Photo courtesy JuditK

For a lot of beginning bloggers, the guest post exchange that’s built into the annual Blogathon challenge is the first time they’ve ever thought about approaching another blogger to write a post. That can be a scary prospect, especially if you’re so new to blogging, you’re not exactly sure of what you’re doing.

Why It Pays to Run Guest Posts

Running guest posts is a smart way to expand your readership – because your guest will no doubt share links to their post with their own readers, who’ll then click over to see what’s up, discover how fabulous your blog is and put you in their blog reader.

For newer bloggers, guest posts are a great way to make friends with other bloggers who can become a virtual support system – they blog for you, you blog for them. Who knows what could happen?

But first things first. If you’re going to run guest posts, you need to provide potential posters with some guidelines. That means you need to think about the kinds of posts you run, and what you’d want a guest blogger to write about.  Also, if you have a blog that’s been around for a while and gets a good amount of traffic, you’ve probably received email from people you don’t know asking if they can write a post for you. But how can you tell if they’re legit?

The WordCount Guide to Guest Post Basics:

To answer those and any other questions you might have about guest posts, I’ve searched the WordCount archives for the top posts I’ve written on the subject. Here they are:

Dear WordCount: how do I run guest posts on my blog? - Never run a guest post on your blog before? Read this to get started.

Guest post: 4 naughty tips for a better blog - Come up with a guest post format. The post I linked to, from Sara Lancaster, is a good example of the format I use. It includes:

• A brief bio of the guest blogger at the top of the blog with links to their blog, website or Facebook or Twitter presence
• A photo, with caption, of the guest poster
• Links embedded in the post that go back to their blog and to one or two of my previous posts
• Links to a book or other project that they might be promoting

How to write a guest post for WordCount - My guidelines for guest posters. I share this with anyone who inquires.

Dear WordCount: How should I handle guest post offers? - How to decide whether to accept someone’s offer to write a guest post for you, especially if you’ve never heard of them before.

Dear WordCount: Someone linked to my blog, is that bad? - If a blogger you’ve never met links to one of your posts, use it an an opportunity to introduce yourself, and leave a comment on their blog. It could be the start of a happy blogging relationship, which you could use to ask them for a guest post.

25 ways to blog every day – Guest posts are great cover for when you’ve got too much else going on to write a post yourself.

 10 sure cures for blogging burnout - It’s always more fun to pick up around someone else’s house. If your enthusiasm for blogging is fading fast, ask a writing buddy to post on your blog in exchange for writing for theirs. The change in routine might be just what you need to rekindle your blogging passion.

Freelancers, do not write for content marketers – Invite a guest blogger to tackle an issue you feel uncomfortable or unqualified writing about yourself – and see what happens. This link goes to a guest post from journalist Tim Beyers exhorting fellow freelancers not to work for the likes of Helium and Demand Media. The original post got so many comments that a Helium spokeswoman responded. I invited her to write a rebuttal, which drew even more comments. I followed up with a handful of m own posts on the subject, and ended up getting paid to write a story on the subject for Writer’s Digest.

What’s your best advice on guest posts? Please share it by leaving a comment.

Photo courtesy bark

Ever want a do over? A chance to start from the beginning and make things happen a little – or a lot – differently from what you did the first time around?

Yeah, me too.

For the last theme day of the 2012 Blogathon, bloggers could choose to write on the same subject: “If I started blogging today I would….”

I shared what I’d do differently, including starting out on my own website instead of a free blogging service, and using more pictures in posts. Read all of my blogging blunders in this post: 5 newbie mistakes I’d avoid if I started blogging today.

What Bloggers Say They’d Do Differently

In today’s edition of the Blogathon recap I’m doing every Saturday during May, I’m sharing what other bloggers would do differently if they had a do over:

Blogging Tools

1. Register a domain name right away. “I wish I’d had enough time and confidence to register my domain name from day one so that all my outreach, publicity and business cards had pointed to that web address from the very start. I probably will go self-hosted soon to give me more control over my own writings, since BooksYALove is meant to be a searchable archive of great books for young adult book fans.” – Katy Manck, on BooksYALove

2. Choose a blog name more carefully. “Naming a blog is almost as difficult as naming your child, though Google may be slightly less flexible in assigning a nickname or terms of endearment.  Once you choose a name, that’s it unless you want to move all of your blogs to date to a new title.” - Tere Scott, on Teachable Scotts Tots Homeschool

3. Choose a blog name more carefully, part 2. “I chose Writer Granny’s World because it is pretty descriptive of me. But after awhile, I got to thinking that the name might turn off a lot of young writers. I considered changing it, but then I feared losing some of the followers and readers already established. I am a writer granny, so I left it as is.  The sub-name – My Writing World With Tips and Encouragement For Writers – tells exactly what this blog is about. I like it as is and maybe younger readers will respond to that.” – Nancy Julien Kopp, on Writer Granny’s World

4. Choose a custom look. “So finally, last fall….I took the time to figure out what look would be most “me.” I found a few blogs whose design I wanted to emulate. I sat down with a designer friend, and we came up with my look, customizing a Blogger template with a banner that can be updated periodically by switching out the pictures. According to my blog statistics, page views increased by about 50% after I customized my blog. Is that a direct consequence? Of course I don’t know, but since I wasn’t doing any other special blog activities like a blogathon or a class, evidence probably supports the idea that a more individualized blog draws in more readers. Improved readability helps, too.” - Annette Gendler, on Annette Gendler

5. Use fewer labels (or tags): “Recently I saw a blog where there were 20 different categories, all lined up neatly. I was thrilled to stay on his blog following the links. I realized that less is more and revamped my labels on my blog.  If I started blogging today, I would list the categories I wanted and have my blog posts use only those labels.” - Cheinle, on Lazy Bone Running

6. Resize the images before uploading them. ”It saves gobs of space on the server. Oh, and tag, title, and name the images for better SEO. (It can’t hurt, right?) This also makes images MUCH easier to find when your site explodes and needs to be rebuilt from scratch.” – Liberty Montano, on Liberty’s Yarn

7. Watermark photos. “I would definitely mark my work as my own, from the beginning. I watermark everything I post now, but I didn’t start out doing that. As far as I know no one stole anything from me, but that was a pointless risk to take. I started watermarking my work when my sister encouraged me to do so, at least a month after I’d started blogging. It seems so obvious now, but I had little idea of how to actually go about the whole blogging thing, and how easy it is to steal and pass off work as one’s own.” - Abra Alani, on The Magical Miss

8. Use social media for promotion. ”I would learn how to use Twitter and all the other social media sites to promote my blog. I only feel versed at Facebook.” - Beth Zare, on Beth Zare

Blogging Strategies

9. Follow a 3-4 posts a week schedule. “Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and the occasional weekend day. Since I booted my blog with last year’s Blogathon, I set the expectation of blogging daily. It’s tough, and depletes a lot of my creative juices. I’m writing more than I ever have (bonus), but I want to focus on the two novels I’m working on.” – Tia Bach, on Depression Cookies

10. Own who you are. “Joining a blogathon was going to be a challenge. Would I be accepted for who I am and what I write? At first it really mattered to me, but now 23 days into the challenge, I’ve changed my way of thinking. It doesn’t matter if I’m accepted or not, I hope my followers enjoy my writings, but at the end of the day, if I’m happy with my blog post, then I’m happy. I won’t allow the anxiety that was once a part of my blogging, be a part of it anymore.” – Mimi, on Wife, Mom, Writer, All Blessings!

11. Don’t over-apologize for not posting. “When I switched from Blogger to WordPress, I re-read all my old posts and was appalled by how often I apologized. “I’m such a bad blogger.” “I’m so sorry I haven’t posted in awhile.” “I haven’t forgotten my blog. Just been so busy lately. I’m sorry.” Geez. Get over yourself, girl! Just blog!” – Jan, on SimplyJan

12. Write with abandon. “Truth be told, one of the big reasons I didn’t blog much last year was because I was self-censoring my posts before they were even written. It’s one thing, I think, to be conscious of how much you share about your life and family online. It’s quite another to shut yourself down completely due to fears of what other people might think. The Blogathon has taught me that people respond when I write openly and honestly.” - Jennifer Fink, on Blogging ‘Bout Boys

13. Choose a different subject. “I always wanted to write about my experience in English as a Second Language. I studied English in Australia and New Zealand for six months from February to July in 2002. It’s so common to hear (about) a college student’s travels (to another) country. I was easily considered being a daughter of well-off business man. At that time I thought it was better to be seen a spoiled girl who’s got all the opportunity to explore the outer world. The truth is I was in the deepest personal turmoil from a dysfunctional family, financial down turn, and heartbroken.” - Sun Hee Yoon, on Fiery Memoir

14. Listen to your gut: “So at this point, I’m happy with my blogging journey, and I guess the advice I can impart is to not take it too seriously. Follow your instincts, enjoy your blogging, and see where it takes you.” - Alison Preston Baldyga, on Lady Moxie

Photo courtesy Tablet

To do great writing, read great writing. Here’s some of the great writing I’ve been reading this week:

Sometimes a story is so good, it practically writes itself. Well, that’s not completely true. You still have to put in the work of writing it. But sometimes the situation, event or circumstances you’re called to write about are so incredible – interesting, funny, tragic, uplifting – that just getting the facts down is enough. Do it and you’ll have readers devouring your words and sharing them with all their friends.

That point is exemplified in three stories that made headlines this week:

The boy, the POTUS, the head pat and the photo - The New York Times ran a story and photo yesterday about a young boy touching President Obama’s hair because, “ I want to know if my hair is just like yours.” The boy’s father was leaving a White House job and the family was saying goodbye to the president when the boy popped the question, so a White House staff photographer was on hand to capture the moment. And what a moment. But the story itself is very matter of fact, and not that long – it doesn’t have to be. The impact is there. And Obama’s quote – “Touch it, dude!” – is classic. Props to reporter Jackie Calmes for getting it right.

Facebook IPO under investigation – Various news sources, including Reuters and Business Insider, were all over Facebook’s initial public offering, but didn’t stop reporting the story once shares in the social network started trading. Both news organizations dispatched multiple reporters and editors to look into possible financial reporting irregularities in the weeks and days leading up to the IPO, and into trading snafus that happened on the day itself. Their stories show how important it is for reporters to look beyond the surface of a big story. Yes, there were tons of stories about how much money Mark Zuckerberg was going to make from taking Facebook public, and what other newly minted Facebook millionaires were buying with their riches, how small investors were squeezed out of trading on the first day, and what lessons entrepreneurs and startups can learn from the company’s experience. But really, those angles of the story are pretty simple to come up with. When it seems like there’s more to something than meets the eye, there usually is. Here’s BusinessInsider’s latest, which links back to its past coverage: By the Way, the Facebook IPO Screwup Could be Curtains for NASDAQ. And here’s one from Reuters, again, with links back to all their other stories on the news: Facebook IPO is flashback to dot-com class action.

19 year old entrepreneur lives at AOL for two months before getting caught - You can’t make this stuff up. A 19 year old from Chicago wins a spot in an AOL-funded startup incubator. But when his time and funding run out after two months, he decides to basically camp out at the company’s Palo Alto office. He sleeps on couches off the security guards’ beaten path. He showers at the gym. He eats the free food the office provides employees (sounds a lot like this Natalie Portman movie, with computers). CNET’s Daniel Terdiman captures it all in matter-of-fact prose – because with a story this good, you don’t need embellishments.

Here’s what else I’ve been reading this week:

How to worry like a Jewish mother (Tablet.com) – On the other hand, sometimes a story is nothing but embellishment. Case in point, this little cream puff, a satire of writer guidelines for made-up parenting magazine Fretful Mother (as seen on The Simpsons) that manages to lambaste what has become a very convoluted, and for some writers, painful, process. Marjorie Ingall, a founding staffer of the now-shuttered Sassy, knows of what she writes, which is the basis for all good satire.

Pebble Hunting: Baseball and the F Word (Baseball Prospectus) – While the subject matter is definitely NSFW, the story is (unless your boss is a lip reader). I have my old officemate Andre Mouchard to thank for finding this lighthearted gem on swearing in the majors. With tongue firmly planted in cheek, BP writer Sam Miller analyzes all the different ways, times and reasons why baseball players, managers and even umpires drop the F bomb, using short video clips – with no audio, which is why it’s suitable for work – to illustrate his points. This is another case of a reporter knowing a subject well enough to pick up on a trend, or in this case, create one, and then doing a lot of research to fill in the details. You don’t have to like baseball to appreciate that.

If I started blogging today I would… (Various) – On Wednesday, everyone in the blogathon was invited to write on the same topic, what they’d do differently if they started a blog today. I’ll round up some of the most interesting entries in a post that will run here tomorrow. Meanwhile, here’s an example to whet your appetite, from writer Mikaela D’Eigh, who says she’s do more research before launching: If I started blogging today I would….

Photo courtesy misteraitch

Dear WordCount is an occasional advice column that answers your questions about freelance writing, blogging and working as a self-employed writer. During May, I’m answering questions posed by writers in the 2012 WordCount Blogathon.

Dear WordCount:

I received an email and a comment from the same sender and both say the same thing: “I would like to be a guest blogger for (your blog). Do you have submission guidelines?” I’m wary of taking a risk with someone I don’t know. How do you handle guest post inquiries from people you don’t know?

– P

Dear P:

Good question. Getting queries from potential guest bloggers comes with the territory as your blog gets more popular, so in a way, it’s a good thing because it means people are starting to notice you. But it’s a bad thing, because more often than not, pitches asking to guest post on your blog aren’t really about you, they’re about getting whoever’s making them wanting to feed off your blog to get themselves more publicity.

WordCount receives a handful of guest post requests a week. Ninety-nine out of 100 I immediately delete. They’re carpetbombing blogs like mine with guest post requests to bring traffic back to their own blogs. But they wouldn’t add any value to what I do. If they include suggested topics for posts, the topics are more often than not so generic I couldn’t use them. Once or twice I’ve agreed to have someone write the post since they were offering it for free. But the writing was such SEO-driven drivel I couldn’t use it.

Why It Pays to Do Due Diligence

A good way to decide whether you’d want a guest post from someone who contacts you out of the blue is to check their website or the website of the company or organization they represent. It like asking a guest attending a masked ball to uncloak themselves so you can get a peek at who they really are. Ask yourself:

• Does it look profession?
• Is the subject related to what I blog about?
• Would I want to be affiliated with them, even if just through a blog post?

If you answer “No” to any of those, don’t feel bad about writing back to say, “Sorry, it wouldn’t work for me.” Or just delete the request. If however, you like what you see, ask the would-be guest poster to send you a couple of their published posts and propose a couple topics, so you can further assess whether they’d fit into your blog. If what they produce doesn’t pass muster, don’t feel bad about turning them down. After all, it’s your blog, and as the publisher and editor in chief, it’s your call what you run or don’t run.

When it comes to guest posts, I’ve had better luck making the first move. I ask writers or bloggers I know if they’d be interested in writing a post. I’ve had the best luck approaching writers or bloggers who are promoting a new book, ebook, blog, etc., because they’re already in promotion/marketing mode and are happy to write something that would interest my readers and help them push their own work.

Create Guest Post Guidelines

I finally wised up and created guest post guidelines. Now when someone who seems semi-legitimate writes asking to give me a free guest post, I send them a link to the guidelines and ask them to send me ideas for a couple posts. It’s enough to scare away anyone who’s not serious. Here’s a link: WordCount guest post guidelines.

Don’t get me wrong: I love guest posts, and run them all the time. I’m just very particular about the kind of guest post I run because they, like everything else I publish, represent me.

If you’ve never run guest posts on your blog, here’s some information on how to get started: Dear WordCount: How do I run guests posts on my blog?

If you have a blog, how do you handle requests from people you don’t know to write guest posts? Share your story by leaving a comment.

Photo courtesy sexyninjamonkey

[Editor's note: It's another theme day for the WordCount Blogathon, when everyone is writing on the same topic: If I started a blog today, what would I do differently? Here's my answer. -- MVR]

When I started blogging, I didn’t have a clue. I’d been doing the stay at home mom thing when blogging first got popular, and jumped into it as part of my re-entry into the workforce.

I put zero thought into why I was blogging or what I was going to write about. I created a blog on Blogger on a lark and wrote my first post the same day.

That was mistake No. 1. The initial result was all over the place – like a kid finger painting.

Instead of diving in, I should have considered how blogging fit into my freelance business, researched good blog practices and compiled a backlog of posts before going live.

That’s just the start of the newbie mistakes I made as a beginning blogger.

Here are 5 other blogging missteps I made, and what I’d do differently if I started over again today:

Mistake #1. Hosting a blog on a free service.

I started out on Blogger but quickly switched to WordPress.com. I keep WordCount on WordPress.com for close to two years, until it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to do all the things with my blog that I wanted using the templates available on the free site. I also was starting to think about using the blog to generate revenue, which isn’t allowed on blogs hosted by WordPress.com.

In fall 2009, I hired a website designer to port the site to a self-hosted blog using WordPress.org software and give it a new look and feel – and never looked back.

Mistake #2. Writing about whatever I wanted.

Picking a subject and sticking to it is good for everyone: readers like to know what to expect. Sticking to a topic can make you an expert at it, which is a good way to interest companies or organizations in becoming advertisers or sponsors.

After casting around for a couple months, I settled on writing about the freelance business, a great topic for the time because of the changes taking place in the business. It gave me the chance to write about writing basics, books, and other subjects related to being a freelance journalist that I enjoyed dissecting. And it helped introduce me to an online community of other writers, a nice substitute for the real-life workplace camaraderie I always enjoyed when I worked as a staff writer.

Mistake #3. Running posts without pictures.

When it came to including images with my posts I was extremely inconsistent until this year. That’s bad, because SEO like blog posts with pictures, and readers do too.

Then I discovered Pinterest, the social network that lets people share images they find online. Pinterest has become a popular way for writers and bloggers to promote their work - but you can only do that if your story or blog post has an image that you can share.

Since I started using Pinterest a few months ago, I now include an image with every post I write. It’s not that hard to find sources of free images: sometimes I run logos or other corporate materials that are free for the taking (as long as you give due credit to the source). Other times I create screen captures to run as images. Occasionally I run my own photos.

Most of the time I use images I’ve found doing a Creative Commons search on Flickr or Google that the authors have granted permission to re-use (again, with the proper permissions). For more information, read a post I wrote on where to find images for blog posts.

Mistake #4. Blogging for free.

It took me years to wake up to the fact that I could be making money from my blogging efforts. It’s true that within months of teaching myself to blog I was pitching and getting assignments to write about blogging software companies – but I’d been a tech reporter for years so that wasn’t all that surprising. It took me a lot longer to start looking for ways to earn an income directly from my blog – and I’m still not doing a very good job of it.

I discovered BlogHer, applied to join BlogHer’s advertising network and got accepted within a month or two. But it took me about three or four months to actually fill out all the paperwork to start running ads on my site. I also joined Amazon’s affiliate program, but so far it’s been a bust: I don’t run enough posts about books, and when I do, I sometimes forget to use the special Amazon affiliate code when I include links and images of books.

I’ve talked about using the blog to sell ebooks on writing basics and other subjects, but whenever I’ve been ready to start on that in earnest I’ve landed a great assignment and put it on the back burner. Will this be the year I actually pull the trigger? Stay tuned.

Mistake #5. Being disorganized.

The first couple years I ran this blog, I jotted down ideas for posts whenever and wherever they came to me, including on the yellow legal pad I use as a daily to-do list, and in a journal that I kept in my bedside nightstand – very low tech. Then I started creating posts in Draft mode and writing ideas down there – which explains why I have more than 100 unfinished posts in Draft mode.

Around the time of last year’s blogathon, some other bloggers turned me onto an editorial calendar plugin for WordPress blogs. It’s an application that creates a calendar inside the main WordPress dashboard that you can use to schedule and start writing posts. You can configure it to show three or more weeks at a time. It’s got a drag and drop feature so if you’ve got a post scheduled for a Tuesday and you decide you need to run it on Thursday, you can drag and drop the post from one date to the other. Brilliant. Maybe because I’m a visual person and love calendars, but using it has made it easier to schedule posts days or weeks in advance, to program standing features (like the “Dear WordCount” advice column that runs here on Thursdays) and figure out how to cover myself by re-running older posts when I know I’ll be especially busy with other work.

Here’s another post I wrote about common mistakes that beginning bloggers make: Bad beginnings: 10 newbie blogging mistakes and how to fix them 

If you were starting a blog today, what would you do differently? Share your experience by leaving a comment.

I’ve been on the BlogHer Publishing Network for several years and am frequently asked about it by writers looking for ways to make money from their blogs.

BlogHer isn’t the only blog ad network out there, but it’s a popular one, especially among women bloggers.

Being part of BlogHer’s ad network hasn’t made me a lot of money, at least not directly — but I’m in it for more than cold hard cash. In 2011, I earned $261 in click-through revenue from BlogHer ads running on WordCount. That’s more than double what it was in 2011, and almost enough to pay for my domain name registration, website hosting and web developer costs for the year. Some bloggers make more — much, much more — and some make a lot less. It all boils down to how much traffic is coming into your site, and what the revenue sharing arrangement is with the ad network you sign up with.

I also like being associated with BlogHer because it lends a measure of credibility to my blogging efforts – I must be doing something right to make it through their vetting process. Plus, it looks good to have ads running on the blog, gives it that magazine or newspaper feel.

And as I mentioned in the editor’s note above, being part of BlogHer’s network also helped bring me to their attention late last year, which resulted in me doing a two-month editing stint for them for a very nice fee.

If you’ve been thinking about joining an ad network and are considering applying to join BlogHer, here’s what to know:

1. Just because you want to join doesn’t mean you can. BlogHer publishes ads on about 3,000 blogs that cover parenting, recipes, fitness, careers, fashion, politics and more. These blogs make up the BlogHer Publishing Network, which is part of but distinct from BlogHer.com, the company’s website, which reaches 37 million mostly women readers each month. BlogHer takes applications from bloggers interested in joining the ad network and accepts new bloggers when they need them. That can take days, weeks or months. Fill out BlogHer’s online application to put yourself in the running. One very important note: you can’t join BlogHer Publishing Network if your blog is hosted by a service such as WordPress.com that doesn’t allow you to run ads.

2. BlogHer ads get prime real estate on your blog. If and when BlogHer accepts you into their ad network, you can run their ads on your blog. However, you can’t just stick them any place you’d like. When you join, you agree to abide by BlogHer policies and rules, one of them being that whatever BlogHer ad unit you place on your blog will be located “above the fold.” That means it will appear high enough on your blog’s front page that readers don’t have to scroll down to see it. There are other stipulations: that ads from other blog ad networks you may belong to don’t get higher placement, that your blog hosting service allows advertising and that you’ll stick to their editorial guidelines. One of their guidelines is that you post at least once a week – if you’ve been an infrequent blogger in the past, it might be a good idea to start posting a couple times a week on a regular basis before applying so you’re in the habit.

3. You can opt out of ads that aren’t a good fit. If you aren’t a parenting blogger, you can opt out of running ads for diapers and baby formula. BlogHer gives bloggers the choice of declining to run ads in multiple categories, including ads for diet products, political parties or the military. Vegetarian bloggers can opt out of ads showing meat or dairy products.

4. Ad rates vary, therefore so will revenue from BlogHer ads on your blog. Like many other ad networks, BlogHer charges advertisers on a rate per thousand impressions, generally referred to as CPM. Those rates range anywhere from nothing for public service announcements to upwards of  CPM of $9 or $10. BlogHer takes a cut of all ads and the balance goes to the blogger as a commission. How much money you make depends on how many of your readers look at a page on your blog featuring a specific ad and how many of them click on the ad. One ad on my blog had 14,000 impressions, i.e., 14,000 separate views, but received zero revenue because it was a public service announcement. On the other hand, another ad only had 1,200 page views but I made $5.30 because the CPM was $7.50.

5. You only get a check once you reach a certain level of ad income. BlogHer pays bloggers 45 days after the close of the month, but only if their share of ad revenue for that period is $25 or more. If it’s not, the company hold funds until the accrued value reaches that amount. Bloggers issues payments as checks or deposits into your PayPal account. Once you’re in the network, you can use an online revenue reportig tools to look up ad activity on your blog and see what commission you’ve earned in a specified time period.

6. Ads aren’t the only way you can make money. If you’re part of BlogHer’s ad network, you’re offered many other money-making opportunities. The company periodically offers bloggers the chance to earn $20, $50 or $100 by reviewing a book or other product, or to enter sweepstakes drawings. The BlogHer editorial staff could ask if it’s OK to run the beginning of one of your posts on their front page, which could increase traffic to your site, which in turn can increase your ad revenue. If they choose to syndicate one of your posts, which means it runs in full on BlogHer, it’s an extra $50 in your pocket. Use this online form to submit a post for consideration for syndication.

7. It’s easy to keep track of what’s going on. The BlogHer team produces a weekly e-newsletter with updates on the network, ad campaigns and more.

8. BlogHer gives bloggers in and out of its ad network opportunities to get together in person. BlogHer’s annual conference got so popular, the company has created a series of spin off conferences on food, business and other on specialty topics. The 2012 annual conference takes place Aug. 2-4 in New York City. You can read more about it on the BlogHer ’12 conference page.

To find out more, read comments from other bloggers in the BlogHer Publishing Network.

And stay tuned next week for descriptions of 8 other blog advertising networks, including Izea, Federated Media and Living on the Cheap.

If you’re running ads on your blog through BlogHer or another ad network, what’s your experience been?

Eclipse, May 20, 2012

It was cloudy here in Portland on Sunday evening during the annular eclipse, when the moon passed between earth and the sun to partially obscure the sun. We were out on the street at 6:30 p.m. PDT anyway and saw what there was to see. Unfortunately it wasn’t as clear as this picture, which came from Japan.

The eclipse inspired today’s post, though, which is a poem because today is Haiku Day in the annual blogathon.

******

Ring of Fire

Mist and clouds parting

Reveal shining sun eclipsed

By slow shadow moon

Yep, even if this is your first time blogging, odds are very good that your nimble blogging fingers start cramping when you think about web villains stealing your precious content. Don’t they realize how many beads of sweat and tear drops and buckets of perfectly good neurons you poured into that blog post? Didn’t they notice that blog copyright notice in the footer? It even has the ©, for Pete’s sake!

Unfortunately, the same technology that makes it possible to self publish a blog and syndicate for distribution also makes it exceedingly easy for unsavory sites and individuals to copy your content. And by golly, it’s just not right. So let’s do something about it! Here are six steps that will help you protect your blog copyright, thwart the evil no-gooders, and lose ten pounds in time for summer.

(NOTE: I may have exaggerated on that last point. But you get the idea. Onward!)

6. Find out if folks are copying your blog posts and images.

You can’t get all Avenger on the bad guys unless you know who they are. Sites like CopyScape and CopyGator will scour the Internet for exact duplicates of your content. If you’d like to drill down deeper or you’re concerned about a particular sentence or blog post, you can paste it into the classic Google search bar (between a pair of quotation marks) and Google will return results that match your copy. For images, try Google Images, TinEye or PicScout—just upload an image file and these handy-dandy sites will analyze it and show you identical or similar images on the web.

5. Issue DMCA takedown notices.

The Digital Millenium Copyright Act puts the burden of stopping infringement on the copyright holder (that’s you!), which is why you just burned up a Sunday night searching the Internet for blog burglars. Now that you’ve found all the malicious moochers and digital doppelgängers, it’s time to let them know the jig is up! A take-down notice is an email or letter notifying the other person and their web host that A) you are the true copyright holder, and B) you’d like them to stop using your copyrighted material without permission or license. Send ‘em a form letter and then ask Google to help remove their links from search results.

(NOTE: Since very few people understand copyright law and copying is so pervasive and easy on the web, the DMCA includes a safe harbor clause that protects first-time offenders. If the copycat removes your content quickly, they are immune from prosecution.)

4. Use excerpts and insert trackback links into your RSS feed.

While it’s romantic to imagine an evil copyright vampire out there lusting over your creative work and trying to suck the life out of it for their own benefit, the truth is that most copyright infringement on the web comes from scrapers—sites that find RSS feeds, scrape them of content, then repost it. Many scrapers are benign or even benevolent, and many bloggers even opt into these sites so their content will have larger audiences, but they can be detrimental to your traffic and search-engine ranks.

To fix this, simply change your RSS feed settings to only display an excerpt of your article—then folks will have to click through to your site if they want to read the entire blog post. So Google, Bing and Yahoo! know who originally wrote the article, append a link to your site at the end of every RSS feed entry. Your web developer or WordPress plugins like WordPress SEO by Yoast can do this for you.

3. Disable right-click on your blog posts and images.

Many of my clients ask for this feature—a special script that stops the occasional visitor from right-clicking on an image or snippet of text in their blog. Your web designer/developer can do this for you, or you can turn to one of the many WordPress plugins that handle this for you automatically. No more right click, no more theft!

Sweet, right? Maybe not. This also means that visitors can no longer copy short, fair-use quotations from your blog posts. It doesn’t stop them from snagging your images from Google. And a really persistent thief can simply disable Javascript on their browser to break through the barrier.

2. Turn your blog into a paywall site.

Your blog posts are really worth their weight in sweat, tears and neuron buckets. Why are you giving this stuff away? A paywall will block access to your content to the general public unless they’re willing to fork over a little money for access. You can follow the model of the New York Times and allow limited access or block the entire site, charge for full-site access or charge per blog post. It’s time to stop being a victim and start getting paid! Paywalls are working out great for newspapers and the music and film industries, right? WE’RE NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE!

Ahem. Maybe it’s time to read this:

1. Reframe your attitude toward the issue of blog copyright violation.

Wait, I should share the precious?

Nobody likes a mooch. Thieves need to be stopped. And by Jove, your blog has worth!

But there’s a fine line between protecting your blog copyright and guarding your precious content too tightly. After all, why did you start blogging in the first place? To keep others from finding it and sharing it?

For some, blogging is a compulsion to write and create; a blog is a gift to the world. For others, a blog is a testing ground where we experiment with ideas or a forum where we can discuss topics that matter to us with our readers. And for most of us, a blog is a marketing tool, like a free sample tray at a farmer’s market. It’s an easy way for us to share our tasty talents freely with the world, in the hope that the most appreciative readers will buy what we’re really selling, whatever that may be—and copycats are simply a signpost on the path to success.

By all means, stop blatant copyright offenses when you find them. But before you start sweating Internet thieves and start building the Great Wall of Your Blog, ask yourself: Does copying help spread my message and achieve my goal of super Internet fame? Is it better for me and my blog to be ubiquitous or to be, well, invisible?

Ron S. Doyle is a freelance writer and the Creative Director of Waterday Media, a boutique media strategy, web design & development company in Denver, Colorado. For more about Ron, visit his website or find him on Twitter.

Blogger and writer Jackie Dishner. Photo courtesy Jackie Dishner

This week marked the half way point of the Blogathon – we’re on the downward slope and it feels great.

In the past seven days, bloggers had fun swapping guest posts; you can read the guest post that Portland writer and writing teacher Sarah Moon wrote for WordCount on optimizing your blog for mobile devices, and my post on Sarah’s blog on writing lessons from five famous authors.

The week’s other highlight came when SecondAct, Entrepreneur Magazine‘s website for people over 40, invited Blogathon bloggers to share their second act stories in posts on their respective blogs on Wednesday. I updated a post that I’ve run before on how blogging helped me reinvent my career.

Dozens of people shared their stories stories of life and career reinventions, including Arizona author, writer and blogger Jackie Dishner, who’s pictured above riding the bike that figures prominently into her second act story. Instead of recounting all of them here, I’m going to point you to the recap I did for SecondAct:

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Every May, I host a contest on my personal blog challenging both beginning and experienced bloggers to write every day of the month. Close to 250 people are participating in the fifth annual blogathon, many of them in their 40s and older.

SecondAct.com invited these bloggers to share posts this week about how they’ve reinvented themselves. Their stories about following passions to change careers, take up new sports, re-enter the dating scene, lose weight or become a parent for the first time are intimate, heart-felt and often inspiring.

Read the entire story on SecondAct: Bloggers Share Their Second Act Stories

It’s graduation season, which means it’s time for a little inspiration. If you’re just graduating from journalism school and looking for your first job you’ll need it. If you’re considering switching from a staff job to working for yourself, you’ll need it. If you’re burned out from too many weeks of non-stop work with too little time off, you’ll need it.

Here’s some of the best inspiration for writers I’ve come across this week:

A noteworthy second act.

During the blogathon this week, bloggers were invited to write about how they’ve reinvented themselves one way or another. I’ll be sharing highlights of some of their posts on SecondAct.com (and will link to that post here when it’s up). But I wanted to share one story that was especially moving. When Arizona author and freelance writer Jackie Dishner discovered her husband had repeatedly cheated on her she took off – literally. She found her old bike in the garage, hopped on and started to ride. And ride. And ride. She rode herself into recovery, and then used her story to help other people – mainly women – dealing with abusive, harmful and otherwise fractured relationships. She became a motivational speaker, and started a blog called BIKE with Jackie to help the people she couldn’t talk to person. Jackie shares her inspiring story in this post: A bike ride to my second act.

Facebook friends in high places.

Facebook started selling shares of its stock today; in the business world that’s a big deal. For Facebook employees who stand to earn a ton of money, it’s huge. It’s seems appropriate to include something about the social media giant in a round up on inspiration. I only recently came across a speech about women in the workplace that Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg gave at a 2010 TED conference. Her subject:  why there are too few women at the top of U.S. companies, and what women can and should do about it. It’s over 15 minutes long, but definitely worth viewing.

Get on the bus.

Freelancers have a love/hate relationship with Peter Shankman based on how well they like or dislike Help a Reporter Out (HARO), the service he created for matching writers with potential sources. Regardless of what you think of the guy, he’s a heck of a writer. In June 2008, he published what’s for an intents and purposes a commencement speech that he was moved to write after overhearing two high school seniors reading through their yearbook while riding a bus in New York City – seniors who were gradating from the same high school he’s graduated from 18 years before. It’s classic Shankman: smart, funny and wise, words to live by whether you’re headed off to college or well into your career.

Think different.

It’s been seven months since Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died, and seven years since he gave this now famous commencement address at Stanford University. If you haven’t ever heard it, it’s worth the almost 15 minutes. And if you have, it’s worth hearing again for the wisdom Jobs shares about failure, life and death.