ProBlogger: Common Creativity: Understanding the Rules and Rights Around “Free” Images on the Web

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Common Creativity: Understanding the Rules and Rights Around “Free” Images on the Web Posted: 27 Feb 2013 05:04 AM PST We’re all familiar with the old adage: a picture is worth a thousand words. In some cases, a picture is worth a thousand dollars. Luckily, for those of us not interested in investing a small fortune for the use of an image on a small scale, there are options. Image by Jayel Aheram, licensed under Creative Commons Sites offering free copyright images are gaining in popularity throughout the blogging and web design communities alike, but they are by no means created equal. In fact, "free" does not necessarily mean "without cost" or even relate to price. For example, "royalty free" simply means that once you pay for the photo, you are "free" to use it however you like. When words don't even mean what they are supposed to mean, how are we to know the rules and rights surrounding "free" images on the web?  And if payment is a prerequisite to all of that freedom, are any pictures truly free? Now, you may be asking yourself "who really cares?" After all, what are the chances that some artist is going to go to the trouble of tracking you down to sue you for "illegally" downloading their work? Besides, they put it out there on the Internet so it's really fair game, right? Wrong. No matter how small the risk of your getting caught may seem (depending, of course, on how flagrant you are with what you have "stolen"), the simple fact is that improper use of protected works is a crime and is actually prosecuted more often than you might think. The bottom line is simple: do you really want the risk of prosecution hanging over your head ready to come down on you at any time? If you’re serious about your future in blogging, the answer is no. Okay, fine, you get it: you don't want to break the law. But you're not a copyright attorney and the nuances of intellectual property laws are so tricky, even those guys seem confused a lot of the time! If only there was a way for you to honor the law and easily understand the right and wrong ways to navigate the choppy waters of copyright protection all at the same time… Enter: the world of Creative Commons licenses. Thanks to sites like Flickr, morgueFile, Wikimedia, and Pixabay (just to name a few), thousands of free images are at your fingertips. Creative Commons licenses have made legal use of images on the web simple for anyone—even if he or she is not an attorney. However, there are still various levels of "freedom" within the licenses and a keen comprehension of those is necessary if you wish to use the images without fear of legal repercussion. The licenses There are six basic licenses within the Creative Commons library, linked together with one common thread: proper credit, or attribution, must be given to the original creator. Their individual designations, followed by short-hand codes and real-world examples, are explained below. Attribution: CC BY This is the least restrictive and most accommodating grant of permission to the public. Basically, it lets others do as they please with the creator's work (distribute, remix, tweak, alter, and profit commercially), provided the originator receives proper attribution. Attribution-ShareAlike: CC BY-SA This license offers the same rights as an Attribution license (others may distribute, remix, tweak, alter, and profit commercially) with the added stipulation that all subsequent forms of the work carry identical terms. In other words, if the work starts out under this license, it must have this license forever and cannot change to a basic Attribution license somewhere down the line. Example:Wikimedia uses this license and it is recommended for all similar sites that share and incorporate various bits of information. Attribution-NoDerivs: CC BY-ND Under this license, the work itself may be reused, but it must remain identical to the way you found it—no tweaking, altering or remixing allowed. However, you may still redistribute and profit commercially from it, provided, as always, that you properly attribute the originator. Example: This is a good one for web designers and bloggers who have found something great that they want to incorporate "as is" for use in creations that earn them money, i.e. a website or blog. Attribution-NonCommercial: CC BY-NC. This license provides that others may do as they wish to a creation (alter, tweak, remix, etc.) as long as it is done in a non-commercial context. You might look at this one as "permission to do what you will to the creation, but not what you will with the creation."  Additionally, as long as this non-commercial new work gives proper credit, it need not be licensed under the same terms. Example: You might look for this license if you were preparing a school project or creating something for your own personal use. Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike: CC BY-NC-SA This is the same as Attribution-NonCommercial (may be altered and used in a non-commercial setting); however, the new version must be licensed in exactly the same manner as the source work. Example: This license might apply to an image or a song that someone has altered and passed along to friends, provided it carries the same license and does not profit the "tweaker." Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs: CC BY-NC-ND Of the six main licenses, this one carries the most restrictions with it. Under this, you are only allowed to download and share the work, with absolutely no modification or profit along the way. If you are a web designer or a blogger and you see this license designation, back away … unless, of course, you are interested in facing an accusation of copyright violation. How to give proper attribution. Now that we have discussed the various types of licenses and we know that all of them require the proper attribution of the creator, how exactly do we do that? The folks at Creative Commons have created a nifty little pack that explains the different ways you can attribute, along with examples, but the basics are simple and flexible: you should credit the creator provide the title and host URL of the work indicate the type of CC license it takes (along with a link for others to follow) keep any copyright notices intact. For an example, see the image I included at the top of this post. Some final "legal" notes… This post is not a law review article, nor is it intended to be a treatise on the ins and outs of copyright law. But I do want to shed some light on a few basic aspects of copyright protection for bloggers. First, this licensure actually protects the user, not the creator. This statement doesn't seem so crazy when you consider that a basic truth of intellectual property law is that all works are automatically copyright-protected (thus, enforceable against the user) upon their creation—it's literally a legal "given." Since this is true, if you are ever sued for copyright infringement, the burden is automatically upon you, the defendant, to prove that you did not violate the copyright and, in fact, the creator granted you permission (of some sort). This is how Creative Commons licenses have succeeded in making grants of permission easy to understand and flexible. Although the Creative Commons licenses are considered flexible in the world of copyright laws, it is important to keep in mind that they still retain legal force. Indeed, they are not US-specific and are supported, promoted and honored in over 70 jurisdictions throughout the world. For specific affiliates and jurisdictions, visit http://wiki.creativecommons.org/CC_Affiliate_Network. If these licenses are abused, they are forfeited: if someone violates the terms of the license, that person is no longer protected and may be sued by the work's originator and held liable in a court of law. Along the same lines, once the originator has granted permission through one of the licenses, her work is out of her hands. As long as the person using the work does so according to the license terms, the creator has no legal remedy if she does not like the way the new person uses her work (there are some exceptions, but that is another article entirely). Finally, even though the Creative Commons licenses carry legal weight, they were designed with flexibility in mind. If you have a particular use in mind for a work, but the originator has not licensed it for the purpose you intend, contact them. And whatever you do, make sure you get any special permission in writing. That email or piece of paper, like the license itself, is your ticket to verify you covered all of your bases. As long as you have done your part to respect the rights of others, there is no end to the creativity waiting right around the corner. So, let's hear it. What are some of the ways you have seen CC licenses in action? Do you think they "work" or do you have suggestions on how they could be better? Offer more protection? Tell me in the comments. Contributing author Thomas Ford is the Marketing Director of www.123Print.com, a leading supplier of business cards and a wide variety of business and office supplies. Tom writes on a range of topics of interest to bloggers and business people. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Common Creativity: Understanding the Rules and Rights Around “Free” Images on the Web

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“ProBlogger Census: We Need You!” plus 1 more

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ProBlogger Census: We Need You! Posted: 26 Feb 2013 11:08 AM PST It’s that time of year! We’ve set our plans, shifted our focus … and now we’re running our ProBlogger Census. I’d love to hear your feedback on the change of approach on ProBlogger, but I’m also really keen to hear what topics you’d like us to explore in the coming months. The 2013 ProBlogger Census is a short survey to capture your thoughts, ideas, and wishes so that we can help to serve you better in our blogging. I’d love it if you could take a few moments to fill it out. I look forward to reading your thoughts! Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger ProBlogger Census: We Need You!

Four New Ways to Monetize a Blog Posted: 26 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST The ad industry is dead. Target will only buy remnant inventory. Federated Media, the darling of the online ad world, is just about vaporized. And media behemoth IAC is building a state-of-the-art ad sales system that will work like a trading floor where you don’t even know what content you’re buying—you only see the profiles of the people who are viewing the content right this second. So how are people going to make money blogging? Here are four ways. Image by Jeff Kubina, licensed under Creative Commons 1. Build a paywall This was once seen as impossible. But after growing up online, generation Y reads and writes more than any other generation in history and is therefore more willing to than others to pay for online content. This attitude has opened up lots of fee-based content models. Today The New York Times is successful in its paywall strategy, and it’s paved the way for bloggers to start looking at this as a viable option. Andrew Sullivan, for example, launched a paywall and raised $100K in a few days. The problem is that a paywall is limiting rather than expanding in terms of the ways you can connect to the world as revenue options grow and change. 2. Turn your brand into a company and take in investors As a serial entrepreneur, I saw this option coming early in the blogging game. So I named my blog something that was not attached to the domain name. Then I built up the brand name, sold the brand to investors, and spun off a company. I don’t know why more people don’t do this. It's a great way to leverage your community-building abilities, if you have them. In this scenario, you hold onto your blog and your personal brand and you own stock in the spin-off brand. (And look: I recently gave up the CEO position and went back to blogging. But I held onto the founder's stock. It's like a big lottery ticket.) 3. Use your blog as an incubator The best way to test new companies is to launch them. You could throw up a product offering on a web site, then announce it on the incubator blog. If it takes off, fine, if it doesn’t, then announce the next product. In this scenario, the blogger is like a full-time marketing team for a range of startups within the incubator. Keep writing good content and you can send your audience to any beta site you need to. In this scenario, you’d get stock in each of the companies that you help launch. 4. Go after a talent acquisition It’s common these days for companies to buy a startup to get the employees who would otherwise not be in the job market. You could create this same scenario with your blog. Typically, a talent acquisition is for developers. But I can see it happening for someone who is amazing at PR, for example, and is essentially offering up her social media sauce and her high-powered media network in the talent acquisition of her blog. Another way I can see this going is that someone uses the blog as a way to display thought leadership in the industry, so the acquisition’s purpose is to have the property attached to the larger brand, but also, to get the talented thought leader behind the blog. What will you do? Each of these four ideas takes planning, but with ad sales no longer being a viable option for blog revenue, we need to think more creatively. Blogs are clearly becoming more and more prominent in the social and intellectual fabric of our lives. Those of us who can adjust in the most creative, big-thinking ways will benefit the most from our blogging talents. Contributing author Penelope Trunk is a serial entrepreneur, and the author of the bestselling book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success. She has written for a wide range of publications including Time, Business Week, and the Wall St. Journal, but she likes writing for her blog best: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Four New Ways to Monetize a Blog

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ProBlogger: Want a More Productive Week? Clean Your Darn Desk!

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Want a More Productive Week? Clean Your Darn Desk! Posted: 25 Feb 2013 05:06 AM PST Has anyone seen that phone number for my interview? I know I printed out a good-looking blog layout but I can't seem to find it. I know I have that blog idea somewhere in this mess; was it written on a napkin? It's referenced in a newspaper clipping, but which one? Where's the thumbdrive I just had? If you have had any of these thoughts, I'll bet you have a desk or work area that might need a little bit of improvement. When this becomes an everyday occurrence you may just need a complete makeover … or even a bulldozer. Image by indi.ca, licensed under Creative Commons Even though you have organized folders on your computer (well, maybe semi-organized), your desktop or work area tends to gather the detritus of a blogger's creative life: scraps of paper, napkins, envelopes and just about anything else you can possibly use as an idea collector. Advertisements and articles ripped out of airline magazines and the ever-present jumble of newspaper clippings add to your desk's adornment. Soon, your blogging career will be spent with 10% idea collecting, 10% writing and 80% searching your desktop for what you just saw a minute ago. There is an old saying "A clean desk is the sign of a sick mind." We have to toss that by the wayside and improve our writing environment. Preparation If you prepare properly, you will be successful. First, prepare your mind for a clean and uncluttered work environment. Yes, you can do it. You can really work in a shipshape space. If you have thought about getting a more ergonomically comfortable workspace and chair, this is the time to do it. Consider all kinds of office furniture: desks, chairs, filing cabinets, small tables (for you coffee or power drinks so they don't spill on the keyboard, laptop or computer) and lamps for your desired lighting. Now, let's delve in! 1. Start fresh Depending on how messy your workspace is, you might need to set aside a full day to start over. If you don’t have time for that, write twice as hard so you can queue posts to publish while you’re clearing your environmental disaster. Get some empty boxes that can hold all of your stuff. Set some on your left and make this your trash pile. Line the boxes with large green trash bags so once they are full you can immediately deal with them. Mark one of them "Shred." The boxes on your right will be everything that is not trash. Mark the boxes "Office Supplies", "Immediate Use", "File" and "Computer Stuff." Now comes the hardest part of the job, at least emotionally. Pick up one item at a time and put it in one of the boxes or the trash. If you have to think about it for more than half a second, the Trash or File boxes are the best places for it. Continue, one item at a time. If you have a group of papers, either staple or clip them together, but don't waste time looking for the paper clips or stapler; stack the loose papers on top of each other in the appropriate box. Anything that is computer-related, but not attached to your computer, goes into the Computer Stuff box. USB thumb storage sticks, backup drives, wireless mice and keyboards and anything else not physically attached to your computer goes into this box. Keep working until there is nothing left. The idea here is to get rid of everything from the work area. What you should have left is a bare work area devoid of everything but your computer or laptop. If you have drawers, go through these also. Empty everything. 2. Clean If you have a can of compressed air, lightly dust the keyboards while holding them upside down to get rid of all the debris they have collected. If you are good with computers and screwdrivers, take the cover off your computer and blow out the dust; if not consider having someone qualified clean the insides for you after you finish getting your workplace in order. No time for breaks! Take a damp (not wet) cloth and wipe everything down to get rid of dirt and dust. Don't forget the inside of the drawers. If you have drawer organizers, clean those too! Remember to wipe down the computer and display screens, and clean the screens with a dry cloth that has just a light spraying of glass cleaner on it. Do not spray glass cleaner on your display screens. 3. Organize your computing tools Look at your power wiring and straighten it out. You may wish to take a quick trip to an office supply or electronics store to get some wire and power management covers. If you have to make multiple outlet strips, pick up one that has enough outlets. Tidy up the printer and other peripheral cables to eliminate tangles. Next, arrange all the items in the Computer Stuff box in your work area so you can comfortably access them. Leave the USB thumb drives in the box—we will take care of them later. Make sure you keyboard and mouse are in a position where you can comfortably work. If you use a headset, consider using an adhesive hook attached to the side of your monitor or other convenient place for easy and immediate access. Now create a place for your USB memory sticks. This can be a cup, plastic box or even a compartment in a desk drawer organizer. The idea is to choose a storage area that can be a permanent place where you keep the memory sticks. Place your backup storage where you just have to power it up and back up your files. Now, create a schedule to back up your data and stick to it. If you can, automate the procedure. Back up your data files (documents, pictures, etc.) separately rather than as a part of a total system backup. If you need to use the data on a different computer, you will be able to. If your data is embedded in a system backup, you might be in trouble (depending on your backup software) if you have to restore to a different system or even the same system with a different or replacement CPU. If you use one or more tablets to keep live feeds running, you may want to consider getting a couple of holders for them. There are some nice gooseneck and movable stands that mount to the back edge of a desk that will position them to be easily seen without being in the way or taking up desktop space. 4. Office supplies A desktop organizer may be good for storing supplies like pencils, pens, paperclips, rulers and other such items. But it can also be a distraction. Here is a good rule of thumb: if you do not use an item every day, it shouldn't be on the desktop. Your work surface is exactly what the word says—a work area, not a storage space. Put that stapler away in a drawer where you can easily grab it, unless you use it every day. Even then, keeping it in the drawer might still be a good idea. Use drawer organizers so everything has its own place. By keeping your work surface clear of all clutter, you encourage your mind to be more productive and make it easier to concentrate on your main task: blogging. 5. Filing and organizing Next, attack the box that says File. You should have a file cabinet or a desk drawer that is set up with file folders. There are also plastic and cardboard boxes sized perfectly for files. You needn't spend lots of money on a top-of-the-line filing cabinet. Go through the papers and file them one at a time. Use a filing system that makes sense to you and enables you to find what you are looking for in a hurry. Do not file every piece in a different folder; use categories that make it easy for you to remember what information is in what folder. If you have to think about where to file a particular item, you probably don't need it. Do not be afraid to use drawer organizers to sort out odd items. Just make sure the drawers do not become a junk drawer, or you may just have to dump the drawer and start this process all over. 6. Urgent items Now tackle the Immediate Use box. This should contain a relatively small amount of material. Take each piece and process it. If it contains names, phone numbers, or house or email addresses, enter the information in your smartphone and/or email programs—immediately! Then throw it in the Trash or Shred boxes. If the item contains an idea, open up a document titled Ideas on your computer and enter the idea. Save the document each time you enter new information so you will not lose any of it. If you run across a picture, scan it into the computer for your blog and then file the picture away. The same goes for newspaper clippings that you will use immediately. If you can't immediately use the item you pick up, file it instead. Keep working until you have gone through everything and everything is in its place. You should now have a clean and organized work area. 7. Wrap up Before you congratulate yourself and sit back for the rest of the day admiring your handiwork, finish the rest of your job—the trash. Take the box or bag marked Shred and run it all through the shredder if you have one. If you do not have a document shredder, look up the location of the nearest paper shredding company. Gather up the trash bags of trash and dump them in the trash can or dumpster. Take a trip to the shredding place if you need to. Now you can relax and congratulate yourself on a job well done. You might even be inspired to start writing! Contributing author Alex Ion is the founder and Editor in Chief of Decoist, an interior design and lifestyle magazine which promises to deliver fresh inspiration to even the pickiest. Follow Alex on Twitter for latest trends, and Decoist if you're looking for some amazing design ideas. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Want a More Productive Week? Clean Your Darn Desk!

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How do I attach large files in Gmail?

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How do I attach large files in Gmail? Posted: 23 Feb 2013 06:31 AM PST If you try to attach files larger than 25MB in your Gmail, you’re unfortunately out of luck. This is because, Gmail Maximum attachment restrictions will only allow you to send and receive messages up to 25 megabytes (MB) in size. To over come this, you can use Google Drive to attach file (free service). It [...] Those who liked this article, also read these: How to Split a Large File How to access non-Gmail email accounts from Gmail Recall email that is send – Undo Send in Gmail Finding emails with Gmail advanced search Alternative way to access your gmail

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ProBlogger: Would You Buy or Sell a Blog? [Discussion]

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Would You Buy or Sell a Blog? [Discussion] Posted: 22 Feb 2013 05:06 AM PST This week, we’ve looked at the blog sales market from all sides: the seller’s perspective the buyer’s perspective the perspective of the marketplace. We also spent some time yesterday putting a value on your blog. So today, I wanted to open the blog up to discussion. Has a blog or site you loved ever changed hands? How did it feel for you as a visitor to that site? Did yesterday’s challenge change how you felt about selling a blog? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Have you ever bought or sold a blog? Share your tips and tales with us. Many of you have mentioned over the course of the week that you’d like to see more on this topic: what kinds of information do you need? …and if you’d like to see a series like this one on another topic, let me know below! I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on blog buying and selling. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Would You Buy or Sell a Blog? [Discussion]

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ProBlogger: ProBlogger Challenge: Put a Value on Your Blog

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ProBlogger Challenge: Put a Value on Your Blog Posted: 21 Feb 2013 05:00 AM PST This week we’ve heard from blog sellers, and blog buyers. Whether or not you’ve been inspired by what they’ve had to say, I’ll bet that the conversation has raised one key question in your mind: What is my blog worth? Image courtesy stock.xchng user ba1969 These days, we’re seeing blogs being recognised as valuable business tools, both for business-to-business as well as business-to-consumer connections. So if you own and run a blog, it makes sense to understand its value. Today’s challenge is to do just that. The basics If you’ve been following along this week, you’ll already have a few of the key metrics for a blog valuation in mind: the age of your blog uniqueness and quality of blog design traffic levels, sources, and quality visitor stats: bounce rates, time on site, conversions, and so on current monetization approaches and levels associated social media footprint. Andrew Knibbe of Flippa recommended that we use the marketplace as a yardstick by which to value a blog, but what other factors should we take into account before we start doing research there? Let’s step through the process of getting a rough idea of your blog’s value. Vital stats First, make note of these vital stats for your blog. You could do this on paper, but I recommend a spreadsheet, because that’ll make it a bit easier when it comes to comparing your site to others down the track. Blog age: Andrew from Flippa mentioned earlier in the week that older blogs tend to be given higher valuations. Domain: If you’re selling the domain with your blog, a shorter or more memorable domain is probably likely to be looked on more favourably than a longer domain, or one that contains hyphens, for example. Platform: The platform on which your blog is hosted might not in itself raise or lower your blog’s value, but it might impact the types of buyers who’d be interested in it. Theme: If you’re on a WordPress blog, paid or unique themes are more likely to attract more serious buyers. Alexa rank: We saw earlier in the week that Alexa rank also contributes to a blog’s value, so if you don’t know where yours sits at the moment, find out. By this point, you should be off to a good start. Traffic stats Next, it’s time to open up your Analytics tool and take a critical look at your blog stats not just for the last month, but over the last few months. Monthly traffic: Note down the total traffic levels first. Traffic sources: Next, allocate portions of traffic to the relevant sources of those visits. Landing pages: Look at your key landing pages. Shahzad mentioned yesterday that some of the most popular landing pages on the blog he was buying were off-topic posts. How relevant are your main landing pages to your blog’s brand and niche? Bounce rates: It’s important to look at this data over time, and to work out which traffic sources have lower or higher bounce rates. This can help you get an idea of the overall value of your blog’s traffic. Time on site: This is a good measure of engagement and, again, it’s worth looking at the average time on site for each different traffic source, to see which visitors are more engaged. This information should help you get a feel for the value of the traffic your blog attracts, and the content you’ve developed. It might also help you identify places where there’s room for improvement, but for now, let’s keep going with our valuation. Monetization If you’ve monetized your blog somehow, you can be sure that potential buyers will be interested to know how you’ve done it, and how successful you’ve been. Let’s pull together the data—if you don’t already have it at your fingertips. Monthly revenue: Add up your revenues for the last three months and divide by three to get a monthly average. Monetization sources: Make a note of the ways you monetize your blog. Have you created unique products from scratch? Do you use certain advertising or affiliate networks? Conversion rates: Look at your conversion figures for the last three months, and compare them with your last three months’ traffic to calculate your average conversion rate. Value per visitor: Take your average revenue figure for the last three months and divide it by your average traffic figure for that time period. This will give you an average visitor value, which will be really helpful in assessing your site against others for sale in your niche. Profit: You might not be able to calculate this figure until you complete the next section, but do be sure to subtract your costs from your revenue figure to get a profit figure. Again, this will make for easy comparison between your blog and others. If it’s good, it could also go a long way to tempt potential buyers. Note that at this point, you can calculate a valuation based on a multiple of your revenue—either 12 or 24 months, say. This will give you a good reference point for the research we’ll do on Flippa in a moment. Costs Whether or not you’ve monetized your blog, potential buyers will want to know how much it costs to run, so they can compare it with other blogs they might be considering buying. Make note of the costs you pay for: Hosting: Note monthly or annual figures. Design and development: Unless you have regular maintenance charges, you might want to add up what you spent on your blog’s design and development in the last year as a more objective figure than your expenditure for the last three months. Content: Do you pay writers? Buy content? Add up those costs—along with your own time cost for writing and editing your blog’s content. Marketing and customer acquisition: If you spend money on advertising—or time on guest-posting and content marketing—again, add up those costs for the last three months. Time: Don’t forget to tally your time for other blogging tasks, like social media, affiliate and ad management, and so on. Try to get a clear and honest picture of how much time it takes you to run your blog on a monthly basis. Comparing blogs in your niche This basic information shouldn’t take you too long to collate. And once you have, the real challenge begins! Try to find at least two other blogs for sale in your niche to compare yours with. Go to Flippa.com. You can, of course, search for sites for sale in your niche on Google too. That can be a good way to find out what’s for sale, but as those sites may not give you an indication of how much they’re hoping to sell for, a visit to Flippa for research is a good idea. Find sites for sale and auction in your niche or a similar niche. I’d recommend you look at finished sales, since that’ll give you the figure the sites sold for, rather than just their current bid price, or Buy It Now price. Recent sales will give you the best indication of what the market is actually willing to pay for a blog like yours. Assess the sites. Go through the checklist above again for each of the sites you’re looking at. Make a note of the prices they sold for. See if you can spot any trends that can indicate what the market values in blogs within your niche, and think about how your blog stacks up on these points. Settle on a price range in which you think your blog might sit. Rather than picking a single figure that you think you’d accept for your blog, I think it’s probably a better idea to use your research to work out a range in which that price might reasonably fall. You’ll have a figure you wouldn’t sell below, and a range in which you can set your expectations. Compare the range with your multiple-of-revenue price. If you calculated a multiple-of-revenue price above, compare it with the price range you’ve arrived at to see if the figures are in the same ball park. By the end of this challenge, you should have a rough valuation on your blog. If you’re game, share it with us in the comments below. Or, if you’d rather, you can just let me know if you were surprised—or disappointed, or inspired!—by the price range you arrived at. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger ProBlogger Challenge: Put a Value on Your Blog

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ProBlogger: Behind the Scenes of a Successful Blog Acquisition [Case Study]

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Behind the Scenes of a Successful Blog Acquisition [Case Study] Posted: 20 Feb 2013 05:01 AM PST I really love the idea of buying and selling websites. Recently I listed one of my blogs on Flippa, a marketplace for buying and selling websites, and sold it successfully. Then, I bought another blog outside of Flippa. Since we’ve already talked about selling blogs this week, I wanted to walk you through my buying experience today… Image by Flickr user quinn.anya, licensed under Creative Commons A couple of months ago while browsing the web I landed on a blog called WPBlogTips.com. Eventually, my eye got stuck on a banner that said, "This site is for sale". At that time I was thinking of starting a blog in the internet marketing niche, which is the niche that WPBlogTips.com covers. To be honest, I personally hate to start a blog from the ground up. It’s a lot of work! Choosing the domain, crafting content, building traffic, waiting till the Google sandbox effects end before you can start link building, growing an active community … obviously there’s a lot to do, and in many cases the job is tedious. I would prefer to buy an established blog in a niche that has decent traffic, an engaged community, and quality content. Long story short, I decided to buy that blog. Doing due diligence Before jumping in to buy that blog, I undertook some due diligence research on both the owner and the blog itself. Doing your homework before you purchase may help you to avoid disappointment down the track. So before I made an offer on the blog, I researched a few things: the owner of the blog the site’s traffic stats the blog’s monetization history. Knowing more about the seller Knowing more about the seller is really important task before you make an offer, or can even calculate how much the blog is worth. It’s especially important if you are not willing to use a third-party transaction site like Escrow.com to manage the transfer of payments and assets in the acquisition. Here are the simple steps I took to research the seller of the blog. Search the domain’s WhoIs information: Check if the domain is handled by the same person who runs the blog. In my case, the domain was not WhoIs guarded, so I was able to find the owner's details and their address. If that information was protected, I would have ask him to remove the guard so I could see the data. This is an important first step in verifying site ownership. Do a seller profile web search: A simple Google search should show you the profile of the seller. I also found some other blogs that this person owned, and I found that reassuring—it’s nice to deal with a person who has some kind of reputation online. That’s not something most people would achieve if they weren’t honest and trustworthy, nor is it something they’d throw away by behaving badly in a site sale. Search on social media: A simple search on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ also told me a lot about the seller, and how he deals with others. Today everyone is social, especially bloggers. So this is a good way to research a site owner. Analyzing blog traffic Once I’d got the details of the blog’s owner, I contacted him and asked him to send me some stats for the site’s traffic and its monetization history. If you’ve ever looked to buy a site on Flippa, you might have seen a section called Claim Traffic where sellers need to claim their traffic by uploading Google Analytics verified stats. The problem is that straight traffic stats say nothing about the site’s traffic sources, or what the most popular content is. These are important factors in the site’s current success and its potential, so it’s important to ask for more detailed stats before you buy. Importantly, traffic screenshots can be faked easily. So always ask for verified Google Analytics reports when you’re asking for Analytics data. Then, start analyzing… 1. Determine what the Analytics stats really mean You will get a bunch of details from Google Analytics, but those details are as good as junk if you can’t analyze what they really mean. Unique visitors per month: This is one of the key factors that helps determine the blog’s value. Bounce rate: I think the normal bounce rate of a blog should be around 60-70%, but in this case, the bounce rate was very high. By looking more closely at the blog, I found that the main reason for the high bounce rate was poor site navigation and a lack of user engagement. I felt that with a little effort, I could bring the bounce rate back to a normal level. Average visit duration: Again, I wasn’t satisfied with this data, since it was lower than my other blogs’, so I had to look a little deeper to find out the reasons for it. The reason for the low visit duration was, again, a lack of reader engagement. The key lesson here is to check the blog’s stats, not only to get some idea of what the blog is worth, but also to determine where you can improve the blog, and how. This will help you get an idea of how much time you’ll need to put in to improve things, which will help you to come to a decision about whether to buy or not. 2. Looking more closely at traffic sources Believe me, getting traffic is not a big deal today. Just Google “buy traffic” and you’ll see tons of services that offer you 10,000 visitors to your site for just $20. The only way to make sure that the traffic to the blog is original and of high quality is to look at the traffic source stats of the site’s Analytics reports. My case Before I bought it, WPBlogTips.com’s traffic was highly dependent upon Google and other organic sources. This is both good and bad. The good thing is that we can say this blog has high targeted traffic. The bad thing is that whenever Google updates it search algorithm, chances are high that the traffic will drop—if not almost disappear. One of the things I discovered as I looked at this data was that Facebook and Twitter aren’t in the top ten traffic sources. The main reason was that the blog had almost no social presence. It did have a Facebook page and Twitter account, but there was no reader activity in these forums. Another thing I found was that when I excluding Google from the mix, there was no strong referral traffic source. Likely reasons were a lack of networking and link building. So obviously I would need to focus on building these elements after the acquisition. 3. Uncovering the audience’s interests The interests of a blogger may vary time to time. It is quite common for a blog to have many transitional stages before it reaches to its “present” state. For example, WPBlogTips.com was obviously in the "blogging tips/internet marketing" niche, but the previous owner had also published many articles that had to do nothing with that niche. So before buying a blog, it’s important to find out what all of the popular pages of that blog are. Sometimes the blog you are about to buy may have high Google ranking on topics other than its main focus. Let me explain. Imagine that you are buying a blog in the internet marketing niche. Your main goal in buying that site is to sell SEO services without paying a penny for advertisements or making any extra marketing effort. Now, what if that site has a low rank for the specific keyword you are targeting—the traffic’s coming through comparatively off-topic posts? Or, what if most of the blog’s audience is actually interested in a topic that’s off the main topic of that blog? If you don’t intend to maintain that off-topic focus in your content, you may well lose a large chunk of the blog’s loyal readers. So it’s important to understand the exact nature of the audience for the blog you’re researching.  Find out which are the popular pages on the blog, and ask for content keywords  lists from Webmaster tools. This information gives you a very precise idea about the interests of the blog’s audience, and on which keywords Google ranks the site well. My case Most of the readers of the blog I was researching came to the site through search engines. Because people were getting the exact thing they were looking for, they weren’t returning to the blog. I could see that if I added related articles lists to every post, that may catch the eyes of readers without harming the user experience, and increase the blog’s time on site metric and repeat visit potential. I also noticed that a few of the off-topic posts on the blog had received some Google juice, but I was planning to remove those, so that didn’t factor into my buying decision. Another problem I found was that the blog wasn’t ranked well on Google for any relevant long-tail keywords. This was especially a problem on the Services page, so I couldn't expect many client requests to buy those services. I thought this may because of a lack of effective link building, but it meant that, to begin with at least, I’d need to buy traffic from Adwords. Reviewing monetization A couple of months ago Flippa introduced a new feature called the Verified AdSense Report, which is similar to the Verified Analytics Report. This feature is hugely helpful for buyers, since it means they don't need to rely more on screenshots of AdSense income provided by the seller. However, there’s still no way to verify PayPal earnings like there is with AdSense. So while deciding how much a blog is worth, as the buyer, you still have to rely on screenshots provided by the seller, no matter whether you’re buying the site through Flippa or independently. That said, I would always prefer to buy a blog that is under-monetized and has massive traffic rather than a blog that has decent traffic and makes a lot of money. There are two reasons for this. 1. You need to rely on the seller’s data When you’re calculating how much a site is worth, it is common to give preference to earnings over traffic. This means that the higher the earnings of a website, the more you will pay to acquire it. The problem is that as a buyer, I can't be 100% sure that the data provided by the seller is true, unless he gives full access to verify the payments, which is almost impossible. So the risk here is that the seller’s not being truthful about the earnings, and if you base your valuation of the blog on a false earnings figure, you’re going to lose out. 2. What if the traffic declines? Recently I came across an article by Daniel Scocco entitled, Where there's traffic, there is hope. In it, he explains his experience of buying two different blogs: Blog A, which had high traffic but was under-monetized, and Blog B, which had decent traffic and earned a lot of money. Due to fluctuations in search ranking, the second blog’s traffic dried out, and so did its earnings. Blog A, on the other hand, continues to make a profit. So I repeat: where there's traffic, there is hope! My case The blog’s owner had not tested any monetization methods on WPBlogTips.com. He tried to sell blog migration services from the site, but didn’t have a nice portfolio to support the work. I felt that his offer was not unique. Hundreds of different blogs provide Blogger-to-WordPress migration services, and there was nothing to make his service stand out from the crowd. Soon after the acquisition I started an AdWords campaign to promote those services. To make this offer unique I offered free Blogger to WordPress migration. The only catch is that the client must buy Hostgator hosting through my link, so I still gain income, in the form of affiliate commissions. Currently, I’m also testing AdSense units on that blog. I will be testing how those units work and, if they’re a success, I’ll continue to use them on the blog. I am not a believer of quick money making schemes. Making money from a blog definitely takes time. I also started an email newsletter subscription on the blog. Email lists will definitely help me monetize this site in the long run. In coming months I'll also try selling direct ads. However, I’m not hurry. I’m currently focused on attracting more traffic and making readers more engaged with the blog. Pricing the blog Most first-time sellers won’t have any idea when it comes to deciding how to set the price for their blog. In fact, sellers frequently overestimate the value of their blog, since they have an emotional engagement with it and have spent so much time and energy building it up. Many people suggest that setting a price using the monthly income of your blog is the way to go. But for a buyer, to be honest, this kind of equation doesn’t make much sense. For example, imagine that Darren decided to sell Problogger.net. Do you think that he would be willing to sell it for 24 times the monthly income? No way. He’d want more than that, for sure. On the other hand, imagine you own a blog with no reputation, and you wanted to sell it for 24 times the monthly income. As a buyer I probably wouldn’t be interested in paying such a big price for a blog with no reputation. In simple terms, buyers value the reputation of a blog—as that impacts reader loyalty—sometimes more than the history of earnings or traffic stats. My case As I mentioned, WPBlogTips.com hadn’t been monetized. Yet the seller wanted a very high price. After some negotiation, I bought it for 37% of the initial price he’d set. All of the negotiation was done over email. However, after we agreed on the price, I made a phone call to the owner. Why? Because it is nice to establish a good relationship with the guy who you are dealing with—especially when you’re about to transfer large sums of money in exchange for an asset like this. Managing the purchase transaction The safest payment method for buying or selling digital assets online is to use a third-party service like Escrow.com—especially if both the buyer and seller don't share a high level of trust. The buyer can create an account on Escrow.com and transfer the money to this account. Escrow.com will hold the payment until the transaction of property is complete and both parties flag that they’re happy with the outcome. My case The seller of WPBlogTips.com is Indian, like me. This helped to make me confident about the transaction. Even if a problem did arise, the law we would be dealing with would be our national law, not other international treaties that may not be consistent across nations. I felt pretty confident that no problem would arise because I knew the seller has good reputation as blogger, and he would continue to run other blogs after the sale, so he wouldn’t want to tarnish his reputation online. My due diligence had paid off here. I told the seller that, as a first step, I'd pay half the price we’d agreed. After he received the money, he’d transfer the ownership of the blog to me, and after that I'd pay the balance. We didn't use Escrow or similar services, and for us, everything went smoothly. Content strategy Even if you are buying a blog that has a lot of good content, nicely targeted traffic, and a massive community you might need to spend your time building content. Sometimes the previous owner may have a personal approach to the content. In such cases, the challenge for you will be to write more content without boring the community, or losing them altogether. How can you enhance your readership by helping readers, and thereby growing the community on your blog? To get clear idea, answer these questions. Will you have time to spend on your blog writing content? If not, is it profitable to hire a freelancer? Will accepting guest posts enhance your community? My case The old owner had accepted and published many guest posts on WP Blog Tips. But my strategy is different. I wanted to bring more visitor engagement to the blog, so I stopped accepting guest posts and started writing every post myself. This really helped. The comment counts increased and an interactive community started to grow up around the blog. As I mentioned earlier, there were many off-topic posts on the blog. I won't be deleting those posts, because I hate to be landed on 404 pages and expect the same goes for my readers. But I will be developing a more focused content approach going forward. Blog acquisition success Buying a blog is not a tedious task—at least, it is not as tedious as building a blog from scratch! If you do it correctly, buying is breeze. WPBlogTips.com was not properly monetized before I acquired it. I am not looking to sell it in future, so this will be my main online project as of now. My goal is that within a year I can make the money I spent to buy it. Here are a few other tips I learned in buying a blog that I believe will help you. Respect the seller's work: Yes, you’ll need to ask the seller for different stats, but make sure that you always respect the seller and their work. Understand that this has benefits for you both. The rule of thumb is to give respect first; only then can you expect to get it back. Beware of “potential”: Don't get obsessed with the supposed “potential” of the blog that the seller might be keen to show you. Most of the sellers have habit of claiming that their blog has huge potential, in an effort to make huge money. But the fact is that they would be unlikely to sell the blog if it had massive potential. So rely on the stats, and your assessment of how well the blog fits your skills—not on the “potential” the seller describes. Analyze the performance: When I bought my blog, I found that its bounce rate was very high. I was sure I could improve it a lot with little effort. So it’s important to carefully analyze the blog. Learn how you can improve the overall performance of the blog and what strategy you can implement to monetize it further. This will help you to gauge the potential of the blog for you, specifically. Start networking: A couple of months before I acquired the blog, I started networking with other bloggers in the same niche by commenting on their blogs. The result was that those bloggers who I interacted with have helped me out by spreading the word about the blog, and commenting on my blog. This not only increases my traffic but it also helps me to build an interactive tribe on the blog. Remember, you can buying outside Flippa: Flippa is one of the best places to buy a site. But if you are serious about buying I’d suggest you look beyond Flippa. You can find tons of sites for sale—try searching on Google with keywords like "<your niche> website for sale", "<your niche> site for sale" and "<your niche> blog for sale" using double quotes. One final tip is to ask a blogger directly if they are ready to sell their blog. They may not consider selling until you ask! If you can't find any recent posts or activity on a blog, chances are high that the blogger might be busy with some other work and would consider selling it. Believe me, this strategy works, and asking costs you nothing. Have you ever bought a blog? I’d love to hear your story in the comments. Contributing author Shahzad has recently bought a blog WPBlogTips.com where he writes about unconventional blogging tips. Find his free guide on buying and selling websites here. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Behind the Scenes of a Successful Blog Acquisition [Case Study]

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