Blogging is an enjoyable hobby for many, and there are now more blogs on the internet than ever before. But what if you want to turn your blog into a professional business? While different from many traditional companies out there, it is still essential to protect yourself, your business, and your ideas.
While not necessarily the most fun part of being an entrepreneur, knowing how to protect your products and assets will certainly help you to ensure your blog’s longevity while also providing you peace of mind.
Here are three crucial steps that you should take to legally protect your blog, and make sure that all your hard work doesn’t go to waste.
Copyright your content
Many might be tricked into thinking that all that blogging entails is some casual writing and photo-taking, but to be successful, it takes a lot of hard work, time, effort, and sweat. So imagine putting all of your energy into something only to discover that someone else is using your blog post, image, or any other digital content that you created. Unfortunately, this can and does happen, and unlike in a brick and mortar business, an alarm won’t immediately sound if you have been stolen from, so it is crucial to protect yourself as much as you can. For extra security, make it official and copyright all of your content. That way, you can prove that your work actually belongs to you and gives you the power to sue for copyright infringement. Should you ever find yourself in a situation where intellectual property has been stolen from you, litigation solutions might be an excellent option to resolve disputes legally.
Write a Disclosure and Disclaimers Page
If you have a blog, this is, in fact, a legal requirement and should be something that you already have, especially if your blog is based around sharing and reviewing gifted products. Anything that is gifted has a monetary value and is considered a form of compensation and will, therefore, need to be disclaimed to your audience and viewers. A disclaimer will also need to be made if you are planning on using any marketing affiliate links or you are being paid to create content for a particular product, service, or sponsored post. By doing so, you are transparent with your readers about any potential financial income that you might receive as a direct response from your links and tells your audience what they can do with the information or products that you are promoting.
Add a Privacy Policy
Most websites these days make the use of various cookies to collect information, and the same goes for blogs. If you use cookies, track data, and analytics or have a subscription email list, you will need to provide a privacy policy to inform your audience that their private information is safe. A Privacy Policy also lets people know how their information will be used and what information will be collected in the first place. It should also reassure your users that you will not be sharing or selling this to anyone else. This will also make you look more professional and credible to your readers while protecting you from any potential allegations of misuse of information.
