Signed Blogger Information Made Easy

Signed blogger information

hey there Jim aren't back yet you hear from Hawthorne lawn today I want to talk to you about if you were a blogger or starting an online business here are the legal considerations that you need to keep in mind when you're starting your business let's go with the disclaimer [Music] I was putting together this list and I've got nine or ten different issues that you might need to be aware of if I'm not even say you might need to be over that you should be aware of if you're starting an online business and you are a blogger now remember I talked to you about in the last video I'm going to do a series of these videos whether you're a blogger a podcast or a YouTube or whatever it is that you're doing these are the main issues that you're going to need to think about when you're starting your business from a legal perspective now when I say starting your business I mean what I really mean is not not you know starting your business from day one what I mean is starting your business to the point that you actually have you're starting to make money with your business you determine that your idea is viable and that you are gonna push forward and this is going to be a main source of income from you now you need to start thinking about these issues when you're starting a blog you don't necessarily need to do a lot of these but but some of them you might want to think about just as you're getting started so this is a good list regardless of whether or not in your blog or podcast or whatever this is still going to be helpful to you regardless of the niche that you're getting in with your online business so let's jump into it the first things first is the name when you're naming your blog or podcast or whatever it is that you're naming you need to make sure that you're not taking anybody else's name you need to make sure that your name is available and you need to be thinking about the fact that two or three years from now you may want to trademark that name at some point and so if you're picking a name that incapable of being trademark because somebody else has it or somebody else's already trademarked it then that's gonna be bad so that's that's you're gonna make a huge mistake if you don't check this out first because if you don't check this out first then you find out later on that you're actually using somebody else's name well then you're Sol so here's what you need to do when you're just starting out you need to check and make sure that your name is not taken on a couple places number one I would just do a Google search and see if any Mouse is using your name that's a great way to start number two you want to go to the US trap US Patent and Trademark Office website and check and see if anybody else has trademarked your name that's another thing you want to do I'll include a link down in the description number three you want to go on social media and see if anybody else's picture name in the event that nobody's picture name that's great you don't need to rush and file a trademark application right away but you know that and register the name you can register the domain and you can claim all those social media properties but you're going to want to do because those things get taken pretty quickly if somebody sees what you're doing they may try and grab it before you do that's number one is the naming situation number two I would say disclaimers and so this is gonna be especially important if you are giving information out or if you're selling affiliate products or things like that there's a couple different disclaimers that you're going to need to have on your website or on your podcast or on your youtube channel whatever you notice the beginning of this I included a disclaimer I do that with every video because I want you to know that even though I'm a lawyer I can't give you legal advice that's the disclaimer that I'm making to you so a disclaimer is basically saying you know don't blame me if something goes wrong you know the unless unless I'm actually your lawyer which I'm not you can't come back at me and say that I gave you bad legal voice that's where the disclaimer is doing the same is true of your blog so if you post an article that tell somebody how to make the best chocolate chip cookies in the world but they're not in fact the best chocolate chip cookies in the world they can come back to you later on and say those cookies really so can't do that there's a couple disclaimers that you need number one the legal disclaimers that are going to help to protect you in the event somebody makes a mistake following your advice another disclaimer is an affiliate disclaimer an affiliate disclaimer is basically telling the world that you might be earning money if they click on your links that's actually required by the FTC or the Federal Trade Commission and a link down below to the requirements for the FTC will be in the description also you may want to think about putting a DMCA notice on your website that basically says if somebody tries to tap in your website that you can go to their web host provider and you can ask them to take it down not really disclaimer but it's something you may want to think about including in your website all right the third issue we're going to talk about our online contracts and so just because you're online doesn't mean you don't want to have contracts with your website and there's three specific contracts that I want to encourage you to have on your website the first is going to be a Terms of Service that's going to basically tell somebody if they use your website if they use the information your website that they're going to be bound by your Terms of Service if they decide not to follow your Terms of Service then you can't be held responsible that they messed something up basically the second type of disclaimer you're going to or not disclaimer online contract you need is a privacy policy this is really important especially if you're going to be collect information from people to visit your site in the form of cookies or if you're putting little snips of code from Facebook advertising and Google advertising so you can retarget people or if you're collecting actual physical email addresses from people for information you want to make sure that you've got a privacy policy and actually if you don't have a privacy policy if you're sending ads to Facebook or to Google or something like that they will take your ads down if they find that you don't have a privacy policy so that's another contract you need to be aware of and you need to have on your website and I don't know why I told you I have three actually only have two anyway let's get on to the next thing number four now we're going to talk about the things that most people want to talk about when they're starting their business and that's choice is choosing it choosing choosing a corporate entity for most people that's going to be an LLC and I've got lots of videos about forming LLC's I'm on this channel make sure you check them out include a link to some of the best up here so that's that's one thing you need to be aware of when you're starting your LLC especially if you're a single member LLC or a multi-member LLC multi-member means more than one person single member means one person you need to have an operating agreement I'll include a link down below to an operating agreement that you can actually use and to help protect your LLC this is an internal document for your business it is going to be used to protect you in the event that you make some sort of mistake and someone decides to sue you to keep them from piercing the corporate veil all sorts of benefits to operating agreements I've talked about that in previous videos again I don't know how many links I can include up here so there may or may not be a link up there along the lines of forming your corporate entity you want to make sure you have a bank account and I'm not going to get deep I need some coffee I'm not going to dig too deep into you forming the corporate entity because honestly I've done so many videos on that and I've got a whole playlist that I actually shared earlier so check that out but that's something you need to be aware of number five is FTC requirements I already kind of touched on this a little bit there'll be a link down below but you need to follow the requirements from the FTC if you don't follow the requirements from the FTC you can get yourself in some big trouble and that's trouble that you don't want to deal with trust me well I've never actually been in that type of trouble and fingers crossed I never will be and you never will be and that'll be great we'll all live a nice long happy life together you don't want to f with the FTC because they can make your life horrible so make sure you follow those rules we include the appropriate affiliate disclaimers make sure that you if you're gonna use testimonials on your website that you have that they're actually valid that they can be backed up by proof there's all sorts of things that the FTC would be looking for and now this isn't really gonna be such a big deal if you're a small channel but if you grow and you're big you've got you know hundreds of thousands of people that are even millions of people that are coming to your website on a on a monthly or yearly basis that's when the FTC might start to look at what you're doing and they want to make sure our people can make complaints actually and you want to make sure you stay off the radar by doing everything aboveboard and that's what you need to think about so now let's talk about offline contracts so you can need offline contracts to offline contracts include contracts for maybe independent contractors that you may hire or or people may hire you as an independent contractor or you may have clients on that you're working with you need to make sure you have good contracts in place for all those people if you don't just making yourself you're making a life harder on yourself because you're not gonna have a legally enforceable way to force payment if you do work for somebody you don't have a contract with them so you want to make sure you have a contract in place those are the different types of contracts also if you're running a membership site of some sort through your blog you want to make sure that you have a good rock-solid contract in place for that membership site that explains to people exactly what they're going to be getting as a member of your website on how often you're going to charge them what the fees are going to be and things like that so you need to make sure you have all that up to date you make sure you have contract for all that and so those can be contracts that are signed online or they can be contracts that are directly through your website that somebody clicks a link or science electronically whatever or if somebody just purchased something and by purchasing it they say there's a link on the invoice it says by purchasing this you're agreeing to this the terms of the membership site that's another way to do it as well another issue that might come up is payroll issues and employee and shoes now I believe strongly in outsourcing all this stuff I don't think it's wise or safe to try and do this all on their own the story we used to do it in the dark ages but now got the internet got you know you basically can do anything online I use a service called gusto there would be a link down below use them they're awesome they're cheap it's not expensive that is an affiliate link all the links down below are affiliate links by the way for the most part but guests it was great they'll track everything for you they'll keep track of your w4s they'll they'll get your i9 they'll do all everything you don't need to worry about it just use them they are great for payroll processing and that's who I use and I've loved them and they're they're great so just over payroll and then finally the last thing that you really need to think about is insurance and making sure you probably have proper insurance for your business I just paid my premium for the year for my law firm it's a million dollar umbrella policy this is separate and apart from liability insurance which we have to have as lawyers actually I don't think we have to have it but I do have it but anyway this is general liability if somebody comes into my office and they you know fall and break their leg god forbid and they assume my law firm for it then I have liability insurance in place for that so that's important so you're gonna want to make sure you have some general liability policy in place and that's in case your business gets sued or something like that happens you want to protect yourself by having that liability coverage as well not all those things you need to worry about right away but some of them you will need to worry about right away like I said at the very beginning the choice of a name and making sure you're not seeing somebody else's name as you get them further down the road after you've been in business for a while you're making some money you want to think about trademark and copyright those type of things intellectual property issues which we haven't really talked about yet I think that there's a lot of things here that you need to think about and be aware of when you're starting your business from a legal standpoint if you like what I'm talking about hit the little button below subscribe make sure you give me a thumbs up comment below and asking questions I can't answer legal questions on YouTube comments as I mentioned before but I'm happy to respond back and if you have words of life things I'm doing or you don't like things I'm doing let me know I appreciate it I'm starting to do live Q&A sessions every Friday if you want to get notified next time I'm doing a live Q&A make sure you subscribe or sign up for my email list which you can do I actually have a really great checklist that's going to be done in the description below for the ultimate business building checklist it's going to be talked about all the things I talked about on this video and many more that you need to think about if you're just starting out with your online business hopefully that's helpful to you get out there and kick it with your business I don't know I need to come up with a good catchphrase begin a good catchphrase let me know I'd like to come up with something so anyway that's it for today have a good one folks peace out ba ba