I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or pleased . . . I’ll go with flattered, yet bothered.

Someone Plagerized and Translated My Post!

It seems that someone has decided to plagerize my Top 77 Mistakes That New Bloggers Make Post. The catch is that they didn’t simply copy it, but translated the entire thing into Spanish.

Copying anyone’s content without their permission is simply violating their copyright. While it seems that taking a post and translating it would also constitute a copyright violation, I’m left thinking that this is somewhat of a grey area. Normally, when someone steals my content, I go after them with a vengeance, however I’m not exactly sure how to handle this situation. Had the author simply asked my permission to translate my post, I would have probably told him it was okay to do, but he should have asked me.

What Would You Do?
I feel very torn in this situation and would love your feedback here! For now, I’m not going to link back to his post, but I will send a trackback so he knows I’m aware that he took it. What are your feelings on the matter? Should I ask him to take the post down or just let it go? What do you think?

With that in mind, since he was so kind to do the translation, I think it is a must that I share the translated version of my post (which took many hours to write) with my fellow Spanish speaking bloggers.

Los 77 errores que un blogger no debe cometer

Dominios y Alojamiento
1. No tener tu blog alojado como Dios manda ( servidor propio o compartido, pero nada de free hostings)
2. Registrar un dominio para tu blog que tiene copyright o riesgo de entrar en conflicto con marcas establecidas
3. Registrar un dominio largo e imposible de recordar, y sobretodo de teclear.
4. No tener un dominio propio para tu blog

   Estilo, Diseño y elementos basicos de un blog

5. Mantener el diseño original que venia por defecto con el blog
6. Usar un fondo negro, que brilla, tiene lucecitas, se mueve o molesta a la vista de alguna forma
7. Usar musica de fondo
8. No actualizar el blogroll que viene por defecto con el blog
9. No usar correctamente los permalinks
10. No protegerte del spam usando alguno de las decenas de plugins disponibles
11. Desaprovechar el potencial de los plugins que tienes instalados
12. No incluir informacion de contacto del blogger ( si te quiero hacer una donacion millonaria, ¿como te lo digo? )
13. No incluir informacion basica sobre el autor ( a todos nos gusta ponerle un perfil a quien leemos )
14. No crear el sitemap para buscadores ( la de visitas que te puedes perder por ello! )

    Comentarios del blog

15. Mantener el primer comentario de prueba que viene con el blog (hay que ser cutre… )
16. Forzar a tus lectores a que se registren de alguna forma para poder dejar comentarios
17. Comentar en otros blogs diciendo solo “que guay!”, “me gusta lo que has escrito” u otras tonterias que no aportan nada
18. Comentar en otros blogs generando spam y llenando el texto con las urls de tus paginas
19. No molestarse en comentar en otros blogs lo suficiente
20. No estar al tanto ni seguir que es lo que se comenta en otros sites o blogs
21. No responder a los comentarios en tu blog
22. Pedir directamente a otros bloggers por enlaces hacia tu blog en los comentarios
23. Recoger direcciones de email a saco e introducirlas en una lista que usaras para spamear a todos (violacion de la privacidad)
24. Usar enlaces de afiliados cuando comentas en otros blogs

    Enlaces

25. Contactar a todo el mundo pidiendo intercambio de enlaces
26. No enlazar hacia otros blogs /fuentes de informacion suficientemente
27. Usar enlaces incorrectos o rotos ( que no llevan a ningun sitio)
28. No usar los trackbacks para saber quien te enlaza y desde donde

    Contenido del Blog

29. Crear SPLOGS ( spam!)
30. Crear falsas expectativas respecto al contenido y calidad del blog y luego no llegar ni a la mitad de los esperado
31. No aprender un poco de la cultura y el lenguaje de los blogs antes de lanzarse a la blogosfera
32. No escoger un buen tema y audiencia antes de ponerse a escribir
33. No mantener el blog enfocado en ese tema y desvariar
34. Copiar el estilo y la filosofia de otro blog ( para eso me leo el otro blog )
35. Bloggear sobre absolutamente nada interesante
36. No revisar la ortografia de nuestras entradas
37. No hacerse un hueco en la red y experimentar el “blogger burnout” ( toy quemao !)
38. Robar contenido de otros blogs
39. Bloggear sobre algo que no tenemos ni idea
40. Copiar posts enteros de otros sitios y pensar que con un simple enlace de vuelta quedamos bien ( eso es robar! )
41. No atribuir el credito necesario a las fuentes de donde sacamos nuestras ideas y contenidos
42. Ocultar o modificar nuestra personalidad haciendonos pasar por quienes no somos en nuestro blog
43. Escribir titulos que no tienen ningun interes
44. Escribir interminables bloques de texto sin espacios, orden, negrita, etc.
45. Escribir de forma demasiado irregular
46. Olvidar que escribes para tus lectores, no para ti mismo
47. Escribir cosas en el blog que pueden perjudicarte en el futuro (sobretodo si pones a parir a tu jefe )
48. Ser poco profesional
49. Atacar a otros bloggers a destajo solo para ganar atencion
50. Compartir informacion confidencial o privada en tu blog
51. Compartir EXCESIVA informacion personal ( puede ser peligroso)
52. No tener propio criterio y propio lenguaje al escribir
53. No motivar al lector a que participe en los comentarios
54. Escribir mucho blablabla sin llegar a decir nada
55. Escribir sobre lo que todo el mundo escribe ( a no ser que seas el primero en hacerlo )
56. Crear concursos con premios y no proporcionarlos

    Promocion de blogs y generar trafico

57. Hacer publicidad del blog en cualquier sitio ( hay que saber escoger )
58. Promover un blog que no llega a los 10 posts
59. Usar aplicaciones de trafico (software) para incrementar tus rankings
60. Usar otros metodos dudosos para incrementar tu trafico
61. Enviar tu blog una y otra vez a sitios sociales ( tu blog hasta en la sopa vaya…)
62. Enviar entradas pesimas a estos sitios sociales ( meneame, promoting blogs, etc….)
63. No hacer publicidad de tus mejores posts
64. No participar en Blog Carnivals para atraer mas trafico
65. No incluir un enlace hacia tu blog en firmas de mails, forums, etc
66. No responder a emails y comentarios de otros bloggers

    Generando ingresos con el blog

67. Preocuparte de como generar ingresos antes de tener un contenido de calidad
68. Poner tantos anuncios como se pueda de cualquier estilo, clase, red de anuncios, etc
69. Hacer click en tus propios anuncios
70. Permitir que cualquiera se anuncie en tu sitio ( un poco de criterio hombre! )
71. Escribir entradas patrocinadas de cualquier forma ( esta genial sacar dinero escribiendo para ReviewMe o PPP o el que sea, pero hay que hacerlo bien! )

    Feeds

72. Infra utilizar las posibilidades de tu feed
73. No disponer de un link claro desde el cual subscribirse a tu feed en el blog
74. No usar feedburner para optimizar y hacer publicidad de tu blog ( tiene cientos de posibilidades para ello)
75. No uses el contador de lectores de Feedburner si no tienes al menos 50 lectores
76. No sindicar el contenido total de tu blog en las feeds
77. Saturar tu feed de anuncios

Blogging is esentially easy. Formatting your blog posts so they have some style and flavor is a bit more difficult. One of the more important elements in blog posts are graphics or images. These serve to both break up the text, and to add interest to your articles. I thought it was important to write a post covering how to place images in your blog posts to help out all those people who have been having trouble doing so (see disclaimer at end of post). This tutorial will focus on WordPress blogs, but it will have alternatives for other blog software as well.

When Should I Use Images in my Posts?

I find that the best use of images are when they are directly related to what you’re writing (e.g. if you’re writing about flowers, then use images of flowers), or when they are somehow metaphorically related (e.g. I wrote an article Are Alexa And DMOZ Down For The Count? and used the image of a boxer to go with it). This is not to say that you can’t use images otherwise, but when these situations come up, I think it is a given that you should.

I discovered a blog a few months ago called DoshDosh that uses images with every post. Maki’s use of manga images keeps his blog colorful and interesting (not to mention his articles are extremly well written and thorough). In this case, placing themed images with all his posts works to build some interest and break up the monotony of the page.

How to Add Images to Your Blog Articles

There are a few ways to add images to your articles using WordPress.

I. Use Image Hosting Services to Host Your Blog’s Images

The first way to add an image to your post is to use some kind of image hosting service. Nirmal T V wrote a great post the other day where he shared the Top 5 Image Hosting Services and gave detailed explanations of each. Any of the ones he listed, including: Flickr, Photobucket, Picasa, Imageshack, and Yahoo Photos, or any other online image hosting service will work for you.
How to Add an Image to Your Articles with Free Hosting Services

1. Pick a hosting service and register or log in
2. Find the Upload button or link
3. Click the browse button which will allow you to search your computer for images and click on the name of the image you want to upload.
4. Add details about the image as asked by the website.
5. Voila! Your image is now hosted.
6. Click on the image with the right button (or for your Mac users do it while holding control down) and select “Copy Image Location.” Your image’s location will now be in your computer’s memory.
7. Go to your blog post, and where you want to add your image (be sure you’re not using a WSIWYG editor. In wordpress, this means click on the CODE Tab if you’re writing our post with the VISUAL tab active),
   

   enter the following, replacing “PASTE IMAGE LOCATION HERE” with the actual location (use control-v or in your browser’s menu options go to edit, then paste):
   
   <img src=”PASTE IMAGE LOCATION HERE”>

8. Congrats! You now have an image in your article. Click “Save and Continue Editing” at the bottom of the text box where you write your blog entries, and you’ll be able to see your image in the preview window as you scroll to the bottom of your browser window.

II. Using Wordpress to Add Images

Wordpress makes it very easy to add images to your website.

1. Decide where in your post you want your image to appear and click there.
2. Find the following area of your wordpress control panel (while writing or editing a post):
   

3. Click the browse button which will allow you to search your computer for images and click on the name of the image you want to upload.
4. Once you’ve clicked on the file, you’ll want to click the OPEN button in the pop-up window. You’ll see something similar to:
   
   

5. Fill out the title and description boxes and then click on the UPLOAD button. Your browser will upload the image and you’ll see the following:
   
   

6. Click on the button options that you’d like, then click on SEND TO EDITOR
7. The source code for the image will now be set and you’ll have an image. Save and preview your post and you’ll see your image!

Stay tuned for additional posts in the Images & Blogging Series:
Part II - Photo Formatting & Advanced Photo Layouts
Part III - Where to Find Images & Proper Use

Disclaimer: This post is dedicated to my friend Charles Feldman who has been asking me to teach him this for a long time now. Hope this helps!

There are tons of new bloggers online every day, and many, if not most of them make similar mistakes starting out. I thought it might be fun to compile a list of some of these. Without further adieu:

The Top 77 Mistakes New Bloggers Make
en Español, en Français

Domain & Hosting
1. Not hosting their own blog
2. Registering a blog name (URL) that has been copyrighted
3. Registering a long and difficult to remember domain name

   Style, Design, and Basic Blog Ingredients

4. Keeping the basic template that came installed on the blog
5. Using a black background or one that flashes, blinks, or moves in any other way
6. Using background music
7. Not updating the blogroll that comes with the blog
8. Not using permalinks for their blog posts
9. Not protecting their blogs from SPAM comments with easily installed plugins
10. Under-utilizing easily installed plugins
11. Not including a clear way to contact them
12. Not including a basic About the Author page
13. Not creating a sitemap for Google and other search engines

    Blog Comments

14. Keeping the first post & comment that came with the blog
15. Forcing guests to register in order to leave comments
16. Commenting on other blogs with nothing to say other than “nice post” or some other worthless nonsense
17. Commenting on other blogs and posting spamming their blog’s URL in the post
18. Not commenting on other blogs enough
19. Not thinking through what they comment about on other sites
20. Not responding to comments on their blogs
21. Asking other bloggers to link to their blog in comments
22. Gathering email addresses from people who comment and adding them to email marketing lists without permission (privacy violation)
23. Posting affiliate links when making comments on other blogs

    Links

24. Emailing other bloggers and asking them for links
25. Not linking out enough
26. Posting incorrect or broken links
27. Not using their blog’s trackback capabilities to keep other bloggers in the know

    Blog Content

28. Creating SPLOGS
29. Setting high expectations for your readers and then failing to meet them
30. Not learning blogging etiquette or blog culture before starting out
31. Not choosing a niche to write about
32. Not keeping their blog focused on that niche if and when they do choose one
33. Copying the style and substance of other blogs
34. Blogging about absolutely nothing
35. Not proofreading their posts
36. Failing to place themselves and then experiencing blogger burnout
37. Stealing blog content
38. Blogging about something they know nothing about
39. Copying entire blog posts from other sites and thinking a simple link back makes it okay
40. Failing to attribute another blog or website that you got an idea from
41. Trying to blog as some fake anonymous persona like the kids in Ender’s Game
42. Posting uninteresting titles
43. Posting huge blocks of text without using headlines, images, etc. to break it up
44. Posting at an irregular frequency
45. Forgetting that they are writing for an audience, not themselves.
46. Writing things in their blogs that may harm them in the future
47. Committing libel
48. Being unprofessional
49. Attacking other bloggers just to get attention
50. Sharing company secrets or private information on their blogs
51. Giving away too much personal information (potentially dangerous)
52. Not having their own voice when writing, instead using bland and dry language.
53. Not engaging the reader to participate in the conversation (failing to stimulate comments)
54. Blabbing too much without making any relevant points
55. Writing about what everyone else is writing about
56. Holding blog contests and not coming through on prizes you promised

    Blog Promotion & Traffic Building

57. Advertising their brand-new site anywhere
58. Promoting a site with less than 10 posts
59. Using traffic boosters to get traffic
60. Using any methods to get un-targeted traffic
61. Over-submitting their blogs to social bookmarking sites
62. Submitting bad posts to social bookmarking sites
63. Under-publicizing their best posts
64. Not entering Blog Carnivals to start building traffic
65. Not including a link to their blogs in their email and forum signatures
66. Not responding to emails or other messages

    Blog Monetization

67. Worrying about making money with their blog before they even have any quality content
68. Placing as many ads from as many ad networks as they can on their sites
69. Clicking on their own AdSense Ads
70. Allowing just about any site, even unrelated ones, to advertise on their blog
71. Writing reviews of other sites through ReviewMe or other services and doing a shit job of it. Reviews can be bad or good, but they should at least be well written (happened to me today . . . argh!)

    Feeds

72. Under-utilizing their blog’s feed
73. Not having a clearly identifiable and highly visible way to subscribe to their feed
74. Not using feedburner to optimize, quantify, and publicize their feed
75. Using Feedburner chicklet that shows number of subscribers before you’ve got at least 50-100 subscribers
76. Posting a partial blog feed instead of the full contents
77. Overusing feed advertising

I’ve seen a few other mistake lists out there, but most cover things I’ve mentioned above. Here are a few good ones:

Ten Blogging Mistakes I’ve Made
The Top 10 Design Mistakes
Blogging Mistakes Final List
10 Blogging Mistakes to Avoid

Think I’m missing any important points?

Spreading the word about your latest blog entry is as easy as pinging a few update services. Most blogs allow you to add different update services (ping sites) to notify. I thought it might be userful to put out a list of the update services I’m currently pinging. If you’re interested in adding any or all of these services to your blog, here’s how (I can only explain how using WordPress – my list of sites can be used on any blog, though).

How to Notify New Ping Sites of Your Updated Blog Posts

1. Login to your Control Panel
2. Click on the Options tab, followed by the Writing tab.
3. Scroll to the bottom of the page and add whatever services you’d like to the Update Services box.

The Mega List of Ping Services

This list includes all the ping services I’ve been able to locate. Feel free to use it as you wish.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

ttp://rpc.qwikping.com

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.britblog.com

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

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.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://ping.fakapster.com/rpc

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de/

If you have any additional services that you ping, let me know! I’d love to build this into a massive listing of all ping services.

Manual Ping Sites

There are a few good ping sites that will allow you to manually let them know of updates. These are included in the above list, but for those people who need to do things by hand, this should help.

• http://www.pingomatic.com
• http://www.pingoat.com

One of the most frustrating thing back when I was a newbie at building websites was figuring out what that little icon was called next to a website’s URL. This little tidbit of information eluded me for the longest time, but I finally figured it out. Back in the day (wow I sound old!) there weren’t 1,000 tutorials to help with everything like that.

A Favicon is the Small Icon that Shows Up Next to Your Web Address in Your Browser

Favicons (a.k.a. favorites icons) help promote your brand and create an identity for your website. They help when you’ve got multiple tabs open on your browser and you can’t read the entire site title, and they are just great for adding a little something extra to your website’s identity.

How Do You Create a Favicon and What is Favicon.ico?

There are tons of online tools to help you create a favicon. My favorite is Dynamic Drive’s Free Favicon Generator. Here’s what you do to set up your website’s favicon:

1. Go to the Favicon Generator and upload a file from your computer that you want to become your favicon.
2. Press the “Create Icon” button and then the “Download Favicon” button.
3. The favicon will now be saved to your desktop with the filename favicon.ico
4. Using FTP or some other method of transferring files to your website, upload the favicon.ico file to the /public_html/ directory of your website’s server.
5. Check to be sure the file was properly uploaded by visiting in your browser http://www.your-site.com/favicon.ico (of course, your-site.com will be replaced with the name of your actual site name)
6. Finally, edit the main page of your site (the index.html file) and place in the head the following:
   

   <LINK REL=”SHORTCUT ICON” HREF=”favicon.ico”>

Your favicon will now be live. Sometimes it takes a little while to start seeing it, but don’t worry, it’s there!

Do Favicons Work in Subdomains?

They do! All you need to do is follow the steps above for the index.html file located in your subdomains and you’ll have a functional favicon for that subdomain.

I hope this helps some people figure out what to do. I know I would have been really happy to read this a decade ago!

Maybe it isn’t the first rule, but it is definitely important to remember:

Always Have a Contact Page or Some Other Method for Readers to Reach You!

Now, many of you are going to say how obvious this is, but it is clearly not too obvious. Imagine this – I’ve spent the past day or so trying to reach out to some real estate bloggers to get their feedback on a post I wrote on my real estate investing blog. What I discovered was actually pretty sad. Only somewhere around 1/3 of the blogs I visited on this list of 750 real estate blogs had some means of contacting the blogger. Of the ones who did, only a few had their information front and center, with an email link or phone number. I actually had to jump through hoops to find the contact info of some others.

This is particularly sad because the reason most of these people are blogging is to get business for themselves. How do they expect potential clients to reach them if they don’t have a contact page? You never know who is going to befriend you, and it just a good idea to make yourself available . . .

Without my contact page, I would not be in touch with several entrepreneurs who reached out to me.

Maybe it is not the first rule of blogging, but it an important one . . . if you haven’t done so already, get your contact page/info on your blog ASAP.

Note: This also applies for any other legitimate web-business. A phone number is okay, but an email address is imperative. If you don’t have contact info of some sort on your site, I’m not going to take you seriously, and I’m definitely not going to buy anything from your site.

It is funny how things work. I’ve been blogging for well over a year now, but I went crazy yesterday trying to figure out how to do the simplest thing to my new blog. I wanted to change the feed output from summary to full text, but for the life of me couldn’t figure out how. I looked online for almost an hour, but without success. After going back into my control panel, I had that aha moment, fixed it, and then kicked myself for being so oblivious.

Changing feed results from Summary to Full Text
This is a really easy process:

1. Log in to your WordPress administration page
2. Go to Options
3. Go to the sub-menu Reading
4. Under “Syndication Feeds” go to “For each article, show:” and select Full Text
5. Click on Update Options and you’re done!

Why make the change?
Now that I subscribe to well over 100 blog feeds, I don’t have as much time to read them all. While some claim that using a summary may be an incentive for people to actually visit the blog itself instead of the feed, I find that unless the article REALLY catches my eye, I’m going to move on. I’m more likely to go to and read an article that has a full text feed, because I can quickly scan it on my reader – there may be some interesting material that doesn’t make it to the summary that is a cause for reading the post.