Build A Better Blog In 31 Days

Build A Better Blog Day 28

Everyone wants to be recognized and appreciated. Take the time to thank those who make your blog successful. I started a weekly Props to my Peeps post where I write about someone or something that helped me or turned a good deed during the week. I use their name, what they did and a link to a blog if they have one. I always get permission to discuss anything personal so I don’t make the person upset or uncomfortable.

This tip doesn’t have to be real complicated. Just pay attention to who reads your blog and who creates links to your posts, and honor them once in a while. Here’s a great example. Jason Alba from JibberJobber gives out a ‘You Get It” award each month. Liz Strauss gives out an SOB award, Successful and Outstanding Bloggers. Come up with your own award or keep it simple with a post thanking them.

ProBlogger’s day twenty-eight post: What is Your Blog’s Mission Statement

Build A Better Blog Day 27

Today’s tip is a reminder to protect your blogs content. Over time you till undoubtedly create a large amount of content. You may want some of that content protected by copyright and some you may not. It all depends on what’s important to you and what’s not. However I would establish a terms of use statement on your blog just so everyone knows how you want your content treated. Will this stop someone from stealing your content? Absolutely not.

There is a great post over at DailyblogTips about Copyright Laws and blog content. I’m not a lawyer and I don’t really want to get into a pissing match with Lawyers out there, but there are some good points in this article none the less. Here are a few ideas I like:

1. Make sure if you use someone else’s material you either get written permission (this is pretty much what I do) or the material is explicitly marked public domain. You may lose any copyright to your own content if you use someone else’s material.
2. Clearly mark on your site what is public domain and what’s not. It may be that none of your material is public domain or all of it is. That’s why I encourage you to create a static page, or some type of post that states you terms of use. I didn’t have one until this post, now I do.
3. If you don’t want to defend certain published material, don’t make it available to the public. Did that make sense? Really, if you don’t want the hassle of chasing down people that steal blog content, then don’t post something. A good example may be an Author who posts a book, story or article. They may claim it’s copyright but will have to battle anyone who uses it without permission, every time.
4. Do ask someone who has stolen you content to remove it or give you proper acknowledgment. This may be tricky but its the fight you may have to take on.
5. Remember images have a copyright too. Taking images from other sites and using them may put your content at risk. Again I would get some type of permission before using images. And refrain from directly linking to an image unless given permission. This puts an unwanted strain on the images web server.

The better your writing get and the more visitors your blog gets the more your content’s copyright will play in the success of your blog. However, don’t let copyright get in the way of blogging. Just make sure you have all the permissions you need, and you state your contents use and you should be pretty good.

Learn more about Creative Commons here, and view a presentation on blog content copyright given at the Bloggin4Business Conference by Rand Bateman.

I’m sure there are some lawyers out there who can add to this. What are your thoughts on blog copyrights?

Problogger’s day twenty-seven post: Find a Sponsor for Your Blog

Build A Better Blog Day 26

Today I’m asking a question; do you blog for love or money? You may be blogging for both but I doubt it. It’s a very valid question and should be answered logically.

The logical progression for bloggers is to start introducing ads somewhere in there blog in hopes of earning some much needed income. If you ask most bloggers they would be happy with enough income to pay for their hosting costs. Personally I think you should be in one of two camps. One, you should build your blog template and content to drive advertising dollars, or you should just forget it.

You can look at it this way, when you dabble you never really succeed. Sure you may capture a few clicks that equate into a few pennys, but without a real plan you will be wasting your time. Looking at several of the major blogs who make money from ads, the site is all about the ads. If you are prepared to do that go for it. You have your work cut out for you. But if you are patient you can evetually make some decent money. It takes constant change to find the right advertising structure, be it banners, links, graphics, or widgets. There’s plenty of opportunity but it takes a lot of work.

If you’re into blogging for love, you can still earn something to offset the cost. As you build your blog, your readership and people get to know you, it’s easy to make money from things like consulting, writing copy, building blog sites or creating educational materials and selling them. Or you may simply decide this is a great hobby which has a small cost each month.

One word of caution. Don’t pay for these get rich quick e-book, or services, swearing they can get you at the top of the search engines or charge you to put their clients ads on your blog. With a little effort and research on your part you can find all the information you need to make money with your blog. You don’t need to pay someone else to get it. If you are serious about becoming a Pro Blogger, then I suggest you start reading the ProBlogger. Add it to your RSS reader right now.

Tell us why you do, or don’t, incorporate ads into your blog?

ProBlogger’s day twenty-six post: Link Up to a Competitor

Build A Better Blog Day 25

Today’s tip is to absolutely sweat the details. If you are serious about building a successful blog you need to make sure even the smallest aspects are right. People have literally millions of options when it comes to blogs. If you work hard to build a solid following, making small mistakes will undermine all your efforts. Here is a small list of things to continually pay attention too:

1. Spelling and Grammar. Have a serious problem with either of these and some people will just move on. At least take the time to run your content through a spell checker before posting. I made this vital mistake just a day ago. Its somewhat embarrassing, especially when someone points it out.
2. Make sure all your links work. Anytime there is a link on you site its your responsibility to make sure it works. If it doesn’t, get rid of it. Of course you have no control over links going away or moving, but you are responsible for making sure you remove dead links.
3. Make sure all your graphics show up. One problem with graphics, especially ones you don’t control, is they are move or removed from their original location. Your best bet is to host them on your own server if possible.
4. Make sure you can post comments without blowing up your blog. I don’t know how many times I’ve written a comment and the blog software crashes for some reason. Frustrating because I don’t know if my comment was saved, and if was lengthy I’ll probably never return. This is one reason having a way to contact you is so important.
5. Finally, make sure your blog simply loads as expected. Over the years I’ve made changes to my blog, either upgrading, theme changes or adding plug-ins which caused my blog to quit running. Some times I’ve discovered this on my own but I feel real stupid when a reader emails me that my blog is broken. Hosts go down on occasion and you can’t control that but you should always verify your blog runs after making changes.

One area I might suggest caution with are ads. I’ve seen people go completely overboard with ads and make it so hard to find the content I just move on. Of all the sites I visit those are the types I feel taken advantage of. Get me to come to your site then ambush me with more ads than content. I never return. Don’t make that mistake. I’ll cover ads in the next installment so I won’t go into those any more.

My point here is to make sure you blog is running on all cylinders. If you take blogging serious then you should make sure all aspects of your blog are working. Have fun.

ProBlogger’s day twenty-five post: Go Shopping and Improve Your blog

Build A Better Blog Day 24

Today I want to talk about the type of blogging platform you use. There are basically two main types; one is self-hosted, where you pay someone to provide the infrastructure to run a blog, and the other is hosted, where you use a pre-configured application like Blogger or Vox. The other part that goes along with what type of platform you choose is whether you have your own domain or use a hosted domain. Here are some examples:

Self Hosted:
yourcompany.com
blog.yourcompany.com
yourcompany.com/blog

Hosted:
yourblog.blogspot.com
blog.vox.com
myblog.wordpress.com

There are conflicting opinions whether a blog hosted at Blogger gets more search engine love than one which is self-hosted. For me, there is one major issue with using a blog hosted by someone else; if you ever want to host your own blog and have full control, migrating will be much harder. Sure there are built in programs that will suck in all your posts, but there is something that you lose not matter what you do; links to your blog. Here is an example:

myblog.blogsport.com/archives/this-is-my-first-post/

The above URL is what all the search engines have. But now you want this:

mydomain.com/2007/11/1/this-is-my-first-post

Now, if you decide that you want to host your own blog you have a problem, there could be an extremely large amount of work to redirect all your old links to new ones. How to do this is beyond the scope of this blog, but believe me, it’s not something you want to tackle. The best way to avoid this problem is to plan long term. Decide up front you want to host your own blog, or at least find a solution that will let you use you own domain name.

Most people base their decision on what platform to use on cost. Services like Blogger, Wordpress.com, Typepad or Vox are all free. With free you lose some things such as configuration. You may get some leeway but mainly you get to choose the name and the theme and that’s it. If you want to make major changes you have to pay the company for access to those features. The drawback besides cost is most of these blogs can be set up in a matter of seconds and you’re off and running. Before you decide to start here, make sure you have taken some time to plan you blog and what you want to accomplish.

I really want to give my personal opinion here. Pony up the few dollars it costs to have your own domain and hosting. You can get a domain for under $10 a year at GoDaddy.com and they even supply hosting services for just a few dollars more. There are dozens of great hosts. Ask your readers who they like. In the end you will be happy you did.

ProBlogger’s day twenty-four post: Do a Search Engine Optimization Audit