If you write content, Copyright is your friend.  You type, you create, it’s yours.

But in the blogosphere, lots of people quote other people’s work, or link to it (usually they don’y mind that and in fact encourage it!)

We should say that Copyright law various from country to country.  But there are crucial pieces of information you really do need, no matter where you operate:

Don’t steal it and treat it with respect

In the digital age, so much multimedia is there for the taking.  Photos, videos, plain old text.

A good mantra to follow is don’t take content unless it’s identified explicitly as being available for reuse under the creative commons or open content licenses.  If you reference, reuse or dissect , always include a linked citation alongside the content.  The author deserves to be linked to, or at least identified.

Check your own blog’s Copyright position – know your own backyard

5 steps to get in shape and avoid concerns over Copyright:

1. Ensure a copyright notice appears on every page of your blog.

2. If guests post on your blog, make the copyright position clear.

3. If you contribute to other blogs, be clear on their Copyright policies (whether you contribute for free (because you’re a really nice soul) or get paid.

4. Watermark protected images with your blog’s URL.

5. Secure content assets like ebooks using digital security and cover with your copyright notice.

Got it. What else?

Know where you stand with your writing from square one.  And know where others who publish via your blog stand, to.  Clarity is king.  And it helps you add and generate real value and a great reading experience for your readers.

There’s too much repetition on the internet.  Don’t contribute to that.

Avoid problems and you don’t have to deal with them.  You really don’t want lawyers’ cease-and-desist emails popping into your inbox.  Even if you don’t mean it, taking what isn’t yours is wrong.

You may decide to release some of your Copyright materials under the Creative Commons license, which “provide[s] free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof”.

Conversely, you might use the Open Content license, which licenses content “in a manner that provides users with the right to make more kinds of uses than those normally permitted under the law – at no cost to the user.”

There are great options to syndicate your content.  And there are some amazing approaches out there by content publishers.  Take a look at the approach of leading UK newspaper, The Guardian, with its Open Platform.

Refreshingly, no paywalls in sight there.

And, to be honest, we’re still sceptical.   The whole point about a good blog is that it provides good, original, content.  It’s just not possible to automate that – or is it?

No!  But it is possible to supplement good, well written content with a feed of good ‘automatic’ content.  What is meant by this?  Well, it’s kind of like an auto-pilot on an airplane not replacing the pilot – but assisting him/her.

We thought it was worth taking a look.

One product (of many) which has been brought onto our radar is “CaRP”.  No, this isn’t a fishing post  CaRP takes two of the most powerful elements on the internet, RSS and HTML, and melds them together. Sounds cute? Well, it just may be.

We all need to get real, here. Content is king – and that’s what readers want. Readers do NOT want nonsense generated by a computer. They want good content generated and tailored by a good author. So it is and so shall it be. But do users also want to see good content generated from a good RSS feed? It really feels that way and tests of CaRP have shown that. Yes, we took out a few of the ClubBlogger dollars!

RSS is powerful. No doubt (see the link, above, to a previous ClubBlogger post). It’s hardly news to those experienced ClubBloggers. But only some of you will have used it this way.

We thought it was worth a shot and will work further with it. With a ‘wet towel’ on the head to ensure you keep grounded and sensible (it’s easy to get carried away with this thing!) you may want to delve into the powerful world of RSS to HTML and try this. Or you may know a colleague or a friend who might.

There are several other tools worth looking at in this area. Scripts are reasonably readily available to buy and use.

Enjoy experimenting. But really, really, keep in mind that good content will drive this thing.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called “tweets”  of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

All you need to use Twitter is an internet connection or a mobile phone. Once you’re in, type your first update into the web box.  To get an idea of what other people are saying or doing on Twitter, check out Twitter search to see what Twitter’s all about.  You can search by keyword or just check out the trending topics to what’s hot on Twitter right now.

When you create an account, you can search for people by name or user name, import friends from other networks, or invite friends via email.  If you don’t want to do that, follow some of the people Twitter suggests. Once you’ve found your friends, follow them to start getting their updates.

Following someone simply means receiving their Twitter updates.   When you follow someone, every time they post a new message, it will appear in your Twitter home page.  New messages are added to your home page as people post them, so you always get the updates in real time.  When you log in, you can see what the latest updates are.  Twitter offers other ways to follow people too: you can get updates from certain people on your phone!

After you click the follow button on someone’s profile, you’re following them.  The follow button will change to a box that says “Following” with a drop down option to remove a person if you want to. If you’ve registered your phone with Twitter, you can set up text preferences for a person as well.  See a list of people you’re following by clicking on the ‘following’ link on your profile or your home page’s sidebar.

Twitter sends you an email when someone new follows you.  Set up your email preferences to notify you when you have a new follower.  The followers link on your profile page or home page’s sidebar will also tell you how many followers you have.

Twitter offers many ways to post updates: from the web in the update box, from your phone,  from your mobile web browser using m.twitter.com, or from any third party application made by the talented folks who’ve utilized Twitter’s API.

Can you put my Twitter updates on your blog?

Yep! Put a Twitter badge on your blog, website, MySpace… anything that accepts Javascript or HTML.  You can even customize your Twitter badge to match!

Thanks to twitter.com – check out their help resources for more information!

I’ve got to be honest: I don’t like pop-ups. However, many thousands of website owners do use them. They have their place, but it MUST be a clearly-defined place.

Looking at the stats, the conversion rate of pop-ups is high. There’s no denying it. So from a purely marketing perspective, I fully, fully understand their use. Club Blogger is nothing if not aware of the real world!

So, if you’re going to use them or know someone who does;

1) make sure that the code is working properly and not breaking your website. A good idea is to check it on different browsers, for example;

2) don’t use multiple pop-ups. I.e., some sites have more than one pop-up. One on the middle of the screen, one that shows up at the bottom later and one that reminds you to have lunch! Don’t do it!;

3) REMEMBER that you may stop people from linking to you that can’t stand pop-ups themselves. Many bloggers hate pop-ups, so if you’re fine with turning away a whole bunch of link love – – then go for it. Just be aware of what you’re missing out on;

4) “subscription” pop-ups which appear when you first a page are obnoxious. If I haven’t read the content yet, I am not going to subscribe to it. I usually leave websites which throw promotional or subscription begging pop-ups without reading further;

5) 9 times out of 10, if a site “pops up”, surfers “pop out”. Those who click through generally KNOW the site and really want to read before they stay to read the content.

Looking forward to your thoughts.

Step #1: Examine Your Personal Interests

The first step you need to take in order to determine your niche is to examine your personal interests. After all, in order to create a successful blog, you will need to post to it on a regular basis. Ideally, you should post at least once per day while your blog is still in its early stages. Therefore, you certainly want to select a topic that will retain your interest and that you will enjoy writing about. So, sit down and create a list of all of the general topics you would be interested in writing about before you move on to the next step.

Step #2: Fine Tune Your Topics

Now that you have an idea of the topics you might be interested in writing about, it is time to start doing a bit of research. Obviously, you want to write about a topic that will be of interest to as many people as possible. That way, you can bring more traffic to your site and you will have a better chance of making money through your blog if that is your goal.

In order to get an idea of what topics are of interest to people searching the web, use a tool such as Google adwords. Here, you can get an idea of the phrases that people are researching on Google as well as the amount of competition there is for those particular words. While looking at Google adwords should not serve as your final determining factor, it can give you a better idea of how to fine tune your niche. For example, if you listed pets as one of your interests, you may find that there is a great deal of interest in organic pet food. In this case, you may want to focus your blog on eco-friendly pet products or on healthy eating options for pets.

By fine tuning your niche, you can really focus on the topic and delve deeply into it, which will help you establish yourself as an authority on the topic. Later, if you want to address more pet topics, you may add another specialized niche topic to your blog or you may create a sister blog to compliment the first one you developed.

Step #3: Do Your Research

Once you have determined some more specific potential niche areas to explore with your blog, you should do a bit of research regarding blogs that are addressing this topic. Do some searches with the major search engines to learn more about other blogs that fall within your niche. Ideally, you should choose the topic with the least number of blogs already in existence. That way, you can keep your competition down, which will increase your chances of enjoying a larger audience.

If there are already several blogs addressing the topic, see if there is a way you can offer a different angle. That way, you will still have a good chance of carving out your share of the market.

Benefit #1: Performing Market Research

Simply put, surveys and polls help you get to know your audience better. Although you should have already conducted some market research in order to get to know your target audience better, surveys and polls will help you get to know the people who are actually reading your blog. Armed with this information, you can create posts that are more to their liking and you can add features to your blog that will help you keep your audience happy. If you are trying to make money with affiliate products, polls can also help you when it comes to selecting the products you will try to sell on your blog.

Benefit #2: Starting a Conversation

Polls and surveys are often great fodder for getting conversations going. One on hand, you can ask a question with your poll and then ask your community members to explain why they provided that answer. On the other hand, the results of the poll or survey can often stir up additional conversations – particularly if the topic is one that is controversial. In fact, using a poll or a survey is a good way to introduce a controversial subject for your readers to debate without you having to take a strong stance on either side.

Keep in mind that you will have the option to allow your readers to view the results or to keep the results closed as the survey is taking place. If you don’t want the responses to be skewed, you might want to keep this feature closed until after you have conducted the poll.

Benefit #3: Keeping it Simple

Polls and surveys are also beneficial to the blogger because they are pretty easy to set up. So, if you have a day when you really can’t think of anything to write about or you simply don’t have time for a post, putting up a survey or poll will still interest your readers without taking so much time to create.

Although polls and surveys are relatively easy to create, this is not to say you shouldn’t put any thought into the one that you create. Rather, make certain you ask a question that involves a topic that is meaningful to your readers. Also, make certain your answer choices are clear and well-defined. That way, you will get an accurate response to your poll or survey and you may actually be able to use the information to further improve the content of your site.

The first rule of making a free business is, open source software: The open source community has been around for as long as closed source development and open source products are comparable, if not better quality in some cases. Name a bit of software your business needs and it’s very likely that an open source version is available, in some cases making a choice to use open source software can save you thousands of dollars in licensing for single programs.

The second rule to free business on the net is: Cheap web hosting! There is simply no need to maintain or buy dedicated or virtual hosting if no one knows your website is there. Open a cheap account with a high quality service provider like godaddy and they will be very glad to quickly and painlessly upgrade your hosting as and when you need additional power, storage and bandwidth. There is simply no need to pay for a vastly overpowered service before it’s needed. A few adverts will bring in enough revenue to pay for your website hosting, making it free!

The final step to free business on the net is: Free promotion! Google the term ‘SEO’ and check our SEO blog category on the left. There is a wealth of free information available on this topic, which will teach you exactly how to configure and write your website to be search engine optimized. Custom SEO services are expensive because they usually come with guaranteed results, but these results are within your reach given enough time and understanding of the topic.

If you follow these three simple rules, you’ll get your business online for almost zero cost. Website builders and promotions agencies might try to sell your expensive packages and hosting services, but remember these basic rules and you’ll be fine.

You may also use a WordPress blog. This will require you do more of the grunt work, however, the finished product can be quite impressive and fully customized. Some hosting companies have special software that will help you create your WordPress blog rather easily. However, adding plug-ins will be something they you have to do yourself. A WordPress blog is a little more involved. However, one of the major benefits is that it is your blog. You own it. The same does not hold true for blogs generated from Blogger.com. They can come in and shut your blog down or freeze it whenever they want to. Therefore, you could lose your business overnight. This is a very important consideration when you are deciding which blog platform to use.

Besides choosing what type of blogging platform you want to use, choosing your blog topic will be the most important decision that you have to make. In this article, we will talk about how to go about selecting a blog topic.

It is possible to blog on just about anything. Almost any topic can be a winner. You will however, want to think about choosing a topic that interests you since you will be writing the content. However, it’s not impossible to create a blog on a subject that you have very little personal interest in or have any knowledge of. You can simply outsource the writing of your blog content or purchase PLR articles which you can rewrite into blog posts. Find a topic that people are willing to spend money on. Some indicators of successful, moneymaking topics include those that have magazines, books or products dedicated to them. This will give you some idea what people are willing to spend their money on.

You will also want to find a topic that has a good amount of followers. It really will be of no benefit to you if you don’t have people who are interested in what you are blogging about. Monetization is also important. You have to choose a topic that can be monetized. Check and see if the subject has available affiliate products? Does it lend itself to writing an e-book about?

If you have absolutely no idea in regards to blog topics, consider Internet marketing. This is always a huge market because many people are interested in working from home from the Internet. However, this topic is pretty crowded, and it is competitive.

Pets are another great topic. People love their pets and there are a lot of different subtopics that you can focus on. Hobbyists are another good group to target. People really get into their hobbies and are willing to spend money on them. You can sell books, supplies or how-to guides on your blog.

Games and gaming system are another hot topic. People are willing to spend money for games and game systems. These systems are getting more expensive than ever and so your commissions are likely to be pretty substantial.

These are just a few hot blog topics. This article was designed to help you choose a topic to blog about. Again, you want to consider something that either interests you or is able to make you a profit. You want to make sure that there are an ample amount of followers and that the subject can be monetized.

Understand though at times I have paid for things because the freebies was not up to the quality I needed.

But “Free” is always good!

1. Cubestat.com

Cubestat is a free and perfect tool for website value calculation, estimations and information.

How does it work? you simply enter the domain url above, our unique algorithm will calculate and estimate the website worth, daily pageviews and daily ads revenue of the present domain.

It gives you a price on what your domain might be worth, whether it is accurate or not is up to debate.

But still it is a great tool because it does give you all your backlinks,indexed pages and more.

2. Free adsense Keyword tool

With the ability to search a growing database of tens of thousands of high-dollar Adsense keywords, Iotaweb allows publishers to find the keywords and key phrases that will allow them to focus their content to monetize their site most effectively.

3. Free FTP

FreeFTP is a Windows FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client which allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. With its many basic and advanced features.

4. Download.com

This could be the one stop for all the free stuff you might have been looking for.

5. Free Download Center

Great download site for free software and games, They also give away free licensed software once a day that you otherwise have to pay for.

If you have free stuff you want mentioned drop me a email and I will try and get them in future posts.