First of all, let me try to explain you what I mean by the term “generic comments” :

These are non-genuine, non-spam comments. Unlike spam comments, these do not  contain too many links. At most 1 link and at times no link at all. They try to get past Akismet by pretending to be genuine. They are mostly targeted at Dofollow blogs (includes GotChance).

I hope that was clear. At most times, these comments are also held by Akismet. Sometimes, they do evade it, when the comment is a very short and doesn’t contain any links.

Now, let me show you some examples from my own Spam Queue :

1) A very generic comment that can be used on any blog and on any post : 

2) Again, a generic comment. I received the exact comment on two different posts (click to enlarge) :

3) A comment made possibly by an automated program (see below). Note that they include text from the title of the post (click to enlarge) :

Regarding the 3rd example above, nowadays there are many softwares out there that automatically post comments to a selected list of blogs. I didn’t know about these until recently when I started receiving spam comments promoting them. If you’d like to see, take a look at post-comments.com or commentposter.com.

Coming back to my question, do you allow such comments on your blog ? For new blogs, they may be increasing comment count. But, for fairly established blogs, they are a nuisance when visitors go through the comments. My personal stance is that, whenever they are caught in the Akismet spam queue, I delete them. I let them stay, if they are not caught.

Vote on this poll (if you are reading from via RSS, click through to see the poll ) :

My vote is for the third option.

If you are a blogger, I bet you’ve heard about John Chow who makes more than $30,000 from his blog alone every month. He is a inspiration for many bloggers, including me. So, are you wondering how you can become then next John Chow ? Here’s how :

1. Name your child the unconventional way. Register the name‘s domain name before naming your kid.
2. Go grab a good digital camera. Take HQ snaps of whatever you eat and post them on your blog regularly.
3. Love Cars. Write about them. Post pictures of them. Have one in your header if possible.
4. 7 out of your ever 10 posts should be from ReviewMe, STRICTLY.
5. After all, your blog should be a make money online blog.
6. But, make only one post on making money online. Make all the others OFF-TOPIC.
7. You should dump your blog will all kinds of ads under the earth : Peel away ads, Stripe ads, 468×60 banner, 300×250 banner and what not.
8. Place a bunch of completely irrelevant links on your sidebar courtesy of Text-Link-Ads.
9. Get slapped by Google, banned by Digg and kicked out by Technorati.
10. Google Adwords is for advertising. But, you are John Chow. So, use it for sending IMs to other bloggers.
11. Be an evil Panda killer.
12. Eat Evil, Sleep Evil, Think Evil and be the Root of all Evil.
13. To become the next John Chow, you must first kill the existing John Chow. Yeah, the Nike-way, just do it.
14. Last but not the least, if possible, change your name to John Chow. You can still top Google for that name.

Note : This post was not written with the motive of hurting/insulting John or any of his great fans. After all, I am also one.

Recently I put together a landing page for GotChance, which I’ll be using in any future promotions. Its really useful. But, many are not aware of what a landing page is. Wikipedia defines it as :

In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

Now, that is a bit more complicated than required. In blogging, it is basically a page through which a visitor enters your blog. I did a quick search and found a lot of articles on “how to create a great landing page“, “how to create a landing page that works” etc… But, no article focuses on why one must put up a landing page. It may be simple to say “it gives more information to the visitor about your site”. But, there is more.

Visitors May Feel Deserted

Your blog may have the greatest of designs. But, still your visitor is new to it. He might find the place quite strange. It may be completely different from other places that he might’ve visited on the web. So, quite naturally he might leave your blog, adding to your bounce rate.

If you don’t want this to happen, you need to tell him what is what. You need to tell him what your blog is about. This will make him accustom with your blog…

Your Blog Is Too Crowded

Quite often I come across a blog that is very crowded. Crowded in the sense, a lot of links, banners, widgets and what not. I am used to visiting such websites. But, it may not be the case with everyone. With such a blog, you may “scare away” your visitor.

Well, not necessarily.. Just as above, if you teach him what is what, he’ll become better accustomed with your blog. Just do that in your landing page.

Your Blog Is Like A Big Shopping Mall

Consider your blog as a shopping mall and yourself its owner. A visitor enters a mall with a clear idea of what he wants. But, in a huge shopping mall, he doesn’t know what is available where. You need to tell your visitors about it. Shopping malls do it with “direction signs” and bloggers should do it with “landing page”. You get the idea, right ?

Convert Into A Potential Reader

RSS Subscriber count has become an important metric in the blogosphere. With a good landing page, you can convert most of your lurkers into loyal readers. All you have to do is, put an RSS Subscription Link and/or an Email Subscription box on the landing page, just like how I’ve done.

You don’t know what amazing effects “calling to action” can have, unless you try out.

Increase Visit Length

By putting links to popular posts on your blog (which you can easily do with a plugin) on your landing page, you can give some life to your old posts. Not only that, you can get your visitors to hang out on your blog for more time.

Now, that would automatically make your visitor accustom himself to your blog, your writing style etc…

I hope the post was useful for you. Do you have a landing page for your blog ? If so, what all do you have in there ? Any tips to make these page even more effective ?