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I often see a lot of paid to comment jobs on Freelancer.com, and so even though there are a lot of spammers, I have been noticing actual legitimate comments from businesses that normally I would find as spammers. In fact, these comments are real and I cannot deny it – even if I reply to their comment and they never respond.

How are they real?

They actual show depth in thought and also provide feedback concerning the topic. It is not a lame comment at all!

I can see why paying someone to go around and comment might be nice, but is it truly effective? Are these people actually given a list of sites that might convert visitors into customers. If by what I have seen lately with these people leaving real comments, I think there may be a real case.

The purpose of these comments are primarily placed so the blog owner and readers of the site will by chance visit. It seems harmless and I have no problem with that.

However… how do we define that versus comment spam? Do you just delete an honest comment that has everything to do with your post just because you have a feeling it was actually a paid comment, or do you keep it?

Obviously, it is easy to spot comment spam. A lot of it does not make any type of sense. Some of these people are asked to use a different email address and such. For me, I have a problem with that because you should proudly represent your comment, even if it might be paid. I like it when a company is open about their dealings and this would be hiding it. Is it shady? It depends on what your preference is. Right now, I am just coming to acknowledge this slowly growing trend.

I am almost wondering if those comments will eventually need to be disclosed like paid posts.

What are your thoughts about people getting paid to comment on sites? If the comment seems legitimate, should it be allowed, or should it be considered comment spam?

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I really have not mentioned anything about guest posting here, but I have elsewhere, so it is about time I make a post about it here about WPAddict. WordPress is a great community and even though I could go on and on with my own posts here, I really would like to invite knowledgeable members of the community (both WordPress and bloggin) to help enhance this site. It is also a way to get some link juice back to your site.

Guest posting is not that hard. Here, if it is WordPress related, it is acceptable unless you are going to spam your affiliate links out. Trust me, I have had a few people try to be slick on my other site.

Posts only need to be at least 200 words. It can be a tutorial, a plugin review, tips, interviews with WordPress rockstars, or even some WordPress news. For me, it is important to open this blog up to the community. In the meantime, if you do have a WordPress site already, feel free to drop by, register at WPAddict.net and post about your site.

I will be putting together a guest post submission guideline in the near future, but now that the cat is out of the bag…. are you interested in posting here at WPAddict?

I was really happy to hear back from Rebecca Diamond recently. For those who do not know, her connection to WordPress is working with the brilliant team at StudioPress. I think it is great to interview people who are making a difference and she definitely is paving a way. By the way, StudioPress was one of the first companies to offer commercially supported WordPress themes.

Here is my review with Rebecca.

ME: When did you start using WordPress and what was it that “sold” you on the idea of using it?

REBECCA: I began using WordPress during 1.5/Strayhorn. I had just begun doing some web development, and had been asked to do a site with well over 400 pages. Obviously, using straight HTML wasn’t efficient for that, and a friend suggested I look over B2Evolution, PHP-Nuke, and WordPress. WordPress was the most intuitive for me, and the easiest to work with as an absolute PHP newbie. It wasn’t hard to “sell” me on anything that made an intimidating task a lot easier.

ME: You work for StudioPress, so what kinds of things do you personally offer for people as part of the awesome team there?

REBECCA: I’m glad you think StudioPress is awesome – I do too, which is why I work for the company My official role is Project Manager. My day to day tasks include producing the tutorials (written and screencast) for each new theme we offer, helping with forum support, and assisting with the new projects we’re always developing. Each day brings new duties, which keeps things exciting!

ME: For those who do not use StudioPress services, in your own words, what is it that you believe
StudioPress offers versus popular frameworks and other premium WordPress related services?

REBECCA: My experience with other frameworks and companies is much like my experience with other blogging/content management systems – I looked at what was out there when I started to make the switch to premium themes, and StudioPress (at the time, Revolution) was elegant, clean, and workable.

I believe StudioPress has helped define the premium themes market – just a few years ago, we were one of the only premium theme companies. While I’ve met many of our “competitors” (more on that in the WordCamp question!) and they are fantastic people with great themes and products, I’m really in love with our Genesis framework. Genesis was my first hands-on experience with a parent/child theme, and it makes it so much easier to update as more functionality is added – no more worries about overwriting css!

Also, I believe our support forum team is spectacular – that’s one of the things that drew me in as a client long before I was an employee. We’ve got a fantastic team of people who freely share their knowledge and experience. Having been the newbie not that many years ago, I’d say it doesn’t matter how great your product is if you can’t help people use it. And StudioPress has always been a user-friendly company with great themes.

ME: When you were learning how to design for WordPress, what types of things did you have difficulty with? And for those who might have the same difficulties learning it now, what kind of advice would you have for them?

REBECCA: Oh dear – I think I had every newbie problem there is! When I first began designing, I couldn’t have told you what any of the theme files were, or why they were important. I literally learned from the ground up. Thanks to the widespread WordPress community and the wonders of Google, I was able to search for a line of php and see what it was for, when people used it, and why.

My biggest bit of advice? First, obviously, use Google or your favorite other search engine It’s amazing what you can learn just by reading the top 5 results you get when you’ve blown up your blog for the 18th time and have some weird error you don’t understand – paste it in and click “Search”. Someone else out there has already had that same error, and 9 times out of 10 they’ve documented it and shared their fix. Second – if you don’t understand what you’ve just found searching, post a comment. Ask for clarification. Ask on the support forum associated with the theme or product you’re using. It’s only a stupid question if it remains unasked! Third – The WordPress Codex is a God-send. Bookmark it. Refer to it often. It’s saved my online life more than once

ME: I know you have gone to quite a few WordCamps, so for those who have not gone, what kind of things do you think are great for beginners coming to a WordCamp? Are there any things that WordCamps of the past still have not covered that could prove beneficial to newbies to WordPress or even advanced
developers?

REBECCA: Ah, WordCamp…I love WordCamps! They vary from Camp to Camp as to what they cover, but every one I’ve been to has at least 4 or 5 sessions geared to the absolute beginner. None of them have been as formal as other conferences I’ve attended – so if you find yourself in a session that’s going way over
your head, it’s ok to quietly slip out and join another session, or even just hang around in the hallways
or common areas and chat with other WordPress users. The Genius Bar is another great resource – a
good place to ask all those questions you may have and don’t want to commit to having hang around on
the internet in perpetuity!

Speaking of hanging around, that’s my favorite part of WordCamps – just talking with other people who are crazy about WordPress too. As I mentioned earlier, I’ve met many of our “competitors” – it’s hard to call them that when everyone is so nice What I have discovered is that while there’s competition, it’s very, very friendly – come to a WordCamp and you’ll likely see some well-known developers, all owning competing companies, sitting around discussing ways to make WordPress better so that everyone can benefit.

I’d love to see WordCamps encourage even more of this – the very first WordCamp I attended was in Chicago 2009, and it had these small round tables where 8 or 10 people could sit. It encouraged talking and getting to know your table-mates (maybe to the chagrin of the speakers all of whom were very gracious about it!) and it was nice to be encouraged to get to speak with other attendees that way.

ME: Although we are about to go into WordPress 3.0, what kinds of things are you wanting WordPress to cover or do in the future? (any types of features, or even some backend capabilities?)

REBECCA: It’s hard to say – WordPress 3.0 is fulfilling so many things on the personal wish-lists of myself and others, and offering things I hadn’t even thought to want! I’m excited about moving into the 3.0 era, and I’m waiting to build a revised wish-list once I’ve played with 3.0 for a while

Rebecca Diamond is a homeschooling mom, a wife, and an avid knitter. Her geek career began with getting her ham radio license, complete with Morse Code certification, at the age of 12. She has been working as a web developer focusing on WordPress for the last 5 years, and has been employed with StudioPress since July 2009. Connect with Rebecca on Twitter – @r_diamond.

The Testimonials Manager plugin for WordPress by Gobola Krishnan is a pretty handy plugin, especially if you have a business that likes to share what your clients think about your product.

It holds the ability to enter a name, the person’s site address, a small avatar, and the testimony itself. Users can display testimonies in their sidebar and the plugin generates a testimony page.

For anyone wanting to use this plugin, they will note that the plugin has a credit line published at the end of the page. This can be removed by editing the plugin files. However, with future updates, the attribute will simply overwrite this – putting the credit back up. I had this happen with a client who wanted to use this plugin, but did not want the attribution link on it.

I will note that if the plugin is edited within the WordPress admin panel, that the script will generate another new page. It is a bit of an annoyance, but easily fixed by deleting the newly created testimony page.

As for customizing the plugin itself, it takes finding the correct CSS classes and such, and adding them to the theme’s style sheet. (It might actually take putting up an example testimonial and viewing the source to see what the plugin produces. It might be an easier alternative to looking into the plugin’s files.)

Have you tried this plugin? How has it worked for you?

The internet is sustained through a continuous supply of up-to-date information through often exasperating human effort. This network, analogous to a human vascular system must be kept alive with nutrients, and a readily available supply of “Blogsxygen.”

This supply is provided by the multitude of avid bloggers and midnight-oil-burning writers.

Keeping the internet’s heart pumping takes a lot of input.

So for the general online blogger, who has no newsroom experience, what can be done to reduce the pressure to keep up to date?

The real answer to organization in the workplace is the no-clutter approach. Ever noticed that successful executives have nothing on their desks? It’s not that they have nothing to do, they are very busy people – and VERY expensive to hire, so their techniques are the best management training can buy. Another thing you may have noticed is that they are not all rocket scientists either, so what these execs do, anyone can too!

The key to good working organization is to be clutter free – not by color coding Post-It notes!

Effective organization can easily be achieved by following some simple steps

• Keep an address book either written in an A-Z book or on your computer, do not write contact info anywhere else.
• Use a written or computer-based desk diary, written is better. Do not write/ anything down that is time-sensitive anywhere else.  The diary should be the daily bible. Do not use loose inserts/post-its in the diary either.
• Maintain a system of file naming for everything you write that is not immediately published. The filenames should include the date, version and title. This makes retrieval of archives so much easier.
• If you have multiple blogs and updates that can be categorized, make multiple desktops/logins so that you can have a customized workspace relevant to each project that you are undertaking.
• If you need to be note-taking constantly, keep all the notes in one journal. If computerized, the key to selecting effective desktop organization software is to keep it simple – organizers that offer too many features are invariably counter-productive.

Most of all get rid of the irrelevant clutter in your workspace! Some people thrive under an umbrella of momentarily interesting desk toys and trendy stationery items. This often translates through to the computer desktop they work with. This haphazard approach to work is not effective. A de-clutter of all the digital desk-toys and must-have system tray items has a detrimental effect on productivity. Constant adjusting, updating and fooling around with feature-rich and function-poor software is very time-wasting. A productive workplace requires focus on relevance.  For the many that have a daily responsibility to meet a deadline, keeping both the physical and the digital desktop clear of abstract data and irrelevance is the ultimate goal.

Only once the suffocation of trivia and distraction is removed, can effective blogxygen be successful.

I have recently opened the blog to registration for authors/ guest writers since I have had quite a few submissions. I think it will be far more helpful than sending an email to me with the email in document form.

With that said, anyone who wrote in the past, even if you do not write in the future, you will have an author account as I am adjust the template. In fact, there has been a lot of content moving, and soon to be some dynamic page template changes to better allow each section of the site easier navigation.

These changes will also demonstrate how dynamic you can make your site. This was inspired because I will be speaking at WordCamp Chicago 2010 that your WordPress site can have a look that is more than a blog format. My topic is “Rocking Out Your Website With WordPress.” You can view the full program of WordCamp Chicago 2010 if you like.

With that said, anyone wanting to guest write can view the requirements and how to sign up by clicking on Guest Write Here. It can also be found at the top of this website in the main navigation.

I really hate to present a negative review. However, I really find it redundant to use a plugin like Validation Helper, which checks how valid your page’s code is after performing a conversion from XHTML to HTML.

One thing I like to point out is that despite it being a plugin with good intentions, it really is not necessary. Anyone can go to the W3 Validator and do a detailed check on their website. It is unnecessary to install and use this plugin as it is an unnecessary process that your site will have to go through.

The plugin only shows the number of errors. It does not go through and give a detailed report. For those who have been working on their site and articles, it becomes a little difficult to pick out what exactly is going on. It might be a missing piece of code, an extra space, or even a mistake in typing.

The W3 validator is a great tool. Even though it is off-site from your WordPress admin panel, it should be bookmarked and used. So, save yourself some unnecessary processes, disk space, and even some time. As a note, the other validators available in the WordPress plugin directory are not too much different from this one.

What do you think? Necessary/ Unnecessary? Needs more features?

Though there are a lot of people who do plan posts, there are also many who do not. In fact, a lot of times, creating a post might be something done on a whim. However, it might be better to think ahead.

Every day you read a lot of articles and view a lot of pictures. In return, you might even be motivated to blog about it. The problem is that you might end up having a lot of ideas. You could write it down on paper, but why do that, especially if you use a content management system like WordPress.

In WordPress and most CMS, you can save your articles in ‘draft’ and publish at will.

How?

When you are inspired to write something but might not have the time until later, write a temporary title and a few notes in the post. Save it on draft mode. A lot of times you might need to find a little more information, so when you are ready to write the post out, it is there for you any time you want.

In fact, you can have many posts in draft mode. You can use it like a “to do” or “to blog” list. This eliminates you having to write down a list of topics on paper. It also gives you a guideline to try to stick to instead of coming up with something impromptu.

If you decide that an article is not worth writing, you can just delete it.

It really is a convenience to plan your posts on any website. It will save time and you can always add to your blog list, making it easier for you to know what to write next – eliminating the dreaded ‘writer’s block.’ Yes, it can help prevent writer’s block or to some – blogger’s block! For social media marketers, it can be a tool to get content rolling out faster to stay on top of your niche.

Do you plan your posts? Have you tried it and it did not work for you?