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.

Taking Ownership of Your Business

One of the reasons many bloggers and writers have difficulty taking ownership of their business is because it is something they do on a part-time basis or as a “side job.” Therefore, they don’t look at themselves as being professionals or as true business owners. Unfortunately, when you look at your business as just a part-time gig or as something you do as a hobby or in your free time, you likely will not put forth the effort necessary to make it a success. Even worse, those around you will fail to take you seriously.

So, how can you take ownership of your blogging business and help make it more successful? First, you need to identify yourself as a blogger. Sure, you may also be the manager of a restaurant or a retail salesperson, but you are also a writer. Therefore, the next time someone asks you what you do for a living, be certain to identify yourself as a writer as well as by the title of whatever other occupation you may hold.

When you start to identify yourself to others as a writer, you will find that something amazing happens. First, many people will ask you to elaborate on what you write about. Obviously, this gives you an excellent opportunity to spread the word about your blog and to potentially draw in new readers. Second, you start to feel more confident in your business, your writing abilities and your knowledge regarding your blog topic. Your readers will pick up on this confidence, which will help your community grow.

Using Your New Found Confidence

A lack of confidence in your knowledge and abilities is a big turn off with blog readers. Your readers aren’t looking for someone who appears to be wishy-washy or who seems to be trying to fake his way through his posts. If you aren’t knowledgeable about something that has to do with your blog, take the time to research it or to admit it to your readers rather than writing a blog that is nothing but fluff. If you do know what you are talking about or if you have a strong opinion about a certain topic, express your opinion to your readers. Not only will this help to shape your voice and personality, it will also give your readers something to debate – which is sure to draw even more traffic to your blog!

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.

Get Your Feet Wet

Before you turn in your resignation and hit the web, it is a good idea to get your feet wet in the world of blogging. Spend some time reading some blogs and interacting with blogging communities so you can get a better idea of how blogs work and how the communities are built. You might also want to guest blog for some of the more popular blogs or even write blog paid blog posts for someone else so you can better determine whether or not writing blogs is something you enjoy. Of course, you can certainly set up a free blog with a site such as blogger and you can get started with your own blog. If you notice that your blog is generating some interest, you may very well have found a way to leave the rat race and start a successful home based career.

Monetizing Your Blog

After you have successfully built up a community with one blog, you might want to start dabbling in different ways to monetize your blog. Allowing pay-per-click advertisements to be placed on your blog is one way to monetize your site. You might also want to get involved with affiliate products and look into selling them through your website. Another option is to sell advertisement space on your blog. In fact, if your blog becomes popular enough, you will find people coming to you and asking to place their ads on your blog.

Spreading Your Wings

If you find that you were able to make one blog a success, you might want to start looking into creating additional blogs. The key is to make certain you don’t overburden yourself by creating more blogs than you can keep up with while still holding down your job. After all, building a successful blog takes time and maintaining a successful blog requires making a commitment to add new blog content on a regular basis. Therefore, you don’t want to have so many blogs going that you cannot keep up with them.

Until you start earning enough income from your blogs, you may have to juggle both your regular 9 to 5 job as well as your blogging business. But, once your blogs take off and you start earning a decent amount of cash from them, it just may be time to spread your wings and jump into blogging full time!

Although many such sites use the regular visitors and website members to contribute their reviews as personal experiences and are mostly non-paid services, there are websites that actively employ freelance writers to write reviews. While writing reviews seem to be an apparently easy task, it is important to understand that for reviews to be well-received by the audience and to have a loyal follower base for your reviews, your writing must be precise. It is not about thrashing a certain product or just eulogizing it – it is more about striking the right balance.

Here are some tips that can help you in writing online reviews:

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   • First and foremost, remember that the media of communication that you are using is online. People mostly resort to online content when they are in a hurry and want to catch some information on go. This should dictate your content and your write-up. The key is to keep it succinct and to the point. In this jet age no one has time to read for pages.

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   • Secondly, remember to understand your target audience and modify your language accordingly. If you are writing a review for a high-end digital SLR camera, use the vocabulary that suits the target audience – professional and serious photographers and do not use words that you may use while writing a food review.

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   • Review is about critically evaluating a product. Very rarely would you come across a product that is perfect or completely useless. So your review should strike the right balance. Point out the positive qualities of the product and remember to highlight the negative points as well, if an. Give the prospective buyer a work-around the negative qualities – this is called value-addition.

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   • Finally, it is not absolutely necessary that you must try each product before writing a review on it. But what you must do is study the features of each product thoroughly and understand the various functionalities. You must be able to conceptualize how a particular feature of a product may help the buyer and write accordingly. However when it comes it films or food reviews, the suggestion would be to try it before writing a review. Generally readers can also differentiate between a genuine feature and a fake one.

The best part about writing reviews is that if your writing is credible and your audience enjoys your features, you will soon earn a name for yourself which will help you immensely in furthering your business.

Before you start writing your e book, consider promoting your articles and sample features across different websites and other online platforms. It is important that an interest towards your book is generated before you actually launch it. Once you sit down to actually create your e book, try and keep it interesting visually and textually – use graphics and images if your topic permits. Online is a format that readers are used to see as being colorful, intuitive and interactive. If your e book can also incorporate such elements – people will have a good time enjoying your book and you can move away from the traditional book reading experience thereby giving the reader a different experience.

Writing an e book is similar as that of writing a book – the difference is mainly the challenge to keep the e book precise and to the point. Computer screens are not the first choice for any reader to enjoy reading – so the closer your e book content is to the topic, the lesser time will the read need to spend in front of the computer screen.

Today there are a number of online libraries with enviable collection of e books that you can lease or buy. This indirectly means that selling e books is also revenue-generating online business prospect. To create a storehouse for e books, you will first need to acquire some web space to host the e books. You may want to float a website or share a server with your loyal readers and customers. Then you will need to decide on the features that you will allow in the website.

• Should there be download facilities?

• Should the reader be able to read it online only?

• How much should you charge for each e book reading?

• If the reader wants to download the e book, then how much would you charge them for?

Next you must finalize on the design and the layout of the website, keep it intuitive and easy to navigate. Use graphics and images to keep it appealing. Then advertise your online library to relevant sites – for examples book forums, groups of readers and other libraries. Use the traditional online marketing and advertisement tools to promote the site. Once your library is up and running and you have regular readers, you will just need to look at promoting it at regular intervals and updating your collection. This is truly a low-investment online business that you can keep as a side business and concentrate on more businesses that you may be interested in.