While the information on the internet is free, mostly, it is not available to take. Copyright should protect those who create resources, whether on the internet or elsewhere. Just to be sure we all know what we are allowed to do with others property, here is a summary: 

1.) You can link to anything. You are legally allowed to put links in your blogs to anything that is at a link. BUT, it is not always nice to link to things, like images, as opposed to the webpage the link is on.

2.) You may not pull a link, like when you upload an image from another site to a blog. That is a copyright violation.

3.) You may not copy and paste other’s work onto your blog. You may use about three lines of the work as a quote and link to the rest of the piece.

 At this point I’d like to say that by respecting the work of other bloggers or webmasters will help them respect yours, but no, that isn’t true. It is true, however, that Google notices and will hinder those that copy other’s work by page rank and adsense TOS.

Around the Blogosphere:

• Copyright Enforcement Bill Being Pushed to Fast Track
• Copyright’s Paradox: brilliantly argued scholarly book tackles free speech vs. copyright
• Copyright Myths
• Public Domain Day January 1, 2009

What is the reason you have begun blogging? For me it is to make a little money showing people what I know about making a little money on a website or blog. It’s purpose is to do that in a way that is hopefully entertaining and useful to my visitors. This is stated pretty clearly in my Blog’s Mission Statement.

There are three things that happen when you know your blog’s purpose:

1. You don’t go off on tangents about places you want to see before you die as often as you do when you know what you should be writing about.
2. You’ll attract the visitors who want to read what you’re writing, instead of distract them from the real message.
3. You’ll be able to set up the right kind of advertising that will fit your blog like a glove, and therefore make you money.

That’s three pretty good reasons to know the purpose of your blog. Write it out and stick to it!

It’s gone, I deleted it… I deleted them all… ack!

While trying to figure out why I couldn’t find my Word Press API key number so that I could install of a few plug-ins to check out and blog about, I deleted all of my comments, thinking I had only deleted the spammy ones.

For those who have left really cool and informative comments, please feel free to repost, and/or yell at me. I will try and not be so stupid in the future… For those who posted the spammy stuff, the plugin is now working, heh.

As for the Word Press API key number, you need to get a REAL username at Word Press. That means if you installed a Word Press blog from your domain name server, you need to go to wordpress.com and sign up for a username there too. I used the same username and password as for my blog and it synced me right in.

This was a bit confusing, so I hope it helps someone!

This is one of the main search engine type directories that your blog will really benefit from if included. It takes some time, as all adds are done by hand(human hand that is). It is also very selective, so be sure your blog has been up and running and is up to par about being a resources on your chosen topic.

You’ll need to dig down the topic lists and submit from your category page. Bookmark that page so that you can check back. Take a look at your competition and fellow webmasters/bloggers in your field while your there.

Find more information about being added here: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html

A side note: Google likes links in this directory, it has been my experience that a link here helps with page rank.

When you are running a blog, 50% of the time you will be writing it and promoting it. The other 50% of the time you will be learning more about it. The learning curve to becoming a successful blogger is not exactly steep, anyone with a passionate interest in a topic and a command of the English language is capable. But it is perpetual.

That seems to be one indication of a successful blogger. They like to learn and then pass it on. Not only do they like to learn about their blog’s topic, they like to learn how to make their blog better. So if you want to be a successful blogger, keep learning how to make your blog better! Pretty simple, huh?

Some blog posts I found around that I learn a bit from today.

• Tips to Adding More Posts to Your Blog
• How to Promote a Blog
• Headline and Title writing tips

Share your learning ideas and advice in the comments section.

I am convinced that in order to have a viable money making blog, you need to have one with it’s own domain name and hosted on your hosting service. This way you are not at the mercy of a free blog’s company’s play in today’s market. If you don’t agree then tell me what you think happened to GEOcities and Infoseek after the dot com crash.

Don’t get too confused, I do use the free wordpress software, but I use it on my server. My blog is not on their server. If Wordpress ever goes under - it won’t for many reasons, but let’s say if- I just get a new software to post my blog, nothing is lost. If I didn’t do this and Wordpress went under, I’d lose my entire blog! EEP!

So, you need to start out right and invest in the host and domain name. But what do you call your blog? Here are a few things to consider when deciding on a domain name:

• Don’t be fickle, you will not want to change the name once you have one so give yourself time to decide on the right one.
• The name should reflect the blog topic.
• As a rule the shorter the better - no, I didn’t adhere to this one.
• Remember keywords, they work very well in a domain name.
• Spell it right!
• Put the words together and be sure they do not spell anything bad. For instance the word ‘exchange’ should never be used after the word ‘kids’.

Once you have a domain name register it at the same time you get a hosting service. Often you’ll find you get a deal on the name costs.

It follows that in order to have a successful blog, you’ll need to fill it with successful blog posts. Things that are boring, too off topic or not a part of your ‘blog voice’ can ruin your blogs success for a reader, who will not be back to see if you fixed it in the future. Remember the goal: to give users what they need and/or want.

Here is a list of attributes successful blog posts have:

1. Entertaining.
2. More than a list of links.
3. They give credit where credit is due.
4. They aren’t written in drawn out wordy paragraphs.
5. Ranting is done in an informative way - not whiny.
6. Not many, if any, grammar/spelling/typo mistakes.
7. Users are invited to comment and add their opinions.
8. Information is given in the basic way, the post does not ‘talk over’ it’s visitors.
9. Insightful and honest.
10. The post shows that the blogger is enthusiastic about his/her blog.

Agree with the attributes or not? Do you have any attributes to add to our list? Let us know in the comments area.

More insight into creating successful blog posts:

• Ten tips for writing a blog post
• You’re Only As Good As Your Current Post

Getting traffic to your blog will always be your number one concern. It’s why you write a blog, right? You want an audience to read it. So besides having a worthwhile blog goal, being yourself and knowing who your audience is, you should optimize your blog posts and pages for search engine placement. Isn’t that a mouthful. Sounds so techie, lol. All it means is that you want the search engines to know what your post is really about so it can put you in the right place for their users to find you. And you would prefer to have your blog in the search engines top ten results… at least some of the time.

How do you pull that off? It’s not as hard as you may think and no, Google/Yahoo/MSN does not use black magic to get you there. The number one thing to be aware of is the use of keywords. Keywords are the words people use to search for information on a search engine. You want to use those keywords in your blog posts. Confused? Try this example: Jane Net could benefit from your blog post on baby powder. But how is she going to find it? She goes to BigBadSearchEngine and search for information on baby powder. Does she find your blog post? She could have if you optimized it for the keywords ‘baby powder’ which is what your blog post is about.

Tips to optimize your blog:

1. Use your keywords in your title.
2. Only optimize for one set of keywords at a time.
3. Put your keywords in your url.
4. Use your keywords in subtitles and the body of your content. This should be automatic if your post is about your keywords - the search engines know this.
5. Don’t overuse your keywords(it’s considered spamming).
6. Use the Alt tag in your images and use appropriate wording. Using the example above, if you have a picture of baby powder, use the alt tag in the image code with the words, ‘baby powder’.
7. Never use ‘click here’ on your blog. Link to your articles and others using the title or relevant wording.

 Bragging rights: There are going to be some coming here and thinking, “What does she know?” So I’ll pull out just one lonely example of my optimizing web pages in the last 11 years. I’m a Harry Potter freak.  its one topic I could write about forever. The months prior to and after the 7th book came out I was number 4-6 for ‘harry potter 7′ keywords on Google. I’m still #10 today out of 4,830,000 results.

 Let me know: Have you tried these tips? How do they work for you? What do you think is the number one thing you should do to optimize your blog post? Got another tip to add? Leave a comment!

Digg is one of the biggest social news sites on the Internet. It is fast paced and can be confusing at first. It is well worth the traffic it will bring if you use the site correctly, as many bloggers consider Digg to be an industry leader.

So, how can you use the site to your blog’s advantage - oh, and enjoy it’s newsy benefits too? Here are a few tips with some links to blog with more info:

1. Sign up as a user and check out others blogs.
2. Put your digg widget on each post.
3. Don’t be the first to digg your own post - it’s not considered good digg ettiquette. You get better results when someone diggs it for you.
4. Use catchy titles and descriptions, but keep it truthful.
5. Write well - don’t digg silly little things that wastes peoples’ time. You’ll get a rep and no one will vote for your articles anyway.
6. Be friendly and digg other people. Find friends with yoru same interests and promote each other’s stuff.
7. Be active. This doesn’t mean you have to spend time there every day, but don’t just come and go to promote your blog. Get involved.

More Resources:

How to Use Digg to Get Traffic

Using digg and Netscape to get traffic

 

There are free things everywhere for blogs these days. You can find things to blog about that go with your topic and are free too. Ferret them out by googling ‘blog fun’ and see all the fun that pops up. Here is one I found:

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Share your favorites in the comments section.

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