How tos

Aug

Have you marked your steps towards blogging as a business? Photo by Lewandowski

“A simple man believes anything, but a prudent man gives thought to his steps.” ~Proverbs 14:15

When bloggers begin to look for ways to increase revenue and income online it can be a tough road when you don’t know who to trust. There is SO MUCH out there – some ok, some good and some out-right horrible. What it means for those who want to take blogging beyond “personal outlet” and turn it into a business is that some common sense business principles must apply. Here are some thoughts.

Read Every Blogging and Writing Contract Very Carefully

Are you writing for someone else? You should have a contract. If you weren’t given a contract, run away. Quickly. If you were given a writing contract, READ IT. Carefully. And then read it again. Be sure to clarify any confusing points, especially when it comes to your rights.

Ask Yourself What Rights You’re Willing to Give and at What Cost

If you are ghost-writing content for another site, and your name is not on it, you should be charging a premium price. That is freelance copyrighting. Not “blogging”. If you get your name on it and a brief bio and even a link back to your website, that may be of value to you so you could consider charging a lower price. If the client is taking full rights and you are giving them the rights to the content forever, you would want to charge more than you might if you were able to reuse the content in print or on your own website in the future. These are all considerations you should be aware of before agreeing to a certain price.

If it Talks Like a Business, It Should Act Like a Business

I’m just sayin’. If you call yourself a professional blogger or say that you want to turn this into a business, than do not treat it like a hobby. If you want to blog for personal enjoyment, by all means, do so. Just don’t call it a business if it’s not. And by all means – if you’re calling it a business, please, please, please act professionally. This means your speech. Your financial dealings. Your disclosures. Your dealings with clients and other bloggers.

Of course, sometimes these things sneak up on us – that’s what it means to give thought to your steps. When you find yourself in the position to accept advertising, or begin using affiliate links in your posts, you’ll need to think carefully to your steps. Think of yourself as a business from dollar $1 and you won’t find yourself stumbling in the future. Step wisely, dear friend, and the prudent path will be before you.

Dec

Five Potential Benefits of Negative Blog Comments

By AngEngland | How tos

10 Comments

Not all blog comments are loving, supportive and kind. Photo by R. Lewin

It’s inevitable. If you put yourself out there on the web, you will eventually be the recipient of negative comments on your blog posts. Usually when you are least expecting it. So why allow negative comments on your blog post? A recent #Journchat discussion on Twitter had me really considering this issue.

Here are five things to think over before automatically clicking “delete” on a less-than-supportive comment:

1. Are they right? Do they have a valid point? Sure, you may not appreciate their tone or the way in which they said it, but sometimes a negative commenter may be making a logical point. Reexamine your blog post – did you leave something out? If so, thank the commenter for pointing out what you missed.

2. Can you Start a Conversation? I had an experience early on in the life of this blog where a commenter left a semi-rude negative comment. I did not delete it, but left it to stand and asked a few other writers what they thought. Wow! Did the conversation start!

3. What is the Potential for Engaging the Commenter? I have successfully turned negative comments into a guest post on the commenter’s blog by engaging them in a conversation. Sometimes that means following up with them on your response to their comment.

4. Does the Comment Add to the Post or to Your Blog? If someone leaves a comment on my blog and I feel it contributes something of value, then I will leave it. Even if I disagree with their particular decision.

5. Do you Need to Respond or Can you Leave it? Sometimes you make a stronger statement by allowing a negative comment just stand. Without a lot of knee-jerk response by you. It shows your confidence in your own point of view, and also allows your other readers to “come to your defense”. Much more effective than you seeming defensive.

Having said that, I don’t want anyone to think that this means I allow every comment submitted to my blog to stand. Far from it. Anonymous, porn, vulgar or profane comments are simply deleted without a second thought.

But negative comments? Well, I hover my curser over that delete button just a little longer and take a good, hard look at whether it’s really worth deleting or not. Sometimes even negative comments are of huge value to a blogger.

Dec

Ideas for Increasing Your Blog’s Traffic

By AngEngland | How tos

4 Comments

This post is dedicated to Amanda. We’ve all reached a point that feels like a plateau in our online career. Either the revenue is staling out, or the traffic isn’t climbing the way you think it should be, but either way it’s tough to feel like you’re just stuck. So here are some ideas for moving beyond the basic tricks of digg, stumble and tweeting your links.

Look For an Additional Platform

Increase Blog Website Traffic. Photo by Ilker

Some online sites accept content from writers and have the ability to help you build up your platform as being knowledgeable in a particular area. Sites like Examiner, Suite101, Type-A-Mom and Untrained Housewife all have specific columns or section areas where you can contribute articles. Use them to not only become more well-known online, but also create judicious links back to your main blog, articles, and posts. Most of these sites offer an additional bonus of revenue sharing or payment!

Create Outlying Related Posts for Incoming Links

A great way to do this is to use Hubpages, Squidoo or other sites for creating incoming links to specific posts and articles on your main site. Google looks at these deep links (links to a PAGE on your site vs to your main site) in addition to links to your main site and considers them important, especially when coming from a page with related content. You can see a sample of how I did this with an Untrained Housewife article using Hubpages.

This Hubpage is specific to how to use this recipe for Thanksgiving. Very seasonal, short and easy to write. Meanwhile, the main article on Untrained Housewife, shares the Christmas Chicken Recipe and a bit more general information about how I use it and why I like it. By using the Hubpage to point back to the main website I’ve told Google that not only is this a great recipe worth showing in the results, but it’s also relevant to Thanksgiving.

Additionally, the community at Hubpages will see what I’ve posted and give me the potential of new readers that would not have otherwise found my site. And that’s an important key – if you are always getting readers from the same exact places, those are the only readers you will have. I have done similar things with Squidoo lenses by gathering more than one article or blog post on a related topic, and link to ALL the posts from a dedicated lens.

Message Boards, Blog Comments and Community Sites

Almost every niche has message boards or forums dedicated to them, blogs on the subject, or community websites offering you the chance to meet others in the same niche. This can be a great way to not only find other bloggers for post exchanges or blog carnivals, but also to keep informed of the latest news, books, “celebrities” and happenings in the field. Often your forum signature and profile information can include links so don’t be afraid to include a link to your favorite or most poignant post! (Be sure to check the user agreements of each specific community and forum so you are abiding within their guidelines.)

Once you move beyond the basic bookmarking sites, you’ll find your reach, audience, knowledge and traffic increasing. Sometimes it’s all about broadening your horizons a little bit and looking past the obvious. See some additional ideas from @Moomettes great post 11 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog