Hi, I know you.
You are creative and you make great stuff. You like to write, you’ve been reading lots of blogs and you have decided to start a blog to share some of your creativity, your Etsy or eBay store and photos of the baby so that the family far away can see him grow up.
The only problem is, now that the little guy is crawling and and getting into things he takes up a lot more of your attention. And you have this business to run and a blog that needs tending before all of your readers, except for your mom of course, stop coming by. There is dinner to make and laundry to do, not to mention the spider webs hanging from the light fixture. You finally sit down to put your feet up for a few precious minutes before bed only to realize that you haven’t posted on your blog AGAIN today.
So you think back to some of the fabulous posts you’ve seen in your RSS feed lately and you think that you might share a post or two from some of those bloggers you admire most. Surely they won’t mind. You grab your laptop, cruise back through your RSS feed, and before you know it you’ve bought yourself two weeks of posts. Copy, paste, schedule. Two weeks of breathing room. Yeah, they aren’t your projects, not your words, not your photos but those big bloggers with all the comments and the fancy web pages won’t mind.
Unfortunately, taking content from another persons blog or RSS feed is called “scraping” in internet lingo.
Not only will the bloggers whose material you “borrowed” get angry with you but it hurts you too. And by angry I mean the blogger (and some of her blogging friends) may call you out on it in your comments. You lose credibility because now your readers wonder if all of those great ideas you posted previously were really your ideas AND Google can make you take down your blog (or take it down for you, especially if you are on Blogger).
I know, you didn’t know all of this. And all of this may seem a little harsh for a person who was frazzled and out of time but there are also professional outfits out there using software to scrap content from RSS feeds and they do it to make lots of money. Money from someone else’s hard work. It’s become a growing problem and bloggers are taking a stand.
So do yourself a favor and be sure to post only your own original content. Most bloggers don’t mind if you share ONE photo from a project you like and then link out to their blog for the full post. Just a photo and a sentence or two about why you like the project or why you like that particular blogger with a link out to the post you are referring to (not to the front page of the site) will give you a little content in a way that makes everyone happy.
How do you know if your blog has been scraped or what to do about it? You might find this article on wpbeginner helpful.
By: Vicki O’Dell , The Creative Goddess
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How do I go about pinning my products on your site?
Hi Jo,
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you looking for our Pinterest page, because you can find it here.
I’m not sure what my URL is, that’s part of my problem! I have a blog that NO ONE is seeing, I don’t get it. I’ve told my family, friends, I’m on Pinterest, linked in, instagram, Flickr, and why no one is seeing my shop and/or blog is beyond me. It makes me not want to write because I feel like I’m just talking to myself! Here’s my site if you could check it out and let me know what I’m doing wrong, it would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Www. Articents.com/Whimsical-Wares.
Hi Kim,
Getting a website or shop off the ground is a lot of work and it doesn’t happen overnight. Especially with shops like this that are hosted through another site. You have to keep posting new items in your shop and then keep promoting them on your Pinterest, Flickr, Instagram, etc. People will never find your shop otherwise. But keep in mind that these are all social networks so you have to be social on them. Just posting your own products constantly won’t help build your following.
I hope that helps!
Hi Kim,
I wanted to let you know that we’ve made a number of updates to Articents since you posted your above comment. Since then, we’ve improved our SEO, expanded our social networking capabilities and re-organized the site. In addition, we also gave users the option to customize your stores to make them more distinctive and individual.
In the end though, Maggie is right. It takes a lot of time and hard work to get the word out about your store – but it is possible, so don’t give up!
Vicki,
Great advice! I like to think of a blog as a baby that needs love, attention, and time to grow. The first year is learning what works for you as the author and what your readers are wanting.
Another thing to mention, is try to figure out what blogs you really like and why. Is it the pictures, style of writing, topic, etc.
One more item is to give yourself permission to make mistakes while learning and remember there will always be new challenges.
Marie