Cathy Stucker - The Idea Lady

Attract Customers and Make Yourself Famous

Choosing Stock Photos for Blog Posts

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stock-photosSeveral readers have asked me where and how I find the photos I use with posts on this blog, so I thought I would share some tips and resources to help you find great images for your blog posts. In this post, we are going to talk about where to find photos and other images you can legally use. An upcoming post will discuss how to choose interesting images.

You should never just grab an image from someone else’s website or from a Google image search. Most of the images you discover that way are covered by copyright, and using them without permission is illegal (not to mention unethical).

What images may you legally use? There are many sources for images, including:

Photos you took;
Drawings and illustrations you created;
Images in the public domain;
Licensed images; and
Images the owners permit others to use.

First the easy one: If you took the photo or drew the picture, you own it and may use it any way you choose. There are a few caveats here, though. You may not draw a picture of a copyrighted character, or other image that has legal protection (such as Mickey Mouse or other cartoon characters). If you take a picture of people, you may need a model release to use the photo publicly. And you should never use a picture of a famous person (or anyone, for that matter) in a way that implies they have endorsed your product or service if they have not.

There are millions of images in the public domain. Photos and other images fall into the public domain because (1) the copyright has expired, (2) they were never eligible for copyright protection or (3) the owner has released the work into the public domain.

Copyright law varies from country to country, but in the United States, works created before 1923 are in the public domain. Works created by employees of the Federal government, as part of their duties, are generally not eligible for copyright. And there are people who give up their copyrights and allow their works to enter the public domain.

You can find images from the Federal government by doing a search at http://USA.gov/. Before using any photos or graphics from a government website, check the licensing or rights information on the site. Some images are not government works and are covered by copyrights.

Two sites for images contributed to the public domain are http://www.photos8.com/ and http://www.public-domain-photos.com/.

Licensed images include photos and illustrations from stock photo collections. You may license individual images, buy CDs or DVDs containing image collections, or subscribe to a website such as ClipArt.com. When using licensed images, be sure to read the license. For example, some may not be used in commercial projects. Some may limit the number of images from the collection that may be used in one project.

There are many people who allow use of their photos under certain circumstances. They may require that you give them credit and/or a link, or that you get their permission before using the image. You can do a search of images you may use from flickr.com by doing a search at search.CreativeCommons.org. The terms of Creative Commons licenses vary, so read the license for the photo you want before using it. Make sure you properly attribute the images you use, according to the wishes of the copyright holder.

Images make your blog posts more interesting to readers. In an upcoming article, I will share tips on how to find the images that will grab the attention of your readers.

Prepare Your Blog for the Holidays

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holiday-bloggingIt’s hard for me to think about Christmas when the Halloween candy is still around, but this is a good time to think about what you need to do to get your blog ready for the holidays.

Are there holiday topics you should address in your blog? Almost any blogger can find a way to write posts about the holidays: gift guides, dealing with family members and other relationships, how to celebrate on a budget, travel, managing your business over the holidays, etc. Start working on those posts now.

Will you be away, or busy with family and celebrations, over the holidays? (I hope so!) Now is the time to start accumulating a supply of posts so that your blog doesn’t go dark while you are enjoying the season. Request some guest posts at http://BloggerLinkUp.com/ to give yourself time to work on stockpiling future posts.

Do you sell products (your own or as an affiliate) through your blog? What promotions will you schedule for your customers? And what content (posts, emails, etc.) do you need to have in place to support those promotions? Plan ahead to get the best results. (And are there holiday products you need to create? Oooh, you had better get busy!)

Also, if you sell your own products, get some reviews to get your products in front of more customers.

With a little preparation, you can have a happy, successful and sane holiday season!

Planning Posts with a Blog Editorial Calendar

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Need help publishing to your blog consistently? Looking for ideas and focus? This can help!

The tip in this article can help solve at least three of the challenges raised by Blogger LinkUp members. Here are examples of what they asked:

“I tend to scatter myself in 900 directions. So maybe I simply need a plan that allows that scatter to appear focused – how can I make a blog work for multiple concepts/topics?”

“My challenge is finding meaningful content day, after day, after day.”

“My biggest challenge is keeping focused on writing blog posts regularly.  I tend to have spurts of activity and then I move off or get distracted and there are not posts for a while.”

Although each of these challenges is a little different, there is one tool that can help you to deal with all of them: an editorial calendar.

Magazines publish editorial calendars that tell what topics they will cover in each issue. The purpose is not only for their planning, but so publicists can pitch appropriate products, writers can pitch stories to fit the theme of each issue, and sales can match advertisers to the issue.

Your editorial calendar does not have to be publicly published (although it may be). You can simply decide that you are going to write certain types of posts at certain times. For example, if your goal is to publish a new post five days a week, Monday through Friday, you might set up an editorial calendar that looks like this:

  • Monday – How-to tutorial
  • Tuesday – Book or product review
  • Wednesday – Video
  • Thursday – Essay/opinion piece
  • Friday – Weekly link roundup

Your categories do not have to be the same ones in the example. For example, instead of creating a video post, you could find a YouTube video that can be embedded in your blog and comment on it. A lot of Mommy bloggers and others do “Wordless Wednesday” posts, where they simply post a photo. You could create a round-up of tips or advice from readers about a question or problem. (Hint: Post a request for sources here in BLU and ask people to respond with their best tips. Link to them when you use their tips.) Or answer a question you got from a reader. There are lots of types of blog posts, so choose the ones that are the best fit for your blog.

Instead of rotating types of posts, you can use an editorial calendar for subject matter. I find it easy to write several posts on a topic at once, but I may not want to publish them one after the other. I sometimes offer grammar and writing tips on my mystery shopper blog. The information is important to mystery shoppers, but if they see eight posts in a row about grammar and punctuation, they will think they are in the wrong place. So when I write a batch of posts such as these I publish one a week (e.g., every Thursday).

Your editorial calendar does not have to be weekly. You can plan 12 types of posts over the course of a month or whatever works for you.

And your editorial calendar is not meant to be limiting. I find that structure makes it easier for me to create. However, if I have a good idea that doesn’t fit the editorial calendar, the idea wins. The editorial calendar is there to guide me, not restrict me.

I find that having an editorial calendar can help me stick to a publishing schedule, come up with new content ideas and vary the topics on my blog. Try it and see how it works for you.

Attract Blog Comments

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blog-commentWhen readers comment on your blog it not only gets them more engaged with you and your content, it gives your blog more life and may even help it rank better with the search engines.

Here are a few quick tips to encourage blog comments:

Ask questions. Near the end of your post, ask readers for their opinions or what has worked for them.

Take a contrary position. Go against the conventional wisdom and be a little controversial.

Dofollow comment links. Most blogs use the “nofollow” tag in comments, meaning that the links do not pass search engine juice. Making your comment links “dofollow” means that more people will be interested in commenting. You can even post your blog in dofollow directories to encourage traffic and comments. (Of course, you will also encourage spam comments, so you may need to moderate comments to keep out the junk.) Get the plugin to dofollow comments on your WordPress blog at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sem-dofollow/

Form a blogging alliance. Darren Rowse recently wrote about joining with other bloggers who write blogs in similar niches to support each other. One of the things alliance members do is comment on each other’s blogs.

Interact with commenters. Keep the conversation going. Respond to comments readers leave on your blog. Let them know you are listening. (This applies to your guest posts on other blogs, too. When you guest post, watch the comments and interact with the blogger’s readers.) Respond to a blog comment and you continue a conversation that will keep the commenter coming back to your blog.

Tweet your blog posts and ask your followers to share their opinions. Use other social media (e.g., Facebook, FriendFeed, Plaxo, et al) to spread the word about your latest posts and get people to join in the conversation with a blog comment.

So what have you found works in getting readers to interact with your blog by leaving comments? Leave your comments below. ;o)

Blogging Tips – Easy Blog Ideas

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One of the challenges many bloggers face is finding the time to blog regularly. Here are some blogging tips that will help you quickly and easily create blog posts.

You might start by revising your expectations. It is great if you can blog every day, but it may not be realistic for bloggers with many other responsibilities. Perhaps three times a week is a more achievable goal.

Another thing that may get in your way is the idea that every post has to be a certain length. Many of the articles and posts I put online are in the range of 400 – 600 words. Some bloggers write longer posts, perhaps 800 to 1000 or more words. However, there is no rule that says posts must be at least a certain number of words, or that all of your posts must be the same length.

Try mixing it up. Continue to write some posts with your usual word count, but also do some that are short. For example, if your usual posts examine an issue in depth, do some quick tips that are just 150 – 250 words. Or link to a blog post or website that you found useful, with a brief description of what you liked about it.

These short posts can be created as you run across interesting ideas and sites, or you can set aside an hour or two now and then to stockpile several posts.

Here are some additional ideas for quick posts:

Put up a poll. Many blogging platforms have poll applications built in. Run a poll and get input from your readers about an issue.(Then write a post about the poll results.)

Answer a question from one of your readers. I get lots of email questions, and sometimes publish a question and my answer as a blog post.

Share a favorite quotation, and add a bit of commentary about why you like it or what it means to you. Here’s a recent example from my blog: https://idealady.com/does-success-mean-you-can-slow-down.

Do you ever write blog posts such as “Seven Ways to …” or “Six Things You Need to Know About…”? Take a point from one of those articles and expand on it. For example, I could take any of the individual suggestions from this article on creative ways to grow your business and create a new post with more details on that idea.

Have an open mind about what a blog post can be and you will find many opportunities to create interesting and useful posts for your readers.