Could YOU Be Accidentally Plagiarising Other Bloggers?

Posted: 11 Mar 2014 06:00 AM PDT

One morning, I read a guest post on a major blog on a topic that I specialise in.

All the sections in the post sounded like points I’d make. At first I brushed that off. But then something about the wording made me pause.

This post seemed a little too familiar.

A quick Google later, and I'd found a post I wrote two years before: a guest post for a different blog. My structure and all my ideas had been used, intact. Unusual words and phrases – like "mediocre" – were used in both posts. Every one of my sentences had been reworded (in many cases badly) but it was still stolen.

Plagiarism doesn't just mean passing off someone's words as your own. It includes stealing their ideas.

Of course, you'd never take someone else's blog post and publish it as your own.

(And if your posts get stolen, here's how to deal with it.)

There often aren't many brand new ideas in a particular niche – just old ones expressed in fresh ways. But where do you draw the line between "research" and "theft"? What counts as plagiarism and how can you avoid it?

"Spinning" a Post is Still Plagiarism

The rather ironic thing about this guest post is that the author was promoting a site that sells anti-plagiarism software! I suppose my post passed their tests – and I don't think anyone could have found the original by a Google search except for me, the original author.

But if you take someone's blog post and rewrite it all in your own words, that's still plagiarism. After all, you're stealing the hard work that they put into research and planning it, and structuring it carefully.

This doesn't mean you can't use other people's posts for research. But you should never rely on just one source. It makes it too easy to plagiarise (even without really meaning to). Plus, using multiple sources means your post is more likely to contain solid, agreed-on ideas.

Quoting from Other Authors

If you want to use someone's exact words in your own post, you can … but you need to put them in quotation marks or in <blockquotes> formatting.

You should always give the name of the person who wrote (or spoke) those words, and if they're from a blog post, it's good practice to link to it. If you're quoting from a blog post or web page, it’s good practice to link to it.

Tip: Where bloggers (and other writers) find themselves accidentally plagiarising, it’s usually because they’ve copied chunks of posts while researching into their notes, without necessarily including the author’s name. It’s all too easy to come back to these months later and think that they’re your own words.

Using a Post as the Basis for Your Own

What if you read a post that’s so good, you want to present the material in it to your blog readers? You don’t just want to use a short quote from it – you want to give them the whole post, or at least a substantial amount of it.

The best way to do that is to write a fresh post of your own, introducing the post, then quoting from and linking to it. Daniel does this frequently here on DailyBlogTips – here are a couple of examples:

Careful with Guest Blogging for SEO Purposes Only

100 Great Business Ideas for 2014

Ultimately, make sure that everything you write is:

In your own words (apart from direct quotes, where you acknowledge the source).
Based on multiple sources, and/or your own ideas, rather than on one blog post or article.

If you’ve got a question about plagiarism, just pop a comment below.

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One Crucial Thing You MUST Avoid When Choosing a Free WordPress Theme

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 07:01 AM PDT

Let's say you're looking for a fresh new look for your blog … but your budget is non-existent.

What do you do?

Perhaps you head to Google and type in:

"free wordpress themes"

There are a huge number of sites offering these – you might be a bit dazzled by the range. But you find a theme you like, download and install it, and you're happy.

Except there's a catch.

That theme includes malicious code, or an encrypted link back to the creator's site. Using it for your blog could open you up to serious problems – like malware infecting your site, or Google penalising you.

(Even if the theme creator had good intentions, it may have been tampered with by a hacker before being released onto the web.)

Get a Safe, Free WordPress Theme

Thankfully, there's a really simple solution. Always choose themes through the WordPress.org site. They have a free theme directory here.

You can also find these themes through your blog's dashboard, under Appearance à Themes à Add New.

If you find a free theme somewhere else that you like, check whether it's available on the WordPress.org site. If it isn't, avoid it.

ProBlogger: The One Thing You Should Be Doing on Your Blog to Create More Engagement

The One Thing You Should Be Doing on Your Blog to Create More Engagement

Posted: 10 Mar 2014 02:28 PM PDT

This is a guest contribution from Karl Staib of Domino Connection.

Image via Flickr user realpeopleeatplants

Wouldn't it be great if you were getting twice as many blog post comments as you do now?

If people would ask you more questions and add comments, it would help build your community. They spur conversation that might even help you to create new content. And as you may know, people who engage with your blog are more likely to become loyal fans who buy from you and share your content with their tribe.

Google also loves a lot of searchable comments. It helps them understand which posts are worth sending people to. Not to mention the social proof that comes along with a post that has a lot of comments.

Finding how to create this powerful engagement is so important to building an audience that cares what you create. So let’s take a look at how we can do this.

Increasing Your Engaged Blog Community

You know how important an engaged community is for your blog. I don't need to convince you of that.

But what can you do to increase that engagement?

Of course traffic is a big part of how much engagement you generate on your blog, I get that, but we all have to start from one comment to get two, 10 to get 20, and so on.

The one thing you may not be doing is probably the same thing a lot of bloggers make the mistake of not doing.

Let me tell you a little story before we dive deeper.

I have a friend who switched blogging topics. She shut down one site and started another because she wasn't able to monetize her blog. I was worried she would give up on this new blog too. She was too talented not to help people. I know how hard it is to get people to converse on your blog because I've had many blog posts with zero comments.

A funny thing happened though. She got even more comments on the new blog compared to the old blog in less than three months.

Her lighthearted, conversational tone shines through now. She is even more engaging because she enjoys building connections with people in this new topic even more than her old topic.

Small Change, Big Improvement

I noticed a small change she made that I wasn’t sure she was aware that she had made herself. So I asked her, "Why do you think you're getting more comments?"

"I'm not sure. I think I'm more passionate about the subject I guess. No wait it's the value. People can't help reciprocating when something is valuable," she responded.

Now passion is good and value is even better, but a lot of people are passionate and still don't get 18 comments per post on a site that doesn't get a lot of traffic.

So I looked at a few of her old blog posts and I realized the simple change she had made – her older blog posts were passionate, valuable and conversational, but weren’t getting the same engagement. The change she made with this new blog was weaving in open-ended questions and asking for her readers’ ideas throughout her blog.

When you look at your writing, do you feel it’s open to new ideas?

She is so friendly in her writing that it makes you feel like she is just talking to you. When she asks a question, you pause and take a second or two to think about it. Then when you got to the bottom of the post and the comments section, the seed has already been planted and you don't have to work hard to think of something unique to say. You already know something that you want to say.

3 Steps to More Engagement

So here’s my "must do" list to create more conversation on your blog:

Look at your blog's tone of voice and if it's open to new ideas. Do your readers feel like you are talking directly to them? I like to think of writing to just one person in my community. I have a few people I rotate through as I'm writing. Right now I'm thinking of a young man with glasses reading this at the end of his day. That's why using the word "you" is so important as opposed to "I", or someone's name.
Are you passionate about your subject? People can feel when you really care about your content. They want to be a part of this passion.
Now look at the value that you bring to the table. Can people find this information delivered in this manner on other sites, or is yours special or unique?

Once you’ve got friendliness, passion, and value in your blog post, you just need to ask questions that plant seeds and get your readers’ ideas flowing, then hit them with a final question that they just can't resist answering when they get to the bottom of your post, and the comment section is just waiting for them to help the community.

What piece of the blog engagement pie do you think is most important? I’d love to hear your opinion in the comment section

Check out Karl Staib of Domino Connection and his value-packed 30 Day Connection Guide and Customer Conversion e-course to Increase Your Leads and Sales. You'll learn how to find your ideal customers, improve your landing page conversion and what you need to measure so you can convert visitors into buyers.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

The One Thing You Should Be Doing on Your Blog to Create More Engagement