Personal Blogging

Feb

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.

Nov

SEO Basics for Blogging – Writing for Google Traffic Without Losing Readers

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging, SEO Tips

10 Comments

This post is written as part of The Blogging Mavens blog series which you can see the rest of at A Closet Writer.

There is a delicate balance between using basic SEO principles to bring in the search engine traffic you should be seeing on your site, and “writing what you want to write”. Many bloggers are under the misguided opinion that being aware of SEO will be selling out from their writing and their audience. I disagree – knowing how SEO works will enable bloggers to FIND their audience. Or rather, to help their audience find them!

The ABC’s of Good SEO Writing

When I’m talking about search engine optimization, especially with beginning bloggers or those who are just learning about SEO, I like to talk about the ABC’s.

A = Active Titles: Call the post what it is. Titles are one of the key elements on the page that Google checks when determining what the post is about. If your post is about making homemade pizza, call the post “Making Homemade Pizza” and you’ll bring in the right readers.

B = Bolded Subheadings: Use subheadings like mini-titles to describe each paragraph or two so Google, and your readers, know what you’re talking about. That way Google can send you the readers that want to hear what you have to say.

C = Cut Away Fluff: With very few exceptions, it’s better to write multiple, shorter posts, than it is to write one gigantic post. Don’t cram the homemade pizza, the delicious dessert and the family fun night game into one 1500 word post. Make them three 400-500 word posts and give your readers more opportunity to find you.

Moving beyond the ABC’s of good SEO there are a few other tips to keep in mind.

Additional Ways to Increase SEO on Your Blog Posts

Here are a few other ways to improve the SEO on your blog posts and articles. While I go in-depth into each during my talks at conferences, I want to just highlight them here for you. If you have questions, let me know.

Name your photos with a strong keyword phrase.
Use image alt text and/or captions to improve your post’s SEO.
Interlink relevant posts from within your website.
Crosslink to relevant content on other sites (your own as well if you write in more than one place).
Register your own domain name.
Get rid of your clunky themes (sites that load too slowly are penalized by search engines).
Use clear categories and tags instead of cutesy and obscure.
Build incoming links to your blog. Consider linking to specific posts in addition to your main website.
Write, write, write. Fresh content gives you more chances to be found.

So when you’ve moved beyond the very basics of search engine optimization keep some of these other tips in mind. Use your keyword phrases wisely and remember that you can still choose to write about whatever topic you want to write about. By formatting the post with a few of these SEO tips in mind, you’ll bring in additional readers from search engine traffic you may have otherwise missed.

Jun

What is YOUR Blogging Plan?

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

5 Comments

If you try to follow another's path you may lose your own way. Photo by Lauren Burbank

“For I know the plans I have for YOU, declares the LORD.” ~ Jeremiah 29:11

I love this verse. And lately as I’ve been pondering upcoming blog conferences, and reflecting on my times at Type-A-Mom and Blissdom, I realized that one of the things that stands out to me is how unique and diverse each blogger is. With good reason I think. WE are unique.

I told a client on a phone consultation recently, “If a reader only wanted pure information they would read the encyclopedia at the library. Your readers visit your blog because you make it unique. You are the magic ingredient that makes it special.” I think that’s a lot of what this verse in Jeremiah can tell us as bloggers.

YOUR plan does not have to look like MY plan. I’ve consulted with merchants, mommy bloggers, foodie writers, single women, unmarried men and entrepreneurs. The one common thread is that each is unique. Unique in goals. Unique in voice. Unique in desires. Unique in abilities.

And thus, the plan for each is unique!

Different.

Special.

I wonder – have you remembered that lately? Have you looked at another blog or website and got so caught up in analyzing what they were doing right and how you could duplicate that “rightness” that you lost sight of your OWN plan? The future for YOU? Perhaps, just maybe, it’s time for you to remember YOUR plan.

Mar

Blogging and Motherhood – Success is Not Limited to One or the Other

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

31 Comments

Flirting With Mom at the Park

And thank God for that or I guess I would be up-a-creek. Stuck watching soap operas instead. Seriously, is anyone else horribly troubled by the headline and tone of the propaganda supposed-article published recently in the New York Times? I think it was their coverage of the Blogging Bootcamp event (although the piece was published in Fashion & Style instead of Business), but I’m not sure. The seemingly biased, snarky piece read more like the attacks we used to see thrown at working mothers who dared to use their brains for more than washing dishes. Heavens!

The headline read “Honey, Don’t Bother Mommy. I’m Too Busy Building My Brand.” That was the unbiased part. It got worse. Golden nuggets of sarcasm wisdom are sprinkled throughout the article, like this gem, “Teaching your baby to read? Please. How to hide vegetables in your child’s food? Oh, that’s so 2008.” One would suspect that Jennifer is a childless, single-minded, fast-tracked-career woman who just doesn’t realize that you can get plenty of computer time in by cutting out a daily commute and afternoon soaps.

But no. It turns out that Jennifer Mendelsohn is actually a mother herself. And blogger. Too bad she hasn’t more productively joined the community she chose to mock and treat with such derision. I wonder how she managed to build such a successful freelancing career as a stay-at-home mom when by her own admission she only just got four hours a day to herself while her two kids were in school as recently as January of this year. *Gasp* It was probably in the same way the rest of us do – WITH our children.

The article makes it sound like one cannot be a successful mother and manage a successful career simultaneously. I’m sorry – that mentality is so last century. Is it not? Have we NOT come further than that since the 70′s and 80′s when women were still seeking entry into “male-run industries”. Like publishing, marketing, PR and online industries?

Maybe I have a warped idealistic point-of-view. After all, I grew up with a mother who not only runs a successful home-based business (one of the top in her company!) and has trained hundreds of women internationally in said business, but ALSO raised and homeschooled eight (count them – EIGHT!) children. Both. It never crossed my mind to disbelieve the notion that I could be anything I wanted to be. I could be a successful mother (as well as any mother can consider herself “a success”) and ALSO manage a successful career writing online.

Yes, I was away from my children to write this blog post. They were happily helping my husband bring the tractor back from the 10 acre garden we are planting at the ranch this year. They never noticed my absence. I WOULD have written this post two days ago when I first read the article but I was busy on a date night with my husband and today, at the park with my kiddos. (See photographic evidence for pictures of obviously neglected kids *removing tongue from cheek*)

I don’t have to”hide vegetables” in my child’s food – I’ve had almost every meal of their little lives right by their side and showed them by example how to enjoy nutritious food. I actually AM in the process of teaching my children how to read. Thank you very much. And instead of paying someone else to do it for me, while I punch a clock on someone else’s schedule, I am able to BE THERE when my child needs a new diaper, or has an exciting new discovery from our backyard wonder-land to share with me.

Don't Let the New York Times Squash Her Dreams, Please

Because online careers and, yes, blogging, has leveled the playing field in such a way that my mother in her petitioning-against-required-Home-Economics-for-females-in-her-high-school could only hope for. And following in her footsteps I plan to do BOTH – raise and school my children and be actively involved in their lives AND manage a successful career that blesses our family financially and keeps my children out of childcare with total strangers.

I’m just sorry Jennifer’s article didn’t celebrate that women are finally empowered to manage that dream. Instead of berating and belittling them for attempting it. THAT attitude was so last decade. And I pray for my daughter’s sake the remnants of that attitude will finally end in THIS decade. We could only wish that influential old-media like New York Times would pave the way towards more enlightened attitudes regarding women, motherhood and business. But apparently not. I guess it’s a good thing I’m home to encourage my daughter myself!

Mar

The Permanence of Blogging – Why This Mother Loves It

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

8 Comments

Does Your Blogging Leave a Permanent Mark? Probably so! Photo by Beate W.

“There is surely a future hope for you, and your hope will not be cut off” ~Proverbs 23:18

I’ve spent an amazing three days at Blissdom conference this past month meeting and connecting and reconnecting with my amazing women blogging friends and it’s made me remember one of the things I love about blogging. It has permanence. It lasts.

My Motherly Duties Do Not Last

So few things I do as a mother seem to last. The dishes don’t stay clean for more than – yeah, maybe an hour if I’m lucky. The bed does not stay made and the laundry does not stayed washed. My children DEFINITELY do not stay fed. Lol! Especially when going through a growth spurt or two.

But when I blog, I can have confidence that the little piece of my heart that I share with you will have a future. It will last. Even if this post isn’t read today, right now this second. It will be. Read and enjoyed, maybe commented on.

The Blogging Legacy

It’s like another piece in a long-term legacy that collectively adds to my unique contribution to the world. Forever. It’s an amazing feeling when I remember to appreciate it.

On the other hand, it makes me a bit humble. Encourages me to remember what some of the panelists shared at the conference – Is what I’m posting of value? Does it have worth?

If the only way someone had to KNOW ME was through my blog, would it be someone worth knowing? I wonder. What would these words say about me as a person. That I’m passionate. Wordy. Follow a wide variety of interests. Lose my temper. Love my family. Try. Always.

In what ways has your blog renewed your hope? What does it mean to you that you’ll have a future undeniable? Incapable of being cut-off?

Feb

I’ve been Nominated! Calling all Okie Buds to Vote….

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

The Blogging Buffet

By AngEngland | Personal Blogging

Feasting at the Table

There is something very personal about sharing a meal with someone – you don’t typically invite random strangers to come and dine with you.

Yet with blogging you are able to do this very thing. I love the duality of the public and the personal natures when it comes to blogging. I share my heart in tiny pixels, and while many friends come and feast there are many strangers who come as well. The invitation is open to ANYONE who can be found! Brilliant!

Connections in Far-Off Corners

Corners of the world.

Corners of the room.

Hidden corners.

Around the corner.

Corners have an elusive mystery and aren’t typically the places we tend to frequent. It’s so easy for me to fall into my routine – see the same people every month and haunt the same places. We are, after all, creatures of habit.

Maybe that’s why this call to go to the street corners resonates to strongly with me! I love new adventures! What else would you call connecting with a kindred spirit ten thousand miles away who heard the invitation to my blogging buffet? I am constantly impressed by the amazing people I’ve connected with through blogging and online writing in general. My life is richer, and the feast more enjoyable, because of it.

Potluck Anyone?

I think potluck suppers are the best, don’t you? Everyone bringing their own contributions to the table. No one dish above any other. No one platter sufficient by itself – all combine to create a vast and amazing whole that more than satisfies anyone coming to the feast.

Isn’t the blogging community the same way? Would any one of us claim to have THE final word on a subject? No! Of course not – the collaboration and great equalization of the web is part of the appeal.

So here’s my question to you – what kind of feast are you presenting? Who have you invited to the buffet? Are you reaching out to the furthest street corners and giving your invitation?

May

How to Write From Home – Freelance Print, Web Content, Blogging or Websites?

By AngEngland | Freelance Writing, Personal Blogging

2 Comments

There are so many ways to make money from home using words. Truly. I’ve dabbled in most of the ways now over the past three years, so I want to share the basics of each with you now.

Print Magazine Articles Pros and Cons

While there are those who will tell you the economy over the past year means that print jobs are impossible to find, especially for beginners, I do not believe them. And I’ll tell you why. Because up until last September I had never sent out a single article query at all. I sent five out in September, hugely pregnant and about to give birth. Of those five queries I sold two articles, and got two rejections. I’ve since sold one of the rejecting articles elsewhere, although the other is still looking for a home.

One of the articles I sold was to a trade magazine. In the follow-up after the printing of the first article, I pitched another idea to the editor. By the time that article had printed I was also given an article on assignment and encouraged to submit additional article ideas! This magazine, at least, is interested in my writing. I think that print magazine jobs are available, and available to beginners, however I believe that the queries will have to be sharp, and the articles submitted will need to be spot on. When competition is fierce, the quality must be stellar.

The benefits are that the payoffs are usually much larger than the one-time payoffs you see with web writing. The downside is that the payoffs come after querying, sometimes writing on speculation (ie for free with no guarantee of a sale) and sometimes payment doesn’t come until after the article is published….months later.

Pros and Cons of Web Content Writing

There are SO MANY web content sites just waiting to pay you to put words down into cyberspace. You create the sentences, and they publish them and give you money. Sometimes. Hopefully. There are many, many sites on the web and not all of them pay, pay well, or allow you to keep the rights to your work. I’ve highlighted a few of the sites I am personally familiar with on my website so far, and will be posting additional posts in the coming weeks.

The benefits of web content production is that your job is usually fairly simple. Write the words. No managing, no technical crap to deal with, no registration, domain, server, traffic, etc issues. You write. You get paid. It usually is just that simple.

The downside is of course that you are not getting paid the full amount. If your article is making that website $10 per year, you will probably only be getting paid a small fraction of that. Sometimes frightfully small, but sometimes generous – each site is different. And therein comes the other consideration – if you are producing web content for someone else you must play by their rules. That is, you have to write the topics they allow, in the style they allow. Sometimes it is a good fit, and sometimes it isn’t.

Writing a Personal Blog or Website

Some people may decide they do not want to want articles or blog posts for someone else but would rather write on their OWN blog or website. The benefits are obvious – you get to write whatever you want, however you want, and whenever you want. And every nickel that comes in to the website as a result is yours to keep.

However, you may not know how to write in a way that will bring in readers because search engines do not tend to pick up on creative analogies or witty titles. Writing for a website that teaches beginning web writers can be a huge benefit, especially to someone starting out. Also keep in mind that many large web content sites bring in thousands, or millions, of readers each month and your article may get ten times the traffic there as it would on your personal blog. 40% of a hundred ad clicks is more than 100% of ten clicks, isn’t it? Still, there is something immensely satisfying, though more than-a-little scary, about writing for yourself.

So there you have it – the three main ways to make money writing from home. Do you have a preference? Do you dabble in all the forms like I do? Which do you find the most profitable for you?