Best $1.95 I Have Spent on Making Money Online in a While

This probably isn’t breaking news to many of you out there, as many of the people that visit this site are bloggers and are familiar with Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net.  He is one of the top bloggers online and provides tips on how to make money online blogging. His blog has been around for quite a few years now and he is one of the leading authorities on blogging for profit.

Darren just recently opened up a blogging forum for members to learn and discuss blogging issues like; blog design, content creation, finding readers, how to make money with your blog, social media, etc…. Unlike a blog where you usually can only ask questions in the comment area about whatever the blog post is about… in this forum you can ask any question you can think of when it comes to blogging. The other members, as well as the moderator and administrators are there to help answer any question you might have!

One thing that is different about this forum is… it is not free. It is a paid membership forum, but the price to become a member is only $1.95 per month… which is the least expensive thing I have ever paid for online so far.

Why is he making it a paid membership forum versus a free forum like many other forums? Listening to Darren, it totally makes sense. Here are some of the reasons…

1. The first reason he is going to staff it with a paid moderator (which is really cool) and administrators that put time a side to make sure it is a valuable community.
2. Another reason is he wants to put a small barrier (the $1.95 per month fee) to keep out spammers and people that are only visiting the forum to promote themselves. He is all for being able to promote yourself to the community, but he doesn’t want that to be your primary focus. The goal is to be able to promote yourself while helping others… which I am totally for!
3. He doesn’t want the community to get too big. He is looking for a more intimate community where members can get to know each other and hopefully collaborate with one and other on different projects.

Now I could go on and on about this community, but I will give you the results I have had since I joined just a few days ago.

Since I have joined Darren’s forum I have met several bloggers that I am sure I will be working with in the future on projects, I have also received ten new subscribers to my newsletter from members of the forum, plus I have been contacted by four very good bloggers that are writing Guest Posts for Making Money Online right now, from a simple request on the forum. So I would say I have gotten way more than my money’s worth so far… and I think it is only going to get better.

The only negative thing I could say so far is there are not that many members on the site when I visit, which is to be expected… as he just broke the 1000 member mark a few days ago. But there is usually a few members viewing each section of the forum and most of my posts have been replied to very fast… which I really like. As the forum continues to grow this won’t be an issue to me at all.

So if you are able to afford an extra $1.95 per month, I strongly suggest you give Darren’s blogging forum a try.

If any of our readers are already members, I would love to hear what you think of the community so far in the comment section below. I know there are least a couple of you that have joined as I have seen you in the forum

Guest Blogging on Making Money Online

When it comes to making money online there are a million different ways to do so, and more being created each day. Now I have been in the internet marketing business for a little over 10 years now and I have tried many different money making endeavors over those years. Some have worked really well, some just ok… while others have totally failed, so I do know a little bit about of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to making money online.

But one thing’s for sure… neither Mark nor I know everything there is to know about making money online, and no one else does either. So what Mark and I have decided to do since there are so many different ways of making money online out there is… we need to look for other people that would like to share their money making ideas with our viewers by allowing “Guest Bloggers”.

So if you have any making money online tips or related ideas you would like to share with our readers, we would love to post them on our site. Now we are not looking for people to just write a great big ad promoting their products or services. We are looking for tips, tricks, ideas, how-to tutorials, etc… on different ways to make money online. This would include (but not limited to) things like; affiliate marketing, network marketing, selling on Ebay, advertising, memberships sites,  SEO, traffic generation, site design, online and offline marketing, networking, copywriting, blogging tips, etc…, the list could go on and on.

So why should you consider writing a guest post for MakingMoneyOnline.com? There are many reasons why you should, but here are a few:

Expose Your Name and Blog to a Whole New Audience – Guest Blogging is one of the best ways to get your name, as well as your blog exposed to a whole new potential group of viewers.

Generate More Traffic to Your Site – Writing a Guest Post for our site will definitely drive more traffic to your site as readers are always interested to learn more about the person writing the post. I know when I read posts from guest bloggers on other sites I almost always visit the author’s site to see what their site is about. I have become a loyal follower to several blogs that I have found through them guest blogging on other sites I frequent.

Build up Your Reputation – It is hard to build your reputation when you are first starting out blogging… and writing a quality guest post can only help quickly build your reputation as an expert in your field.

SEO Benefits – Guest blogging on this site or any other blog for that matter is a great way to help with your search engine optimization. You will be creating a relevant, high quality, keyword-rich one-way link back to your site which search engines love!

Free Advertising – This actually encompasses everything I mentioned above, as this is really a great way to advertise your business for FREE on our site. Yes, it will take a little work writing the post… but it won’t cost you a dime. Also, the click-through rate from a guest post link is far superior than purchasing a banner ad on this site or any other site. So if you don’t have a lot of money to advertise your business, this is a no brainer.

HOW TO SUBMIT A GUEST POST TO MAKING MONEY ONLINE DOT COM

If you would like to write a Guest Post for our website, please contact us first so we can let you know if it is something we think our viewers might be interested in reading. Simply go to the Contact Us page and send us an email with the following information.

• Your name
• Your email address
• What topic you would like to write about
• A sample of your writing (a link to an article is fine)
• The URL(s) you are planning to link to in your post

If we feel your idea for a post is something our readers would be interested in, we will send you an email with instructions on how to submit your post.

Also, before submitting your post… PLEASE FOLLOW THESE RULES:

• Your post must be completely original and not published anywhere else.
• To be accepted the post should be well written with no grammatical errors, so please run your post through a spell checker before submitting it. We also suggest you have a friend or associate read it over to see how it sounds before submitting it.
• We reserve the right to make any corrections and modifications to the post(s) that we feel necessary.
• We may not accept all Guest Posts that are submitted to us for one reason or another. If we decide not to accept your post we will let you know why we didn’t, and we will give you the opportunity to make the necessary changes to get it approved, but we cannot make any guarantees.
• We reserve the right to modify these rules at anytime.

So if you would like build up your reputation, drive more traffic to your site, help with your SEO rankings, or just feel like sharing your knowledge… PLEASE contact us today about writing a Guest Post for Making Money Online Dot Com.

Making Money Online Swiping Ideas

When it comes to making money online, there are literally unlimited ways to go about accomplishing that goal. But the smart internet entrepreneur is always keeping a close tab on what other successful online marketers are up to with their business. That is where the “Swipe Files” and “Idea Files” come in extremely handy.

What is a swipe file? It is basically exactly what it sounds like. It’s a file full of content that you have swiped from other sites, magazines, newspapers, etc…. Swipe files are usually used by copywriters, and whenever they see a great ad, sales letter, headline, etc… they make a copy of it (or cut them right out of a magazine or newspaper) and put it a file for future reference. Then when they are getting ready to write an ad or sales letter, they can browse their swipe file to get ideas. People have been creating “Swipe Files” forever and there is nothing wrong with it, as it is a commonly used practice. Just know that the content in the file is used for inspiration and ideas, not for copying and pasting as that would be plagiarism.

Like swipe files, I like to visit my favorite sites and take notes on what I like and don’t like about each site and save that information in what I call my “Idea File”. My idea file is similar to a swipe file, as it is a place to draw inspiration, but it is different because I am not saving actual content. I am creating a list of things that I like about different sites I visite. Here are just few examples of things you might find in my “Idea File”.

SITE DESIGN – When surfing the web (which I do a lot of each day) I love to take note of each site I visit’s overall design to see if there is something that I really like that might look good on one of our sites, or future sites we have planned.

For example, this site’s design was created from a cool site I saw that was using the Wordpress Church theme from StudioPress. So I purchased the theme, customized the color layout, added a logo, uploaded it to Making Money Online Dot Com’s server and I thought I was done.

Then a few days later I found another theme that I really liked called the Ultimate Blogging Theme from Carl Ocab. I loved the theme, but I really liked 2 elements of the design a lot (the 3 boxes on the top of my index pages and the footer layout), so I purchased that theme too, and extracted those 2 elements and added them to my site.

Then there was one more thing I really wanted, which I had in my Idea File for months before ever opening Making Money Online. John Chow and Zac Johnson both have this cool way of displaying their featured posts on their index page with a scrolling display plugin. So I sent a few emails to the guys over at Unique Blog Design (the company that designed both their themes) asking them what they would charge to create that for me. Well I never heard back from them, so I just went to Elance and found someone to create it for me there.

Of all the things I keep in my Idea File, “Site Designs” probably has the most in it. Not only do I have just a whole bunch of URL’s in there, but I have taken hundreds, if not thousands of screen shots over the years of sites where I like some part of their design.

COOL PLUGINS – Since this site is built on the Wordpress platform there are just TONS of plugins out there to enhance your visitor’s experience. Whenever I see some kind of cool function on sites I visit I try and find out if it is a plugin, and if so… which one they are using.

Also, many bloggers nowadays run posts each month (if not several times a month) listing their favorite plugins and/or any new plugins that have just come out and let you know exactly what they do. I have a HUGE LIST of plugins now and what they do in my Idea File for whenever they might come in handy.

PROMOTIONS – Everyday website owners are coming out with new promotions for their sites, as well as running contests to get people coming back each week (or if you are lucky each day). The first contest we ran was a result of a post we read from Dan Keller over at TycoonBlogger.com. It is a Comment Contest which we are still running now.

Another example of a promotion I have in my Idea File is Shoemoney’s “Free Shirt Fridays” where each Friday Jeremy promotes a company that sends him a shirt. It is an ingenious idea, and he gets a ton of free shirts to wear (or do whatever he wants with) as well as other products sent to him each week. We have a cool idea planned for this site that I am sure you are all going to love, and the inspiration for it came from that promotion.

WHAT THEY ARE PROMOTING – It is hard to stay on top of every new product, eBook, service, etc… that comes out in your niche each week. A good way to find new products is by visiting other websites and see what they are promoting. Of course everything your competition is promoting might not work for your current site(s), but it might work down the road, so I like to keep a list of things people are marketing. This really comes in handy when you are writing a post, as one of the products you saved might be perfect to promote in that post. Also, if you are short on ideas of something to write about… you could always do a little research and write a post on one of the products in your file.

NEWSLETTERS – Do you have a subscriber list for your site, or are planning on building one? Before we ever added our first sign-up subscription form to one of our sites, I literally signed up to hundreds of online newsletters, and I kept a copy of my favorite newsletter layouts in my idea file. Not only did I keep a copy of the layouts (which helped a lot when designing our newsletters), but I also kept notes on how each webmaster’s subscription process went. Many have cool “Next Step” pages that explain the double option process so the subscriber knows they have to do one more step before they are actually subscribed.  Others have thank-you pages that are designed to get you to do something else. I really like the fact that every newsletter is different and you can learn something from everyone you sign-up for. With some you will learn something that you want to add to your newsletter, and with others you will learn things you do not like and want to stay away from.

If you are ever planning on creating your own subscriber list, I suggest you sign-up for as many newsletters as you can and see what others are doing. If you don’t like receiving a bunch of newsletters in your current email account, I suggest you create an email account just for newsletters. Then you can check your account once a week, or whenever you feel like it.

There are several other things I keep in my Idea File, but you get the basic understanding of how it works. There is nothing worse than seeing something really cool and saying to yourself, “I need to do that on my site” and then a little while later totally forget what it was. If you are good about keeping an Idea File, then you won’t have to worry about that happening.

Remember… Imitation is the greatest form of flattery, so don’t feel bad doing something similar to what your competition is doing. Just don’t copy them exactly or you might offend them a little, and you don’t want to do that either.

MakingMoneyOnline.com August Recap – Also Only Two Days Left to Win Banner Package

Wow… another month has come and gone! Since it’s the last day of the month I guess it’s time to recap the month gone by, and tomorrow we will announce the winners of Making Money Online Dot Com’s “Who Comments Most” competition for August.

But before I get into those things, I want to remind everyone that you have 2 days left to get into the Tuan Nguyen Interview Contest where you have a chance to win a custom Banner Package (which includes 5 different size custom banners) for just reading my interview with Tuan and then just leaving 1 Comment… that’s it. I cannot believe the small number of people that have entered so far, as there is no easier contest to join that I have seen, and the prize is AWESOME! Plus, the odds of you winning this contest are way better than most contests I have seen online. If you haven’t yet… please go read the interview and leave a comment right now so you can be instantly entered.

So what other stuff has happened this past month…

I got interviewed twice in one month. Now that was definitely cool, as the only other time I have ever been interviewed for anything was when my oldest son was in second grade. He had to interview me for a school project, which was cool…but it wasn’t the same, as he was forced to interview me. At least with these two interviews, no one was forcing them (I hope).

Here are the two interviews I did…

• Famous Blogger Club Interview – This is one of several interviews Hesham Zebida from zebida.com is doing on “up and coming” bloggers. It’s a nice simple 5 question interview. If you get a chance you should go read all the interviews he has done so far, as it is a great way to learn a little more about some of your favorite bloggers.
• The Money Cult Interview – This was very cool for me too. I got to be Jared’s Guinea Pig and do his first interview. Jared is looking for more people to interview, so if you are interested you should shoot him an email.

On top of those interviews I shared a little bit of how I got started online in my post, “I Used to be a Dotcom Millionaire, Well at Least on Paper”.

Here are a few other post were pretty popular, at least by the amount of comments they received:

• Making Money Online Dot Com’s First Big Milestones
• Make Your Blog More Interactive
• Learn How To Create Your Own Fun Gravatar
• How to Get More Comments

As for September, we have lots of great posts planned. We have a couple of interviews lined up already with 2 really successful Online Entrepreneurs that should make for really good reads!

As for contests, we have at least 2 that we will be running next month, but there could be more…

• One is going to replace the “Who Comments Most” contest. It is still going to be a commenting contest, but we are going to make it MUCH EASIER for people to have a chance of winning.
• We are still planning on giving away MrBlogging.com, but we are still working out the details. So please stay tuned… the contest will start soon.

Last thing… this morning I read a post from Brian of SEOMkt.com about a contest Keller Hawthorne is running over at Fresh eVenture called the Best WordPress Design 2009 Contest. She is offering several great prizes, so I thought we would give it a shot. Do I think we have the best Wordpress design for 2009? Absolutely not, but our design is okay, and I have no idea how many people have entered, so we might have a shot to win something. Also, it’s just another great way to get our name out in front of a larger audience, so you might think about doing the same. If you want to enter you have until Midnight Eastern Time tonight. Sorry for the late notice, but I just found out about the contest a little while ago myself. Here is a link to the submission form.

Alright, that’s it for the update! Thanks again to all of you that have visited us this last month and we hope to see you back here in September.

Please Tell Me When I Have Something Hanging From My Nose

Be honest… did the title of this post intrigue you a little? I am sure it is not the best title to help drive search engine traffic to a site about making money online though. But I do think it is the perfect title for this post, as it is about helping out your fellow blogger, or anybody for that matter and that is what today’s “Quick Tip” is about.

Have you ever had something hanging from your nose, or maybe a little ranch dressing (from whatever you ate earlier) dried up on your chin and no one tells you about it? I know I have. Usually, the only way you find out is when you are going to the restroom and see yourself in the mirror. You think… “How embarrassing, how come no one told me about it?”

Of course you do have those certain friends that will give you a little nudge, point to where it is on their own face and then whisper in your ear… “Hey, you got a little something right there”, and you thank them, grab a tissue or napkin and give it a little wipe and that would be that. I really appreciate those types of friends, and that is the kind of friend I try to be.

So where am I going with this post? Well like the “there’s something hanging from my nose” analogy, I really appreciate it when someone tells me when something is wrong with one of my websites, or they think something can be done better. Three times in the last week I have had people tell me that something wasn’t working correctly with this site.

First Lax from over at Tech Zoom In emailed me to let me know that in my Feedburner Emails, at the bottom it was showing the word “Array” nine times in list format for no apparent reason. I did a little investigating and found out it was a simple setting in my DamnSexyBookmarks that was causing the problem and with a simple uncheck of a button the problem was solved. I am sure other readers probably noticed this for weeks, but no one ever let me know before Lax, so I never knew to fix it before then. Thanks Lax!

Also, in regards to my Email RSS Feed, not only was it not displaying correctly to the subscribers I already had, but the subscription form on the homepage was not working either. Alfredo over at Asswass.com contacted me last week to let me know about that. We probably lost a bunch of subscribers in the last few weeks because that was not working. We won’t lose them anymore. Thanks Alfredo!

Then just yesterday, Jared over at The Money Cult let me know about a problem that was happening with the comment editing plugin that we were using. When you clicked the edit your comment link, it opened up someone else’s comment, which was not good. So I ended up deactivating that until I get it fixed. Thanks Jared!

As for me, I am notorious for letting people know when something is wrong with their site, or if I think doing something another way might be beneficial to them. I honestly just like to help people out, and I probably overstep my boundaries sometimes, but no one has ever complained (at least to my face) about it. If you read my post “2 Simple Fixes that Could Increase Comments on Your Blog” you know I am NOT a big fan of Captcha in the comments sections of blogs, and from reading all the comments, most other readers are not either. So whenever that I am surfing the net reading blogs and leaving comments… if a person is using Captcha in their comments section (after I write my comment) I usually mention to them that they might get more comments if the get rid of it.

Now that is just one example of things I do. I also send out emails if I notice something doesn’t look right with someone’s site in my browser or if a link is not working correctly. You name it… if I see something wrong, I usually try to let the owner know. Now I am definitely not trying to brag here that I am this great guy, because that is not what I am trying to do at all… even though you would probably say that is you met me.

What I want you to get out of this post is we are all just one big giant family on this planet, and the Internet has brought us a lot closer together. We all need to help each other out and if you see something hanging from the nose (you know what I mean) of one of your fellow bloggers or website owners, let them know about it, as I am sure they will appreciate it. Remember, what goes around comes around, so the nicer you are… the nicer people will be to you!

I also read a great post the other day from Liane over at Better Blogging for Bloggers where she talks about how friendly most people are on the Internet. I have found in general that usually is the case.

So how about you guys? Do you go out of your way to help your fellow bloggers or website owners out? If not, maybe you should!

Comment Spam Detective Trick

Today’s “Quick Tip” should be pretty quick, but I think beneficial to many of you bloggers out there. I HATE Spammers and I am sure most of you out there do as well. One of our many goals is to try and keep spam out of our comments section of our blogs. To help with that goal… many (if not most) Wordpress bloggers use a plugin called Akismet which is designed to filter out spam comments. For the most part it does an AMAZING job of catching a large percentage of the spam that comes through each day. But it is not 100% perfect, so you need to occasionally check  the spam folder and make sure no legitimate comments got put in there. I usually find at least a few comments every few days that mistakenly got pushed into the spam folder… so I just need to go in and approve the legitimate comments.

Not only does legitimate comments get wrongly put in the spam folder, but occasionally a few spam comments make it into the “Pending Approval” folder where you decide if you want to approve the comments or not.

So how do you tell if a comment is spam or if it is a legitimate comment? No one wants to lose a potential regular visitor to their blog and if someone writes a legitimate comment and you do not approve it… there is a good chance they may never come back.

Well there is no exact science to this, but some spam comments are much more obvious than others and they are usually very easy to spot. But what about the ones that aren’t so obvious?

Many times you will see comments like these:

“Great post. You really know what you are talking about!”

“Interesting concept. I have never thought about that before. Thanks for the great advice.”

“Hi, good post. I have been wondering about this issue, so thanks for writing. I’ll definitely be subscribing to your blog.”

Would you approve any of those comments above from someone who has never left a comment on your blog before? I definitely would not. I have one #1 RULE when it comes to approving someone to be able to comment on any of our blogs…

“I need to know that you read the post by something you say in your comments!”

Those 3 comments above are so generic that they could be used in almost any post on any subject, and you have no idea if they read the post at all.

Well I came up for the idea of this post tonight when I saw a Pending Comment in my Wordpress admin. As soon as I read it, I knew it was SPAM, but it didn’t get filtered into my spam folder… and I wondered how many of you out there would approve the comment. I know there are some, as I will show you in a minute.

The image below is a copy of the comment that is in my Pending Approval folder. Here is what the comment says:

“Thanks! You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog. It will greatly help me in my activities. Thanks though, I’m glad some people share good stuff like this! It will greatly help me in my activities this is one of the most extensive articles I’ve read on the subject of making money from blogging”

Let’s be honest… if we didn’t know any better, that actually sounds like a pretty good comment, wouldn’t you agree? I definitely think so. The one problem is… it is in direct violation of my #1 Rule, and I will not break that rule.

So just for fun, and to prove to YOU that it definitely was a SPAM comment I performed a simple test. I took the text from the comment below and highlighted it and copied it…

and then I pasted the text into Google’s search box and clicked the “Search” button. Below is an image of the results.

I found pages and pages of the exact same comments on dozens (if not hundreds) of blogs. That just shows you that not everyone knows what to look for when it comes to SPAM.

Hopefully this simple little test can help you too!

The Ultimate WP Affiliate Sales Tool on Sale

A few weeks ago I showed you a simple way to cloak your affiliate links using a simple line of php code to accomplish it. It still works fine, but it has some major limitations. I am still planning on using that system on many of our sites, but I am definitely making the switch to Ninja Affiliate (which I bought today on sale) for all our Wordpress blogs starting right now. If you are serious about making money with your blog, you should definitely think about doing the same.

If you are not familiar with Ninja Affiliate, it is an extremely powerful Wordpress plugin that helps turn your blog into an affiliate sales machine. I could go over all the benefits here, but they do a much better job explaining everything this plugin does on their site.

I have always wanted to buy it, but just kept putting it off for one reason or another. Well they definitely got my attention this week, as they are having a sale on Ninja Affiliate. For 4 Days Only (Aug. 18 – 21st at Midnight) they are giving a $30 Discount on the plugin.

(SALE has ended… but still a great piece of software at the price)

So instead of their regular price of $97 (which it is still worth), you can get Ninja Affiliate for ONLY $67.00… but only until this Friday night (Aug. 21st) at midnight! Then the price goes back up.

For me the the $30 DISCOUNT was the tipping point for me making the purchase. I knew I was eventually going to buy it, so when I saw it was on sale, it just made sense to buy it now and save some money.

I know there are many of our readers that already use Ninja Affiliate, as many of them have recommending it to me. If any of you are reading this, I would love it if you could tell us how you like it in the comment section below.

Adding Videos Can Liven Up Your Site

Adding video to your website or blog can be a challenge, but it can also take your site to the next level. We tried to modify one of our popular features from one of our other websites by adding video content. Easier said than done, if you ask me. Although I don’t think our first effort will be winning any major awards anytime soon, we did learn a few things:

1. Not everyone should be in a video. I learned this from watching other videos, and people have often told me that I have a great face for radio (that’s the joke, get it?) I still like to talk to people, and don’t have a problem facing the camera. Remember the music artist Rick Astley? Never gonna give you up? He sold tons of records before people actually saw what he looked like (the face just didn’t match his amazing soulful voice) and his career hit the skids. Point well taken.


2. You may have a lot of information to get across, but remember to use the K.I.S.S. method when doing your presentation: Keep It Simple Stupid. If you can’t get your message across in a few words, give up (anti-Rick Astley reference).
3. Make it entertaining and you will get a positive response. My first video was packed with information, and one of my personal friends (and supporter of the website) sent me the most helpful response: You Suck.  The video didn’t capture my humorous nature, or as she put it “You weren’t yourself”.  By all means, be yourself, just don’t suck.
4. Keep it short. We tried to do a 30 second spot, and it took several hours and several takes/editing sessions to get it down to 30 seconds. Our goal is to have a continuing segment that keeps  things brief, funny, informative and worth waiting for each week.  If you build it, they will come but if you make it funny they will bring their friends too!

Have you made a video and posted it to your website/blog? There are many different ways to add video content  for free (youtube, vimeo, etc. ) or you can upgrade to premium packages that include HD (we chose to upgrade our Vimeo package and are happy with the results.)

We also use Sony Vegas Pro 8 to edit our raw footage (shot with my HD Flip Video Camera which is all too easy to transfer. I love my Flip Video! ) This sounds like another topic I can exploit in the near future, so I will just share with you what we use.  What about you? Are there some must use applications or software that you can recommend? Extreme John always has video worth watching, so hey big guy, what do you use? You don’t have to have his advertising budget to get your images out there, and that is what we want to share today.

Make Your Blog More Interactive

Today’s “Quick Tip” is another simple way to increase commenting on your blog, as well as make it much more interactive. Again, this post is not for everyone, as lots of you are already doing it… but MANY blogs I visit do not, and I am not sure why they don’t.

From what I have noticed on this site, as well as on other blogs that I visit is… you get many more comments, and COMMENT INTERACTION if your blog allows for “Threaded Comments”. That is where you can “Reply” to individual comments in the comment section and your comment will appear right below the comment you replied to.

If a site doesn’t have this feature and you want to reply to someone that may have left a comment at the very top of the comment section, you have to get the commentor’s attention somehow to let them know you are replying to what they wrote. A lot of times I see people do this by writing something like “@THEIR NAME – ” and then leave their reply comment. I am sure if a particular post receives a lot of comments, there is a good chance the commentor may never even see that reply and there will be no more interaction between the two of them on that post.

So here are a couple of reasons I think blogs should use, “Threaded Comments”:

1. Much more organized comment section – Allowing nested comments makes reading the comment section much easier, as comments and replies are grouped together in a nice organized fashion. That also allows readers the ability to easily skip over reply conversations that do not interest them.
2. Encourages more interaction with your readers – This is probably the most important reason to do it. It allows readers to comment on your blog, and then allows you or other readers to comment directly to what they have to say. Without nested comments those replies could get lost in the mix and the person (or persons) you are replying to may never see your reply and the conversation dies. With threaded comments your readers can carry on their own conversation and you and/or other readers can easily jump into that conversation making your blog much more interactive, which I know we want with this blog.

So how do you allow for threaded comments in your Blog? Well over the last few years there have been several plugins that have come out that allows you to accomplish this. But now you don’t even need a plugin anymore, as Wordpress has added this functionality right into their latest versions. You just need to go in and adjust your settings… which can be done in your Wordpress admin (wp-admin/options-discussion.php).

Not only can you activate and adjust the threaded comments there, but you can also choose if you want the comments to display the newest or the oldest comments first, as well as… you can break the comments up into pages allowing a maximum amount of comments per page. You can read more about these functions on the Wordpress website. One note though: Some older themes or custom themes may have to be updated for this feature to work.

So what about you guys, do you think Threaded Comments encourages more commenting? Also, we don’t do this, but do you think it is better to show the newest comments at the top of the page or the oldest comments first?

How to Create a Gravatar

Today’s “Quick Tip” was inspired by a funny post I read over at Misc Bytes. As I was reading the post it reminded me of the Gravatar I am using and where I got it. When I first started leaving comments on blogs I never used a Gravatar, as I never even thought about it.

But when we started Making Money Online we decided we needed some cool Gravatars so people could relate the name to a face. Well I have always liked those cartoon looking cariactures I have seen around the net, so I searched around for different companies that created them. I ended up finding an AWESOME company that not only does a great job, but they only charge around $5 to create one for you. The company is called CartoonMe, and not only do they do a great job, but they have a fast turnaround time (less than 72 hours) as well.

I have actually used them several times now, but when I first ordered one… I didn’t have any recent photos of me or Mark that I liked. I did have this photo of us from several years ago on St. Patrick’s Day (when our wives use to let us party) at one of our favorite bars. So I scanned it and here is the original photo. (I am on the left and Mark on the right)

Then I cropped each head and made them their own image, as CartoonMe will only do one face at a time. The ordering process is beyond simple. You give them your email address, select the photo you want to use, crop the photo right there online and make your payment. Then within 72 hours (but we got them back much faster) you are emailed your cartoon.  Here are the results from our first order…

As I mentioned that photo was from several years ago (I think around 7) and I have probably gained 20 to 30lbs since then.  So I have been using that as my Gravatar… since it is a more flattering image of me. I am planning on losing weight by the end of the year, so I will update my Gravatar then . You can see a more recent image of us on our About Us page if you like.

So, if you are looking to get a fun cartoon-type image for your Gravatar, or just want to have one for something else, I suggest you give CartoonMe a try.

And for any of you Graphic Designers out there… since our site is about making money online, you might want to consider developing this skill yourself and offering this service. It could be a good lead-in to offering your clients other services you provide.

Now if anybody decides to get one, please let us know… as we would love to see the finished product!

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