PicApp: Benefits for Bloggers
Guest Post by David Peralty
Deb’s note: I asked my friend and brand new community manager for PicApp to offer a guest post letting you know more about this great free, legal resource for images. I’ve been using PicApp for several months, and while there are still bugs to work out, I also see improvements being made and a way for me to use news and celebrity images legally. The image you see here is from PicApp.
Most of the blog networks that I have ever been involved with don’t spend the money to have access to images. Either they haven’t considered this, or they assumed we could find the images we need from the variety of free sources out there in the market.
Unfortunately, these free sources aren’t always filled with the images we need or want, and as such many bloggers jump over to Google’s Image Search and use copyright images without permission. This is illegal, but for the most part, it has been considered harmless. The harmless factor goes out the window when you are using images for a network blog. Networks are businesses and as such they have to be treated in a certain way. They can’t violate copyright laws or they will eventually have to deal with legal issues that could cost money, and eventually ruin a network.
Some blog networks have already started creating content guidelines to protect themselves, while still not offering money to get the high quality images they require for their content.
PicScout, the parent company of PicApp saw this issue, and while tracking how much copyright violation there is with their Image Tracker service, they realized that there was a void in the marketplace. Bloggers wanted high quality images, but they didn’t have the financial resources to back it up. PicApp contacted Getty, Corbis and other high quality image providers to come up with a solution.
The solution is PicApp, and its service. PicApp provides Getty and Corbis images through a flash embed system. This protects Getty and Corbis from having their images stolen, and through an ad interface on the embedded image, Getty, Corbis and other image providers will make some money back on the use of their images.
This provides bloggers with high quality images from the top stock photography sources in a way that continues to keep the providers happy.
PicApp has now gone beyond just providing those images though, and has added features that make it even easier for bloggers to get what they need. PicApp has added RSS for search, allowing you to subscribe to your searches so that you are notified of new images being added to PicApp.
This is great for those tracking events, or constantly talking about the same subject, so that you don’t have to come back and search on PicApp; instead, we will send the updates right to you.
We have also arranged to have constant updates from our image providers, meaning that bloggers can find images of sporting events before they have even concluded. This gives a competitive edge to the bloggers using PicApp. They will have images of celebrities, amazing sporting events, or even political events before they finish allowing their posts to be even more relevant and interesting.
It has been proven time and time again that adding relevant images to a post attracts more attention than posts without any images.
PicApp is still in beta and as such we are still looking for feedback, so if you have any questions, concerns, or comments, please let me know either here on this post, or at david.peralty@picscout.com
10 Ways to Let Your Competition Be Your Guide
I’m always hesitant to use the word "competition" to describe other bloggers in my niche. I always like to look at them as colleagues in which to share ideas and community rather than the person whose traffic I should be stealing. For the purpose of today’s blog post, we’ll allow it just this one time.
If there’s one thing I learned with Freelance Writing Jobs is that if you have a popular blog, others will want to do the same exact thing. It used to frustrate me, but I decided to use this to my advantage. Rather get frustrated with all the other job listings blogs, I look to them to see how I can do things better or different.
Some of my network blogs are in competitive niches as well, my blogs on saving money or beauty tips certainly aren’t the only ones out there. How do I stand out among the rest?
Here are 10 ways I let my competition be my guide.
- I participate in their communities - It would be silly to expect no one else to have the same type of blog, wouldn’t it? My philosophy is, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. The great thing about the blogosphere is that there’s room for everyone. If I’m not going to be the only blog re-listing freelance writing jobs or offering tips for finding said jobs, I’m going to welcome the others into the neighborhood. By participating in the other blog communities I’m offering my insight, learning and gathering new ideas from others, and maybe even gaining a reader or two.
- I look to see what they’re missing - When I look at another blog like mine I wonder what they’re missing. What do their readers have questions about and what topics aren’t they discussing? Offer something your competition doesn’t have and people will respond.
- I define my niches. When I visit other blogs in the same niche I wonder how I can do things differently. For instance, with Freelance Writing Jobs I became more than a "relisting" blog. I began offering advice for finding and getting jobs. At this blog, Jennifer and I target bloggers who work for others rather than the usual make money online blogging blogs. At the List Maven, my beauty blog, I offer all tips and product reviews in list form, and at Simply Thrifty I offer stories from my youth and updates on home DIY projects. Even my celebrity blogs are different - I have one featuring celebrity role models and one featuring celebrity lists. Now when people visit me it won’t be the same old thing they see on other blogs.
- I continue to evolve - This holds hands with point number 3, by continuing to evolve I don’t get stuck in a rut. I don’t have to talk about or do the same things over and over. It’s ok to change your blog’s focus now and then to adapt to your readers’ tastes. Sometimes that’s by widening a narrow niche, other times it’s by changing a blog’s design.
- I look to see what my competitors do right - When I see other blogs in my niche, I want to know what they’re doing right. I’m not going to copy them, but I am going to use them for ideas for bettering myself and my blog.
- I investigate the most and least popular articles - What topics do their communities respond to most and least? This will give you a good indication of what your readers might like to learn about. Don’t copy, but do add your own point of view.
- I investigate their traffic - Knowing how the competition is faring can be a great kick in the ass. How many comments do they get? What is their Alexa, Technorati or Google ranking? Are they at the top of the search engines? Where does a lot of their traffic seem to be coming from? Do they get lots of track backs from other blogs?
- I investigate to see who is linking to them and why - Other other blogs and communities responding to my competitors’ posts? If so why? What makes one post more popular than another? Is controversy or negativity such a good thing? Knowing which posts get the backlinks might give you some good ideas of your own -and might also give you an idea of other communities to target.
- I offer to trade guest posts - By trading guest blogger posts with your competitors or fellow niche bloggers you’ll be sharing ideas and traffic.
- I keep them on my radar - Even the bloggers with the most popular blogs keep their competitors close. Even if you only visit the blogs or feeds once a week, know what others in your niche are talking about as well as the reaction of their readers. This way if they start to all of a sudden gain a lot of traffic or comments you’ll know why…and know what to do to use it to your advantage.
Guest Blogging: It’s a Win-Win Situation
May is guest blogging month at my blog Freelance Writing Jobs. I thought it would be a nice way for my "regulars" and some invited guests to showcase their writing. They always have such wonderful tips when they comment, I invited them on to the front page. While it was meant as a three year anniversary celebration, it became clear there were many benefits to having others guest blog. Moreover, the guest bloggers are experiencing some cool bennies as well.
Benefits of Having a Guest Blogger at Your Blog
- It frees you up for other things - Though I didn’t plan it that way, this couldn’t have come at a better time. A little over a week ago I found myself sick for a few days. The kind of sick where you can’t raise your head off your pillow. Having guest bloggers allowed me to be sick without worries about losing traffic.
- It offers your readers another perspective - Other bloggers have other ideas, many times these are things you’d never think of. They also might have a different point of view. Having a guest blogger will give your readers something else to think about and learn new angles and techniques.
- It gives you new ideas - Do you know how you might visit other blogs and get ideas after reading someone else’s posts? The same thing happens when someone else guests blogs for you.
- It allows you to turn your readers on to something new - Your readers will appreciate learning about a new blog or blogger.
- It’s good for traffic - Though my traffic is steadily rising, the last couple of weeks has it through the roof.
- You get good backlinks -Your guest blogger will no doubt link to his post on your blog - and his followers might too.
Benefits of Being a Guest Blogger
- It allows you another outlet for your writing - Another outlet means a whole other audience. It’s my experience that other bloggers’ communities are very respectful of their guest bloggers and are interested in what you have to say.
- It helps you get your name out there - If you’re trying to establish yourself as an authority you’ll want to put your name out there. Guest blogging is a great way to do this.
- It drives traffic to your blog - You’re sure to gain some new readers through your stint as a guest blogger. As long as your name and link are up there, others’ will be visiting for a long time to come.
- Your subscribers will go up - After reading your guest blog post others will want to subscribe to your blog.
- It gives you confidence - About a year ago I offered to guest post for Darren Rowse. This is very unlike me, I was very nervous. My traffic is no where near Darren’s, plus what would his readers think? My guest post (about blogging for others) was well received and it gave me the confidence to write for other blogs as well. It’s a good feeling knowing that others outside your community enjoy what you have to say.
Have you guest blogged or brought in a guest blogger? How well did it work out for you?
Hear it from Jennifer’s Co-blogger
Jennifer did a great job covering the pros and cons of having a co-blogger, so I won’t add much in that area, but how does it feel to join an established blog as a co-blogger?
Arriving at an established blog with an overall theme you didn’t pick can be a strange experience, maybe a bit like moving into an already-decorated apartment. Plus, I was very aware that Tree Hugging Family was Jennifer’s creation from the beginning. I didn’t want to stomp on that, but I had to find a way to add my stamp as well.
No worries though. It became apparent pretty quickly that Jennifer didn’t really care if I added new categories or new weekly features and discussed topics she didn’t cover before. Besides getting the post count and traffic up, that’s exactly why she asked me to join. She wanted a new perspective, just not one that was crazy different from the existing theme and tone of the blog. And since she’d been reading my other blog, she knew my writing meshed with her own.
If you join an existing blog, you may not know at first exactly what different qualities you’ll bring, but this is something that will naturally develop as you post. And, as Jennifer mentioned, the different perspective for your readers is one of the pros of having a co-blogger. Jennifer and I think a lot alike. Sometimes it’s scary. But we’re actually very different. I live in on the other side of the US with a cat in an apartment. So, while Jennifer can write about her home gardening adventures with her son, I can write about greening my cat and apartment I share with Michael, my husband.
There are many questions that will gradually surface when you have a co-blogger.
At first, I never moderated comments on Jennifer’s posts. I assumed she didn’t want me to do that. Turns out she didn’t care as long as I didn’t let any angry “you’re crazy for believing in global warming” comments go up. Plus, we don’t want 10,000 pings on a contest post. Once a few basic guidelines were established, we could moderate each other’s comments as they came up. If there’s ever anything I think she needs to see, I’ll e-mail her about it.
At first I thought that maybe we should discuss ahead of time what topics we were going to blog on so we didn’t have duplicates. But I decided to wait and see how it would work. Coordinating each post would be kind of a pain since I sometimes come up with a topic at 1 am and have the post written within the hour. As it turns out, our topic is broad enough that Jennifer and I very rarely plan posts on the same topic for the same day. I think we wrote on the exact same topic one time since February, and the posts weren’t so similar that one had to be deleted.
But don’t we coordinate some things? Sure, and maybe that’s one of the small cons of having a co-blogger since it takes some of your time to coordinate. If there’s a channel-wide post that needs to go up, we’ll discuss who does it. We also try to look at the times that the upcoming posts are scheduled so we can spread them throughout the day. And we take turns changing up the poll. We discuss sponsors for contests and overall goals for the blog. Sometimes I clean out the spam folder and sometimes Jennifer does it, but this isn’t something we discuss. The relationship reminds me a lot of having a roommate.
If you’ve ever had a roommate you’d know that there are times when maybe one of you does more of the cleaning or shopping, etc. And that’s fine. Co-blogging isn’t a competition any more than having a roommate is. There will be times when one of you posts more on a given day or week than the other one. If the co-blogging relationship is good, there shouldn’t be any guilt or hard feelings. It’s teamwork.
And since I’m comparing co-blogging to having a roommate, I might as well go on and say that being able to choose your co-blogger probably works best. The roommates I had in college that weren’t my choices are the ones that didn’t last long. To me, it’s important that you actually like your co-blogger. Otherwise, you may end up resenting sharing your space. So, while it’s possible that a network editor may choose a co-blogger for you, I’d say you might be better off if you had a say as well.
There’s no way to know if a co-blogging relationship will work until you try it. But what I thought was cool is that Jennifer was really upfront about what she wanted in a co-blogger. And that’s good since goals must mesh. If one of you is working overtime to build traffic and the other is humdrum about the blog, it’s not going to work. Goals should be discussed and agreed upon before setting out on the co-blogging adventure.
Another pro I should probably mention is that it can be easier to get your foot in the door at a network by first coming on board as a co-blogger. Starting a new blog can be a big investment for a network, but adding a co-blogger to an existing blog isn’t much of a risk for them. Plus, since joining in February as a co-blogger on Tree Hugging Family, I’ve also gained a new blog of my own at b5media, Junk Creation. Someone was leaving and I was able to take over.
So, what was I most nervous about? Maybe it was wondering if traffic would increase enough to justify the co-blogging relationship. It’s not really something I worry about, but at the same time I was happy when traffic did increase. If it didn’t, would it make sense to share the pay on a network blog? You do share the work, so it could make sense, but most likely not. However, traffic usually increases quite a bit with co-blogging, and that’s been the case at Tree Hugging Family.
In case you can’t tell, I’ve been really happy with my co-blogging adventure.
Are you thinking about becoming a co-blogger?
You can visit Peggy at Tree Hugging Family, Junk Creation and Light Green Stairs.
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