I’d like to announce that I, the Dot Com Dud, am taking part in Blogging Idol #2 and I’ll be doing my best to win the whole thing! I appreciate everyone who helps me get to the top by subscribing to DotComDud.com and good luck to anyone else who is competing in the contest!

So what is Blogging Idol? In a nutshell, it is a contest amongst different blogs to see who can increase their RSS subscribers the most. It is being run by DailyBlogTips.com and this is the second time it has been ran. I didn’t enter last time but I do know that a lot of the blogs that took part got great results from it, so that’s enough incentive for me to want to take part. The basic rules are that any blog with less than 2,000 RSS subscribers can enter and the goal is to gain RSS subscribers (without paying for them or cheating) and to use the “most clever and effective” methods for gaining those subscribers. You can see how all the blogs are doing by checking out the Blogging Idol Live Scoreboard.

There is over $4,500 worth of prizes that will be split between 1st, 2nd and 3rd place. Even without the prizes, I think this sort of thing is a great idea as it creates motivation for bloggers to improve their marketing efforts, which is the same reason I started the Reader Challenge.

Unfortunately entries are closed for Blogging Idol #2, I only found out about it at the last minute and was lucky to get accepted myself. Regardless, there is no reason why other bloggers can’t make November their month to increase RSS subscribers as well!

What does this mean for DotComDud.com? It means that I am going to be promoting my RSS feed like crazy. I’ll be using the “most clever and effective” strategies I can think up to increase my subscriber numbers but I believe the key will be to offer great value to anyone who subscribes to my blog.

As you can probably see, I’ve already updated my sidebar to make the subscription options more prominent, by using a bigger RSS logo that stands out more and allowing readers to enter their email address and subscribe from any page on the blog!

So keep reading during November to see what methods I use for Blogging Idol. I’ll be giving regular updates on my progress throughout the month. You’ll be able to see what works and what doesn’t to help you get the word out for your own blogs! Plus you’ll get to see if I can be the next Kelly Clarkson of the blogging world!

In my latest Traffic Analysis, I mentioned that my highest viewed post in September was My first blog contest, a post I promoted heavily while the contest was running. I’m very pleased with the statistics and, as I promised, I’d like to share the methods I used as well as show off some of the results.

Promotion Techniques

I’m going to list the places I promoted my contest, as well as some short details about how to make the most out of them, so that you can try them out for yourself.

On DotComDud.com - I added a highlighted reminder at the top of the blog (right underneath the header). So that every time a visitor viewed any page on DotComDud.com they would see the reminder, which linked directly to the contest. I also posted a reminder near the end of the contest, to keep the buzz going. This made sure that anytime during the contest that anyone was on DotComDud.com, that knew about the 1K Entrecard Giveaway!

Entrecard - I changed my Entrecard image from the usual DotComDud logo (that can be currently seen on my Entrecard profile) to the Entrecard shown below. I created it specifically to bring attention to my contest and get visits from users who normally wouldn’t visit DotComDud.com (or who have visited it before from the usual Entrecard) but might be more interested when there are prizes to be won.

At Other Contests - I entered other contests that were running on similar blogs and then left a comment letting them know about my contest. Not only did the blog owner often enter the contest in reciprication but some of their readers checked out my contest as well.

Contest Blogs - My contest was listed on Webby Contest, a blog all about contests, so if you are running a contest of your own make sure you let Webby Contest know about it! There are a lot of these contest blogs popping up lately, so check them out as they are a perfect target if you are looking for people to enter your contest.

Forums - I made a few forum posts promoting my contest. The best results came from Bloggeries & the Entrecard forums, where there is a forum dedicated to promoting your contests.

StumbleUpon - I also got the post Stumbled which brought me some pretty good traffic too.

The Contest Itself - As part of the contest rules, if anyone made a post about the contest on their own blog then they got extra chances to win. A couple of people took advantage of this and it got me some back-links and a bit of extra traffic.

The Results

As you can see in the September Traffic Analysis, the contest got 10 times the amount of traffic as the next most popular post. It also became the most commented post on DotComDud.com and brought in a few quality back-links too!

My main goal though was to get more RSS subscribers, which up until that point hadn’t been doing very well. On August 31st, the day before the contest was announced, I only had 5 subscribers (the blog had been running for 10 days). When the winners were announced on September 17th, the number of RSS subscribers had increased to 24! That is an increase of 19 subscribers in just over 2 weeks. It might not be a huge number but for a new blog, these are pleasing results. DotComDud.com had almost 5 times as many subscribers afterwards than it did when the contest started!

So, with the success of the first contest on DotComDud.com, I think it is time I had another one. So stay tuned as I’ll be working on getting some better prizes this time around and will hopefully be announcing the 2nd ever DotComDud.com contest sometime next week!

It’s no secret that I love getting comments on this blog. I’ve done all sorts of things to encourage and reward readers who share their thoughts and opinions on DotComDud.com because their feedback helps me create a better blog and therefore a better experience for all my readers. It’s also no secret that commenting on other people’s blogs is a great way to create back-links and traffic for your own site which is why the first Reader Challenge focuses on commenting.

However, for all the comments that make it to the pages of DotComDud.com there are plenty of others that get deleted or added straight to the SPAM pile and I’d like to spend this post looking at some reasons why I don’t approve those comments. Hopefully this will help you write more effective comments on all blogs that will get approved instead of getting removed!

So what kind of comments make me reach straight the DELETE button?

• Obvious SPAM: If a comment is filled with gibberish or just packed with links and nothing else, it’s getting marked as SPAM quicker than you can blink. Luckily any decent plug-in like Askimet will take care of these for you.
• Comments I don’t understand: You should always stick to the same language as the blog if you want your comments approved. This is an English language blog and I only approve comments that I can read and you’ll find most bloggers are the same.
• Sex & Crime: Adult sites, warez and anything else that is illegal or not suitable for an audience of all ages will not get a link back from this site. Even if it is the best comment in the world, I will delete it. It’s not that I’m trying to be the Moral Police but when my readers come to a blog about Making Money Online, they don’t expect to click through to a porn site (especially if they are reading this at work or school). The bottom line is that if you are going to link to sites like these, don’t waste your time on blogs that don’t already have similar content.
• Mystery Comments: More specifically, comments that have nothing to do with the post they are made on. These can be the most frustrating as they are often perfectly well written posts but they are nothing more than an advertisement and don’t address the content on your site at all. I call them mystery comments because they seem like they were intended for another post on another blog but through the wonders of the Internet, wound up here!
• and lastly the Hit & Runs: We’ve all seen these type of comments, quick one liners such as “Gr8 post!” and “I agree :D” or the classic strategy of copying the post title and adding their endorsement, no doubt this post itself will receive a couple of “Why I Don’t Approve Your Comments is a great product!“.

Maybe I am too harsh when it comes to approving comments but I am sure I am not alone and if you avoid the mistakes mentioned above and take the time to read the posts and make worthwhile comments, you’ll soon see that making better comments will get you better results!

With the first Reader Challenge concentrating on blog commenting, I thought I’d take a closer look at the benefits of blog commenting and some strategies that can help you get the most out of your comments.

First of all, you’ll need a blog to comment on but what kind of blog should you be looking for? Regardless of what your goals are, blogs with a niche related to your own will give you the best results. This is because the audience of related blogs are already targeted to your blogs topic. As far as SEO is concerned, links from sites with similar content are more valuable than from unrelated, off-topic sites. Relevance is important!

So how do you actually find relevant blogs quickly and easily? I’ve already spoken about some different ways to find blogs related to your topic in the Reader Challenge post, these include Entrecard (including dropping through), DoFollow Blog Directory etc. A couple of others worth looking at are Blog Catalog & Technorati.

Think before you hit Submit

One you’ve found a good blog to comment on, it’s best to look at your reason for commenting, as the type of comment you leave will depend on this. The two most common reasons for blog commenting are improving PageRank and getting traffic from people who will read your comment.

PageRank:

If you’re goal is SEO then first of all the blogs must be DoFollow to make the back-links worthwhile. The kind of posts you should comment on are generally older posts, which have better PR than the latest posts on a blog (which will often be PR0 or N/A).

As far as the quality of your comments go, unless it’s a popular post on the blog your commenting on, the quality of the comment doesn’t matter too much as your comments only need to be good enough to get approved. Now that doesn’t mean the comment should be 5 words long and that’s all. Personally I am a bit more strict when it comes to approving comments on older posts than current ones, so try to make a comment of a decent length and this will usually be enough to keep the blogger happy.

Direct Traffic:

However, if referral traffic is your top priority from blog comments, DoFollow doesn’t matter. Try to post on high-traffic blogs on popular posts (or posts that you think will be popular). As far a the quality of your posts in concerned, you can probably leave a lower quality comment on a new post and have a greater chance of getting it approved as bloggers love to see activity on their current posts.

However, the problem with this is that rubbish comments aren’t going to grab the attention of readers, who are your target audience when commenting for direct traffic. You need to make your comment worth reading, provide a link from your own blog that is worthwhile to the conversation (that will give other readers some value if they click on it). To get decent traffic straight from blog comments, you are going to have to add quality, insightful posts and the more replies your comment encourages the better your results will be.

Also, getting in as early as possible can be a big bonus. The closer you comment is to the actual post, the more times your comment (and link) will be seen.

So keep these things in mind when you are making comments this week and don’t forget, any comment is usually better than no comment at all.

I’ve made a few new additions to DotComDud.com and they all revolve around better communication. One of the most important things in running a blog is being able to communicate with your readers and anything that helps you do that is a good thing. So what’s new you ask?

Contact Page - As you can see, there is a new ‘Contact’ link in the main menu. So readers can now send me an email whenever they like. So if you have a question you’d like to ask me, some feedback on the blog, a topic you’d like me to post about or anything else at all, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’m using the cforms II plugin to power the contact form.

Twitter - I’ve heard a lot of buzz about Twitter and how powerful it can be as a social marketing tool. It’s early days yet so I don’t know how good it is, I’ll be sure to give it a review after I’ve used it a bit more. If you’re on Twitter, feel free to add me - http://twitter.com/DotComDud and I will add you right back!

New Threaded Comments Plugin - DotComDud.com has been getting a fair amount of comments for a new blog and the numbers are constantly increasing with some great, informative posts being left by various readers. I’ve added the Wordpress Thread Comment plugin, so that I can reply directly to reader’s comments. Also, readers are able to reply to each other, hopefully helping to create more discussion in the comments.

Another new plugin that I’ve added is the Subscribe To Comments plugin that allows readers to get an email notification when new replies are added to a post they’ve commented on, all you need to do is check the box that reads “Notify me of followup comments via e-mail” when adding a comment.

Prizes!

In an earlier post I said I would give out 150EC per week to the best comment left on this blog. I apologise for letting these go unrewarded but I now have two lots of 150EC to give away.

For the week ending 2nd September, the Entrecard credits go to Yan from thou shall blog for suggesting I add the Subscribe To Comments plugin, it was a great suggestion and is a feature I’ve found myself using when I comment on other blogs as well (so be sure to check it out if you don’t have it already)

The prize for the following week go to the Click A Life Coach Blog for his comment and suggestions on Setting Goals. This week was tough to pick as the comments have just been getting better and better, so thank you to everyone who has commented and remember, I will be giving this prize away every week so don’t be afraid to speak your mind on DotComDud.com

This brand spankin’ new blog has already received a few comments, which is great. Thanks to everyone who has participated so far. Hopefully my riveting posts will continue to stir discussion amongst the readers of this blog. However, there is nothing wrong with trying to encourage more comments by giving something back to the readers that support this blog. Knowing that a lot of the readers of this blog are going to be fellow Internet earners who have their own sites to promote, I’ve added a few WordPress plug-ins that will give commentators some link juice. So what features have we added and where can you get them for yourself? Read on…

This juice is full of linky goodness

DoFollow
This removes the nofollow tag from all comments, meaning you get the link juice you deserve.

Get Recent Comments
This simply lists the most recent comments along with a link to the commenter’s URL.

Top Commentators Widget
Shown as a sidebar widget, this lists the most dedicated commentators on your blog and is even more beneficial for links because they are shown site wide, so if you make it onto this list, there’s plenty of links coming your way.

CommentLuv
This plug-in will list your latest blog entry at the bottom of your comments. How exactly? It basically searches your URL and grabs the latest post, so keep those post titles interesting and you might get some extra traffic along with the deep linking action you get from CommentLuv.

Win >> I’m also going to be rewarding 150 EntreCard credits to the best comment each week, I’ll hand out the first of these prizes in a week’s time, Tuesday 2nd September.