Ever go to a blog and read an article that you find interesting and would like to follow what other commentators are saying but you don’t really care to add a comment yourself?

I do sometimes. Especially if it’s a list that I know others will add links to in a comment section.

Like mine, most WordPress blogs you go to have the Subscribe To Comments plugin so those that comment can keep up on the conversation going on in the comment section.

There’s a little tweak I did to my Subscribe To Comments plugin many bloggers may not be aware of that you can do.

By simply adding the following line of code to your comments.php file, you can allow your blog readers to follow a topic without commenting.

<?php show_manual_subscription_form(); ?>

As mentioned above, add the code to your comments.php file and just below the </form> tag near the bottom of the file’s code.

A network of bloggers helping one another.

This is a special blog post as an introduction for new visitors to this blog coming from Liz Strauss’s second official Blog-to Show which showcases blogs from all over the blogosphere (mine is #132).

The idea is bloggers can find one another through her blog and make relationships with like-minded people. Thank you, Liz.

For those of you who are new to this blog, thank you for stopping by. My name is John Hoff and I own a few businesses including this one, eVentureBiz. eVentureBiz is a Web 2.0 web hosting and development company targeted at helping those who wish to create an online presence, incorporate their business, and learn what takes to become successful online.

From the first day of conception of eVentureBiz, I knew I wanted to create a home on the web for web hosting customers and give them a different experience from the typical boring web hosting company’s site. If you’re curious what I’m talking about, I wrote an article on the topic entitled, Is Your Website Web 2.0 or Corporate?

So you got a blog and want to start earning enough money to support your Starbucks fix each week through the use of affiliate marketing and ads.

But if you’re like me, you don’t want to slap any ol’ product on your site and send your visitors to who knows where.

Yes, I’ve been working on ways to monetize this blog and I’d like to share with you some thoughts I have on this topic because to be quite honest, most of my options out there for affiliate marketing violates many rules I go by when creating a brilliant website.

Although I’ve only been blogging for about 9 months or so, I’ve had my share of time in designing websites and providing business advice to entrepreneurs. Anyone who knows anything about marketing knows you need to focus your product on something your target audience wants or will listen to, otherwise it will be ignored.

In today’s world, having a website is one of the most powerful marketing tools entrepreneurs can have for their businesses and it’s their responsibility to make sure people can find it and understand its message.

Craft a bad, unorganized website and your potential customers will no longer be potential.

My last post 20.4 Ways People Scan Your Website showed us how people scan your website and where their eyes naturally are drawn to. Today I’d like to share some videos which can help us learn to design better websites and attract more clicks/sales.

Attractive Headlines

Excellent video on the importance of writing good headlines. Think about how important good headlines are for magazines like Cosmopolitan, Maxim, Enquirer, etc. Headlines are important for your business in press releases and getting people to click through your blog (by the way, we here at eVentureBiz write press releases if you need one).

Headlines, by Cory from Boing Boing
Run Time: 6:03

We are trained where to look. So show us already. Image by ℓú ℓαcєr∂α

The laws of the Internet (marketing-wise) are different from any other medium. Probably the most important thing to note about the Internet when it comes to marketing is that it is user-interactive.

In other mediums (newspaper, magazine, radio, TV, etc.) people have to read, listen, and wait for all the necessary information they are looking for come to them. On the Internet, however, this information is widely available and can be found by simply scanning and clicking. A wise marketer would take this information and use it to their advantage and apply it to their website.

Some websites create more sales than others simply because its design is designed around the human psyche. Simply having a website and throwing a bunch of content or products on there is no where near as effective as a well formulated (i.e. intentionally placing this and that there) and planned out website.

Image by Douglas - westbound

Today in America we have a problem.

Gas prices are out of control, inflation is killing middle-America, and our housing market has fallen drastically. As a result, many businesses and individuals are forced to file bankruptcy and allow their homes fall into foreclosure.

For those of you with tarnished credit reports because of today’s economy, I want to tell you there is hope in the near future.

You see, today banks are going through rough times themselves and in order to survive past the next couple of years they will have no choice but to work with a large number of businesses and individuals with poor credit reports.

What I believe we will see over the next 2 to 3 years are new loan options and programs available for those with bankruptcies and foreclosures on their credit because of what’s happening today.

Turning Wordpress Into Your Own Image by ShadowKris

Wordpress is my chosen blogging platform. Since I’ve begun my blogging journey I’ve come across many great plugins and customizations that other Wordpress users have created.

All our web hosting plans come with easy to install scripts, one of them being Wordpress.

There are plenty of similar plugin and hacks list out there like this one, however, I’ve been asked by a few of our customers which plugins I use and where they can find some more great mods. Therefore, I created the following list.

By the way, the list is ever going and does not end with this post. I’ll continue to add to the list in our community forums. If you have or know of other plugins that you like, please post in the comment section, thanks.

* next to the number denotes plugins I use