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Browsing through Constant Contact’s back end for our company newsletter, The Content Letter, I recently discovered that we have 23 unconfirmed e-mail addresses. These are e-mail addresses for people who have attempted to opt-in to our newsletter, but for one reason or another did not click the link in the confirmation e-mail that was sent in order to activate their submission.

There are several reasons why this could have happened. The e-mail could have landed in the person’s junk mail and they haven’t seen it, or they may have just forgotten about it and never clicked the link. I have done this several times myself after signing up for a newsletter that I thought I wanted. Some of them may have changed their minds after signing up for the newsletter. And, of course, some of them are likely spammers.

Spammers sign up for e-mail newsletters hoping to find an easy doorway into becoming a weed in someone’s rose garden. That’s why I like double opt-in lists. The individual has to confirm their subscription and spammers aren’t likely to do that simply because it takes up more of their time than an e-mail address is worth. All they really want to do is to get the e-mail address of the person sending the newsletter so that they can reply to an issue with their own spam. If they sign up for thousands of newsletters a day with that intention and only a handful of them are double opt-in newsletters then they have a low pay out in time commitment. That’s why we have opted to use the double opt-in process. It cuts down on spam.

If you have signed up for The Content Letter any time between mid-December and now and have not received an issue, it may be because you have not confirmed your e-mail address. Please search your junk mail folder and click the confirmation link. Otherwise, we will be cleaning out unconfirmed list and will delete all unconfirmed e-mails. We’ll give you one week. After that, you’ll have to opt in again.

If you are not receiving The Content Letter at this time, I encourage you to sign up for our newsletter by going to the Blog Content Provider website and entering your e-mail address into the sign up box at the top of the page just below the menu bar.

By Ian Hollander

One of the biggest problems any blogger faces, new, experienced or otherwise, is the exhausting and never ending battle with blog comments you just don’t want, need or have the time to deal with. Blocking spam on Wordpress is a huge piece of heavy lifting if you don’t know what you are doing, and I firmly believe, one of the primary reasons many people ultimately give up on their big buck blogging plans! A few days of having to remove Viagra ads, triple XXX website links and long strings of keyword spam can literally break the spirit of even the most audaciously hopeful upstart blogger. Let’s take a quick look at a VERY simple and easy solution to turn off the spammers, all whilst encouraging good and positive comments from your REAL site community!

We’ve talked a good deal about Wordpress plugins in the past, and how to selectively choose just the ones that are going to be most functional for your blog, rather than simply adding every unnecessary bell and whistle available. Well the ASKIMET spam protector plugin is one that you ABSOLUTELY need to have activated if you are worried about, or getting spam. Simply stated, all you need to do is go into your plugin administration area, activate the plugin (it should come default with your WP software) and then, enter your Wordpress API key when requested….and BAM! No more SPAM!

Note - you will have to go and set up your account with Wordpress.Com to get your personal key, which is required for Askimet to be activated. It is free, and takes less time than it would to heat up a cup of water in the microwave, so don’t skip this step. You can use the same API key in ALL of your subsequent Wordpress installs, and if you have been following my work for any length of time, I recommend you put up as many WP sites as you can handle, simply to add to your virtual asset base as we’ve covered before.

Have fun, and remember, you will occasionally have a slice or two get through the Askimet filter, but not often - and I promise - this is the one plugin all Wordpress bloggers need to be using, and now! Happy Blogging.

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I had to laugh. An article in a popular article directory said professional writers get writer’s block for years:

One of the very many obstacles I see people face when trying to really commit to building a small empire of “big buck blogs” is the common obstacle of simply running out of ideas. The very best writers in the world often get writers block for years, so if you are stuck trying to think of inventive ways to restate the same basic points in YOUR niche…you are not alone…

What a riot. I’m going to have to call Stephen King and ask him if he gets writer’s block.

I’ve been a writer for most of my life. I’ve never had writer’s block. Never. And I’m not exaggerating. The most skeptical among you are probably saying, “Yeah, right. Liar!” But I’m not. I’ve never not been able to write. I always have something to say and if I don’t then I say it anyway. Yes, I’ve written a lot of crap that should never see the eyes of man, but I wrote something. Writer’s block is something I know nothing about.

That’s why I laughed. This guy would have you believe that the very best writers get writer’s block for years. Years? I’ve never known anyone to get writer’s block for years. Not even the worst writers, let alone the best. If a writer gets writer’s block for years then they aren’t a real writer. That’s why this article is so deserving of a laugh.

Then there’s the grammar. The writer isn’t five words into this hack piece before foisting upon his readers two adverbs - yes, those dastardly, wicked, evil words from the other side of writer’s block. I hate them. Not only does he include two adverbs in the first five words, but they’re back to back adverbs. Detestable!

Good writers kill adverbs. They’re useless. They seldom make writing stronger. They almost always weaken it. And they don’t belong in the English language. The person who invented them must have been a non-writer, probably a mathematician.

The rules for blogging are no different than for any other kind of writing. If you can’t think of something to write about, a professional writer can help. Most of us don’t get writer’s block. If we do, we have ways of dealing with it, techniques that help jar us out of it and come up with something to write about. And grammar? Yes, we believe in good grammar. No adverbs. Unless they’re really necessary. Like that really in the last sentence. It was really necessary. But I’ve made a lifetime hobby of killing adverbs and I think that’s how you know when you’ve found a good writer.

When you set up a blog you have a very important decision to make regarding design. Should you select an off-the-shelf template or select a blog design? There are advantages to doing it both ways. Here’s a run down of the benefits you can expect from going either direction:

Blog Template - If you choose a blog template for your business, you first need to consider what is the appropriate template for your blog. Not all blog templates are created equal. One of the most important considerations you’ll need to make is the optimization of your template. You can choose an attractive blog template, but if it isn’t optimized for search engines then it’s not important how pretty it is. Here are some other things you need to think about for templates:

• One side bar or two? Give this careful thought. If you have two sidebars - right and left, two on the right, or two on the left - then you have less space in the middle where your posts are. You might have more space for things like ads, blogroll, etc. but is it worth it? What will go into your sidebars? What is necessary and what is fluff? You’ll need to know. If you are running an affiliate blog then you might want two sidebars for all the affiliate banner ads you plan to display, but if your blog is a company blog for a service business then you might not want those distractions in your sidebar at all.
• Who else is using your template? Some people say if you are using a popular template then you are cutting your business short. It depends. Are a lot of people in your industry using the same template? If so then you might want to reconsider using it and go with an original design or another template. But if not then you might be OK with a particular template.
• Templates are free. You don’t have to pay for a blog template. But you will have to pay a designer to design you an original design.
• Could be easier to install. A template might be easier to install depending on how the orgiginal blog template is designed. Be sure that you understand any installation issues with a custom designed template.

Original Design - Pride of ownership is a big selling point. If you have an original blog design then you own it. It’s yours. No one else can copy it. You can boast of your originality and it can look really cool, give you a big boost in your image to your targeted customers. That’s a huge selling point. But is that the only benefit?

• Sidebars. You still have to decide how many sidebars you want. You can also give your original design other bells and whistles like dynamic footers, flash headers, etc. but be careful with those because you still have to consider search engine optimization. Don’t get so snazzy that your blog doesn’t pass the SEO test.
• Cost. Can you afford to pay a fancy designer to build you a blog design? Custom blog designs can run anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. Can you afford it? Many bloggers who have purchased a custom blog design have said that it was well worth the expense and that through advertising they have more than made up for it. But that isn’t the case with all of them. Plan your monetization strategy well and make sure that you can afford the expense before you invest.
• Installation. Will you be installing the design yourself or will you have to pay someone to install it. Some custom designs require that you pay a technical person to set it up just right for you. Be sure you consider that expense, if necessary.

There are benefits to having your own design, but that doesn’t mean you should do it. For a lot of people, the cost far outweighs the benefits. It is something you have to give careful consideration to before you invest in an expensive design. The content of your blog is far more important than design and that is something you should always keep in mind.

I recently discovered two social media websites that are absolutely invaluable for any website in any industry and I highly recommend them. One of them is a lifestream website that will organize all of your social media efforts under one umbrella. Lifestreaming is becoming popular now in ways that a few years ago were unimaginable.

Lifestreaming is all about keep tracking of your online life. If you have accounts at several social media websites (and who doesn’t?) then it can get quite complicated trying to keep track of them. That’s where Profilactic comes in.

Profilactic is the best lifestreaming tool available. It’s totally free and will help you keep track of 142 social sites. You can add your blog URLs and RSS feeds to them as well. In fact, if a site isn’t listed with Profilactic then you can add that site to your account settings and Profilactic will track your activity and your friends’ activities. Instead of visiting every single site every day to see what is happening, you can view them all in one interface at Profilactic and visit only the sites that you need to visit when you have new activity on them. This is a huge time saver and a worthwhile tool.

The second tool that I recommend is StumbleUpon Exchange. If you have a StumbleUpon account, this is an incredible tool. When you sign up you are give five points and you are allowed to add as many sites that you want to the exchange. You spend three points for each site you add so you can only add one site initially, but you do earn a point for every site in the database that you stumble. And there are thousands of sites in the database!

The idea is to stumble the sites of other members of the exchange and they in turn will stumble yours. This is one incredible tool. It is perhaps the easiest, fastest way to ensure that you get your websites stumbled and I can’t think of any other tool that benefits users the way that StumbleUpon Exchange can.

You can also earn 10 stumble points through the exchange by referring other users. Click my link from this blog and I’ll get 10 stumble points. Then you can join and recruit your friends. Market your website and your blogs through StumbleUpon Exchange.

I encourage you to sign up for these two web sites today. Login right now before you forget: