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Understanding Image and Photo Rights for Content Marketing

Knowing How to Make Your Blogs Puhretty, Like

blogging-content-marketing
Blogging is the core component of content marketing.

So you want to digitise your business? Until I’m blue in the face, I keep telling anyone in business that content marketing is one of the most important online Digital marketing activities for businesses in operation today — particularly those with a website. Successful content marketing is about creating original, high quality content that’s relevant to your “potential” customers. It also needs to be high quality in every way (relevancy is integral to quality) and this involves every aspect of the content you’re creating — copy, layout and design. This ain’t always easy!

I’ve mentioned this elsewhere on this blog before, but I stand by my geeky analogy that great content is like an equilateral triangle, in that all parts must be equal. Copy, layout and design are the three sides of your content, and if you prioritise one aspect over one of the others, your content will be unbalanced, just as your triangle would be.

Blogging: The Staple of Content Marketing

How best to content market to your audience? Well, I’d go so far as to say that you can’t have effective content marketing without maintaining a blog. Setting up a blog is actually pretty easy, especially if you use a content management system like WordPress for your website and blog. With WordPress the the layout is pretty much taken care of for you — just choose a theme and away you go.

Many businesses outsource copywriting to a contractor or freelancer, which in our view, is a wise move. Unless you’re a clear writer who can articulate your point accurately and economically (a good writer will know that I’m talking about word count), then you should outsource it. You also have to rather enjoy doing it and be fast at it — otherwise, despite your best intentions, little will ever get published.

A Word on Google Images

So, to design. In the case of blogging, you usually select an image to illustrate your blog posts, which brings us to the subject of this blog post: understanding image rights. Unless you intend to use your own photos and images that you’ve taken or created yourself (hands down, one of the best ways to drive search engine rankings and increase reader engagement, just sayin’) and therefore own the copyright to, then you need to understand image rights first.

As a general rule, never ever use Google Images to find an image for your blog. That’s not to say that Google Images isn’t a great starting off point if you’re creatively spent and in need of some inspiration. I frequently punch a few keywords or phrases into Google Images to see if the results turn up, and then go back to my image library, which categorises images in a more literal sense than Google Images does.

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This has a lot to do with indexing and keyword usage; put simply, think of Google Images as your own personal brainstorming team. Traditionally, brainstorming has always worked best when there was more one person, but if you’re on your lonesome, then this is where Google Images comes in handy.

You punch in a few key phrases or concepts and you can see how other people have illustrated their websites and blogs, based on those same phrases.

What makes the images from Google Images dicey is that, as a search engine, it’s not beholden to the laws of copyright usage and image licensing; it’s up to you to do your due diligence and find out what the terms of the image’s license are.

Image (Copy)Rights

Generally speaking, to use an image that you haven’t created, you must track down the creator and ask for permission to use it. Obviously, this would be a lengthy and arduous process if you had to do this for every image you found on the internet, so, thankfully, there are plenty of ways to find images where the copyright holder has already released the image with a license that allows specific uses.

Using an image in a way that isn’t allowed under the terms of its license is still considered copyright infringement, so make sure you’re certain you understand each image’s license before you use it on your blog or website.

Most online image libraries offer images with license terms that deal with:

  • Type of use: Commercial or non-commercial use, with the first being any use of an image to sell or promote a product, service, or idea.
  • Attribution: Credit may need to be given to the original creator of the image and required format (e.g. a link) specified.
  • Modification: The image may have to be used unchanged, or you may allowed to modify it and create new images or materials from it.
  • Number of uses: Some licenses may restrict the number of times an image can be used.

What license is offered depends entirely on the copyright holder or the creator. Some image libraries require the copyright holder to sign over certain rights of use to their images, while others don’t, which means you need to be vigilant by checking the terms of use for each image you use.

Of course, one way to avoid having to deal with image rights is to take your own pictures. As I said earlier, this not only gives your content its own personalised stamp of authenticity, but it also helps drive search engine rankings and reader engagement. This is very important in content marketing.

If you’re not able to take your own pictures, for whatever reason, then using an online image library is the best way to ensure that your content is not only looking great and will engage your customers, but that you’re also not contravening any copyright or licensing terms.

To learn more about content marketing, subscribe to our blog or register your interest in our forthcoming content marketing training course.  If you’re a bookkeeper looking to start out on your own, or start a small business, find out more about our bookkeepers’ directory, where we do the content marketing for you to help you find work.

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Are You a Bookkeeper Who Needs More Clients? Want My Advice?

If you are a bookkeeper, selling online MYOB and Xero training courses could be a perfect complement to your bookkeeping business!

FINDING PROSPECTS AND converting them into clients involves selling and most of us hate doing it, but wait…

For those of us in small business, be it as a bookkeeper, real estate agent, sales rep, virtual assistant or the like, most of us are selling every day of our lives.

This means we get pretty good at it. We develop techniques that we can replicate and that become part of our daily lives.

The process of selling is really no longer about selling per se; it becomes about a systemised process of:

Continue reading Are You a Bookkeeper Who Needs More Clients? Want My Advice?
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Breaking Bad Content Marketing: The Correct Way to Use PowerPoint

Breaking Bad Content Marketing for small business presentation for real estate agents and bookkeepers AND writersI’d like your opinion!

I was reviewing some of the content we’ve created this year and I was actually astounded at the number of blogs we’d written that mention content marketing. Even so, when I mention content marketing to many business people, they’re still not really sure what I’m talking about. So I asked Angela in our office to put something together — just for fun. Better still, I recorded an audio commentary to go with it; I hope you find it of use.

All the content marketing talk

Want a recap of all the times I’ve written about content marketing? I did a whole lot of posts about real estate agents and how important content marketing is for them. Here are some of the blog headlines in our content marketing category:

Maybe I’m a bit more passionate about content marketing than I even realised (which is saying something!) Watch the video below and let me know your thoughts.

Video presentation with annotations and a call to action

Want to know more?

If you’re interest in learning about the contents of our Content Marketing, Facebook and Social Media course which is currently being uploaded to our LMS read about it here and follow the links to pre register for alerts. When we release it we’d have a great offer for early students. 🙂

Thought you may like to know that we are going to reveal everything we did for Derek Farmer’s real estate site for property sales in Cammeray – even Facebook advertising and re-targeting to stay front of mind with his client database.

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The New Year’s Approaching: Think About New Content Marketing for Your Business

The Value of Content Marketing

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Finding it hard to get started in content marketing? Register for our upcoming course.

The beginning of a new year, which is typically the quietest as people take a while to adjust to the work and school routine, is when a lot of business owners spend time setting goals for the year ahead.

Just as individuals set their own personal new year’s resolutions, many business owners use January to set some new year’s resolutions for their business’s marketing activities.

Here are the Digital Marketing tasks that staff can do to bring more inquiries and more sales:

  • Business blogging vs paid Google Ads or Facebook Ads
  • Email Newsletters
  • Optimising images and photographs for SEO

Continue reading The New Year’s Approaching: Think About New Content Marketing for Your Business

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You Need To Be a Job Hopper To Do Well In Your Career

When it Comes to Your Career, Hopping Around is OK

job-hopping-to-success
Those who hop may be the most successful, career speaking.

For many years, young people, particularly Generation Y, were cautioned about changing their jobs too often — or being a “job hopper”. It would give the impression they were flaky or disloyal or unable to commit, they were told,

You want to find a job where you can stay there for at least 10 years, where you can grow and progress through the company.

That was the advice handed out just a decade ago, perhaps even more recently than that. But the tide is now rolling the other way. Continue reading You Need To Be a Job Hopper To Do Well In Your Career

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Why Partnerships Can Be Risky Business

An Understanding of Business Partnerships is Essential

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Structuring your business as a partnership doesn’t have to be risky business if you arm yourself with the right information first.

As we mentioned in our previous post about doing the necessary actions to start your new business now, rather than in January, there are lots of tasks to carry out before your business will be ready to commence trading. The first, most important thing you should do, is register for an ABN.

There are lots of services available that, for a fee, will register your business name, company structure, domain name, email hosting, and even register your business for GST and PAYG. But do you really need to use these services? Well, it depends. 

You might if: Continue reading Why Partnerships Can Be Risky Business

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FREE Digital Business Course

Learn How to Run a Business Online

starting-a-new-cafe-or-retail-business
It doesn’t matter whether you have a specifically online business, or a gift shop, clothing store, cafe or other bricks and mortar business, as a business owner, we can help you understand the digital economy.

In a post I published about starting your own business, I said that all small business owners should have an understanding of traditional and digital marketing. You’ll be surprised how many don’t!

All businesses have a digital aspect to them these days so it’s vital that business owners and managers know how to manage the digital aspects of their business.

This starts by understanding some of the terms used and how websites, domain names, hosting and the Google search engine works. Continue reading FREE Digital Business Course

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Start Your Business NOW!

The Christmas Holidays is a Terrific Time to Start a New Business

start-your-own-small-business-this-christmasIF YOU’VE DECIDED THAT this will be the year you start your new business, don’t wait until January to begin your journey to becoming the head honcho.

Right now is the best time of the year to begin — because while everyone else (businesses included) has gone on on holidays, you’ll be ready to take on your first client or customer by the time January 2017 rolls around. Continue reading Start Your Business NOW!

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Yes, I Want Our Bookkeepers to Do Themselves Out of a Job!

learn xero myob excel online training course videos

Systemising Bookkeeping Procedures

As a business owner, one of the most frustrating things I come across is talking to a team member who stretches time out because they’re being paid by the hour! It’s not what I particularly wanted to write about today, but it relates to the good bookkeepers who are part of National Bookkeeping and a conversation we were having about doing such a good job you do yourself out of a job.

The best way to do yourself out of a bookkeeping job is to systemise the bookkeeping process to the extent that anyone can do the work!

My answer to that is systemise as much as you can because it makes you MORE valuable as the person to operate the system. The other reason I believe this is a good path for a bookkeeper is because many industry leaders believe that bookkeepers, and many other professionals, will be replaced by automated online systems and technology before long, and bookkeepers need to keep abreast of these changes otherwise they’ll be left behind.

Continue reading Yes, I Want Our Bookkeepers to Do Themselves Out of a Job!
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Running Multi-Period Profit and Loss Statements

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Be Aware of the Ebbs and Flows of Your Business: Multi-Period Profit and Loss Reporting

Nearly every business has its busy periods and its quiet ones. Crucial to the success of a business is knowing when these busy periods and quiet ones occur, so you can capitalise on them.

For a lot of Australian businesses offering professional services, December through January is usually when business winds down for the year. In the hospitality and accommodation industry, however, it’s typically the busiest time of the year, so planning for increased business is essential. Continue reading Running Multi-Period Profit and Loss Statements

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The Secret to an Error-Free BAS Report

What To Do So You Don’t Lose Money When Doing Your BAS – 6 steps

If your business is registered for GST, it means you have to file regular activity statements with the ATO, usually each quarter. A lot of business owners export their Business Activity Statement (BAS) data straight from their accounting software, like MYOB or QuickBooks, and quickly prepare their BAS’ that way. But this is an imprecise method, and one that could be costing you money.

Tracey Marino, an experienced bookkeeper based in Rockingham, WA, knows how important it is that businesses of all sizes keep their Business Activity Statements error-free so as not to end up costing business owners money.  Continue reading The Secret to an Error-Free BAS Report

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Three Things Your Bookkeeper Shouldn’t Be Doing

Is Your Bookkeeper Making Stuff Up?

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Some bookkeepers may fudge their way through your books, but you can spot this before it ends up costing your business.

In a previous post I wrote about the three tell-tale signs that your bookkeeper isn’t paying attention and thought I’d expand on this a little further by writing about three of the things your bookkeeper shouldn’t be doing — and what it means if they are.

Continue reading Three Things Your Bookkeeper Shouldn’t Be Doing

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The 3 Tell-Tale Signs Your Bookkeeper Isn’t Paying Attention

Are You Getting the Best from Your Bookkeeper?

find-a-good-bookkeeper
You don’t need to be a whizz at bookkeeping to recognise when your bookkeeper isn’t prioritising your business.

MANY BUSINESS OWNERS LACK an in-depth knowledge of the bookkeeping process so they hire a bookkeeper to manage it for them.

But this can also make it hard to know whether the bookkeeper they’ve hired is paying close attention to their business’ books or not.

Ricky is a tertiary qualified bookkeepers from Blacktown in NSW, and he reveals there are three tell-tale signs your bookkeeper isn’t paying attention. Continue reading The 3 Tell-Tale Signs Your Bookkeeper Isn’t Paying Attention

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What if a Credit Check Comes Back Negative?

Do You Have to Drop a Client Because of a Bad Credit Check?

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It’s only business: but sometimes a bad credit rating doesn’t mean you have to end the working relationship.

A Credit Check is one of the most important first steps of good credit and debt management but you can still do business if the check comes back negative.

In a previous post on credit and debt management, I recommended that all businesses — regardless of whether they offer credit to customers on a 30-day account or not — perform a credit check on any new client who will spend more than $1000 on goods or services in one sale, on an ongoing basis.

What should you do if the credit check comes back negative, and shows that the potential customer is guilty of late payments, pending legal action or already carries a significant level of debt? Continue reading What if a Credit Check Comes Back Negative?

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Is Credit Management Just About Getting on the Phone?

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It’s Good Business to Set Out Your Credit Management Policy at the Outset

CRITICAL TO THE SUCCESS OF ANY BUSINESS is the ability to maintain a healthy cash flow. But doing so requires effective credit management processes.

Unfortunately, too many business owners feel uncomfortable talking about credit and debt management upfront with new clients.

They (falsely) believe it begins if, and when, a customer doesn’t pay a bill. But, in fact, credit management starts much, much earlier than that — long before the two businesses even agree to work with each other, to be precise.   Continue reading Is Credit Management Just About Getting on the Phone?