Blog Writing Change

We've had a staff meeting this last weekend and have changed how we blog for clients. Previously we have stated that your content may predetermine if we can blog for you and at what blog writing level.

Based on our staff meeting, four of my top writers decided that we can blog for just about anyone at our starter Jade Level. As long as there is a wealth of content to be found on the Web on their general topic, we can do a Jade Level blog for $15 per post. My team constantly surprises me with their "Can Do" attitude.

Additionally to help more people get blogging we have significantly dropped our blog set up price. Set up is now $150. Although WordPress and Blogger are both free applications configuration and set up (especially custom FTP Blogger set up), can be difficult. With our services for blog set up, we take away the headaches and even give you a 15 minute online training class to help you start blogging fast.

So if you were thinking about blogging, set up is now more affordable, and blog writing to supplement your own blog writing is easier to find and now available at our starter level for more blogs.

Writing Rights and Work For Hire

If you pay a writer to provide content for you, make sure you have the rights and license information spelled out in your contract. You may not own what you assume you own!

When you hire a writer to "Work for Hire", you own your content and in most cases you can use it any way you please for your website, blog, press releases, and feature articles. Some writers will restrict your use of their created content and license it only for specific uses. It is important to spell out your use rights as you will not always clearly own someone else's work even if you pay for it in full.

In our case, we do not "work for hire". We had a situation where a client took our created blog content and told us that they were creating a book which they intended to pass off as their own writing. Clearly we should have received acknowledgment as the writer and possibly even received royalties. Since that situation, we spell out in our letter of agreement for all writing that we license the content to you, but retain ownership. This will prevent unauthorized use of our work for purposes other than which it was intended.

Most writers have various rates for different types of writing and uses. We pay our writers one rate for blogs and another rate for articles, web content, and press releases. It is important to understand that assuming you own content clearly for whatever use you want needs to be nailed down in a written contract to prevent a copyright infringement. Remember the writer or firm which created the work owns the copyright, not you, unless you legally transfer it to you as part of the contracted payment in writing.

When you hire a writer, make sure you both clearly document ownership and intended use, it will prevent possible legal ramifications.

The New Trend Using Blog Posts to Build Website Content

I have to say that I am not in favor of doing this - using blog posts to build website content, and there are several reasons why.

1. The tone of writing in a blog post is casual in nature. Blogs are written almost in the same language as a spoken conversation.
2. Blog posts are not typically considered "unique content". Most blog posts are a commentary on something else that has appeared on the Web. Although the spin and actual writing may be unique in nature, for a website to build their content on this type of writing without significant additional authoritative research on their own topic is a concern.
3. There may be possible copyright infringement issues on blog post content for very high profile sites. When the entire content of a website is from blog posts which are commentary on other articles found on the web, the parent site may be setting itself up potentially for a copyright infringement suit. Especially if the site becomes very popular or has a very high profile.
4. Blogs typically heavily link to articles on the web and other websites. Numerous outbound links from the main content of as site is not an approach that we take in today's changing world of search engine optimization. A very judicious policy of outbound linking should be the normal practice for website's that are going after organic placement.

Clearly from a business stand point blog writing is usually cheaper - a whole lot cheaper - than employing a web copywriter to write website content and so we are seeing a rise in interest in using blog posts for website content. From my viewpoint, the potential legal problems and loss of authoritative message are not a good trade off for the money that might be saved on quality website content copywriting in the overall big picture.