So, you’ve got your blog set up, you’ve decided on your blogging goals, and you’re regularly publishing content. Congrats! It probably feels great to be such a productive blogger, and you should be very proud.
But before you continue on with your blogging high, I’m unfortunately here to bring you down for a moment, with something very important to keep in mind:
A blog is a public website with public information, that the public can view. What this means is, be careful what you post online.
Before You Post Anything…
Ask yourself, “Am I okay with anyone in the entire world possibly seeing this?” For example, your parents, or a random stranger that happens upon your blog by accident? If not, rethink posting it.
Personal Information
You wouldn’t want strangers to know too much information about you or your family, would you? So please be careful and don’t post any identifying information on your blog. That could include things like a photo of the outside of your home that includes your house number, a picture of a letter you received that includes your full address, or even just your last name. It doesn’t take a lot of information to get found, so be careful of how much info you’re putting out there.
The same goes for photos of your kids. Unfortunately, there are a lot of creepy, twisted people out there, so please think twice before posting public photos of your little ones.
Incriminating Evidence
Have you ever Googled a new friend or a somewhat mysterious coworker, just to find out more information about them? Of course you have. That means that someone, at some time, will Google you as well. Do you really want your potential new boss to see photos of you and your friends funneling beers on spring break? Or a potential new girlfriend/boyfriend to read about your last big breakup?
If you really want your blog to be a personal tell-all, that’s fine, but you may want to consider locking it down and password protecting it (so that the only people who can read it are people you grant access to), or keeping it 100% anonymous (meaning no personal photos, and maybe even a pseudonym).
Legal Repercussions
Unfortunately, bloggers aren’t immune to lawsuits. While writing your blog posts and finding images, be wary of copyright infringement, defamation and/or slander, and the privacy of others. When in doubt, leave it out.
Deleting it Later Doesn’t Always Work
Maybe you posted a selfie on your blog, but later decided that you didn’t like your double chin and you took it down. Maybe you posted a defensive and angry response to a negative comment and decide to remove it after you calmed down. Maybe you posted a photo of your toddler niece in her diaper and her mother asked you to please remove it from your blog.
No big deal, you took it down, right?
Wrong.
I wrote a blog for seven years, but made it private in January 2014. If you visit my blog, What the Frock?, you’ll see that you can’t access it.
But savvy readers can easily access a blog, or even a post, that no longer exists. Just visit the Archive.org’s Wayback Machine, and you can see that there are almost snapshots of my blog that exist and are open to the public, just from the past three years.
Click on a date, and you can view my blog. This is what my blog looked like on November 12th, 2013:
So, basically, remember: what happens online stays online, even if you delete it.
Do you have any additional tips on how to blog responsibly? Please share them in the comments!
