Join Me For “Life Choices: The Event” March 23-25!

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Cheryl

Something pretty cool is happening March 23-25 in Las Vegas, and I want all of my readers and followers to know about it!  My friend and mentor Judi Moreo is creating an opportunity so incredible I can hardly sit still long enough to write about it.  Judi is bringing together a fascinating group of authors and speakers to participate in an amazing three-day weekend event that has the power to change lives.  And guess what?  I was selected to be one of the speakers! Who knew, right?

I have posted all the details below, but what’s really important now is this. . . time is running out to register.  The early-bird price point of $350 will be changing to $450 on February 1st with a walk-up price of $750 at the door.  You can take advantage of the $350 rate you can put in a deposit of $100 now, guaranteeing your seat and freeing you up to pay the remaining $250 by the end of March.  Just go to www.lifechoicesevent.com/register.  Be sure to use the promo code 1LCCS to guarantee the discounted price.  Make sure to read over the info below to get a feel for the power of this upcoming seminar.  I can’t stress enough how valuable and life changing this experience is going to be for everyone who attends.

I’ll be speaking on Saturday morning about my participating authorship in the latest installment of Judi’s powerful Life Choices series.  Please join us March 23-25 at The Tropicana Hotel in Vegas, and please help us spread the word about… The Event!

 
We all have challenges in our lives. Sometimes we don’t see them coming. Sometimes we invite them in. Some are bigger than others. Sometimes they come one right behind the other. Sometimes they show up all at once. Sometimes we have to make choices of how we deal with these challenges.
 
The choices we make are what determine the course of our lives. The authors of the Life Choices book series stories are real people who have reached into the depths of their souls to share their inspiring journeys when navigating the difficult paths of their lives. Now they will be appearing in person at Life Choices: The Event which will be held March 23 -25, 2012 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.These extraordinary people have persevered against the odds and made choices which enabled them to achieve successful lives. Through their experiences, we can find many important lessons to help us avoid wrong turns and blind alleys. Their stories show us that we can overcome our challenges and live more satisfying, passion filled lives.

 
If you feel “stuck” in a situation that appears to be beyond your control, these exciting and informative speakers will show you how others have coped with crisis and uncertainty, made tough choices and positive changes in order to find deeper meaning and satisfaction in their relationships and learn to live with purpose every day.
 
Rarely do we find an event that addresses so many different challenges. Join Judi Moreo, author of the award winning book, “You Are More Than Enough” and 25 other powerful authors/speakers as they share with you in a powerful and inspiring way. These authors and their stories prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that success belongs to everyone, no matter where you come from or what has happened to you. They are living proof that miracles can and do happen.
 
You can be one of these people. You can navigate through difficult times and find your pathway to the life you choose to lead. Put the strength of others to work for you. Courage is not the absence of fear or pain. Courage is taking the steps to move through it.
 
For more information or to find out more about how you can attend this event, call Turning Point International, 702-896-2228 or go to www.lifechoicesevent.com .
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

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The Mouse in the Cinder Block House

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Cheryl
Bulwark Exterminating

Bulwark Exterminating Ultilizes No-Cost/Low-Cost Marketing Solutions

For years I have personally used a monthly exterminating service called Bulwark Exterminating. Even though I have relocated homes several times, one thing has remained constant — Bulwark. Their service is reliable, thorough and the level of customer service is exceptional. I am blogging about Bulwark for several reasons. As a business marketing consultant I notice good and bad marketing by businesses. Recently, Bulwark sent me a regular monthly mailing that caught my attention. They are promoting a contest for bloggers. Wow! Really? An exterminating service is interested in us bloggers and is holding a contest?  Who would have ever thought? In fact, they were seeking bloggers to write about their best pest control experience and include a link back to Bulwark’s website. Bloggers can give Bulwark a “shout out” and a post tag with Bulwark Exterminating in the write-up and be entered into a contest to win a free year of pest control services.

This entire promotion is intriguing to me for several reasons. First, I have several great customer service stories to share about this company so the contest has my attention and who wouldn’t like to win a full year of anything, right?  Secondly, I love the offline no-cost/low-cost marketing strategies being used here [something I write about all the time] especially the use of what I call  “hidden real estate“. They turned their regular customer direct mail into an irresistible call-to-action and business driver. Thirdly, they created their own way to drive traffic to their website and. . . here comes the clincher. . . they are enhancing their search engine optimization by getting bloggers to create links back to their website. Kudos to Bulwark for their marketing ingenuity and creativity! As a marketer and a customer, how could I not respond to this call-to-action? They had me at, “hello!”

What follows is my Bulwark story.  It’s a funny one about a pest control guy so read it all the way through. I’ve even given it a title.

The Mouse in the Cinder Block House

It was a dark and stormy night. . . well not really. In fact, it was a bright sunny Las Vegas morning when I looked out my kitchen window into the backyard and noticed a little grey field mouse poking it’s head out between a large crack in the wall around my backyard. For those of you not familiar with homes in Las Vegas, Nevada where I live, nearly all homes have cinder block walls around the backyards instead of traditional fences. My home was located near a large open desert-like park, so the fact that I saw a mouse was not surprising. We’ve had all sorts of desert critters visit our yard at least once. That same year, I had Bulwark exterminate ants, roaches, scorpions and foot-long black hairy rats from my yard — now you can understand why I have a monthly exterminating service!

As the week passed, I noticed my dogs were obsessed every time they went in the yard. They kept trying to “climb” the wall and were scratching and barking relentlessly — something the neighbors didn’t appreciate. They were obviously trying to catch the mouse in his cinder block house. I thought to myself, what if my dogs were successful in catching the mouse?  Would they get sick?  Catch rabies or something else? Not a chance.  I got on the phone and scheduled an appointment with Bulwark. I wanted the mouse gone as soon as possible. After all, where there is one mouse, there are likely many more.

On the day of the appointment I had something last minute come up with my work and I couldn’t be at home when the service technician was scheduled to come.  I didn’t want to cancel the appointment so I called Bulwark and spoke to the receptionist.  The kind lady on the other end of the phone explained that I didn’t need to be home for the appointment.  But how would the technician know where to find the mouse? She suggested that I tape a note to the wall outside where I saw the mouse.  That would help direct the technician to the exact entrance of the mouse’s house.  That seemed reasonable to me.  So I got a piece of paper and a black marker and I wrote, “Mouse Residence Here” and I drew an arrow pointing down.  I taped the paper sign with some tape to the cinder block wall just above the large crack where the mouse was seen.  I then left for my appointment.

Later that afternoon upon returning home, I noticed my sign was now taped to the outside of the back door in my kitchen. Obviously the Bulwark technician had been there.  I walked outside and noticed traps and sticky paper were lining the ground underneath the mouse hole.  Hopefully, this will take care of the problem, I thought.

I walked back to my house and pulled the sign off the back door.  The technician modified the sign and left it where I would find it.  He had an obvious sense of humor about his job. On my sign, he drew a circle with a diagonal line through it over the words “Mouse Residence Here” that I had written.  He then wrote the word “Evicted” at the bottom of the paper.  I remember thinking to myself that this guy is an exterminator by day, but he must be a comedian by night.  This was hilariously funny! Who thinks of doing something like that?  Turns out, the pest control guy was right.  I never saw another mouse in the cinder block house, nor did I ever have another problem with mice anyplace in my yard.

As a marketing consultant, I immediately had a few thoughts on the situation. Customer service delivery and recovery is very often overlooked by entrepreneurs and business executives as a no-cost/low-cost marketing strategy.  Many times, we take service delivery for granted and assume that everyone within our organization is great at providing customer service for us just because we hired them.  However, the delivery of service by our employees is only as good as the quality of the standards and training we provide our employees. It’s also about how well we empower our staff to take matters into their own hands and deliver service the best way they can.

The Bulwark Exterminating technician that visited my house could have simply done his job and left me the service receipt. However, he took the extra time to turn what most people consider a squeamish situation into a funny moment and a memorable story. I have since referred at least 15 friends and neighbors to Bulwark Exterminating because of this story. . . and now I’m blogging about it several years later. That one technician, who was probably just having a little fun that day, has no idea how much he really did for his company. He created a customer for life and turned that customer into a free walking, talking billboard for the company. Word-of-mouth marketing and 3rd part testimonials are among the best free marketing any business could hope to have. Companies who provide quality products and services and combine them with exceptional service create experiences for their customers that are not soon forgotten.  In this case, Bulwark deserves a “shout out” — contest or not.

Cheers!!!

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When ‘At Your Service Fails’ Customer Service & Recovery

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Cheryl
Bridal Industry Trade Publication

Cheryl Smith Featured in March/April 2011 VOWS Magazine

A few months ago I posted on this blog a mention about the fact that I was interviewed by VOWS Magazine on the importance of customer service and recovery as a marketing strategy.  Well not only was that article published in the March/April 2011 issue of the publication, but I recently received a copy of it.  I have linked the article “When At Your Service Fails” on customer service and recovery here.  You can also click on the VOWS logo image at right. Special thanks to the writer Karon Warren and to the editor and publisher of VOWS Magazine for the opportunity to be interviewed.

Probably the best no cost / low cost marketing tip that I could give any entrepreneur would be to always, under all circumstances, focus time and attention on the quality of the service your business provides.  Adequate service is expected by customers. Good service is recognized by customers. Exceptional service is talked about by customers.  If you want to create buzz about your business and generate the best word-of-mouth advertising at no cost to you — then get in the habit of providing exceptional service and recovery. You will gain customers for life and you will launch an army of 3rd party endorsements that money won’t ever have to buy.

Click the link and read the full customer service and recovery article in VOWS Magazine. For more information on utilizing public relations as a marketing strategy click “Saying Yes to the Press” and read my post.

Cheers!!

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Drive SEO With Proper Keyword Use

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Cheryl

Lately I’ve received a lot of questions and comments from my loyal blog readers asking about the best way to use keywords to organically improve their website’s or blog’s search engine optimization (SEO). Based on my personal experience and after doing a little research (phone calling) among some of my marketing colleagues, I’ve developed the following tips to help you improve your sites visibility on the Internet without spending any money.  Again, this is another no cost/low cost marketing solution brought to you by your friendly “Marketing Miser Advisor”.

While most entrepreneurs have heard of the term “keyword” many of them have no idea how to use them effectively as part of their Internet marketing strategy.  Basically, keywords help your website get noticed and ranked in search engines such as Google.  Search engines have a scanning mechanism called “spiders” that “crawl” through websites looking for hidden codes.  Specifically, spiders look for keywords that describe what your website is about and then take that information back to the search engine database.  The search engine then tries to match web site keywords with the most common words and phrases used by people to search the Internet. Search Engine’s like Google, Yahoo and Bing try to match the two in an effort to give the end user the search results they are most likley looking for when they conduct a search.

When you think about what keywords should be attached to your website or blog, it’s important to think in terms of how someone might randomly search for your product or service on the web.  Your goal should be to think of as many of those terms as possible for your site and then use them properly in order to get noticed by the search engine spiders.

[Que music from the movie Mission Impossible humm along in your head. . .] Your mission should you choose to accept it is. . . to make a really thorough list of all the keywords and keyword phrases that people might use to search for the information you have on your website. Then, follow these steps:

1. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Repeat the keyword on the page multiple times.  Spiders are simple little creatures.  They assume that if a keyword appears many times on a page that that word must be what the page is about.  Use the keyword naturally in your writing, repeating any keyword or keyword phrase two to four times in your text.

2. Placement. Where you put the keyword on the page is critical to getting noticed.  There are certain locations on a website page that are more recognizable to our web crawling friends. Where are they you ask?  In the obvious places, of course.  Put keywords in headlines, sub-headlines and article titles.   You should also put them in link text whenever you want to link to another page or another website.  Spiders assume the words in link text indicates the subject matter of the site on the other end.  So the lesson here is to avoid using link text such as “Click Here” or “To Learn More” or “For More Info”. Lastly, you should also consider putting them at the beginning and the end of page copy.  This helps the spiders not only recognize keywords at the beginning of their “crawl”  but it also helps them remember the site as they leave.  

3. Title Tags. Title tags is the text that you see in the search bar of your web browser.  It is also the text that appears in the search engine results for each page of your website or blog.  Both of these are generated from your page title tag. You should customizing the title tags on every page of your website and include your keywords or keyword phrases.  This will help get your site ranked higher in the search engines. In fact, some of your pages might be ranked higher than others simply because of the content you have on your site.

4. Meta Tags. As if not confusing enough, yes, there is another type of “tag” that you should know about.  Meta tags have only one purpose — to be read by spiders.  Sadly, many entrepreneurs build their site and focus more time and attention on developing cool graphics, writing copy and adding photos that they forget about including meta tags altogether. Your meta tags should include your keywords and keyword phrases just like your title tags.  You can also customize them for each page of your website.

5. Image Tags.Nearly 99% of the time that I see photos uploaded to a website, there are no image tags on them at all. Like pages on a website, any images you put on your site also need a tag.  Otherwise, spiders have no way to recognize the image and no way to rank it on the web.  Remember, search engines also have photo/image search ability as well, but since they cannot read images they need a text description in order to recognize it. Without image tags, images in jpg, bmp or gif formats are just black holes on your website. Make them visible to spiders by adding keywords and keyword phrases to the image titles.

Utilizing keywords properly to drive SEO is not a sure-fire way to launch your website to the top of every search engine.  However, it will definitely help get your site more visibility.  Unless you have a huge advertising budget to buy website visibility on the Internet (and some of you might), I suggest you try these no budget tactics and see if it doesn’t help get you ranked a little higher. Be patient.  It does take a while for spiders to crawl through the web and recognize the keywords that you’ve used properly to drive your SEO.

Cheers!!

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Launch of my new book!

Posted on June 9, 2011 by Cheryl

O.K., so I havn’t posted anything new in a while and I believe I owe you an explanation.  I have been busy working on my book.  While doing so, I was asked to write a chapter in a new anthology.  That anthology is set to debut this weekend. 

The anthology will launch Saturday, June 11, 2011 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas and is called “Life Choices: Pursuing Your Passion.”  I will have more information for you in my next post about purchasing a copy, if you’re interested.

So, what did I write about?  Well, I wrote about pursuing my passion for writing and how I left “Corporate America” to start my own business and eventually to write and speak profesisionally.  Anyone who has ever thought of throwing caution to the wind and following their dreams will be inspired by the real-life stories of the 26 authors featured in the book. Till next time!  Cheers!

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Follow me on Twitter!

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Cheryl
Twitter follow me

Follow me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/csmithspeaker

As much as I write about the importance of social media, believe it or not, I just decided to join Twitter!  Yes, I’m officially learning how to tweet and retweet.  I must admit that I have not been a huge fan of Twitter in the past because I found it a little silly.  Afterall, why on earth would anyone want to follow me anyplace? Why would anyone care where I was or what I was doing?  This was my thought process, until I learned how to leverage Twitter as a no cost/low cost marketing strategy. 

Twitter is a tool in which you share short text message length updates.  They are called “tweets”.  You share these tweets with others people who are following your account.  You can also read the tweets of other people you are following.  Initially, I thought Twitter was a type of calendar system where you let people in on your daily schedule.  Once I set-up an account; however, I quickly discovered that as a business owner you can use Twitter to build your brand by writing tweets that you then share with your customers, vendors and others who are following you in your industry.  Twitter is also a huge crowd sourcing tool.  It allows you to tap into the collective knowledge of all Twitter users to find unique information and to check the pulse of various issues, topics and trends.  Additionally, business owners can also buy paid advertising space on Twitter.  If you have the budget and you’re really into this tool, you can now buy Promoted Tweets.  These are tweets that you pay to have posted alongside related search results when someone searches Twitter by keyword or phrase.

Twitter is a very flexible software tool that allows useage by anyone.  I was also able to set it up so I can use it from my phone as well as from my desktop computer. So far, I have tweeted once and will continue to try it out.  I invite you to find me on Twitter.  My  handle is @csmithspeaker or www.twitter.com/csmithspeaker  Once I get more comfortable with Twitter, I’ll let you know how it’s workng out for me.  In the meantime, I would love to hear form all you Twitter pros out there.  Anyone have great success using Twitter to promote their business?  Let me know what you’re doing and how you do it.  As always, thanks in advance for sharing.  Cheers!
!

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Ads You Pay, PR You Pray

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Cheryl

So what’s the difference between Advertising and Public Relations anyway? Most people have heard of them but few really understand the difference between them.  There are several differences between  advertising and public relations but the biggest difference is this:  advertising is paid and public relations is free or nearly free.  When you run an ad on television, radio or in a magazine, newspaper or online you are paying for the space to promote your business. You control the message entirely.

Public relations, on the other hand, is “earned.”   Earning publicity means that you pitch a story idea and if the idea is considered newsworthy to a reporter or editor, they may contact you for more information and possibly an interview. The way newsworthy ideas are communicated to the press is through what’s called a “pitch”.  A pitch can be in the form of a press release, media advisory, public service announcement, or over the telephone.  The bottom line is this, you should never pay for earned media.  Instead, learn the rules to approaching the news media with respect and in a language they understand. The successful PR professional or business owner who masters exceptional PR skills will achieve so much free publicity so quickly he or she likely won’t know what to do with it all.  You can learn more about how to interact with the news media for free by following this blog or my checking out my events page.  I regularly conduct workshops and seminars on this topic and literally take you step-by-step through the process of how to work with the media to achieve free publicity.  Cheers!

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Developing a Media List

Posted on February 2, 2011 by Cheryl
How to Leverage Free Publicity

Cheryl Smith speaks on How to Leverage Free Publicity in the News Media

This past week I conducted a public relations workshop in Las Vegas. The event was aimed at helping small business owners understand today’s news media industry and how they can effectively leverage good public relations as part of a no cost/low cost marketing strategy.  It’s only been a couple of days since the workshop and I’ve received multiple emails from attendees wanting suggestions for building and maintaining a media list. So here goes. . .

Building good relationships with people in the news media is essential to advancing your business message.  Positive media relations can help build your brand and your business by educating the public, creating or fostering discussion in your community and contributing to positive debate around issues that pertain to you and your business.  It can also contribute to greater awareness and visibility for your business and best of all — it’s completely free!

There are several ways to find reporters. One is through list services companies such as www.vocus.com; http://www.burrellesluce.com or http://gebbieinc.com. These companies offer media lists (addresses, email addresses and phone numbers) either for a one-time fee or on a subscription basis. Buying a media list can be very pricey, especially if you are only going to use it a couple of times. If you plan to use it regularly, this may be a good option for you. You can also hire a public relations agency to work on your behalf, but again this can be costly. Most agencies work on a retainer basis and some offer fee-for-services. 

Less costly options include community networking where you basically ask fellow business owners who their contacts are and what their success rate has been pitching stories. One of the best ways to find reporters; however, is through the Internet. Research the media outlet you’re interested in and often you will find the names of reporters and their contact info listed on the newspaper’s or station’s website. Social media is also becoming a hot source for reporters. Many reporters are connected on-line and are hungry for new news leads, ideas, and ready-made stories complete with sources and inside information. One word to the wise; however, if you do connect with a reporter or two through social media, please follow them normally.  Don’t bombard them daily with story ideas or “stalk” them on-line to the point where they don’t care to hear from you anymore.  The key is moderation and building a lasting relationship that will benefit you and your business and the journalist.  Cheers!

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Five Offline Ways to Drive Web Traffic

Posted on January 20, 2011 by Cheryl

Driving traffic to your web site happens two ways — through on-line electronic strategies and offline marketing.  In this post, I want to list some of the more obvious, yet often forgotten, ways to market your business website with offline tactics.  First, take a look around you.  What does all of your marketing collateral say about you and your business?  Does it include all the necessary details?  Does it point your customers to your website?

  1. Business Cards.  Your business card is your face-to-face calling card.  It should not only include your name, but also the name of your company and logo, address, phone number, fax, email address and your website address.  The type should also be large enough on the card to make the information easy to read.
  2. Voice Mail. Include your website address in your voice mail message both on your business phone and personal cell phone. If somebody is calling you, they obviously want something from you.  Give them the opportunity to find out more about your business — even when they can’t talk to you personally — by leaving your website address at the end of your voicemail message.
  3. Signage.  Some businesses have great success with promotional magnetic signs on car doors.  If you have one of these, be sure to include your website address on it.  If you have a storefront, include your website address on your door signage right next to your business hours of operation. If you have a banner that you use for special events, include your website address on it.
  4. Print Advertisements.  If you advertise, include your web address.  If you sell items that must be bagged, put your web address on the bag or carton.  If you ship items to your customers, include something in the package with your web address on it such as a coupon or other slip of paper.
  5. Give-a-ways.  Almost every business buys promotional ad specialties such as pens, mugs, key rings, etc.  Nowadays many businesses are beginning to imprint their name, logo and web address ahead of phone numbers and US mailing addresses.

By driving traffic to your website, you’re inviting your customers and potential customers to learn more about your business.  If you sell products or services through your website you will also be increasing your chances of increased sales.  Don’t worry about trying to implement all of these tactics at once; website traffic is driven over time.  You will begin to see increases in traffic if you are diligent about implementing tactics at a steady pace.

What offline marketing ideas to you have for driving traffic to your website? Please share.  I welcome comments.  Cheers!

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Setting-Up Your WordPress Blog and Design

Posted on January 19, 2011 by Cheryl

This is the third installment in a series of posts about how I chose to host my blog and blogging platform. Today, I address setting-up the design of a WordPress blog. All hosted blogs offer templates and have common design elements. So the following information should be helpful regardless of the platform you choose. Once WordPress was launched on my domain, I was free to set-up my user name and password. Then the fun began — exploring the platform’s dashboard.  The dashboard is the behind-the-scenes control panel of your WordPress blog.  Four of the most important areas of your blog that you will want to explore right away are templates, your blog profile, plug-ins, and deciding to add comments or not.

  1. Templates.All hosted blogs offer some type of design templates.  A template is a pre-set design layout with basic functionality.  In WordPress you will notice the basic functions of the blog in the left hand column.  Most templates offer multiple color options and the ability to change out header images.  You can often upload a customized header image with your photo in it.  Some templates are easier to use than others and some offer more flexibility in terms of what the template will allow you to customize.  As I explored the templates in WordPress, and there are dozens and dozens of them that are free for the choosing, I discovered that most of them will let you change type fonts, background colors, header images and will let you upload photos. I also learned that it is very easy to upload, activate and deactivate different template choices.  So, before you get too comfortable with any one, try several to find one that you like working with best.  All you have to do is click on the template of your choice.  Once it loads to your dashboard, click the button to activate it.  Then you are free to begin customizing it and “playing” with it. If you decide you don’t like it after all, you can deactivate it and begin searching for a new design template.
  2. Blog Profile.The second most important steps is setting up your blog profile.  This is the introductory information about your blog that is displayed at the the top of your blog’s home page.  It is the first thing a new followers will see when they visit your blog.  This information should be brief and tell the visitor in a nutshell what the blog is about. Some templates allow you to create a full paragraph of introductory information, others just a line or two.  I still suggest you keep it brief, make it informative and do not make it a sales pitch.  Basically your profile information should explain what the blog is about and what the visitor can expect from you as a blogger.  In my case “Small Business Marketing Miser Advisor — No Cost/Low Cost Marketing Blog.”  My profile information is straightforward, simple and easy to understand.
  3. Plug-Ins.WordPress offers a huge library of plug-ins.  Plug-ins are downloadable items that can add functionality to your blog.  For example, within the template I chose, I was able to add a “Refer a Friend” button to my blog — this was a basic plug-in that was free to download and add to my site.  There are literally hundreds of these things available.  You can search the plug-in library for the functionality you want and then review the results. Another one that I added was a button at the end of each post and page allowing my readers to print out that post or page as a PDF file. It was a request from a follower and I think it adds value to the site.  If you don’t like how a plug-in works on your template after you download and activate it, you can choose to remove it by simply deactivating it.  I have toyed with plug-ins quite a bit on this blog just to see what they do and what they can contribute to my blog.  I have several of them activated and I will be adding more as the blog develops so check back often because things are changing quickly!
  4. Comments.  WordPress give you the ability to put controls on readers comments.  The key here is to first decide how strict you want your comment policy to be and that will likely depend upon the subject matter of your blog and the amount of traffic visiting it. You can choose to allow anyone to post a comment or require them to be logged in first to do so.  You can also set the controls so you have the ability to approve the comment before it is posted to your blog.  This option also gives you the time to respond if you like.  Keep in mind, however, that if you have high traffic to your site, you may not have the time to review all of the comments prior to posting. As I’ve researched this subject, I’ve also learned that how you choose to handle comments has a significant impact on reader behavior and their perception of you and your brand as a blogger. For example, if you allow your readers to comment without logging in, it potentially opens your site to spam (although WordPress does have a built-in spam blocker — nice! Not sure about other platforms.)  By adding a logging-in feature, it means you could discourage some readers from commenting at all because they won’t want to sign-up or give you their email address.  I’ve also discovered there may be middle ground, where you require readers to log-in to leave a comment but you don’t have to approve the comment before it gets published.  The point is, you must c how much time you want to spend sitting at your dashboard approving comments.  It will likely depend upon the volume of traffic visiting your blog.

Have a comment about setting up the basics of your WordPress blog?  Please share. Cheers!

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