When talking advertisements, most website owners fall into a couple of groups. They either think that young websites should not have ads at all–lest it scare away potential early visitor. Or they assume that early ads are a good way to get people used to the idea that this page will, inevitably, have ads.

I fall into the latter category.

So when is the best time to add ads to your site? As soon as possible. But remember–if your website is young and fresh (like this one), you’ll find that your ads won’t get many (if any) clicks for some time to come. Programs like Google’s AdSense need tons of traffic in order to get popular while affiliate programs are luck of the draw. In other words, you need lots of views to make money through AdSense but quality, focused traffic to make money via affiliate programs–like the ones you see in the right column.

Start small when you add ads to your site. Don’t go hog wild with thousands of different products right from the get go. Tempting as it may be to try and get people to click your links, don’t overwhelm your visitors like some internet marketers tend to do. You want to get your viewers used to the idea of having ads on a website–not drive them away with sensory overload.

So slap a few AdSense blocks in your posts. Throw a handful of 125×125 pixel squares on your sidebar. And keep on posting to get your view and subscriber counts up. Then watch the money flow in.

When do you think is the best time to put ads up? Am I totally wrong in believing that the sooner you do it–the better?

I just moved into a beautiful new home. It’s 2600 square feet. Located in Orange County, CA. And has spectacular views all around.

But the internet didn’t get activated as quickly as I would have liked it to–leaving my blog to fend for itself without any new posts for the past couple of days.

It’s life changing experiences like this that teach you lessons, and I’ve learned a valuable one. Always have a backup plan so you can keep your posts flowing like you never left the computer.

One of the best ways to do this–and it worked flawlessly for my Thursday and Friday posts–is to set your post dates to something in the future instead of publishing immediately. All you have to do is click that edit button to the right of Publish Immediately, and set the date and time to your preferences. When you crank out multiple posts in a day, you can easily set them to publish when YOU want, that way you don’t have to worry about your internet going out, your computer dying, or some other cataclysmic event that could prevent you from getting your posts out there.

To have a successful blog these days, you have to build community spirit. Contests, giveaways, guest posts, and all that are great ways to get people interacting with your site–but nothing screams community to the average visitor than a lively comments section on your posts.

Comments are a catch 22. You need comments to build your blog’s community spirit to boost your success and notoriety on the web–but sometimes it’s tough to get those comments when you’re just starting out. With that in mind, I’ve compiled a list of some of the best tips to get those comments flowing.

• Encourage Comments
  Sometimes all your readers need is a bit of encouragement. Pose a question at the end of your posts or throughout the body. Ask what your readers thoughts are about your posts. If you’re doing some kind of a tutorial, tell them that you’re happy to answer any questions they may have. That little push can help you build tons of comments on your posts.
• Don’t Make Your Readers Register or Fill Out a Capcha
  A lot of people are easily dissuaded from adding a comment to your blog–so don’t make it any more difficult on them than it already is. You readers are spending a few minutes (or more) of their time typing their comment already. Including required registration or a capcha is a great way to turn off a would be commenter. You’ve got a spam filter, what are you so worried about?
• Reply to Every Comment You Get
  What’s the point of filling out a comment if it seems like the blog’s owner doesn’t even read it? Much like you reply to people in a forum, do the same with comments. Your readers care enough about your site and your post to let you know their feelings, so make them feel like they’re welcome members of your community. Plus, adding your own comments further increases the comment count on your posts.
• Choose a Side and Stand Your Ground
  It’s your blog, you can say whatever you want on it. And if you’re looking for comments, you need to stop playing the part of the flip-flopping politician and talk about how you actually feel about an issue. Maybe you love Mac OS X and hate Vista. Perhaps you want to slander people who would spend money on a blogging platform like TypePad. Post a love-fest for Ralph Nader’s presidential campaign. Go ahead. You’ll get loads of comments weighing in on how right or wrong you are.
• Make Your Top Commenters Feel Special
  There are a few plugins out there that make it easy to show off the people who comment the most often. Install one and “reward” those who contribute the most to your blog’s community. Or, if your blog is generating a large amount of income already, consider offering monthly giveaways to top commenters who provide good information with each comment.
• Can People Relate to Your Posts?
  Drafting that perfect post can take a lot of time and effort. And, if you’re not careful, you can come across as sounding elitist, know-it-all-like, or just plain boring. I know I’ve been guilty of all of the above at some time in my writing career. You need to be able to write conversationally, or at the very least, in a style that people can relate to. Since comments are a conversation, make your posts the stepping stones for starting off each topic.
• Turn Off Comment Moderation
  You may be tempted to moderate your comments before you allow them to be posted on your site. I know I’ve gotten quite a few scathing comments on other blogs I own–but let them get posted anyway. Every time I’ve had someone post a negative comment, two more have followed with a positive to back me up. Let the conversation flow naturally–without the need to look over each comment as you get it. When your blog grows, you’ll turn moderation off anyway, so why not turn it off now?
• Don’t be a Jackass
  Remember those scathing comments from the previous tip? Yeah, those comments that you are tempted to moderate but you’re not going to. Whatever you do, try not to respond to those with the same nasty tone as they used. So you don’t agree on a topic or he called you a name–get over it. You have a reputation to uphold, and if you tell off too many people, you’ll end up scaring away any potential commenters.
• Set Your Comments to DoFollow
  By default, most blogging software sets commenters’ URLs to be “nofollow” links which have no bearing on the majority of search engine rankings. By setting comments to “dofollow”, you give commenters a nice little backlink for their troubles. While you may not be too keen on doing this if you somehow feel that you need a level 9 PageRank, everyone else should consider this option.
• Turn on CommentLuv
  CommentLuv is a relatively new plugin for WordPress that automatically finds and adds a link to your commenters’ last blog post. Much like the DoFollow tip, people actively search out blogs that include CommentLuv as one of their plugins, bringing in more traffic and comments to your posts. However, you need to reign over your comments with an iron fist, or you may find spammers trying to take over your site’s comments section.
• Fake a Few Comments Here and There
  Alright, so this last tip is a little underhanded, but it can work. Much like some people need encouragement to post a comment, they also want to feel like they’re not the only people reading the post. If you’re just starting out and not getting much traffic, put a few “fake” comments here and there to get the community going. You can even combine encouragement and fake comments for double the commenting benefits.

And there you have it, a nice set of seven tips to help you get more comments on your blog. If you have some tried and true idea that I overlooked, let me know in the comments below.

There are tons of places to see how much traffic you and your competition are receiving. From Alexa to Compete, these tools are numerous and plentiful. You could spend days sitting at your computer, analyzing your competitions’ traffic patterns.

But what about the number of RSS subscribers? Surely that’s a valid stat to compare with competition blogs and websites? But for years, there haven’t been any decent tools to do so. Anyone who was curious about subscribers would have to visit each blog manually and hope that the site displayed the number of subscribers as reported by FeedBurner.

Now, there’s a new tool called Feed Compare which is surprisingly similar (in function and ease of use) to Compete. Enter in a few feed addresses, click the compare button, and you’re all set to go. You get a full chart comparing the subscriber number for your site and your competition. Easy as that.

The service works well. It’s free. It’s flashy. It can track back to two years. The only real problem is that you can only track feeds that use FeedBurner. Luckily enough, any site that’s worth its weight in text is going to use FeedBurner anyway–so no big deal.

Via BlogPerfume.

I awoke this morning to a pleasant surprise. The much touted WordPress app for the iPhone arrived today. And it’s free. I love free stuff. Don’t you?

While I’m still waiting for it to sync with my iPod Touch, here’s a rundown of the features according to Jeff Chandler.

• Support for WP.com blogs and self-installed blogs version 2.5.1 and higher
• Embedded Safari for true previews of posts
• Full tag and category support
• Photo support for both camera pictures as well as library photos
• Support for multiple blogs
• Ability to password protect a post, save as a draft, or mark the post for later review
• Auto-recovery. This will recover posts which have been interrupted by phone calls

Sounds pretty spiffy, and I’ll definitely enjoy trying it out. I’m pretty sure that personal bloggers will have more use for this than anybody else. There aren’t any more excuses left for not being able to keep up with posting–even when you’re nowhere near a Wi-Fi connection.

Now if only I could type as fast on the virtual keyboard as I can on a traditional laptop or desktop keyboard.

If you have iTunes installed, you can pick the app up here. And yes, that link will open iTunes for you.

Do you have any plans for using the WordPress blogging app? What about another blogging app, like TypePad? Any thoughts on the usefulness of these blogging apps for the iPhone?

[Via the WordPress for iPhone Blog]

If you’ve been reading some of my other posts, I’m on a DoFollow kick right now. But enough is enough, so let’s finish off this DoFollow series with a post on how to remove NoFollow from your blog. All it takes is a few simple clicks of your mouse.

There are a couple of ways to drop the NoFollow extension. Edit the code yourself or download one of the numerous DoFollow plugins that are available for nearly every blogging platform. The choice is yours, but we’ll be sticking with the plugin route here–as most of them provide a lot more functionality than you might think.

Alright, to start off, you’re going to need to figure out which plugin to use. If you’re on WordPress, I recommend that you check out the simple DoFollow Plugin or the more full featured Link Love Plugin. I’ve used both on other sites and they work superbly.

If that’s not enough of a choice for you, check out the grandaddy of all DoFollow related posts over at Andy Beard’s blog. He’s got the master list of all the plugins you could imagine. Great sleuthing indeed.

Once you’ve got your plugin downloaded, all you have to do is upload the file to your server. Activate the plugin, set the settings to whatever you want and you’re all set. Simple as that.

But there’s still more to do.

While having your blog’s comments and trackbacks set to DoFollow is a great first step, it’s not the final piece of the puzzle. You still need to get the word out that your blog is now offering DoFollow comments.

I wrote a post a few days ago with some of the best databases for you to submit your DoFollow blog. Submit to the free ones (and the pay ones if you think the cost is reasonable) and you’re all set.

But there is one last thing.

You should also sign up for the growing No NoFollow | I Follow | DoFollow Community at Bumpzee. Like the master list above, the Bumpzee community was also created by DoFollow pioneer, Andy Beard.

Also, thanks to these two posts on the benefits of DoFollow from the Ben Yoskovitz over at the Instigator Blog. Without them, I’d probably still be stuck with NoFollow.

I’m still not too fond of the “U Comment, I Follow” logo.

Are you spreading the link love yet? Which plugin is your favorite? Let me know in the comments below.

The short answer: Yes.

Of course, there are a few caveats here, but let’s talk about the benefits of removing the NoFollow from comments.

For starters, blogs with DoFollow comments instead of NoFollow comments can bring in a bit more traffic than their stodgy counterparts. More people visit and more people comment. Why? Because they know their comments will benefit them as well as you. It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved.

Removing the NoFollow extension from your comments also helps build that all important community spirit. People will come back more often, read up on your posts, and make comments–because they know its not just a waste of their time. Adding in their URLs actually means something.

This backlink bonus for your visitors comes with a problem, though. A lot of people will try to exploit your generosity. Expect to get vast numbers of SEO “specialists” and spammers looking to score some free backlinks. In other words–you’d better be sure your spam filter is up to snuff.

The other problem is that your Google PageRank could suffer. Too many DoFollow links to unrelated sites could cripple your efforts to reach a PR 7, 8, or 9. Eh, its a small price to pay.

So what’s your story? Have you become a good netizen and switched to DoFollow links on your blog?