Blogging

Aug

I heard an interesting comment on a Clay Collins mentorship call the other day. He said that many bloggers come online with a “job” mentality. They want to know if they work X number of hours and do X amount of tasks what will they make. That’s a job.

Blogging for Yourself is a Business

Like any new business sometimes you put a LOT of work in on the front end. When I began my massage therapy business I got the education, the equipment, found a place to set up shop, spent an entire weekend cleaning, organizing and arranging. And that’s before the advertising began! Then came all the marketing efforts and actual per-hour work with clients.

Once I had a place to work (ie a website and blog), and clients began coming in (readers), I still didn’t actually KEEP every cent I brought it. Some of my income went to rent my space from the owner of the shop. Some of my income went to replenish supplies that were used. And some went in as an investment to help the business grow even more.

When you are working for yourself, the money you bring in is not 100% yours. That’s a huge difference between a job and a business.

Working Online as a Job

The benefits to this approach are clear. It’s safer. It’s easier to calculate into the family budget. I know upfront what the returns on my investment will be and there’s a lot less risk. If the website breaks – the owner of the website is the one up until 2 am trying to fix it. If a coder needs to be hired, that doesn’t come out of my paycheck – the owner of the website is the one footing that bill.

Having Said That….

I love that I have a business of my own! I love daring myself to beat my goals. I love pushing myself to do more this year than I did last year and to expand. To redesign. To tweak. Does that mean I don’t have any “jobs” in this industry? No of course not! I work at Blissfully Domestic as their Editor-in-Chief and I work at Babble in the Being Pregnant Columnist.

Those jobs support my business and are things I’m passionate about. They allowed me to outsource some things and free up time to devote to redesigning Untrained Housewife and AngEngland.com. But that’s not all I’m doing, nor will it ever be.

After all – if I can take a simple ebook about how I made money online and create an additional five figures of income for your family, why would you NOT want to be in business for yourself! It’s certainly more than I would have been paid to write that book for someone else.

Sure there are risks – but the rewards can sometimes far surpass what the job revenue would have been all by itself. You have to assess your own situation and ask yourself what your family can risk, what your personality can tolerate (the uncertainty will absolutely kill some personality types), and what you’re willing to put up with.

Can you live without the equation of X hours doing X, Y and Z = $XXX? Because in a business it isn’t always that simple.

Jul

Get Two Year’s Worth of Blog Ideas

By AngEngland | How tos

6 Comments

At the beginning of the year I wrote about how bloggers can use editorial calendars, and in that post I mentioned a free resource from Blog Energizer. Since then I’ve been subscribed to their monthly blog idea membership program. I’d often wished I could go back and get the past ideas and have more than one month at a time.

The monthly subscription part of Blog Energizer is not going to be offered any longer and instead they are doing a one-time charge of $37 for access to the past two year’s worth of prompts. What I love is that you aren’t just getting 30 days worth of general ideas, but actually THREE sets of PDF files per month – one for health and fitness, one for family and home, and one for business and finance.

So it’s almost like 6 years worth of ideas! Or at least – ideas for several different blogs or situations. So nice. Plus with this one-time offer, I got a very cool blog prompt plugin, and access to 20 premium wordpress themes. I haven’t check out the themes yet, and ya’all know I usually go with Headway or Genesis for all my websites now. But hey – free themes are free themes and you better believe I downloaded them.

The offer ends on the 31st and then it’s gone. So if this is something that sounds of interest to you, check out the going away special today.

Jul

Blogging Your Passion – Blogging Your Voice

By AngEngland | Blogging

20 Comments

You already have a blogging voice. What is it saying?

Someone asked me recently how I have been able to get so much accomplished with all the emotional distractions lately. I really think the timing of Type-A-Parent Conference was a huge blessing to me in this regard. I went in the middle of a crisis of faith, driving down there literally shaking in hurt and frustration in the middle of I-40.

What I rediscovered was my community. My passion. My voice.

I’ve written over two dozen guest posts already, all completely unique with a twist specifically for that particular audience. Some have been published (view the Ebook Guest Posts list here) and several are still pending publication. I finished my latest ebook. I redesigned Untrained Housewife. I launched a new feature on Blissfully Domestic magazine highlighting women of influence and the first interview piece goes up this week. In short…I’m on a roll!

The enthusiasm I have came directly from the hurt I felt three weeks ago when I wrote Blogging Ethics.

Here’s why:

You Cannot Speak Clearly if You’re Speaking Someone Else’s Passion

You cannot speak in your own voice if you are speaking someone else’s passion. When I was too focused on outside influences – the negative hurdles, the race someone else was running, what they chose to invest themselves in – I lost my voice. My vision.

Your Passion Shines Best When You’re True to Yourself

Someone asked me recently how I was staying so enthusiastic in my endeavors. The answer, I am realizing, is simple but profound. I love what I’m doing. I love helping others. I love empowering them to achieve their goals. THAT is my passion. When I focus THERE, the energy is natural. It’s automatic!

You Already Have a Voice

So many times we hear people say, “I’m just trying to find my voice.” Patti Digh at Type-A-Parent Conference says, “You already have a voice. The real question is, ‘What is your voice saying?‘” And that is the rub isn’t it? She challenged us to answer this question - If your voice were speaking freely, what would it say?

My realization is that my voice would say exactly what it is saying right now this second. And that place of passion is a place of power. It’s the best place to be.

You already have a blogging voice. What is it saying?

Jul

Grab the Savvy Blogging Summit Recordings at 50% off!

By AngEngland | Conferences

How and Why to Add the Google Plus One 1+ Button To Your Blog

By AngEngland | How tos

7 Comments

While this screen cast specifically shows how I installed this button on a Genesis site, you can easily adapt to most premium themes and simple hooks or easy hooks systems.

Benefits of the Google Plus One 1+ Button

For SEO purposes I think that the Google Plus One button will be beneficial for website owners and bloggers – especially bloggers who have some built in community that will naturally participate in the clicking of buttons and things. If you tend to get a fair amount of Facebook Likes/Shares or Retweets on a post, you should definitely see results with this new Google 1+ Button.

What we know is that the activity on the Plus One Button will effect search engine results and placements. What we don’t know just yet, is how. As with all things Google.

I do feel that visually, a post that may fall in third or fourth results, but is showing recommendations via the 1+ button, will be more likely to get organic searchers clicking through to the site than a third or fourth place result would otherwise see.

How to Install the Google Plus One Button

I’ve seen the button with a site-wide place somewhere like a sidebar, header or footer. And I’ve also seen the button placed at the top and at the bottom of posts. After testing the placement with my brilliant technical friend, Erica Mueller, we found that placing the button in a site-wide location like header or sidebar is much more limiting. You should place the button where your readers and click on more than one individual post, bettering your search engine results for your entire website.

Get your Plus One Button Code from Google Webmasters tools. The top part of the code does in your header script section. Most premium themes have an area specifically designed for adding script codes like this very easily – on the screencast I show you a Genesis Theme.

The second part of the code goes where ever you want to place it on your website. In this case I am testing the button showing up just under/after the title of the posts. Using Simple Hooks for Genesis plug in made it very easy to install the code without having to edit anything outside of the back dashboard. Most premium themes have hooks available – one of many reasons why I recommend using a premium theme.

Here is the full screen cast to see step-by-step how to install your Google Plus One Button.

If you find it helpful, give it a 1+!

Mar

The Commitment of Blogging

By AngEngland | Blogging

10 Comments

Are you committed to your route? Photo by Helmut Gevert

When I was cleaning up the office I found some old blogging notes from BlissDom 2010 and wanted to share some thoughts with you. From one of the Keynote sessions in which Kevin Caroll was talking about “The Rules of the Red Rubber Ball” – one of the seven rules mentioned really struck me; “Commit to It”.

How committed are you to your blogging? To your freelance writing?

I know writer’s who complain about the state of the print industry, but haven’t sent a query out in three months. Or six months. Or ever. I know bloggers who email me for “secrets to success” and feel angry when I tell them to keep writing! Keep posting! Keep on keeping on!

Direct Sales and Blogging – An Analogy

I think in some ways blogging is kind of like direct sales companies. Some people do really well – after working really hard. And some people see what those inspiration people have done, sign up and wait for the paychecks to roll in – muttering in confusion and anger when it fails to happen. Complain to others about the scams.

I’ve seen direct sales success first hand in my family. I’ve seen blogging success and social media success first hand amongst very close friends.

These people have one thing in common. They. Work. Hard. They are the ones up at midnight. They are the ones NOT playing Rancher-Town on Facebook. They are the ones who are willing to post (call). Even when they don’t feel like it.

Because they have goals and they are committed to them.

I learn so much and am so inspired from seeing these women in action. One of them I am blessed to call “Mom”. Others I call friends. All of them I consider mentors and examples to learn from.

Mar

How to Align Images in a WordPress Post Video

By AngEngland | How tos

Use the Image Edit Screen

Click on the image once it’s been uploaded to bring up the Image Edit screen. Use Center when you want the image be displayed front and center. By selecting Left or Right alignment, you’ll have the text wrapped around the image.

Other Image Editing Options

You can also use this screen to add a URL to the image (this is great for affiliate links). I also use this screen to check the image title, alt text and captions to make sure that I have keyword phrases there. This will increase the SEO friendliness of my post overall with keywords in these “hidden” locations.

Images can effect both post SEO and the reader friendliness of your posts so use them wisely in your blog posts to maximize your blog’s effects!

Mar

What do I do if Someone Steals my Blog Content?

By AngEngland | How tos

23 Comments

As we’ve seen, catching a plagiarist is not overly difficult. The tough part can come from knowing what to do next. Once you’ve found your blog post or article copied on someone else’s site, how should you handle it?

Email or Leave a Comment for the Content Thief First

Sometimes a blog or website owner is ignorant of copyright laws. There seems to be a misguided belief out there that goes something like “If it’s online, it’s free”. Which of course is not at all true but some people don’t quite understand that. So I tend to start with a firm but polite email that goes something like this:

“Hello! I noticed you enjoyed my article on lavender essential oils however this article is copyright protected and cannot be republished elsewhere. I am available to write an original article for you for $75 per post if you are interested. Either way, this article needs to be removed within 48 hours. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Blessings, Angela <><”

Things to Include When Contacting Content Thieves

I always include a link to my original post to prove copyright ownership. If it’s a post that I’m willing to allow to be reprinted I’ll add a sentence after the second sentence that says, “The reprint fee for this article is $150 if you’d like to keep this article on your site. I’m also available to write an original article for you…..”

Be sure that your request for them to remove the article is NOT a negotiable statement or question. “Would you mind taking it down?” is not a request, it’s a question. Which the content thief could answer with a “yes I mind taking it down” and they’ve answered your question. So be sure you’ve actually said, “I need you to take my article down” or else you’ve never actually requested your article to be removed.

What Happens if They Don’t Take Your Article Down?

If the person who stole your article or website post doesn’t take your post down within the alloted time frame you need to move on to a DMCA complaint. This is a serious thing and should result in the plagiarist being de-indexed from Google as though that post doesn’t even exist – protecting your hard work and blogging efforts. You can file a DMCA with Google here.

I also will contact the advertising networks, hosting companies and domain registrars if there is no response. And I track down an email address (WHOIS is a good resource) and send invoices via Paypal. Usually what happens is I get ignored and then they get the invoice from me and take down the article.

Do Content Thieves Ever Actually Pay?

Yes. Usually 3 out of 10 people will apologize and take the post down, pleading ignorance of the laws. An additional 2 out of 10 will take down the post after first contact but never say anything to me. 3 out of 10 will wait until I send an invoice and THEN take it down without comment. 1 out of 10 requires a formal DMCA before taking action and about 1 out of 10 will either pay the reprint fee or hire me to write a replacement article for them.

Feb

How to Find Plagiarized Content Using Google Alerts

By AngEngland | How tos

19 Comments

How to Search for Stolen Content - Photo by Joana Croft

I love Google Alerts to find out when someone has stolen my content. It’s a great tool that is completely free and will warn you when someone copies your articles. But in order to be useful for catching plagiarists and content thieves, you have to set up your Google Alert properly.

Using Vanity Google Alerts for Name and Blog

It’s common for bloggers and those active in the social media arena to use Google Alerts for what are known as “vanity alerts”. This means the blogger creates Google Alerts to search for their name, and their blog name. For example my vanity alerts search for AngEngland, Angela England and Untrained Housewife (which yields some interesting results by the way).

Creating Google Alerts to Catch Stolen Blog Posts

When you create a google alert to monitor your content you want to set them up a little differently. Take a unique sentence from your blog post or article and make THAT statement your search parameter.

BUT (here’s the really important part) be sure to use quotation marks around the unique sentence or you’ll get total spam and unrelated results. So for example, if I were creating a google alert for this post I would put a unique sentence from the middle of the post in quotes and it would look like this: “For example my vanity alerts search for AngEngland, Angela England and Untrained Housewife (which yields some interesting results by the way).”

Here are some tips to keep in mind:

1-Take your sentence from the middle or middle-end of the post. Content thieves will often rewrite the title and intro paragraph and then cut and paste everything else over.

2-Search everything – News, blog posts, etc so you can catch plagiarism of your content in any location. I’ve found my articles published on college websites, customer newsletters, EBay sales pages….everywhere.

3-Don’t forget to use quotation marks so the search results will yield exact matches only. This will prevent your inbox from being flooded.

4-Once you’ve created your Google Alert, search Google.com using that same sentence IN QUOTATION MARKS to catch any current theft (this would apply to posts more than an hour old) since google alerts will only catch additional plagiarism moving forward from the time you create the alert.

Using google alerts can be a great way to monitor your blog posts for stolen content and help you fight plagiarism of your work. It’s an epidemic but there’s a lot you can do to stop thieves in their tracks. Tomorrow I’ll post how to handle things when you’ve found someone has taken your blog post or article.

Feb

Content Thievery for Fun and Profit?

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

50 Comments

What do you do when your content is stolen out from under you? Photo by Le Tota

Update – The blogger in question posted an apology post on her blog.

Today I’m letting a guest poster share on my site something that’s come out about another blogger – someone using their blog to drive traffic to their Etsy store. Certainly this is a common enough occurrence, and usually a smart business plan. But in this case it’s such a far-reaching and overblown example of content thievery that I can’t help but open up my blog for my fellow #homechat Host, Heather. There’s a grey area of blogger ethics, which is where this story started. And there’s a black-hole of copyright violations that really irks me and that’s where this story ended up. See for yourself – Angela

The Backstory

I have a Google alert set for the name of my site. This is pretty normal, and if you don’t have it, Melanie has a great tutorial that will show you how to set up a Google alert. Thursday evening I was working, when an alert from BlogHer showed up. Home Ec 101: Meal Planning, everything was fine until I wandered over and realized it had nothing whatsoever to do with my site.

While this isn’t illegal, it’s definitely ballsy and certainly a breech of blogger etiquette. I admit to taking it personally when I thought it was TheHappyHousewife, a blogger with whom I’d just done a joint project. I sent a terse email explaining why I was upset and I requested that she consider changing the title of the post.

You may wonder why I’d be so defensive. Normally I would just shrug it off, but I have a book, Home Ec 101 Skills for Everyday Living, coming out in just a few weeks. The last thing I need to deal with at the moment is an SEO nightmare. I took it as a personal affront, although you should never take business personally.

Now comes the embarrassing part -Toni (Owner of THEHappyHousewife) had no idea what I was talking about. I had accused the wrong person.

Mortified, I apologized profusely and went back to look more closely. It turns out there was a good reason I made the mistake. The author of the post linked to her site: ThisHappyHousewife. In my ire, I had read it incorrectly and it’s not a stretch to assume the intent of post author was to take advantage of the long-standing reputations of both of us.

I contacted the editors of BlogHer. Since it wasn’t an actual copyright violation, they chose to let the post title stand.

A Closer Look

I then vented, because really, what else do you do in that situation? Angela listened and then began digging. It quickly became clear that this blogger uses this as their standard operating procedure. They regularly supplement their work with work borrowed** from other sites.

Here are a few examples: (Update – I understand that the specific examples we linked to have been removed. At least two others are still up on the site Amish Bread and Once a Month Cooking. Several of the copied posts mentioned are also still displayed on her original blogspot.com site as well so it appears she only removed the examples I listed below. Here are four screen shots of the lifted content still currently visible on her old blog. Declutter Heirloom Cookbook WashCloth Heart of Roses)

Original:
http://busycooks.about.com/od/howtobake/a/bread101.htm
JG:

http://thishappyhousewife.com/2011/02/10/bread-baking-101/

It should be noted that the attribution was added after the content owner was notified but the copied content was not removed.

Original:
http://www.safekids.org/safety-basics/safety-spotlight/childproofing-your-home/home-safety-checklist-safety-by-room.html
JG

http://thishappyhousewife.com/2011/02/10/home-safety/

Original:
http://declutteryourhomeinfo.com/
JG

http://thishappyhousewife.com/2011/02/09/de-cluttering-your-home/

Original:
http://www.spells4free.com/Article/Favorite-Dishes-And-Family-Folklore/2087
JG -the writer in question

http://thishappyhousewife.com/2011/02/04/family-heirloom-cookbook/

Original:
http://www.allfreecrafts.com/valentine/roses-heart.shtml
JG

http://thishappyhousewife.com/2011/01/26/how-to-make-a-heart-of-roses-wreath/

We all make mistakes when we first start blogging. Sometimes we admire a writer and copy their tone and voice. It happens. I know and admit that I used to be less sure of who I was when writing my content. In this case, I think it is more insidious than the usual newbie syndrome.

The icing on this particular cupcake of fun, ThisHappyHousewife has written to sell a $25 pdf download via Etsy. The cherry? It’s a ripoff of the FLYLady’s control journal, which she sells for significantly less.***

Write your own content. Don’t be scared of your own voice. The real opportunities to monetize come later.

Angela’s Notes:

** Some people define “borrow without permission” as theft. I tend to agree with them.

***The icing about the whole thing for me was the copyright statement THISHappyHousewife added to her binder’s description page, “These downloads are protected by copyright law. You are purchasing the downloads for your own personal use. Please do not duplicate (unless for yourself) or use them for resale.”

I’ve added a post about how to protect your posts from theft using Google Alerts and later will publich a post about how to deal with stolen content, ways to get it taken down, paid for, or to fight for your copyright. If you’re not already subscribed to this blog, you may do so using the sidebar to the right, or just check back tomorrow to see more information.