In a recent post at Problogger a guest post by Mark Patterson brought up some important legal issues for bloggers: Intellectual Property Law Tips for Bloggers.

I highly recommend all bloggers, even people just thinking about blogging, to read this post. I imagine some of it will be over your head (some of it went way over my head anyway!) and may not be relevant to you right now - but you may very well need it at some point in the future. You can always skim through it now, make a mental note of what's in it and bookmark it for sometime in the
future.

Copyright
One of the topics discussed in the post was copyright. Anything you create you own the copyright to, but you should really include a copyright notice on you blog also. Mark noted:

"Let's just say that if you ever had to take legal action against someone who blatantly copied your content, your failure to use a copyright notice will substantially devalue your case."

I know that I don't really display my copyright properly on my blogs - I should really be using my full name, but to keep a little bit of privacy, I usually just use my first name or a nickname. The copyright notice should include either the copyright symbol or the word 'copyright' and also include the year the content was first published or the range or years.

The code I use
I used to hand edit my year range to include the present year sometime around the first of each year. But it is easy to forget to change it, and I've seen many, many sites of others where they have apparently forgotten to update theirs too.

Rather than hand editing it each year you can use PHP code to display the current year. My copyright notice is written like this:

& copy; 2003 - < ?php echo date("Y") ?> ideasforwomen.com

The ampersand and the word 'copy' with the semicolon after it will give you the copyright symbol (©)- but and this is important - you need to get rid of the space between the ampersand and the word 'copy' - I had to put the space in here so you could see how I did it. The first year I had my site was in 2003, so that is listed first. Then the code within the php tags should give you the current year. And, like I mentioned above, you should really use your first and last name if at all possible, instead of your domain name like I do.

If you use this code on your blog, you don't ever have to worry again about changing the current year to January by hand!

How do you make use of it?
Within the WordPress theme you are using, find the footer file and at the bottom right before the closing body and html - place the code. And that's it! I hope it makes your like easier, as it has mine!

HerProBlog.COM will be three months old this month. A lot has happend these past three months that have been exciting for me. There has been a lot of great articles contributed by our co-authors.

Though I am thrilled with the progress thus far I am also a little disappointed that things have slowed down a bit. When we first started three months ago we had seven authors. All but three authors still write for us.  Needless to say the content for this site has reduced considerably.

Though some may see these things as setbacks I see them as opportunities for learning how to improve. The vision behind HerProBlog.COM is to help women bloggers train to become professional bloggers through content and design. We plan on sticking with it until our services are no longer needed.

So get ready ladies and gentleman.  We are in the process of reevaluating and planning new ways to help women bloggers.

To stay updated Subscribe.

Setting Goals successfully is about taking the time to get clear about the what, why, when and how. By achieving goals you can improve your performance and self-confidence as well as a great sense of achievement.    Breaking your goals down into specific steps makes it much more likely to succeed…

New to setting goals? Here’s a checklist to get you started….

1. Start With A Finished Picture
Knowing where you are going is a necessary plan for setting your goals.  A powerful technique is to create a picture of your future in your mind and hold it there…. Be imaginative, engage all your emotions and senses. Each day vision yourself taking a step closer to your ultimate goal….and make it become your reality.

Another great idea and motivator is to create your own mind movie or vision board with pictures of your dream house, holiday, car....whatever your heart desires!

2. Know Why You Want The Goal
Be sure they're really your goals and that you’re not living someone else’s dream.

3. Express Your Goals Positively
Always be positive and express your goals positively. You're more likely to achieve your goal if you state your destination as though it were already a reality.

4. Create a Plan - List Your Goals - Your Goals Must Be Specific
What does achieving your goal look like?  Writing down your goals is powerful and gives you an action plan to follow with clear instructions to work with and to focus on.  Writing your goals down strengthens your commitment to make them happen.

Be precise when setting any goal rather than setting vague and general goals.  With clear instructions, your mind will work faster and more efficiently towards achieving your goals. Look at the whats and whys you’ve written down, choose the one objective that you know you really want the most and that gets you most excited. This is the one to work on as your priority goal.

5. Your Goals Must Be Realistic
Unrealistic goals can set you up for failure. You’ll also find it beneficial to break you goals down into manageable stages. To set a realistic goal means to set a goal that you can achieve in a reasonable amount of time…realistic yet challenging.

6. Plan Your Tasks
Write down exactly what you need to do to achieve your goals. You may need help from others if you cannot perform these tasks yourself.  Don’t let the fear of asking for help hold you back.

7. Strategies For Potential Obstacles
Another great strategy is listing potential obstacles.  This helps you develop strategies for overcoming them when they occur…… We all face challenges… but it’s the way we handle them as to the outcome of our strategies.

8. Set Time Schedule For Your Tasks
Setting a time schedule each day for your tasks helps you to be disciplined.  Consistent effort will help bring you closer to your dream goal. Find your prime time that you’re the most productive and when you work your best…this could possibly be early morning.

9. Importance of Reviewing  & Tracking Your Goals
Reviewing, measuring and tracking your written goals also influences your subconscious mind and helps you to keep on the right track. Breaking your goals down into manageable stages and seeing progress at each stage will help keep you motivated and to stay connected with your goals.

10. Support… Family, Friends and Mentors
Having a support structure is very important…. A question to ask yourself is….who or what is going to help you to achieve your goal? A mentor and support structure can help you be more accountable as well as supportive.

11. Motivate Yourself
Mix with positive friends or mentors who have already achieved their goals.  You can learn so much from them and you can see what can be achieved…And you won’t look back and wonder…. “If only I dared!”

There will be times when you will become discouraged.  Don’t give up on the first try. Before you consider ‘throwing’ in the towel… STOP and think for a moment at how much you’ve already accomplished…. as quite often success is just round the corner. Your mind movie or vision board will also help keep you focused.

12. Taking Action
Taking action immediately and consistent daily action will see you achieving your goals much sooner. Using a whiteboard, notebook or journal to record your progress each day will help you keep track of your progress.  At the end of each day, write a list of  tasks you need to complete the next day. Cross off tasks once completed.

13. Avoid Distractions
For many of us it’s easy to be distracted from tasks at hand. Being busy does not necessarily mean productive.
You’ll be more productive by turning down the ringtone on your phone and only checking emails later in the day.

14.The Final and Simplest Step….Take ACTION and Just Get Going!

As Mike Litman says….

“You don't have to get it right,
you just have to get it going”!

Goal setting successfully is about getting CLEAR as every goal is woven around an action plan that can lead to your success. Your actions will line up with your focus and take you closer to achieving your goals.

Run your dream through your mind to remind yourself of what it is you want and why you want it… Set yourself SMART goals and dare to live the life of your dreams…and then Take ACTION

I'm sure many of you have on your own blog or have seen blogs with links to some of the social media sites either after their posts or before them. These can make it easier for people to submit or bookmark your site.

If you use FeedBurner for your feed, they offer their 'FeedFlare' to make it easier to put these links in both your feed and on your actual blog. I still use FeedFlare for my feed, but I didn't like the formatting and some other things about the code they generate for you to use on your blog. There are plugins to do this with too - but the one I tried anyway - didn't give me as much control of the formatting that I wanted either.

I eventually just found the code to use for the link from each of the sites I was interested in and hand coded the whole thing so I could make it look how I wanted it to.

Social media sites
There are many, many social media voting and bookmarking sites, but many of them are not used too much or are not relevant to my blog's topic. Based on some reading I've done, I've narrowed it down to just a few to use on my blog:

• StumbleUpon

- because many people use it and get traffic from it.

• Kirtsy

- because it is relevant to a blog for women.

• Delicious

- it's been recommended to use it and easier to do well in than Digg

• Reddit

- same as Delicious

• Digg

- because, well, everyone seems to have a link to it and some of my posts could do well there if I got enough Diggs.

The code I use
While I liked the small icons I saw on many blogs, I think they can be confusing sometimes - I forget which site goes with which image. I wanted mine to include both the name of the site and the small icon at the bottom of each post. FeedFlare didn't do it that way and neither did Sociable (at least I couldn't figure out how to make it do it this way).

I use the following code at the bottom of each of my posts:

<p class="smallcenterbold"> <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">Stumble: <img<br /> src="http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/images/16x16_su_round.gif"<br /> border="0"/></a> <br /> <a href="http://www.kirtsy.com/submit.php?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>">Kirtsy: <img src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif" mce_src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif"<br /> style="border:0" alt="add to kirtsy" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">delicious: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/delicious.med.gif"<br /> border="0" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>">reddit: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/reddit.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<<br /> ?php the_title(); ?>">Digg: <img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/digg.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <mce:script src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/IdeasForWomenNewsBlog?i=<?php the_permalink() ?><!-- " type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"> // --></mce:script> </p> <p>

You can style the paragraph tags to look however you want them to look. I center mine and keep the text small.

This code goes into the index.php file of your theme right after the div with class="storycontent" closes.

I also wanted something shorter and simpler to put at the beginning of my posts that uses just the icons. I figure this might be easier for people in a hurry and who are really familiar with all the icons used:

</p> <p class="smallcenterbold"> <a href="http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://cdn.stumble-upon.com/images/16x16_su_round.gif"<br /> border="0"/></a> <br /> <a href="http://www.kirtsy.com/submit.php?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>"><img src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif" mce_src="http://www.kirtsy.com/badges/kirtsy_addicon.gif"<br /> style="border:0" alt="add to kirtsy" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://del.icio.us/post?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/delicious.med.gif"<br /> border="0" /></a> <br /> <a href="http://reddit.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink();<br ></a> ?>&title=< ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/reddit.png" border="0"<br /> /></a> <br /> <a href="http://digg.com/submit?url=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&title=<<br /> ?php the_title(); ?>"><img<br /> src="http://www.ideasforwomen.com/graphics/digg.png" border="0"<br /> /></a>  </p> <p>

This code goes in the index.php page of your theme right after the following code:

<br /> <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" rel="bookmark">< ?php the_title(); ?></a><br />

The exact placement of the code may change depending upon the theme you use and of course where you want to put it. This is something you can play around with, try it different ways, until you get it where you want it and how you want it to look!

How frequently should you post?

In a previous post I wrote about "How long should your posts be?" and this time I'll discuss how often you should post, as these are both issues many people ask about.

And like I said before - it really depends upon you and your particular blog – but there are some things you will want to consider when deciding how often to post.

Too Frequently
If you post too often - like several times a day - and the posts are even kind of long, most people won't have time to read all of them. Personally I sometimes find myself getting kind of annoyed with blogs that post too frequently - I'm unable to keep with it and just get frustrated. I will sometimes even unsubscribe to blogs that post too much.

Most of us probably don't have that much to say that is of that high of quality to write multiple posts each day either. Of course there are exceptions!

Too Little
If you don't post often enough, people may either forget about you or think you stopping blogging. If you are trying to build a relationship with your readers and you want them to get to know who
you are, you may lose some momentum if you wait too long between posts.

The overall message you are trying to get across in your blog may get lost also if people can't remember your previous posts too clearly.

Just Right
I would say - and I'd like to hear your opinion on this too - once a week is the minimum frequency before you might start losing some people. 2-5 posts a week is real nice for building momentum with a
blog.

Consistency is Key!
The most important thing is to be relatively consistent in your posting frequency. If you are planning to change how often you post - either do it gradually or make an announcement to your readers that
you will be changing how often you post and let them know about what to expect.

I have not been a good example of this myself. Sometimes I go in spurts - post a lot for a while, and then nothing for some time. I don't recommend this!

Other Things to Consider
Realistically most of us don't know what to expect when we first start blogging. We may think we will have more time or lots of great ideas to write about and then find out - we don't! That's ok - it happens to most people.

Going from a schedule of less frequent posts to more frequent posting is probably easier on your readers than in the other direction. If they are used to you posting 7 days a week and you suddenly cut down to once a week they may think you've lost interest or something.

I used to think 5 or more posts a week was the best way to go. Lately, I noticed some really successful blogs that post once or twice a week and do quite well! I kind of wish I would have done that when I relaunched my main blog a while back. Less frequent posting gives you more time to spend on quality - and on promoting and marketing your blog!

How often do you post? What do you think is the best frequency rate?

I was introduced to a new social network site by a first time commentator in regards to platforms people could use in order to find networks for their particular niche.

For some niches, using a big time search engine (i.e. Google, Yahoo, etc.) might not yield you the type of results that you may wish to have. Whether your topic is too broad or very specific you might not have the time – or the urge – to sift through countless of pages in countless search engines! Even, if you do have that urge, this may help you focus your energy more directly, which as a successful blogger you would like to utilize.

Find A Social Network is an up and coming website devoted to finding social niches. There is a cloud bubble of the most popular searches but the database itself is quite vast and expansive. You will more than likely find something similar, if not an exact, match to your niche.

There is also an ad site feature. If there is a site that you feel should be added, you can submit for it to be included or you could of course, add your own (if you own a network). It’s free, user-friendly and easily accessible.

I tested it out myself (I’m always on the lookout for black women business networking sites) and while plugging my topic into the search engine it pulled up various networks – some that briefly touched on the topic – others, that were direct bulls eyes for what I was looking for. It took less time, it gave me what I wanted in an easy to read format and I left this page thoroughly satisfied in my outcome.

The following is not as high as technorati or any other of the big networking sites but it’s not nearly as cluttered and you will find something that will suit your needs!

http://findasocialnetwork.com/search.php

(I hope you find this blog helpful, if you have any questions, feel free to email me or leave me a comment and I’ll gladly assist you.)