I love having a website. I’ve been blogging for all of a month now, and I’m a bit addicted. Sometimes it’s hard finding the time and the inspiration to put something good together, but I’m working at it, with the goal of writing three blog posts a week.
Something that is new to the blog this week is reader comments. I’ve had a few, but unfortunately for me, the majority appear to be that dreaded internet marketing technique – spam.
Image credit – CAPL Washington and Jefferson College (capl(Replace this parenthesis with the @ sign)washjeff.edu)
The whole point of writing a blog is because I want people to read it. Even better, it would be nice to engage with people who are interested in similar things, people who can help with my writing, or people who I can perhaps offer advice to.
I’m not interested in cheap Ugg boots.
Well, maybe a little – I am a girl – but this website isn’t the place for that.
As someone who makes a living working in Marketing, I’m maybe a bit better adept at spotting a spam comment than some. Recently I gave a presentation about social media to some of the management team at my company, and spent a good bit of time giving them advice on spotting bots and spam messages on Twitter.
The same applies to a blog. If someone posts a message and their identity is related to a shop, I guess there’s a good chance they’re posting comments all over the place in the hope they’ll get links back to their own websites. And links mean sales.
Well, much as I get a thrill when I see someone’s posted a comment on here and it’s awaiting moderation, I’d really rather it was from a genuine reader, and not someone who’s using me to improve their own site rankings.
So if you’re thinking about leaving me a comment in the hope I’ll buy something from your website or that one of my other readers will, then all I can say is…
…spam off!