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As writers we sometimes get caught in writing to an expected style, this can be detrimental to the current piece you are writing. Often you are better just sitting down and letting the words flow and worrying about categorizing the post once you have completed it.

Even those with a reputation for serious informative writing styles occasionally break out with a humorous streak, or vice-versa. Even professional writers understand the need to write in a natural and unforced way. The moment you start to force your writing style you can lose focus and the flow of words becomes stilted and uncomfortable for the reader to read.

Letting the words flow onto the paper is a natural way to write. You do not have to publish your post immediately. If you are not happy with the way you have written the post, save it and come back later. A re-read will often surprise you.

Writing is an art that comes naturally to almost everyone. When someone says they are not a writer and have difficulty in putting words onto paper, the reality is that they suffer from lack of self belief - if you can talk you can write. Writing blog posts is not about writing to college standards, it is about writing for the average everyday reader.

Write naturally without trying to force the words. If the words are not there just now, come back when they are. Your natural writing sets the tone - your knowledge establishes your credibility. There are many bloggers who have English as their second language and it is quite obvious at times. It doesn’t make their writing any less valuable - it does make it a little more natural.

This is a how to with a difference. Follow these steps and your article is sure to either get rejected, or sit and not deliver any traffic or links. In other words, how to fail with an article directory submission. The opposite may see your article succeed.

• Publishing content that is of little benefit to readers.
  People read and use articles from article directories for one reason - they are going to receive some sort of benefit. If they want to reprint it on their site, their benefit is the addition to their site of a quality article which their readers will benefit from. If it is a casual reader, they are after information. Submitting an article about what you had for breakfast is not going to cut it - unless of course you can turn it into something useful or highly entertaining.

• Forgetting who your audience is.
  Who is your audience. A publisher or the general reading public? Writing an article for directory submission is not about writing to attract publishers. You are still writing for the general population. Publishers who are going to reprint your article will do so because their audience will appreciate the contents therefore they are looking for articles written with general reading public in mind.

• Keyword cramming and linking.
  If you cram your articles with keywords then readers will switch off. Publishers want articles that have an effective use of keywords, not an oversupply. Some directories  may even reject your article for keyword spamming. The same can be said for linking. Most directories disallow links within articles. Instead they provide a resource box where you can place your links.

Ultimately, writing articles that publishers can use is the most important approach to article writing. If your article is of little value to a publisher then it will sit there and never be used. Write an article that doesn’t comply with the directories guidelines and it will get rejected.

Writing articles or posts is not that difficult particularly if you follow some of the advice we have provided in previous posts. This post continues this advice with a list of blog content no-no’s - tactics often used that really do turn readers off from reading.

Paragraphs Too Long: While there is no hard and fast rule, paragraphs are best limited to less than 100 words. Any more and the reader is likely to switch off before getting the point. A paragraph should have a single train of thought and make a point or set a scene, then move on.

Links: Limit the number of links within a paragraph. Too many links act as a distraction to the reader. If you think about a link, it’s aim is to point elsewhere. Do you want you reader to finish your article, or to head of elsewhere during the first paragraph. Use links only where necessary.

Content Ads: A big turnoff in this day and age. Advertising companies have become a little too clever to the point they annoy readers. Many reader use the mouse to follow text as they read. In content ads often have attached pop-ups which pop up as soon as the mouse touches the link. One or two links maybe acceptable. Any more and its a nuisance - goodbye reader.

Overuse of Formatting: Use format tools such as bold or italics for affect. Overuse takes away the importance of the affect and becomes meaningless. If you feel that a word or sentence needs highlighting then use one of these tools. If a second block of text also needs enhancing, reword your paragraph so that the second block can be placed into its own paragraph, or consider listing the points.

Yelling: A term that is often used in emails and relates to the overuse of capitals. This can be particularly irksome if also mixed with bold formatting. Generally speaking, a writer should follow the basic rules of English which limit the use of capitals. The occasional yell for effect is acceptable; filling paragraphs with yells will not be.

I am sure you can think of other turnoffs. As you visit other sites, make a note of what you find distracting and a turnoff. Look at your own blog content and ensure that you haven’t included any of those item. The reality is, if you find it distracting or a turn off on another site, readers will find it the same on your site. Blog content is not difficult to produce - it is just finding the content for your content that requires some thinking.

Only a small percentage of people actually read. Now I know you will all say that you read, but I am talking about the difference between ’seeing’ and ‘reading’. True readers read everything; and they will often read from the top of the page to the bottom, fine print included, whether or not the subject matter really interests them. For the vast majority, we skim read; often called ’scanning’; and we look for shortcuts. The heading, words in bold, bullet points; anything to cut our ‘reading’ time.

User focused therefore has two meanings; one, to provide content in a form that is quickly digested; and two, provide content that requires eating (you cannot digest what you haven’t eaten).

To provide user focused content for eating is not all that difficult; it falls into basically three components. Language, Message, and Clarity.

Language

Whilst the English language is one of the primary languages used on the net, in this case I am talking more about the use of the language. User focused content steers clear of technical, jargon or ‘in house’ languages. Keeping your message simple and straight forward means that anyone from any education background can understand you. The more technical you get, the more readers you will lose.

Message

Having a message that the reader will find valuable. This may a problem solving message, or a list valuable of information, or for some, an account of the daily activities. What is important is that your reader needs something. Help; entertainment; to be a part of a debate. There are many different styles of message.

Clarity

Clarity is providing your message in a straightforward language in bite size pieces. Keeping the paragraphs short certainly helps. Using bold to highlight important components also helps. My first word processing teacher many, many years ago, suggested that in a short message, simply reading down the bolded words should summarize that message. It is an interesting concept and would certainly provide your reader with a quick fix.

The term user focused boils down to - wait for it - focusing on your user. Providing them with content that satisfies a need; even if that need is entertainment; and providing that content in a clear and concise way. if you can provide that content on a regular basis you find yourself developing a loyal group of readers.

You have probably read a thousand different versions of a post like this, however everyone has different spin on what makes a killer article title. This is probably one of the easiest traffic magnets when it comes to article writing, yet it is often not given the thought it deserves. Here are couple of suggestions when it comes to article titles.

First, place yourself in your readers shoes. Sometimes we are a little close to the action and cannot see past our own experiences. If you work in the shoe shine business, a title like ‘5 top shoe shine tips’ would probably have you going ho-hum, seen it before - and that is often a writers biggest mistake. They forget the reader who may not have seen it before.

This can be very true when you ask someone else to write an article for you. They are often writing from a completely different perspective to yourself and upon seeing the article, your first impression is no, not good enough. I suggest you re-look at the document and then try and see it from a novices perspective. The same can be said for titles.

Killer article titles are ‘killers’ because they compel the reader to read the first couple of paragraphs of the article. If they like what they see they will contunue reading.  The traditional ‘killer’ titles still work because human nature is attracted to what they offer.

If you see a title that opens with:

• 5 golden rules
• 5 top tips
• 5 best
• 5 number one

You are going to read the article, if the words that follow match your interests.  The opening words draw your eyes, the tail of the sentence seals the deal. If I wrote and article on the ‘5 best WordPress plugins’ and you used WordPress, you will most likely check out what I had to say. Humans being humans, this may have been the tenth article with this headline today, you will still go and check it out - human nature.

The content of course has to be worthy of reading. We will often read the first paragraph or two. If you don’t win your reader with those lines, your finished. the reader will move on.

Killer titles are just that. They don’t make or break and article, they help find your readers and without those titles, you will struggle to find readers. The most important issue is write your title with the assumption the reader doesn’t have a wealth on knoweledge in the subject matter - in fact this is why the want to read your article - to get that knowledge.

There is good content and there is great content. The difference being?? Good content will often satisfy a reader - great content will not only satisfy them, it will have them talking about it and wanting to be a part of it, either by commenting or by referring and linking. How do you write great content?

1. Unique - unique does not necessarily mean finding a new topic that no one else has written on - it is however about putting a unique spin on a topic. Fifty people can report the same story, but one will always stand out. It stands out because they have put their own unique stamp on the story.
2. User Focused - people search the internet looking for something. Provide that something for them to find. Focus on what people are looking for and you will find your readers.
3. Honesty - don’t try to write about topics you have limited knowledge about unless you are prepared to do the research. Write crap and you will get a crappy reputation. People will always find you our when you try to write in areas that you have no knowledge off.
4. Well Written - you don’t need to be an English master to write good English. Simple spell checkers will solve many problems. Having a proof reader also helps. Writing in a natural style using plain English will win you more readers than by trying to bamboozle them with highly technical terms.
5. Easily Read - make your content easily read, easily scanned and easy on the eye. This is a combination of font style, size and content design. Bullet or numbered points are easy to scan. Using bold or italics where appropriate enables easy scanning.

These five steps will ensure your content is good - very good. What about great? Great comes from the heart and sole. Not every article can be great. However, if they are not on the road to being good, they will never be great.

We live to think we provide good content with that occasional touch of inspirational ‘great’ content. If you struggle to write regular content for your sites, talk to us at Blog Content Provider. We have a range of solutions that may help you achieve a regular reader base.

That’s a bit like asking ‘what sort of book should I write?” It is up to you what you put into a blot. Your blog’s content depends very much on what you are attempting to do with your blog.

Blogs can be personal diaries relating your day to day activities. Blogs can be vehicles used to promote yourself or your writings, be it political, sport, celebrities, poetry, short stories or any other genre. Many blogs are business blogs  written specifically for their customers or potential customers. The content needs to match your reasons for having a blog.

Looking at business blogs as a prime example. Posts on these blogs can be written as pre-sales information articles or as post sales FAQ’s and ‘how to’s’ - or perhaps catering to both groups. Pre-sales posts often include photos or graphics with associated text designed to sell the virtues of the product. Post-sales posts may describe how to maintain, update/upgrade or carry out minor repairs to the product.

Personal blogs can be written as journals or daily accounts of the writers life. They can often include pictures, photos or graphics that appeal to the writer that they wish to share with the world.

In between sit blogs that are of both a personal and income producing nature. The writer produces content that they feel the general population may be interested in. At the same time they have a variety of income producing options such as Adsense or affiliate advertising.

Your blog should be a tool that helps you to achieve something. For personal blogs, this could be as simple as personal satisfaction. For businesses, their blogs are generally aimed at the development of customer relationships and by providing quality before and after sales service.

A good business blog can have a substantially positive affect on your reputation, your sales and ultimately your profitability. Well written blogs demonstrate a real professional approach to customer relationships - if you are not able to produce that quality content on a regular basis then it could be well worth your time looking at professional blog management assistance.

You may feel that a blog is, well, just a blog. In fact many business professionals view a blog as being a toy. In reality, with the right content, a blog can be one of your businesses greatest assets.

Blog content is the single most important aspect to getting well rated, not just in the search engines, but in every aspect of the online world.

In simple terms, if people don’t like your content, they wont come back. Not only that, they will not recommend you, particularly when it comes to any of the social bookmarking sites and it’s through these sites that web pages can become viral, or at least increase in popularity.

Having content that not appeals to the masses but also satisfies a need within the online community is a must. Ensuring the content is also optimized for search engines means that searches can find it.

One of the realities in life is that many people can be experts in a given field, but find it difficult to put their knowledge into the written word. Take a motor mechanic. They may be able to pull a motor apart (and put it together again) totally blindfolded, but ask them to write an interesting article on the subject and they may struggle for hours putting it together.

Situations like this require the services of a good article writer. They can take the knowledge and turn it into well optimized user and search engine friendly content that the site owner could be proud of. The added benefit and the outcome you are looking for is increased readership and possibly increased sales.

If you are an expert in your field but struggle to get your knowledge onto paper, consider an article writer who can provide that blog content for you. With good quality content, your reputation will grow and your expertise will be acknowledge. Remember, it is your expertise on a subject that is important, not your writing skills - you can leave that to us at Blog Content Provider - you can also give us a call at 786-317-8774.

I found an excellent article on WordPress plugins that could make monetization of your blog easier. But I’d like to offer this word of caution before you use any of these plugins or try to monetize your blog in the ways that this article suggests: Be sure that you are absolutely committed 100% to monetizing your blog this way; otherwise, you could ruin your credibility.

Top WordPress Plugins - Monetize Your Blog With Ads

By Jim R Regan

One of the questions I get all the time is how to you monetize your WordPress blog with plugins. This is probably the most efficient and easy-to-use method of getting advertisements up on your website. The best part is, most of these services allow you to take payments and disperse ads automatically! Cutting out the middleman is an excellent option for any blogger. If you can manage your ads yourself, you can take 100% of the earnings instead of having to pay commission fees.

There are many ways to utilize ad space on your website. Some of the more popular methods are 125×125 banners, 468×60 banners and text links. As the internet develops, websites are becoming more and more slick with Flash, AJAX, Mootools and other ways to become Web 2.0. With this, advertising has branched off into “peel away” ads snug in the upper corners websites, bar ads across the top of the page and even video ad units. I think that a lot of this is overkill, so we will focus on traditional banners and text. Lets take a look into the top WordPress plugins for placing ads on your blog.

When it comes to making money with your blog, nothing is overkill. You’ll know it’s overkill when you actually start losing money because your traffic will go away and so too will your advertisers. That’s when you’ve gone too far. Before you go that far, however, be sure to run tests. Will your users leave if you employ these tools? If so, you’d better pull out before you are entirely committed.

1. OIOPublisher

This is a brand new WordPress monetization tool that is by far the best in class, luckily for us it is also the most cost-effective . With a solid amount of options (review posts, text links, banners, inline text, etc), OIOPublisher is what I use here at theNetFool.com! This is the only plugin that I have ever paid for, and at just $37 one-time cost, this thing literally pays for itself and almost anyone can afford it. When you install the plugin, it opens up a whole new section of your WordPress administrator backend, a “business” tab that offers extensive options and tracks all of your clients. Everything is very easy to use and understand, I had mine up and running in just 30 minutes!

One thing I especially like about OIOPublisher is the built-in widgets to encourage readers to buy ads. All of the unused banner spaces can be automatically filled with ads of your choice and redirect to your purchase page. There is even a widget that comes with the plugin to show how many ad spaces are available on your site at all times. I think that $37 is totally reasonable for this awesome WordPress plugin. Not only do you get an easy to use administrative section, you have everything automated for you and your one-time fee covers the plugin on multiple websites! If you are looking for an easy way to link directly with WordPress and get your blog monetized, look for OIOPublisher.

This looks like a good tool. Since I’ve never used it I can’t vouch for it, but if I were to go this route on my own blog then this would likely be a plugin I’d consider. The price does seem reasonable and it looks like you have quite a bit of control. I would probably not use this plugin on an out-of-the-box template. I would likely have a designer work me up a unique blog design that would be compatible with this plugin. I believe that would make your monetization efforts a lot more effective.

2. WP Text Ads

This was the popular monetization solution before OIOPublisher went public, and it is without a doubt a very good product. My problems with WP Text Ads are:

1. The product is overpriced at $127

2. There is no support for banner ads, text only

With these factors in mind, I am really not too bullish on the WordPress plugin. However. Taking the service as is, I think it is very good if you are interested in providing mostly text link spots to your advertisers. The ads are very easy to style, and you can even set the rates at which they run differently to ensure the maximum payback efficiency. Again, the one-time $127 is expensive… but if you are selling a steady stream of ads it should be too much of an issue since it is a one and done type deal.

I agree that this is overpriced. $127 seems expensive to me, especially since Google penalizes link sellers and buyers. You do want to exercise caution if you decide to sell text links. You should know that Google does penalize sites that sell text links for PageRank value. If you do sell text links, consider selling them for the traffic value and not for the PageRank or link juice value.

3. WP Bankroll

This blog monetization service really only applies to selling blog posts, paid reviews and paid plugs on your blogging website. It is definitely not as professional as OIOPublisher or WP Text Ads, but it gets the job done and can be used completely free if you are willing to provide a backlink to their website (else $20-$50). There are definitely some interesting features to point out. You can determine how many links are allowed to be active in each post, minimum word count and cost.

There is another very clever feature that allows you to randomly allow your guest posters links to appear in your sidebar. Overall, I wouldn’t really recommend WP Bankroll unless you are solely looking for sponsored/guest posting on your website and do not have any money to spare on a plugin. If this is you, then by all means use Bankroll… but I’d rather see you with OIOPublisher or WP Text Ads .

This looks like another reasonable recommendation. The same caution applies to paid reviews and sponsored posts as applies to text links. Do it for the traffic value and not the PageRank value.

4. Text Link Ads

I figured that it is only fair I include this opportunity, although they are really not what we are looking for by “cutting out the middleman.” Text Link Ads is a service that offers 50% commission for text ads, where they essentially handle all of the work for you. This is a nice option if you don’t want to go out and look for people to advertise on your blog, but I still figure that you would be better off with a down-payment and 100% of the gains.

This program is a lot more like buying into an Adsense or a BidVertiser type advertising program than the previous options. The plus here is that they install the ads for you and pay commission based of views and clicks. Downside is that the minimum payout is $25 and you are only getting half of your potential income. Still, a popular option that many choose as an alternative to Google Adsense.

50% is a big piece of pie and if you don’t earn at least $25 then you are out that. Doesn’t seem like a good deal to me. It may be OK for a short-term solution if you don’t have time to manage your own monetization efforts. If that is the case then you can use this service until you can afford to manage your own efforts, in which case you can switch over to the plugin and reap more of the benefits.

Monetizing your blog can be the smartest or the dumbest thing you can do to your blog. Before you intend on placing ads, you need to make sure that your design can handle it without looking cluttered and that you are seeing enough visitors to render the decision. Think of it this way, if you wouldn’t want to pay a toll to read your content, you are not ready to place ads on your website. These awesome WordPress plugins are just some of the monetization programs, and I wanted to focus on those that operate direct with your blog’s administration center. Stay positive, and keep posting new content… you’ll be seeing income in no time!

-The Net Fool

The author of this article is Jim “The Net Fool”.

He is owner of theNetFool.com If you’d like to learn more about blogging, you can visit http://www.thenetfool.com You’ll find all the information you need!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_R_Regan

I agree with his assessment that monetizing your blog using these plugins can be very smart or very stupid. That’s why you need to carefully consider whether or not you want to go this route before you do. I would not monetize a company blog using any of these methods, with one exception: Only sell advertising on your blog to companies within your niche that do not compete with you. For example, if you are a real estate agent and you are approached by a mortgage lender in your market to sell a link from your blog to theirs then that would be OK since you do not sell mortgage products; it’s actually a good fit. But I would tell the mortgage lender that the link would be “nofollow” so that neither of you lose any search benefits.

If, on the other hand, you are approached by another real estate agent in your market who wants to buy an ad on your website then refuse their offer. You don’t want your traffic, which you have worked hard to get, leaving your website or blog to go to the competition. You’d rather have their business long term than to take the short term benefit of advertising money. Wouldn’t you?

There is a type of blog, though, that I’d have no problem selling advertising on and that is a blog set up specifically for informational purposes. Let’s say, for instance, that you wanted to start a blog that caters to real estate investors. You aren’t selling a service; you are just writing an instructional blog to teach other investors how to find properties, the pitfalls to watch out for, how to evaluate a property for investment purposes, etc. Obviously, you aren’t going to make any money on this blog if you don’t figure out a way to monetize it and squeeze some benefit out of it for yourself. It’s perfectly acceptable to write this kind of blog. Here’s what I’d do to make an instructional/informational blog worth your while:

• Develop a custom blog design - You want your informational blog to be eye-catching and unique. It tells your visitors that you are serious about teaching them your skills.
• Decide what monetization models you will use before you begin - Very important. Have a plan then work your plan. Know before you write your first post that you will be selling banner ads, text ads, or paid reviews. Maybe it will be all of the above. But decide before you start how you will monetize your blog. But don’t implement any of the monetization models at this time.
• Before you do anything else, focus on building traffic - Before you sell your first ad or attempt to sell anything at all, focus first on developing great content and building up your traffic. If you only have two regular readers, your ad values will not be much. No one will want to buy an ad for a blog with only two readers. You must concentrate all of your efforts in the beginning to writing great blog posts and attracting loyal readers. How long will that take? It depends. It could take three months or a year depending on several factors such as your writing skills, your niche and its popularity, whether you own your own domain or you use a free host, and your ability to market your blog effectively. However long it takes, do not sell any ads until you get your loyal traffic numbers up to a point that you can safely say you’ve attracted an audience.
• Sell your first ad - Don’t go bonkers with ad sales until you test the waters first. You want to see what will be the most effective monetization method for your blog. Some blogs will do better with text links, others will do better with banner ads. Know what your visitors will go along with. If you start implement ads and you see your traffic start dropping then you probably want to stop selling those types of ads. All the ad sales in the world won’t matter if you don’t have any traffic. It is important that you keep your blog’s visitors in mind and only implement methods that they will tolerate.
• After testing the waters, start selling - Once you’ve reached a level of comfortability, begin selling ads full force.

Blog monetization through ad sales can be lucrative if done the right way. But everything you do on your blog must be done to serve your visitors. Otherwise, you will not get, or keep, that many visitors.

A ghostwriter can be a big asset if you do not have the ability to write. You’ll have to figure the cost of the ghostwriting service into your business plan from the very beginning. Will you write the blog yourself until you start selling ads? Will the ghostwriter write all the posts until you start selling ads? Make sure you define it in your plan and count the costs before you begin. Make sure that you have enough money in the bank before hiring a ghostwriter for several months with no profit so that you can work your way toward your monetization efforts when the time is right. And also make sure that your ghostwriter understands the long term vision for your blog. If you plan to sell ads later on then let your ghostwriter in on that knowledge right from the very beginning because it will make a difference in how he writes your blog for you and if he knows that you will be selling ads later then he can make that transition go more smoothly for you in the writing throughout the life of your blog.

The record industry does everything they can to be sure no one is copying their music. The movie industry goes after people who download, trade, and copy movies. The Associated Press has even tried to say copying anything they write, even if you attribute the source, is a copyright violation. Now some bloggers seem to want to follow their lead when it comes to the words they type into their blogs.

If you search on technorati for terms like splogger, spam blogs, content scraping, etc. you will find a lot of bloggers who seem to spend an awful lot of time checking the Internet to see if someone copied any of their content.

Peronally, I believe that as long as I do not copy the whole story, but copy a few quotes or a couple of paragraphs, then put that into blockquotes clearly showing I am quoting another source, then linking back to that source clearly so people can read the rest of the story at it’s source, that is not a violation of copyright.

This applies to me also commenting on that story with my own original text and comments, simply using the quote so people will know what I am commenting on without clicking over while they are reading the post..

I do not need to email you first to ask permission, just as I can quote any news source, politician, or celebrity and then comment on it. By law I can even rewrite your whole post and make changes to it to make fun of it. It’s called a parody and should be labeled as such. All copying is not illegal. There are legitimate exceptions.

Yes, it is wrong to scrape and use someone else’s content. There is no question about that. But as many have tried to ask the music and movie industry, is the copying really harming anyone?

With the music and movie industry, they answer by saying that copying music and movies costs them sales. But if someone scrapes some content of of someone’s blog, does it cost the blogger sales? Does it harm the blogger in some other way? Reputation? Money? Traffic? Readers?

If you are not making money on your blog, you will find it hard to claim the splogger is causing you financial hardship.

There are three things an attorney looks at when deciding to take your case or not.

1. Has a wrong been done? Let’s say yes. The splogger stole your content and that is wrong.

2. Have you been financially harmed by this wrong? With many of the bloggers doing the most complaining about this, the answer is no. But let’s say somehow it did cost you money and you can answer this question yes.

3. Does the person who did the wrong have the ability to pay? First of all you would have to determine which country the splogger or content thief lives in and what are the laws in that country in relation to US copyright law.

It seems that every blogger who spends a lot of time complaining about content thieves and sploggers and scrapers consider themselves at least semi-experts on copyright law. Just ask them. They read about it and now know all of their rights.

The problem is that most of these bloggers live in the US and most people in the US seem to be under the impression that US law applies to people all over the world somehow. Basically, “This person stole my content and copyright law says it’s illegal, therefore I can make them stop.”

It is not nearly that easy. US law applies to people who live in the US. Some countries respect and protect US copyrights. Some countries do not. Were you actually financially harmed by the splogger, spammer, scraper, or content thief? Could they pay damages even if they were sued? Would you actually be able to collect even if you got a judgement?

In most cases at least one of the things mentioned above would leave you powerless to do anything about it. it doesn’t mean you don’t have the right to talk about it. It just means we are all supposed to have the wisdom to know the difference between the things we can and can’t control and to not spend too much time worrying about the things beyond our control.

If your blog is say PR4 and has been around for 2-3 years or more, and the person’s blog that is scraping, reusing, reblogging, or rewriting your content is only a few months old and, as it is in most cases, they have a PR0, the search engines will still credit the original content as coming from the original blogger.

The search engines are getting much more sophisticated. They are onto the copycats and sploggers. For me, I plan to let them do their job while I get back to doing my job. I don’t plan to spend all my time chasing people who copy other people.

They won’t be successful anyway. The duplicate content will be detected in most cases. Your site will continue to benefit from original content and the sploggers will continue to chase their tails. Lazy people don’t become successful on or off the web. Well, unless you’re Paris Hilton.

But for some bloggers this has become an obsession. A crusade. They blog about the sploggers all the time as if they are losing money by the minute due to someone copying some of their text.

Some bloggers believe that even if you link back and attribute the source, copying ANY of their content that you want to comment on is still stealing content. They believe you should have emailed them and asked them if you could comment on their post and use some of the post as an example.

The only thing I can think of to ask these bloggers is;

“Do you really believe that you are such a famous writer that every word you write is that important?”

In some cases, I think it is an ego issue more than it is an issue about copyright law and being harmed by the sploggers and scrapers.

Some bloggers make their living blogging as I do. If you make your living at it, then you do have to police your content to some degree. You do not need to spend all of your time on it however. It just doesn’t matter that much.

Readers know by reading the splog that the content is not original if they have any sense at all. The search engines know it’s garbage. Let the techies who are supposed to detect it do their job while you do yours. That’s my opinion.

But many of the bloggers spending all of their time running around emailing sploggers to demand the removal of their content do not blog as a profession.

There is nothing at all with blogging because you like to blog and not doing it professionally. A blog written by a blogger that is not in it for the money is just as valuable as any blog written by a professional. Some would say even more legitimate because they don’t believe their should be professional bloggers or commercial blogs or business blogs.

However, if you are not blogging and making money and the splogger or content thief is not costing you money, there is not a lot you can do about it. There are likely exceptions where there is an action you can take that is worth the time and effort to do so. Those cases are the exception, not the rule.

Keep writing original content. You will be rewarded with search engine traffic, subscribers, and loyal readers. Let the techhies at the search engine companies figure out how to handle the people who don’t want to run a legitimate blog. It’s their job to provide users with relevant content. To do that, they have to go after the scrapers, sploggers, and content thieves, along with a whole lot of other scammers out there.

If you cannot control yourself and you find you just cannot stop talking about these people who steal content at least quit linking to them when you post about them.

Take a screeeshot or something to prove your point. Why help them with link popularity from your legitimate blog? This can hurt you in the search engines if they have already flagged that blog you just linked to.

Secondly, burn your feed through feedburner. Add an image into the footer that goes with your feed. The image should say originally posted at suchandsuchyourblog.com. If you found this image on another website address that website or blog may be stealing content.

Either way. Don’t obssess over it. There are cases where it might cause you actual harm. Save your energy for those times.

If it is to be your passion, then start a blog that is all about that. But remember, if I am a subscriber to your blog because of the stuff you normally write, then you take that away from me so you can crusade about something entirely off topic, I will likely unsubscribe. Your crusade may cost you readers since it may not be their crusade or an issue they care anything about.

Just my two cents worth on the topic. I posted about this here because many of my clients own blogs and they have raised concerns about this due to reading other blogs that make a mountain out of the content scraping molehill.