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Ways To Run Your Blog Like A Small Business
2 years ago
It’s always about ‘how blogging would help in a small business’ rather than the other way around. Ever since I started my intense blogging in February 2009, I’ve noticed how much my four and a half years of working background in product and customer service for a small company had taught me much about blogging. Whether or not your aim is to monetize, most of us bloggers are hoping for the same thing: traffic and productivity – which in a small business scenario translates to customers and revenue.
Here’s a basic flow of how a small business usually runs:
Starting & Planning:
1. Deciding the Service/Merchandise
Merchandise is the revenue generator for small business. It depends much on the current market and the types of needs your business could fulfill. Small business conductors will carry out brief market research, identify and test upon the targeted market with several prototypes in a considerable amount. They never sit and wait for business to come knocking on their doors.
Deciding your blog niche is essential. Even if you have no idea which niche that best fits you, tryout several writings for your preferred topics. You will then able to decide which will bring you the most satisfactions and success, while pinpoint your weakness and strength along the way. Actions lead to outcomes. Whether good or bad, gain experience from it.
2. Maximize Your Resources
Are you financially equipped? Knowledge and experience wise? Small business conductors will maximize the use of their assets to help in the business, innovatively turn every idea into action.
Some bloggers are well adapted with knowledge of programming, web designs and SEO. By all means, apply these to optimize your blogging results. Even if you don’t have much to offer, take up a self-learning course on the how-tos, joining forums to get familiarize with the blogosphere, get help or necessary advices from the specialists. Make an effort to build your resources via knowledge database because what you gain is invaluable, and will be a major asset for your blogging career in future.
3. Planning and Precautions; Expect the Unexpected
Yes, we heard a lot about the benefits of owning a business plan. However, un-expectancies are bound to happen during the process, such as product shortage on promised date, warranty issues, customer complaints etc. Such experiences taught our company to be constantly alert and have backup plans whenever an issue comes up.
In blogging, it’s advisable to have yourself prepared for situations like burnt outs, data-lost, commenting issues or a sudden server breakdown. Preparation is always better than regretting later. Try to be ahead of your problems if possible. Trust me, you’re gonna thank yourself for initiating the backup plans.
Actions:
4. Publicity & Promotional Methods
Being the sole distributor for a particular merchandise helps to gain popularity fast. Otherwise, you need to work extra hard for publicity, such as offering special discounts or free gifts for loyal customers. Educate your new customers: what’s the main attraction of your product? Why should they come to you instead of your competitors? Sometimes it requires patience, but quality is what ensures business reputations and longevity.
Same as blogging, to stand out from the saturated market, you need to start building your own audiences with quality content. Originality will win you backlinks from other sites while ensures sustainability. You could have exposures done effectively via blog commenting, taking parts in forums, initiate promotions via blogging campaigns, guest postings and participate in social media sites. Another great way is to reward your readers with free subscription gifts or link love for their continuous supports.
5. Quality Product & Customer Service
Nowadays, many small businesses overlook the importance of ‘after sell service’, which sometimes one of the reasons that drive the customers away. Word of mouth can either build you, or destroy you. Thus, be attentive to our customers is always our utmost policy.
In blogging, what defines quality content? Subjective as it is, but not running far from solving a problem, generating ideas and creating good vibe for those who read it. Consider about your readers at all times. Unless you’re super busy with reasons not able to give an instant feedback, otherwise, you need to cater their needs asap.
Reviews:
6. Feedbacks
We do monthly reviews on our merchandises. Such action helps to decide whether our business will continue to benefit from it, or should we move on to other alternatives? It takes into account every customer’s feedback, call of complaints, solutions provided by the vendor, and ROI after considering all the aspects.
Likewise, we are concern about blog visitors and their reactions to our writings. We cannot please everyone, but we still need to take in all the feedbacks, good or bad, and improvise them. Knowing the importance of reviewing your blog will ensure acceptance from your visitors. It could be done by observing your blog comments, emails, and monitoring via Google Alert regarding your personal branding on various sites.
7. Follow Ups
In small business, it’s easier to follow up on customers in a regular basis. Whether it is via phone calls, surveys or a casual conversation during their visits to our premise. This is to build up a marketing relationship with our customers, having them to come back regularly for our services or products.
By utilizing the same concept, we can try to get in touch with our readers, not only through comments, but through emailing as well. Make use of the social media sites available for effective follow-ups. Form an author-reader relationship. Bear in mind your readers could always go to other similar blogs but they’ve chosen yours instead. With this simple reason they deserved your pamper and attention at all times.
Research & Development
8. Quality Control
We are always told to deliver more than what we promised and never the other way around. A well manageable small business is never negligent of quality control.
Blogging is always about quality control for that matter. Besides writing skills, try to minimize the spelling mistakes, and have a clean blog layout that is easy to navigate. Make sure the content is well structured and not losing your personal touch. Maybe a new input would be good for your blog? Try occasional use of vodcast or radio show for your blogging presentations. But don’t over doing it, or risk yourself without a proper training at first.
9. Outsourcing & Future Planning
A small business will find ways to survive, for example outsourcing for possible ventures. Most small business conductors are risk takers and willing to expand their business to the next level.
Try to figure the next possible step for your blog. Could it be collaboration with like-minded bloggers for a webinar? Building a fan site in Facebook? An ebook? If you’re all about gaining knowledge on how to monetize your blog, it’s important to know how and when it’s the time to make it happen.
It is said that blogging market is saturated. But we need to be optimistic if we wish to go headstrong in this blogging business. Small business runners are risk takers, opportunists, and customer-oriented, something we could learn much about and benefit from. However, it’s important to never lose touch of our own selves. Be honest, sincere, and a positive attitude will help us go a long way, while running our blog successfully like a small business.
Limiting My Online Hours
2 years ago
I don’t know about you, but every time my access to the Internet is limited, I become more productive. For example, currently I need to write 50 pages of content for a small project, and I had been procrastinating on it for over a week. Then yesterday my Internet connection died virtually the whole day, and as a consequence I managed to write around 10 pages. How come? There was nothing else to do!
And the curious thing is that I consider myself to be quite disciplined. Yet when I have free access to the web I tend to disperse my attention.
That is why I decided to run a small experiment for the month of August. I will limit my online time to two hours per day. The rest of the time I will physically unplug my ethernet cable.
On those two hours I will clean my email inbox, publish the daily post, and carry out any other task that requires access to the web. The rest of my work time I will spend writing content and working on business related matters.
NoTwitter !!
I do think that Twitter is a very useful online application, for several purposes. It allows people that work from home or alone in front of a computer all day to socialize. It allows bloggers and website owners to interact with their readers on another level. It should even allow one to make new friends and to get in touch with people that would be unreachable otherwise.
The problem I am seeing lately, though, is that many people are giving Twitter priority even when they have something interesting, useful or funny to say; or when they have some resources to share. In those situations, I think it would be a better idea to develop your thoughts and ideas a bit further, and post it on your blog instead.
Why? Because your blog is your property. It should be the single most important location for you on the Internet. It should be the place where people go to when they think about you. Your blog, not Twitter (unless you only Twitter obviously).
Even if you don’t like to think in abstract terms, there are material reasons to opt to blog something instead of Twittering it. In the long run every backlink and every visitor count. Guess what, every time you Twitter instead of blogging something interesting you are risking to lose visitors and backlinks.
This very post illustrates the case. My initial though was to Twitter about this. Since we have the limit of 140 characters over there, it would be something like “Hey guys, have you ever thought that perhaps instead of Twittering you should be blogging?”
Instead of doing that, though, I decided to develop my thoughts further and create a post with it.
Now think about two people starting today on the online world. One adopts the strategy I am describing here. The other goes religiously with Twitter, blogging once in a while. After one year, I suspect that the former would have a popular blog, while the latter would have a popular Twitter account.
Customer Support
2 years ago
This should be a no-brainer, I know. Unfortunately it is not. It is incredible the amount of large and reputable companies out there that have poor customer support.
A couple of weeks ago I was purchasing a domain name via a renowned company. I made the payment (it was over $1,000), received confirmation of the payment, and then I was left waiting for the transfer process to begin. I started the transaction on Saturday, so I knew that perhaps they would not be working on the weekend (although they should; this is the Internet!).
Monday and Tuesday passed, and still I had not heard back from them. At this point you can imagine that I was starting to feel uneasy. Not because I was fearing they would fail to deliver the domain, but because I really needed to have control over it as soon as possible to start building the website.
I then wrote an email to the manager that was responsible for my transaction, asking if he had any updates. Sometimes you don’t even expect that they fix the problem immediately, but you want to know what they are doing to solve it, what information and previsions they have and so on. That was my case.
I would be happy as long as he promptly emailed me back saying: “We’re working on it, it should require another day or two.”
But that did not happen. He just replied to my email on the next day, after 30 hours or so.
I mean, are you kidding me? One of the largest domain dealers on the Internet takes 30 hours to reply to a customer’s email?
Needless to say that I was pretty unhappy with the overall experience, and I will think twice before purchasing another domain with them.
Now, remember that this point applies to virtually any company or business entity, including your websites, freelance business or blog. Your readers are your customers, after all. Take 30 hours to answer to their comments or emails and I am sure that they will think twice before coming back.
Treat Your Blog as a Business !!
2 years ago
1. Goals
Any traditional business will have goals that are set for a specific period of time, usually monthly, quarterly, and annually. Blogging should really be no different. If you hope to make a full-time income, or even a solid part-time income, you really should have specific goals of revenue that you need to produce. It seems obvious, but I think many of us don’t take goals as seriously as other types of businesses.
In order for your goals to be effective, they should be time-sensitive (meaning they end at a particular date), measurable, and attainable, although not too easily attainable. I think many of the bloggers who actually do set goals get a little caught up in the excitement and set their goals a bit too high right off the bat. As a result, many of them get disappointed and discouraged and quickly assume that blogging is not the way for them to make money online.
2. Accountability
Along with goals comes accountability. As an employee of a business you can be held accountable if you fail to meet the goals that are established for you. This, of course, can mean anything from a loss of a bonus all the way down to being fired. Too many bloggers initially set goals and then never follow up with tracking them or holding themselves accountable. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you fire yourself if you don’t achieve your goals. Rather, I believe that we could all benefit by taking ownership and being willing to honestly evaluate how our performance is living up to expectations.
3. Priority
Almost all of us are willing to get up each morning and go to work all day for someone else in order to make a living. If we are willing to do this for an employer, shouldn’t we make it a priority to put an effort into our own business? Although most bloggers are doing so part-time, as a business it should take priority over some other things in our life (of course this is a decision that each of us will have to make according to what is best for us). If blogging is not on your list of priorities, it’s probably not a real business and your chances of making money are slim.
4. Scheduling
If making money with a blog is a priority, we should dedicate specific time for it. Blogging becomes much more difficult when it only gets your attention when nothing else of interest is going on. Make an effort to decide how much time you are willing and able to dedicate to blogging each week and create a basic schedule that will help you to get that time in throughout the week. It doesn’t have to be something that you follow exactly each week, but get in the habit of seeing your time as being occupied by your efforts of building your blogging business.
5. Time Management
Now that you’ve scheduled some time to work, it can be helpful to track exactly how much of your time is being spent on what efforts. Try using a tool like Toggl (it’s free) or a more advanced tool like Harvest to see where your time is being spent. Most of us waste a lot more time than we realize and these tools can help to increase our efficiency.
6. Spending
Businesses are willing to spend money in order to make money. Bloggers, however, are usually looking only for the free options. I’m not suggesting that you go out and spend loads of money to build and market your blog, but keep an open mind to products and services that can streamline your efforts and increase your productivity.
7. Bookkeeping
If your blog is a business to you, it’s important to keep good records of your income and expenses. As a business, your expenses will most likely be tax deductible (check with a tax professional in your country), so you will obviously want accurate records. Tracking your income can also be helpful for monitoring your progress towards goals and for confidence and moral boosts.
You can use a number of different tools for this purpose, including a spreadsheet program like Excel. If you’re making decent money with your blog and you want a more sophisticated solution, there are several online programs, including Xero. For most bloggers a simple spreadsheet system will do.
8. Outsourcing
Many successful bloggers have found outsourcing to be an effective way to manage multiple projects. Daniel obviously runs several blogs, and I doubt that would be possible for him without outsourcing some of the work to others. He is certainly not alone. Hiring writers can be a good choice if your blog is producing enough money to cover the expenses. It’s not the right move for everyone, and definitely not for all stages of bloggers, but be willing to consider outsourcing as an option to improve your business’s profits.
Is There a Career in Blogging?
2 years ago
Treat it Like a Business
I think a lot of bloggers expect to get financial results that they would get from any other type of business, but yet they approach their blog as a hobby. If you want to be able to blog full-time you must respect it as a legitimate business like any other.
If your blog is a business you will schedule your other activities around your work, not the other way around. Of course blogging part-time until you can reach this level will bring its own unique time constraints and challenges, but you should always schedule plenty of time to work on your blog. Don’t just simply work on it when you have spare time and hope for big results.
Businesses are willing to invest in order to improve profitability. Bloggers obviously need to be willing to invest their time, but being willing to also invest some money can really improve your results. Many bloggers are always looking for the free options and not even open-minded to spending a little bit of money in order to be able to make even more money. If you are making money from your blog, dedicate some of that income to be reinvested back into your blog. Maybe you’ll spend it on advertising, or maybe on a new blog theme. There are any number of things you can do to improve your blog if you are will to reinvest some of your income.
Develop Multiple Sources of Income
Many bloggers fall into the trap of assuming that all of their income will be generated by selling ads. While advertising can be a great source of income, you should never rely on that alone. You’ll need to have an incredibly popular blog to ever earn a full-time income solely on advertising. Additionally, reliance on one form of income is less stable than if you have multiple sources.
If you’re currently only producing income through ads, look for some affiliate programs that you can promote on your blog. If you’re able to find the right affiliate products you can not only increase your income, but you can also help your readers by introducing them to some great products.
In addition to ads and affiliate programs, you may be able to make some money by selling premium content or by selling your own products. A great example of premium content can be found at PSDTuts, a Photoshop tutorial blog. They offer a premium subscription for $9 a month that gives subscribers the files that are used in the tutorials plus some exclusive content that is not available to all subscribers.
How Many Blogs Do You Need to Own?
Most bloggers that make a full-time income online have more than just one blog. For example, Daniel has a network that includes Daily Writing Tips and Daily Bits in addition to Daily Blog Tips. While having more blogs obviously involves more work, it also opens up the opportunity to make more money and it provides a bit more stability as you are not putting all of your eggs in one basket.
It’s my opinion that you should focus on building one strong blog before adding others, but that is really just a matter of opinion. I think that having one popular blog will make it easier for you to launch other successful blogs, especially if they are covering similar topics.
An Alternate Possibility
Freelance blogging can also provide plenty of opportunities to make money with blogs. I kind of fell into freelance blogging without really trying, but I have found it to be a great source of income and exposure. There are an increasing number of blogs out there that are hiring writers, so opportunities are waiting to be found.
While I enjoy freelance blogging, I don’t necessarily think it is a great long-term approach to pro blogging. Long-term you are better off being the one that owns the blog, but I have found freelancing to be a great way to make money while growing a blog of your own.
What You Will Need to Become a Pro Blogger
Dedication – Having a career as a blogger is work, and it requires being dedicated to success. There will always be struggles and temptations to give up along the way, but those who are cut out for pro blogging will push through those obstacles.
Some Time – Developing a money-making blog doesn’t happen overnight. Most bloggers aren’t in a position where they can quit their full-time job and just replace their income with their blog. If you’re willing to take some time and make progress with consistent work, pro blogging is a possibility.
A Strong Network – Every successful blogger has surrounded themselves with a strong network of other bloggers. Be involved with others in your niche and make an effort to develop some solid friendships with others.
The Ability to Develop Content and Market a Blog – Pro bloggers aren’t always the best writers out there, but they all have found ways to create content that draws attention and a response from readers. Additionally, being able to market that content is equally important.
The Ability to Run a Business – A money-making blog is very much a real and legitimate business. Several major blogs are really more like a business than a blog (example, TechCrunch, Mashable, ReadWriteWeb). If your business skills are lacking, this is an area that you may want to develop.
SWOT Analysis
2 years ago
The Art of War is one of the oldest and most famous studies about strategy. It was written by Sun Tzu, a Chinese general, and below you will find one of the most important points on the book:
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Having a clear understanding of both internal and external factors is essential for a successful strategy, be it military strategy, business strategy or blogging strategy. The SWOT analysis is a simple yet effective tool for understanding those factors. It will highlight the Strengths and Weaknesses (internal) as well as the Opportunities and Threats (external) for a certain company or project.
Strengths: the first step when performing the SWOT analysis is to define your strengths. If you are not sure about those, just ask yourself some questions, including: “What makes my blog unique?”, “What compliments have it received from readers?”, “What articles were linked from other bloggers and why?”.
Example of blogging strengths:
- expertise around a certain topic
- web designing skills
- creativity or innovative ideas
- a network of influential people
Weaknesses: once identified the strengths you will list the weaknesses of your blog. Weaknesses can emerge from problems that you faced over the past, for instance if you messed your blog database and lost some data your programming skills could be considered a weakness. Alternatively you can also think about competencies or areas that could be improved.
Example of blogging weaknesses:
- lack of technical knowledge (i.e. html, PHP, databases)
- lack of blogging knowledge (i.e. pings, trackbacks)
- poor writing skills
- poor online marketing skills
Opportunities: after analysing the internal factors you will need to tap the external environment, which comprehends other bloggers, websites, readers and pretty much everything that is not under your control. Opportunities usually emerge from changes, therefore you need to pay attention to what could possibly change in the near future and how your blog could benefit from that.
Examples of blogging opportunities:
- joining a blog network
- joining an advertising network
- creating a new meme
- exploiting a new niche
- leveraging a new service
Threats: the final step on the SWOT analysis is the evaluation of possible threats. The threats can appear either from external changes or from internal weaknesses that have not been protected.
Examples of blogging threats:
- technical problems (i.e. server downtime, loss of data)
- your topic becomes obsolete
- SEO problems (i.e. Google drops your blog)
- lack of time to blog
The SWOT analysis will give you a clear understanding of the internal and external factors affecting your blog. Once the evaluation is performed you will be able to focus on your strengths, improve the weaknesses, benefit from external opportunities and protect yourself from possible threats.
Outsourcing
2 years ago
Outsourcing involves delegating some operations to an external entity, which is usually specialized in managing that operation. Outsourcing emerged on the business world as a method to focus a company’s energy and resources on some core-activities, where most of the value is created, while delegating non-core activities to external suppliers that can execute those operations more efficiently and with reduced costs.
Blogs can be perfectly compared to business entities, and from such analogy we understand that not all blogging tasks are core-activities. Sometime ago I wrote the article “10 Requisites for Professional Bloggers” where I outlined 10 factors that contribute to the success of a blogger. While I believe that every blogger should at least have a basic knowledge of those areas it is not necessary to master all of them. Some people will inevitably have better writing skills while others will have more technical expertise.
Before considering to outsource some of your blog activities you need to carry an objective evaluation about your blogging skills, and identify where the value is being created on your blog. A certain person might be an outstanding marketer but an average writer. In that case most of the value on the blog will be created from the marketing activities and not from the content itself, meaning that this person should consider outsourcing the writing part to a more competent writer.
Alternatively someone might have brilliant writing abilities but no web design skills whatsoever. This person could try to design the blog template by himself, but the result would a poorly designed blog and a lot of time wasted on the process.
If you are not sure about your core-activities or where value is being created on your blog you need to ask yourself the following question: “Why readers come to my blog? What makes my blog different from the other 50 million out there?”. Below you will find a list of activities that could possibly be outsourced:
Web Design: this is the easiest activity to outsource given the vast pool of talented designers across the Internet. If you are looking for a professional design you should get in touch with a design studio (The Blog Studio, a sponsor of this blog, is a top notch resource when it comes to blog designing). Alternative you can check Sitepoint’s contest section, where people can create a contest for a particular job. After the job is posted designers will submit their entries and the contest holder will pick the best one.
Content: sometimes a blogger might want to increase the posting frequency of his blog without having to dedicate more hours to it, and the solution is to hire co-writers. Secondly, even if the blogger writes well he could have stronger marketing or entrepreneurial competencies. In that case he should probably focus his energy on creating and promoting new blogs while outsourcing the writing part for people that is specialized on doing that. A good place to find talented bloggers is the ProBlogger Job Board.
Blog maintenance: keeping a small blog up and running is no challenging task. As soon as your blog starts to grow, however, the problems will emerge. They will range from server issues to spam, backup and security concerns and so on. If you lack the time or expertise to deal with the technical side you should consider hiring someone to host your blog and take care of the maintenance. The Digital Point forum has an active market place for those services.
Online marketing: content is surely king, but without proper promotion and search engine optimization even great content might get lost on the Internet. Mastering the basics of SEO and online marketing is not a difficult task, but if you are looking for tangible results you should consider getting some professional help. There are plenty of SEO firms and individual experts across the Internet, and you can also turn to established players like Pronet Advertising or SEOMoz.
Online Marketing Mix
2 years ago
he Marketing Mix is one of the most famous marketing concepts, it refers to the elements of the marketing strategy which are designed to meet the needs of the customers and to support a company’s product or service offering.
Traditionally the Marketing Mix has been represented by four “Ps”: Product, Price, Promotion and Place. In simple words, the product must suit the customer’s needs, the pricing structure must be in line with the company objectives, the promotion techniques used must be efficient for the target market and the distribution channels must ensure that the product will be available on the right places.
One could use those four “Ps” to perform a marketing analysis of manufacturing and production businesses, but in order to apply them to online entities like websites or blogs we must redefine the four concepts. Below you will find the four “Ps” of the Online Marketing Mix.
From Product to Purpose: instead of a suitable product website owners and bloggers must have a clear purpose. This purpose will help you to define what you should and what you should not do with your blog. Secondly it will also make clear for your readers what they should expect from the blog, explicating what is the value that they will get out of reading it. Online success comes from understanding one simple rule: “it is not about you (author), it is about them (readers)”.
From Promotion to Persuasion: innovative media such as blogs, wikis and social networks are changing the flow of information on our society. Until some years ago companies had almost complete control of the promotion factor. Today, however, customers and users control half of the equation. They are able to rate products, express their opinion and recommend stuff to their friends or online communities. As a blogger you need to persuade (in a positive way) your readers, making them want to share your ideas and recommend your information to their friends.
Form Place to Presence: the term place has lost its meaning on the new economy. Today you are able to create a company and offer your services worldwide without leaving your room, as long as you have an Internet connection. Instead of place bloggers should focus on the presence. In simple words, where are people looking for information? What are the different ways that they could use to discover your blog and your content? Examples include online portals, article directories, forums, social networks, other blogs, advertising placements, online communities and so on.
From Price to Personalization: most of the services and information online are free, meaning that the price element is inadequate. Before paying attention to monetization options, in fact, bloggers and webmasters should focus on the personalization issue. The Web 2.0 phenomenon is growing fast because it shifts the power to the users. People want to be able to read their news on the most appropriate device, they want to personalize their home page, to tag their content, to share their favorite videos. And what is more important, they want to do all that on a smooth way. Make sure that your blog reflects that trend. Practically speaking make sure that you offer RSS feeds, email subscription, comment subscription. Secondly make it easy for people to comment, to contact you, send personalized emails and so on.
Copyright Law: 12 Dos and Don’ts
2 years ago
DOS
1. Do use material under public domain: you are free to use any work that is in public domain. This includes federal government documents, materials produced before 1923 and materials produced before 1977 without a copyright notice.
2. Do quote something you find interesting: the Copyright Act defines that short quotations for the purpose of criticism, commentary or news reporting are considered “fair use”. Notice that the quote should involve only a small portion of the work, and it should not replicate the “heart” of the material.
3. Do use facts and ideas: Copyright Law protects the expression of facts and ideas. That is the form, combination and structure of documents and not the facts themselves. You are free to use facts and ideas reported on articles or websites.
4. Do use other materials that are not subject to copyright: apart from facts and ideas there are many other classes of materials that can not be protected under the Copyright Law. Those materials include names, familiar symbols, listings of ingredients or contents, short phrases, titles, slogans and procedures (notice that some of those materials might be protected by trademark, though).
5. Do use a company name or logo if you are talking about it: trademarks should protect a company from people trying to use its name or logo to deceive customers. If you are criticizing or analyzing a company, however, you can use its name or logo under a “nominative fair use”.
6. Do use a company name on your domain: as mentioned on the previous item you can use a company’s name as long as you are not trying to deceive people that you speak on behalf of this company or that you are related to it in any way. This right applies to domain names. Someone could create a website to complain about a company, say Microsoft, and use a domain name that contains the name of this company, say microsoftsucks.com.
DON’TS
7. Don’t assume that if you credit the author there is no copyright infringement: a lot of people wrongly think that if they credit the author of an article or image they are not violating the copyright law. You can only use copyrighted material if you have explicit permission from the author to do so (or if you make fair use of it, as explained before).
8. Don’t copy material just because it does not show a copyright message: the Copyright Law required a copyright notice to protect works until 1977. In 1978, however, the law changed and abolished the requirement for copyright notice. This means that every published work (be it on paper or digital media) automatically gets copyright protection, whether expressed with a notice or not.
9. Don’t equate Creative Commons with “free for grab”: while Creative Commons licenses are less restrictive then standard copyright they should not be interpreted a “free for grab”. In order to understand what you can or can not do with Creative Commons material you should check what kind of license it is using. Certain licenses will require you to credit the original author, while others will require that you release any modifications of the document under the same license.
10. Don’t copy material just because you are not making a commercial use: while making commercial use of copyrighted material might make it easier for the author to claim damages against you the commercial use per se is not a requirement for copyright infringement. Even if you are not making a commercial use of the material you are still infringing the law if you do not have a permission from the author.
11. Don’t assume that if you remove the copyrighted material you will be out of trouble: a lot of people copy images and text around the Internet thinking that in the worst of the cases they will receive a take down notice from the author and remove the material from the website. The removal of the copyrighted material will not remove the copyright infringement at all. Should the author decide to go after you in count you will be in trouble all the same.
12. Don’t copy material just because you can’t find a copyright holder: the fact that a copyright holder can not be identified does not imply that the material can be freely copied. Similarly if you locate the copyright holder, email him asking permission and receive no answer back you would still be infringing the law if you use the material.
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