free blogging platforms out there (which we will get to later) that provide everything from hosting to blog templates. This format makes it very easy to develop a blog that can easily compete with many of the blogs out there. However, in order to use one of these free blogging platforms, you must use a blog URL with the host name in it. For example, if you opt to use WordPress, one of the most popular blogging platforms available, your blog site will be a subdirectory of WordPress, as such: www.wordpress.com/myblog.

Self-hosting. If you really want your blog to appear as a unique entity, then you will need to pay for hosting. Fortunately, hosting is relatively inexpensive, and an online search will return a wide array of hosting companies that offer their customers a variety of services. When you pay for hosting, you can choose your own URL. If you are lucky, your name will be available But you will still be responsible for finding a blogging platform .

Free blogging platforms. As previously mentioned, WordPress is probably the most widely used blogging platform there is, and you can use WordPress (and other such platforms) whether you use the free hosting or choose to pay for hosting. WordPress is extremely user friendly, and offers literally hundreds of customizable themes that you can install and use for your blog. What’s more, there are also literally hundreds of WordPress-compatible plug-ins that allow you to customize the blog experience to your desires, including SEO building, analytics, and user-oriented applications. Examples of other free blogging platforms include Tumblr, Blogger, and TypePad. Each has its own unique features, and its own set of pros and cons. Explore the website of each platform to decide which experience is best for you.

Developing and maintaining a blog can be a very fulfilling experience. However, it can also be a lot of work. Take the guesswork out of your blog design by choosing a blogging platform that is best suited for you. Explore your options with these tips in mind, and you will be well on your way to creating a blog that is uniquely yours.

Solomon Bonaguidi is a web developer who loves helping new bloggers get started with their platform of choice. When he’s also a finance writer who specializes in credit repair, loans, Great Plains Lending, and insurance.