How to make your blog content theft-worthy

We’re going to clear up the title of this post right off the bat.  It’s meant to be tongue-in-cheek, of course.

A company devoted to promoting respectful use of copyrighted content and protecting digital content from piracy certainly isn’t going to advocate for content theft.

However, since it’s usually the best written, most useful content that gets stolen – or licensed and syndicated for that matter – we thought we’d devote a post to what makes for a good blog read.

And we can help you prevent or deal with any pirates who turn up.

Here are a few tips.

Teach, don’t sell – As Jay Baer points out in his newest book, “Youtility”, marketing today is about educating your audience, not selling them.  From choice of topic to what you share, your blog will be more likely to attract customers and prospects if your content is truly helpful.  So, share your knowledge, answer questions, use your blog as a teaching tool … and save the pitch.

Start with the conclusion – In a world where we’re barraged with information, we don’t have time to work our way through a whole article, not knowing if it’s going to deliver what we’re interested in. Start with the conclusion and then use the rest of the post to fill in the details. You can backtrack to anecdotes and illustrations that help make the point – and make your post a good read.

This is actually a method borrowed from traditional journalism where the first paragraph covers the Five W’s: Who, What, Where, When and Why.  It’s called the “inverted pyramid”’: Put the most important facts at the top of the story and those that make the least difference — and won’t matter if the editor cuts them for lack of space – at the bottom. In creating digital content, we don’t have to worry about space, but we do have to contend with short attention spans. Write accordingly.

Remember it’s a conversation – Successful digital content has humility built in. We’re all sharing our knowledge and expertise to help our audiences, but we can’t pretend to know it all. We respect our readers and assume that they know a thing or two – or three. We want their input. It’s a collaborative marketplace we’re in. Invite comments – sincerely.

De-jargonize!!

This topic gets two exclamation points for a reason. We’re talking to our prospective buyers – not the guy in the booth next to us at a trade show. Use the Google Keyword Tool (free) (Google it) to see how your prospects are speaking about and searching for products or services like yours. They will probably not match the way you describe your products/services or their problems. Use their language – not yours – and you’ll connect with your audience more often.

Blog Content Theft:  if your new and improved content gets stolen – Call us! ;-}

Protecting copyright,and helping bloggers and other publishers benefit from their high quality content is what we do. Check out our Discovery infringement detection service, with free and premium solutions  and connect with us to protect and monetize the intellectual property rights of all digital content creators.

What are YOUR tips for making a blog theft-worthy … or your experiences with blog content theft?

P.S. Take repubHub for a Spin!

Make Your Content Strategy Work Harder for Your Blog 

Bloggers, would you like to get broader distribution for your original content?

We’d like to invite you to contribute your content to repubHub. It’s free to join-and adding our toolbar is easy. It can be installed in under a minute with our WordPress, Drupal, or other CMS plug-ins.

repubHub can also serve as a great source of republishable content for your site.

We hope you’ll take a moment to, currently in beta (link below), and let us know what you think.