Lessons from Alt: The Business of Blogging
Friday, February 3, 2012 at 5:37AM 
Happy Friday, everyone! What better way to end the week than by giving you homework to do over the weekend?
Today I want to share some of the key takeaways from the first session I attended at Alt Summit, The Business of Blogging, led by the super helpful Ami Price, Chris Gardner, and Pam Kueber.
Let’s jump right in!
* Get all of your ducks in a row. Make sure that your name/site is registered/copyrighted/trademarked, claim your name on all social media outlets, register variants of your URL (.net, .co.uk, etc.) and spelling variants of your site.
* Find out what you need to do to get a business license and set up an Employer ID Number (EIN).
* Create policies for your site, including a privacy policy, editorial policy/terms of use, writer’s guidelines for contributors, and comment policy.
* Use descriptive words when naming your images.
* Make sure your post titles include descriptive keywords for SEO.
* Back up your blog regularly.
* Create consistent content (the way that it looks, when it is posted, etc.)
* Publishing new content first thing in the morning is a good practice.
* Use a service like Bufferapp or Timely to schedule tweets that promote your blog posts at the times when you’ll reach more of your followers.
Image by Justin Hackworth
* Create a yearly editorial calendar with broad themes and a more detailed monthly editorial calendar to outline your daily posts.
* Reach out to sponsors that fit with your brand and check out IAB.net/displayguidelines for standard ad sizes.
* Make sure that you’re citing the approporiate sources for any non-original images or content in your blog posts. For example, if you learned about some cool thing on Blog A and Blog A listed the primary source of this cool original content as Blog B, then you can cite “Blog B via Blog A” as your sources for the awesome thing that you absolutely had to reblog.
Are you reeling from all of the information? And these were just some of the highlights that I jotted down. I didn’t bother to include the mantra that was part of every session, so each time you read one of these Lessons from Alt posts, be sure to tell yourself this: “Create awesome original content.”
Hey, look. It’s me, right before this very session started, with my favorite stylist Emily Henderson, Helena of Bye Bye, Bitters, and Bradford (aka, Mr. Uncle Beefy Himself!) of The Bedlam of Beefy. Good times!
Image by HGTV Managing Editor Lili Zarghami
One last thing and I’ll shut up until Monday. I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of the people who included me in their Alt Summit wrap-ups and posts. It’s nice to have your work or style or whatever appreciated, and it really means a lot to me. Thank you so much Sarah Bryden-Brown, Kirtsy, Camille Styles, She Paperie, Apartment Therapy, and Bye, Bye Bitters!
alt, blogging, gratitude, inspiration, lessons from alt, technology 
Reader Comments (11)
Aah, and HB cameo on your blog! Love it! :-)
Alt was so amazing. Sigh. I will definitely be there next year. Great summary of that class - I have pages and pages of notes from all the good tips we were given (I already name my images better).
I'm so glad you're going back next year!
Thank you so much for this - so nice of you to share all of the take-aways for those of us who were not there!!
Hi Melanie! Thanks for the shout-out and the positive words about our panel! Just one note about crediting, in addition to citing the correct sources, if it's not your own copyrighted material, US copyright law states that you need to obtain permission from the copyright holder, unless the content is licensed via a creative commons license or the like, or the blogger has specifically said it's OK to reblog.
Again, thanks so much for the great post and for coming to our panel at Alt! xo - Ami
PS - love your blog!
Thank you so much, Ami! You guys were awesome. It was a great way to kick off the Alt experience.
Sure thing, Sheri! You'll be able to share your posts next year!
Hi Melanie! I came across your blog after reading up on Alt Summit. I loved your lessons recap, it was super helpful! I'm from Sydney Australia so sadly I couldn't go to Alt, but it looked SO GOOD!!!! I've just signed up for two Alt classes and I can't wait! Take Care, Lenya :)
Hi Lenya! Thanks for visiting and commenting. I'm glad you found the post helpful. If there's any way you can make it to Alt next year, you should go. It was so inspiring and helpful. I can't wait to go back! I'll be sharing more lessons soon. xoxo
Wow, this is such a helpful post Melanie! :)
Loving all of your homework and Alt recaps! Keeping me motivated and inspired. Have a great weekend!
I'm so glad you guys are enjoying these. They're fun to put together and they're keeping me inspired too!