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People like this just boggle my mind.

One of my readers sent me a heads up about one of my articles being taken, copied and pasted word for word, over at another site. This site calls themselves “Smart Blogging Tips” - I gave them a nofollow link; I only give credit where credit is due, and it’s NOT due here.

So I head on over there and take a look. Not only do I see that one article taken, but many of my other popular, recent articles - as well as many, many articles from other bloggers! And this person isn’t a scraper - they don’t use feeds to find the content they steal. They visit the sites and copy and paste the content. Sometimes they leave the post titles alone, sometimes they change a word or two around. Does it make any difference? NO! It’s still stealing!

“Smart Blogging Tips” definitely isn’t smart - actually, he/she is a downright THIEF. Taking other people’s content is illegal any way you look at it. If I were you I’d go over there and give this person a piece of your mind, especially if you think they might have stolen some of your content as well. Add this person’s site and IP to your block list if you want, so they can’t comment you or access your blog.

I’ve left comments on several of the articles this person has taken from me and put up on their own blog, letting them know that if they don’t take the site down or at least all of the stolen content, that they’d be in big trouble. Stealing is ILLEGAL - it’s no different online than it is in the real world!

If a thief argues to you when you confront them and tells you that “they didn’t know”, don’t take any of that. Even if they didn’t know, it’s no excuse. Anyone who is stupid enough to think that taking content from other people is okay shouldn’t even have their own website in the first place. I’ve found many sites before that have taken my content, but each and every one of them angers me even more. Why can’t some people just write their own articles? Taking from others is NOT the way to go about things!

If your content is being stolen by ANY site, first things first: contact the site’s owner. If they don’t have a contact form or email shared, bombard them with comments and let them know it’s not okay. I’ve had sites before that answer me and and tell me they don’t care and they’re going to keep stealing. That’s when you take it to the next step. Ban their site from visiting yours and blacklist it. Report them to their host. Do everything you can in your power to shut them down, because you work hard to write your content and maintain your blog. Other people do NOT deserve the credit for that.

Note: I am not singling out this “blogger” individually. So many people steal content, and this person is just one of those people. However, this person link exchanges and has many who trust him for his “great content”, which he doesn’t even write - he takes it. I have no guilt about linking to this guy and “giving him a bad name” before he’s even responded to me, because guess what? He deserves it.

EDIT: Click here to see a post on Courtney TURTLE where the author talks about the article I wrote. However, they originally read the content over at “Smart Blogging Tips”, so that other site is getting credit for what I’ve written. This just flies all over me. It’s not the fault of Courtney TURTLE, of course, but that of this THIEF! Let’s get this nasty person’s site shut down!

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Add a ping list to your blog. Anytime you write a new post, all the sites below will ping your blog and alert blog search engines and related sites. Pinging lets others know you’ve updated. Very cool and sends traffic. After all, that is what we all want and need. I am in the process of starting 2 new blogs and have added all these links. There are lots of others but these will get you started.

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

Vicky at Vicky’s Virtual Office
My Virtual Office
My Blog 

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No matter how popular your site is (or isn’t), you can always make money online with it. If you get less than 50 unique visitors a day or more than 500, there is always going to be someone out there who is willing to promote their product or site on your blog. As long as you price your advertising fairly for what you’re offering, you can make money with your blog.

First, create an advertising page. At the top of the page tell what your site is about and the kind of people it attracts in a paragraph or less. After that, display all of your important stats such as your PageRank, Alexa and Technorati rankings, RSS subscriber count, and the amount of traffic you get on a monthly basis.

Then you’re just going to list what advertising you’re offering to future potential sponsors. My recommendations are selling text link ads, 125×125 banner ads, a prime position 480×60 banner ad on your front page, ads in your feed (as long as you update daily and have a decent subscriber count), and site reviews. List the prices and why the sponsor would want to purchase that advertising method. Don’t overprice - you won’t make a dime if you do!

Make sure you include your contact information so anyone can get in touch with you, and explain the payment methods you’re going to accept. Also make clear how long the advertisement will stay on your site and exactly where it’s going to be.

After you have your advertising page up, make a post about it like I did here. Describe the advertising opportunities and how being a sponsor on your blog or site will help the company being advertised. Make sure you include your prices in the post (remember, don’t overprice!) and tell everyone they are a limited time offer, because the prices are only dirt cheap for the first month.

It’s important that you know to cut out the middle man. Companies like ReviewMe and PayPerPost take extra money from you and your advertisers to pay themselves. If you run your own direct advertising on your blog you can be 100% in charge of all your rules, prices, direct negotiating, etc. Running your own advertising is the way to go!

If you have any questions about running your own advertising or making your advertising page, or anything else on this topic, please write me a comment or send an email through my contact form. If you’re not sure how you should price some of your ads, I’ll be happy to help you figure it out. Good luck, and happy blogging!

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If your answer is no, then maybe you shouldn’t even be blogging at all.

There’s one statement I can tell you right now that is one hundred percent true. Your blog won’t be successful and reach its full potential if you are missing one key factor - passion. So ask yourself right now, Do I love my blog? Is it usually pretty easy for you to come up with post ideas on a regular basis? Do you love tweaking your design and theme and getting that perfect look? Are you excited whenever a more popular blog links to you, or you get noticed by the social media websites? If one or more of those answers are no, you might not love your blog like you should.

Ask yourself another question: Why am I blogging? For most people, it’s solely the money. However, if there is no passion behind your blog then you’ll never earn any decent money anyway. Many people find blogging to be a very enjoyable and rewarding hobby (or even for some, a full time job), but if you don’t then maybe you need to reevaluate your priorities.

If you don’t love your blog and you dread logging on regularly and struggle with trying to think of what to write, then that is going to shine through to your readers. Someone who is excited about blogging and loves their site will always send good vibes through their posts and make their visitors want to read what they have to say. Otherwise, you won’t experience success.

To have a good blog you must be passionate about your blog’s topic. If you picked a niche for its money-making opportunities, but in all honesty you don’t know much about it or dislike it, how far can you expect to get? Surely not past the vital six month barrier!

My words of advice: Blog about what you know and love with passion, or don’t blog at all. If you’re trying to choose a niche for your blog, pick one that you could write about every day for months, and still be full of knowledge and joy for the topic. If you don’t like what you’re writing, your readers obviously won’t either.

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Hope everyone is having a great weekend so far, and I hope this new roundup full of fantastic articles will make it even better! I’ve started adding excerpts from the articles so you can easily scan through this roundup and find what you want to read most.

Time Management - Tuesday Think Tank:

“Time goes by - so quickly. Many of us are disorganised people who get distracted by shiny things and lose a couple of hours seemingly in the blink of an eye. …”

Confessions of a Twentysomething (Want to be) Stumble Queen:

“Even though I know it probably means very little, I would still do just about anything to be called a “Top Stumbler.” …”

10 Methods Black Hat Thieves Use To Steal Traded Links:

“For the link traders out there, watch out for these 10 methods black hat SEOs will use to steal your links. …”

Forget StumbleUpon: Here is a Better Alternative:

“I was very happy to see that it work in hours and if I did it enough time over a long period of time- I can get 5-10 thousands more targeted visitors more per month. The cool thing about this is that it will last long and grow exponentially. …”

Convince Ad Blockers to Turn Your Ads Back On:

“As bloggers, many of us rely on adverts for income. A new danger is shadowing that income though; the ad blockers. …”

5 Niche Social Media Sites For Web Designers:

“Social media can be a huge source of traffic, but making it to the front page of a major site like Digg is difficult, and the traffic is not usually as targeted as many other forms of traffic. …”

How Do I Get In Contact With You?:

“The problem is, more than half of the blogs I visit do not have a simple contact page. …”

This FREE Plugin Is A Money Maker:

“In order to make money online, sometimes you just have to take an already existing technique and tweak it to your evil needs! …”

Also, I would like to alert you that you can now advertise on Super Blogging for dirt cheap costs, so if you’re interested please give it a look. If anything, tell me whether you have a blog or not in the poll in the sidebar. Thanks, and happy blogging!

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