Every blog comes with comments and pretty much every blogger is basing their success on comments. Sure, they may say they don’t, but when you have no comments you feel like you’re just talking to yourself. So how do you get comments?

1 - Write posts that are conversational and something that people can relate to. If you write posts in a way that there feels like there is no room for discussion, then comments will be harder to get.

My wife is great at making posts people can relate to. She put out a post two years ago when she broke her leg and is closing in on 1000 comments from others that have broken theirs. She’s not a marketer, or a PR person, just an average blogger who happened to write in a way that people felt compelled to comment.

2 - Invite comments. If you put out a top ten post, or go off on a rant, ask uses what they think. Literally put at the end of the post “Do you agree?”, “Do you have any tips to add?” or other questions that are inviting comments.

I’m declaring the 13th of each month as the unofficial blog backup day. Meaning that you should login to your blog software and download a backup of all posts. Also, if you have access to the template files, back those up too.

Avoiding issues are much easier than trying to fix them once they happen. I’ve never seen a blog just delete itself, but I have heard of people’s hosting accounts suddenly having a hardware failure and are non-recoverable. If you don’t have a backup of your files, who does?

Yes, a good host will make backups, but that’s placing your trust fully in a third party. What if their backups are in the same office as your website and they have a fire? All is lost. If you do have a good host, then a secondary set of backups never hurt and you’ll have them at your fingertips at all times.

Ok, so this is a perfect gloom post for Friday the 13th, but you must realize that technology isn’t perfect. Your blog could go down and if you have no backup, then you’ll have to start from zero. All your hard work down the drain.

How do you backup a blog?

For Wordpress blogs, use the the WordPress Database Backup plugin. This plugin is included with all installs of Wordpress starting with version 2 I believe. Once enabled, you just go tot he backups section of the manage screen, make a few selections and it’ll backup your blog posts to your desktop or email. I wouldn’t suggest backing up to the server as that won’t do you any good if your web server goes down.

For Wordpress.com blogs, click on Manage and then Export.

With TypePad just got to the Import/Export area on the Manage tab of your admin area. Here you’ll be able to export all posts to your desktop. [backup support page]

Movable Type users can login to their admin area and click on Import/Export and then select Export.

Blogger doesn’t allow an export of all your posts like other services. However, you can edit your template with a bit of custom code to output all posts on one page, then save that page and revert back to your old template. Not the best solution but it should work. [Blogger How-To Page]

I have just activated the Post Teaser plugin. It cuts off each post around 100 words and ends up shortening up the homepage.

I seem to go back and forth on the idea of post summaries vs full posts on a blog homepage. I’d like to get your input, what do you feel is better.

Putting post summaries shortens up your homepage; without removing any posts. It gives users a certain number of words and then cuts the post off. This leaves the visitor having to click thru the posts individual page to finish reading.

This is good as it allows visitors to quickly skip over any posts they don’t want to read. It also cuts down on any duplicate content issues as you don’t have the exact same post on the homepage as you do on the individual page. However, it may be annoying to your visitor to have to click into the post to continue reading. Will they forget to come back to the homepage?

I guess it depends on the person. For the most part, I don’t know of too many people that read every word in every post on a blog. Some posts just aren’t interesting, to long, or not targeted towards some visitors.

The Online Marketing Blog got a face lift today as the new design was made public. I’ve spent quite a few hours on it the past couple of weeks and I’m very pleased with the outcome.

The new design cleans up the look and feel quite a bit. The header area has been condensed a little and the menu has been re-worked stand out a bit more. The design also removes the left column and gives more room for posts. This is a big feature as it gives the ability to post bigger pictures and long posts don’t look quite so long.

Other features include:

• More prominent RSS icon with a drop down menu that includes the feed buttons.
• No tables, all cascading style sheets (CSS).
• A few social bookmark icons followed by a drop down social bookmark menu with many other choices.
• A live, ajax search box.
• Separate pages for archives and resources.
• Fancy quote boxes.
• Overall, design upgrade.

The feedback so far has been quite positive. The trick now is to keep the clean and organized look and feel as the weeks and months go on.

Blogs sure are great, and owners are doing everything they can to optimize them for search engines, but what about people? There are a few usability plugins that make it easier for visitors to interact with your site.

Optimal Title / SEO Title : Good title tags are not just for search engines. They also appear in the users history and possibly bookmarks. Title tags should be specific -> generic. So, don’t start all your tittle tags with your blog name please.

Subscribe to Comments : Getting comments is one trick, keeping the people up to date on the comment discussion is important. I can’t think of how many times I’ve posted and then I couldn’t remember where I made my comments. Email notifications is a great way to get updates on comments and keep your visitors connected.

Chicklet Creator : A big feature of blogs is the syndication abilities. Having a feed is great, but making it easy to subscribe to is even better. (This is one of my projects.)

Spam Detection : Reading a blog full of viagra and casino comment spam is not fun. Chances are, it’ll annoy your users too and they’ll stop visiting.
- Akismet
- Spam Karma

I’m not quite sure why people would opt to pay for blog software like MovableType or TypePad. My guess is that paid blogging companies have a hook into their current user base and people continue to pay each month. But why?

Lets start with TypePad. TypePad starts at $4.95 a month and increases to 14.95 a month. For the basic package, you get one user, one blog, no access to the blog template, no money making ads (for you), no domain name, no real ownership. You’re just renting so you just get the basics. 100Mb of space 2GB of bandwidth is pretty good for a blog but not worth paying for. The Pro account gets more features, transfer and space, but is it worth the price?

For as little as $25 a year you can get shared hosting with 75Mb of space and 3GB of bandwidth. Throw in a domain name for around $9.99 and free Wordpress blogging software and you’re good to go. Costs less and you have all the features you could ever want including multiple users, 100% template access and personalized email address’ since you have a real hosting account.