Spam and blogs seem to go hand in hand, unfortunately. I don’t know of one blog, my own included, that hasn’t been hit by spam at least once per day. The good news is that there are many steps you can take to prevent a significant amount of spam, and several things you can do to easily clean up if you’ve been hit by a large amount of spam.

Preventing Spam on Your WordPress Blog

• Keep your WordPress installation up to date. This sounds like a no-brainer, but you would not believe how many people out there just don’t bother to keep their software updated. WordPress routinely tweaks their code to improve security and prevent hacking and spamming, so it’s always a good idea to use the latest version.
• Avoid excessive keyword usage if you can help it. In many cases spammers are attracted to your blog not only because of its ranking (Google PageRank, Alexa, etc.), but because of the type of content you post. Unless you absolutely have to, don’t keyword-drop left and right.
• Use spam preventative tools on your comments pages. CAPTCHAS and math problem anti-spam plugins are numerous, and most are easy to install and setup, and blend seamlessly with whatever theme you happen to be using.
• Close comments after a certain period of time, say, one week, or within a month of posting.

Removing Spam from Your WordPress Blog

• Go through your list of pending comments and delete spammy ones. Double check your list of approved comments, too, as sometimes illegitimate ones can slip through the cracks (on the flip side, always double check comments listed as spam, as WordPress can occasionally make a false-positive identification on a legitimate comment!).
• Use a plugin like Delete Pending Comments to help you clean up hundreds or thousands of pending comments that are spammy.
• As a final measure, update any out-of-date installations and plugins!

Bloggers went into a frenzy last year when the FTC announced that it would be overseeing the relationships bloggers establish and maintain with advertisers, but really, there’s not much to worry about. So long as you disclose what you’re doing — and the fact that you’re somehow compensated for it — you’re in the clear. In the past several years, paid blogging and sponsorships with advertisers has become more mainstream in the blogging world, and as blogs themselves become more mainstream, so do the relationships that blog owners build with companies.

The biggest recommendation I can give you regarding the FTC and their rules concerning bloggers? DISCLOSE. I don’t care how you do it — use a separate disclosure page (you can generate one at DisclosurePolicy.org) or disclose at the top of bottom of every sponsored post — just do it.

I recently had the unpleasant task of emailing a company representative and threatening them with public blog entries and social network exposure after months went by without any correspondence from them regarding a giveaway they sponsored. I won’t go into details, but I will say that last spring I hosted a giveaway on one of my other blogs. In addition to the giveaway, the company also provided me with a free product in exchange for some promotion. I received the product in a timely manner, and proceeded with the giveaway. The winner was drawn and notified, and the company rep was notified. Then notified again. And again. And again. Throughout the summer I sent repeated emails, inquiring as to why a) my winner hadn’t received anything and b) they weren’t responding to my emails.

Finally, last Monday, fed up with the lack of response to my emails (I sent them not only to the company rep I had been in touch with initially, but to the main company’s email address and customer service account), I emailed them letting them know in no uncertain terms that I would not tolerate being made to look bad in front of my audience due to them not keeping their word. If a company agrees to a giveaway, they’re not only putting their own reputation on the line, but that of the blogger who hosts their giveaway and/or otherwise promotes them. Bloggers — remember this.

I was only somewhat surprised to hear from my winner yesterday, reporting that she received tracking info. Yay! I’m relieved that she is getting her prize after all, especially since she herself promoted the company on her own blog after hearing that she had won, but I’m disappointed that I had to resort to threats to get action. :/

I definitely learned a valuable lesson from this, and in the future I will do my own research on a company before agreeing to host a giveaway for them. Before I excite my readers, before I provide additional promotion and endorsement for a company and their products (business cards, wedding favors, jewelry, whatever), before I encourage my readers to do the same, I will do my own research to make sure that the company in question has held up their end of bargains with other bloggers. And if not, I will work with them only if they agree to ship the giveaway prize directly to me, so that I can personally make sure that the winner receives it in a timely manner, and without any hassle or runaround or outright bullshit.

A few days ago Keeshia wrote a short blog entry that, while lacking in a lot of words, definitely has a lot of content. You see, she posted a list of sites that are great resources for blogging ideas. As anyone with a multiple blog or even just one blog can tell you, the urge to blog is often there, but the topics to blog about aren’t.

Check out her post to see the great list of sites! In the meantime, I’m going to go through my closet and dig out all of the plus size swimwear I no longer need. Yay!

Q&A, or Questions & Answers, are an interesting, fun and interactive feature that you can add to your blog. If you use a self-hosted installation of WordPress, you’ll have access to a variety of plugins that provide Q&A / interviewing functionality to your blog. You can also use certain external PHP scripts, such as the lovely PHPAskIt, which even includes instructions on WordPress integration.

Third party Q&A sites like Formspring.me can also be taken advantage of if you’d like to offer readers of your blog or Twitter account the opportunity to ask questions. The advantages to using these third party services is not having to worry about the initial setup or configuration; disadvantages include not always being able to ban anonymous questions or flamers, and having to rely on a third party to serve your needs.

I like having a Q&A form on my personal blog, jenn.nu. I am personally a big fan of PHPAskIt, as you can view and ban IP addresses for all questions. You can also choose whether or not unanswered questions are displayed, and you can easily customize the templates that display the questions.

If you do decide to use a Q&A form, keep in mind that there are always flamers. Be prepared for crude, rude or obnoxious questions — they seem to be a part of the territory!

As a blogger, participating in product reviews — where you receive a product to write an honest, unbiased, detailed review about on your blog — is beneficial not only because you receive something for free, but because you’re providing your blog with additional, unique content. I can’t tell you how many search engine hits I’ve gotten as a result from writing about certain products or services. More hits from search engines means recognition from the Google gods, which can result in a higher Google Page Rank and search engine listing. Plus, showcasing reviews on your blog shows potential advertisers and companies that you’re interested in receiving products for review, which means opening yourself up to the possibility of receiving additional products for review!

From an advertiser’s standpoint, it pays to hook up with bloggers and coordinate reviews because you’ll have the opportunity to reach a large audience through just one person! When it comes to the internet, one person can provide a very powerful voice. Through their blog, their Twitter and Facebook accounts, and whatever other social media networks and outlets they use online, you’ll be able to spread the word about your company and the products or services you offer.

Even if you’ve never done a product review yourself, I’m sure you’re at least semi-familiar with the process. A company sends a blogger a product, the blogger then turns around and uses the product and writes up a detailed post on it. The post may or may not be accompanied by a giveaway, and the blogger may or may not do future reviews with the company.

So, how do you get started with product reviews? Well, one thing I’d highly recommend is dedicating a blog category or perhaps an entire blog to product reviews. jenn.nu, for example, has a category for product reviews, while In My Bag is my dedicated product review blog.

You’ll want to post reviews on a semi-regular basis, so potential advertisers and companies can see that you’re serious about doing reviews! Put effort into writing well-written, high quality reviews that show that you’re sincere about reviewing products and highlighting their intended uses and what they have to offer.

Finally, let potential reps for companies know that you’re available! You can write a post on your blog, a separate page/article, or post a cute button or logo that advertisers your reviewing availability. Be sure to make your contact information readily available! You can use a pre-made “I review products!” button, or make a custom one. Here’s mine (PR stands for Public Relations):

Finally, be sure to join groups and forums that are all about product reviews (a great one is The Product Review Place!). You’ll not only connect with other bloggers who can show you the ropes, you’ll also be able to read pitches and offers directly from advertisers and companies themselves!

Providing content is essential to a successful blog. And by successful, I mean successful in regards to having visitors, subscribers, commenters, etc. Of course hits aren’t everything, but you’re only fooling yourself if you try and say that your blog is by you and for you. If it was only for you, it would be private, or in paper form. If it’s online, and public, then you obviously want to reach out and attract visitors.

So how do you go about doing so? Well, in addition to maintaining a blog that is full of your personal thoughts, give some thought to stocking your blog with some decent content. When deciding what kind of content to put on your blog, give some thought to what your blog is about, what your visitors might be interested in, and most importantly, what topics you’re knowledgeable about, or at least interested in. As the article Content creation tips: How to create good content points out, write about what you know. Don’t force yourself to write about completely alien topics or in a different writing style, or else you risk alienating visitors and setting yourself up for a tedious task.

Publish content that interests you. Make sure that your content is credible by discussing only those topics that you’re well versed in, and/or providing legitimate sources (via links) along with each piece of content that you publish.

And don’t forget to interact with the visitors that do take the time to visit your blog and give feedback on the content that you have published. Show your visitors by caring by responding to what they have to say. And don’t forget to visit them in return!

WordPress offers its own option for protected blog entries, but that requires entering in a password for each individual entry that you write. Passwords are fine, except that you’ll have to remember a lot of passwords, or use the same password for every protected entry you write. But if you want to prevent individuals from accessing those entries, you’ll need to edit those posts one by one and change their passwords.

The better solution by far is to set it up so that certain blog entries are protected by permissions. By setting permissions, you’ll be able to keep a group of blog entries protected and determine exactly who has access to them, and remove access from certain individuals if the need should arise. And I’m able to do exactly that, using three WordPress plugins: Advanced Category Excluder, Role Manager and ViewLevel 2.0.

Advanced Category Excluder, which I have already written about, allows you to exclude certain categories from certain aspects of your website.

Role Manager allows you to set up roles for specific users. I use the plugin to define and group “approved” users, which are users whose registrations I have manually bumped up to the “approved” status. I also use the plugin to give the “approved” group an user level of 3, which works in conjunction with ViewLevel 2.0.

ViewLevel 2.0 filters posts based on their user level. Basically, any post that is designated as requiring a user level of 0 or above will be hidden from the view unregistered users — your normal Joe Schmoe visitor.

Putting it Together
Here’s how to use these three plugins in order to create protected blog entries on your blog. If used correctly, these three plugins will allow you to create blog posts that are viewable only by a group of registered users that you have manually approved.

Advanced Category Excluder: use this plugin to prevent your designated category for protected blog entries (I named my category “Protected”) from showing up in archives, searches and feeds.

Role Manager: set up a role named “Approved”. Set the user level to 3.

ViewLevel 2.0: add vl=3 to any posts that you wish to protect.

Also: make sure to select your “Protected” category for protected blog entries!

Blogs should always come equipped with an RSS feed. WordPress and most other content management systems offer a feed by default, but some bloggers choose to turn them off. Why? I have no idea. It’s true that a feed is “bland” and can’t be spruced up with fancy layouts, designs and images, but that’s not the purpose of a feed. A feed delivers your posts, stripped of all formatting except for basic HTML (line breaks, paragraph formatting, and bold, underlined and italicized text, and images and links, of course) to a special feed reader, which is designed to present the information in an easy to read manner.

I rely heavily on my feed reader so that I can quickly go through all of the blogs I like to keep tabs on, so if you don’t have a feed, or you’re not sure if it’s working, be sure to make amends to that as soon as possible!