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 Step
1: How to get a free Blog here
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You can download this
page in DOC or PDF format and print it
for your records, or read it below. It
is 6 pages when printed. Also you should
refer to the Greetings Blog occasionally
at GroomWise℠ for the latest notices.
Please do not request a blog if you have
not read the entirety of this document.
We do have some expectations of you in
order to receive a free blog at
GroomWise℠ and setup a great mutual
working relationship. This friendly
document is your starting point.
Important: At the end of this
page you are given a website link to
Step 2: Blog Request Form. You must
follow that link and complete an online
request form. If you have any questions
we are pleased to answer them by sending
an email to
findagroomer@earthlink.net or you
may call and arrange a time to talk with
Stephen, GroomWise Webmaster at
800-556-5131 or 360-446-5348 outside the
U.S.
What is Find A
Groomer Inc.’s goal by offering free
GroomWise™ Blogs?
GroomWise™ is a new resource from the
creators of PetGroomer.com helping to
uplift the professional reputation of
the pet care industry. Unfortunately pet
care knowledge published in the form of
articles often becomes difficult to find
at a later date. At GroomWise™ authors
can present pet care industry articles
both current and past made available at
no charge to GroomWise™ visitors. In
this way the pet care industry retains a
valuable archive of knowledge and
experience of its members for many years
to come. It is our hope that GroomWise™
will also create more camaraderie among
authors in the pet care industry. We
also offer free GroomWise™ Blogs to our
banner advertising sponsors to honor
them for helping to make PetGroomer.com
available to everyone with an interest.
Who may apply
for a free GroomWise™ Blog?
Any pet care industry author may apply
for a free GroomWise™ Blog. Upcoming
authors not yet widely published may
also apply using this form and include
samples of their works to assist us in
making our publishing decision. Banner
advertising sponsors of PetGroomer.com
are guaranteed a GroomWise™ Blog for as
long as they maintain their advertising
contract on a current basis. If you
already have a blog you may mirror its
content in whole or part within your
GroomWise™ Blog and enjoy the
opportunity of gaining even more
awareness for your works.
Can someone be
turned down for a free GroomWise™ Blog?
Yes, there are some circumstances where
an author may be refused a blog, or lose
their blog. If the author is also a
vendor selling to pet groomers, and by
appearances they will, or actually do,
use their blog to primarily sell their
services or products to groomers, and
they are not an advertising sponsor of
PetGroomer.com, they may be refused a
GroomWise℠ Blog while those
circumstances exist. If they become an
advertising sponsor they do receive a
blog and it is placed with other
commercial blogs. Initially the
non-sponsor author is likely to receive
a GroomWise℠ Blog and their content will
be monitored to ensure that it is not
clearly intent on selling their goods
and services so long as they remain a
non-sponsor. In order to protect the
value of our sponsors who make
PetGroomer.com possible we must reserve
the right to refuse blogs which appear
to be commercially oriented and used to
circumvent sponsorship while selling to
PetGroomer.com visitors. We encourage
non-sponsor authors to seek
clarification from Stephen, Webmaster if
they have any questions.
My technical
web publishing skills are weak. Is this
hard to do? Will you help?
We create and design your GroomWise™
Blog template for you. As the author you
only need enter your “posts” online by
accessing your GroomWise™ Blog with a
user name and password. The interface is
very simple. It’s similar to typing a
letter on a computer. However, you do
NOT have to enter your posts online. You
may send your text and any photos (JPG
format only) to our office by email or
after burning them on a CD. We will then
process your posts for you within 3 to 7
days. We do not accept printed articles
that we have to type without prior
arrangement. A small fee may be involved
to cover the cost of our word processor.
Is my GroomWise℠
Blog really free?
Once approved, your GroomWise™ Blog is
entirely free and comes with no
obligations except to comply with our
terms of use, policies and procedures
and privacy policy described in general
here, and on the short Agreement you
sign after approval. Free means free
when we do business.
How many people
will see my free GroomWise™ Blog?
We cannot accurately predict how many
visitors will view your free GroomWise™
Blog. PetGroomer.com hosts some of the
highest traffic among all grooming
information websites. Thousands of pages
of PetGroomer.com (comprised of multiple
interlinked websites) have links to
GroomWise™. Our hope is that nearly all
PetGroomer.com visitors link to
GroomWise™. We also submit every
GroomWise™ Blog to major search engines.
By doing so web traffic to your
GroomWise™ Blog may come directly from
major search engines like Yahoo and
Google and not just by PetGroomer.com
visitors.
Is there any
content I cannot post in my free
GroomWise™ Blog?
Yes there is in order to protect the
goals we have for GroomWise™. It’s very
important that you read and comply with
our direction for content in order to
maintain a GroomWise™ Blog. Your posts
and any graphics cannot be:
• Inappropriate for children including
adult entertainment or violent.
• Off topic from pet care industry
topics, including religion and politics
which often sparks critical debate and
hurt feelings among readers.
• Inflammatory in nature creating
division among readers.
• Detailed consumer reviews.
We are creating camaraderie among
readers and vendors alike. We are not
looking for “Consumer Report” type
testing and reporting. We leave that to
professional and experienced consumer
agencies, not our bloggers. You may
recommend products by name. We may
censure overly critical reporting of any
products or services offered by pet care
industry vendors. Do not create division
among product and service vendors.
Sponsors of PetGroomer.com may not use
their GroomWise™ Blog to compare and
critique the products and/or services of
other pet care industry vendors
including manufacturers, schools, home
study providers, distributors, mobile
conversion companies and service
providers.
Can I sell
products or services in my GroomWise™
Blog? You may
sell products and services by linking
readers of your blog to your external
website you own for that purpose. In
your free GroomWise™ Blog we will place
a graphic banner linked to your external
website.
Can I post
articles and documents I wrote in the
past? Yes
please do. You can archive years of
articles even. It’s one of our primary
goals for GroomWise™ to become an
archive for pet care industry writers
and to serve as a reference resource for
pet groomers many years into the future.
Can I post
photographs?
Sure. Graphics add reader interest and
many artistic groomers comprehend
content faster and better with visual
aids. Your pictures should only be in
JPG format and their file size reduced
for fast page loading. Use a “picture
shrinking” service online if you don’t
have software for that purpose. There
are free services available on the
Internet. When you don’t shrink JPG
photos your Blog posts will load much
slower and readers may leave. If you are
sending photos to us you can shrink them
first, or we will. We do
expect that you are the copyright owner
of all photographs or other creative you
publish in your free GroomWise™ Blog, or
that you have the proper permission to
do so.
Can I have a photo
album? You may
request a photo album within your
GroomWise™ Blog.
Can I post
advertising or affiliate offers?
No. You can only advertise your website
on your free GroomWise™ Blog. Marketing
and advertising efforts should be placed
on your personal or business website. At
your request, we will setup your free
GroomWise™ Blog with a link to your
personal or company website.
To offset our costs from
providing free blogs we do place some
Google Adsense and that modest revenue
belongs to Find A Groomer Inc. Please
note we do not place Google Adsense or
any other advertising in blogs provided
to PetGroomer.com sponsors. Their blogs
are entirely ad free except for links to
their commercial websites.
You can earn revenue from your
GroomWise™ Blog by linking readers to
your external ecommerce website. We make
no guarantee that your blog will
generate traffic to your external
website or result in sales you conduct
there.
Can I sell
advertising space on my GroomWise™ Blog?
No. Your GroomWise™ Blog and web storage
space is loaned to you by Find A Groomer
Inc. at no charge. We do not sell
advertising in your GroomWise™ Blog.
I don’t want my
GroomWise™ Blog readers to comment on my
posts. Do I have to allow comments?
No. Every time you enter a new post you
can turn on or off the ability to allow
readers to comment. If you are new to
blogging you should realize that when
you allow comments you may receive
problematic replies as well as praise.
It’s the nature of interactivity on the
Internet. For this reason we never
require you to accept comments. We do
require that you post an email address
for readers to contact you. Otherwise
they are likely to contact us asking for
your contact information. We suggest you
setup a separate email address for this
purpose on your GroomWise™ Blog.
Can I charge people to access my
GroomWise™ Blog? You may
not charge anyone to access your
GroomWise™ Blog. Likewise, Find A
Groomer Inc. does not charge visitors to
access GroomWise™ Blogs.
Can you protect
my copyrights?
Posting creative works in a GroomWise™
Blog does not convey their copyrights to
Find A Groomer Inc. We can assist you
with copyright protection to a limited
degree. A copyright notice will be
placed on all pages of your GroomWise™
Blog. We cannot prevent visitors from
copying your articles or creative. Our
web host server attempts to prevent
persons from hacking into your files for
illegal access, but we make no guarantee
of absolute success. The risk of
publishing your works at GroomWise™ is
similar to risk of publishing them in a
magazine, someone may copy them but you
should file copyright registrations for
your works with the U.S. Copyright
Office. Filings are your responsibility.
We do encourage you to protect your
works to the fullest extent possible.
You are expected to only post text and
creative to your free blog for which you
are the copyright owner or licensee
allowed to do so.
Are there a
minimum number of blog posts you expect
from writers?
You may post as much as like in your
GroomWise™ Blog. We do ask that you make
every attempt to post in your blog at
least once a month. The most active
blogs will generally find their way to
the top of our GroomWise™ Blog
Directory.
Can I place
works by other authors in my GroomWise™
Blog? Within
your GroomWise™ Blog you may place links
to works by other authors or creative
sources. Do not publish any works in
your blog for which you are not the
legal owner unless you the written
permission of Find A Groomer Inc.
Who creates my GroomWise™ Blog?
The GroomWise™ Webmaster creates your
GroomWise™ Blog template. You cannot
access the design templates for security
reasons. The GroomWise™ Webmaster will
work with you on a mutually agreed
design for your blog after you are
approved.
Where is my GroomWise™ Blog hosted?
Find A Groomer Inc. uses the blog
hosting services of Typepad, one of the
most professional and full-featured blog
hosting companies in the world. We
attempt to make your GroomWise™ Blog
available 24/7/365 but that is
conditional on the blog host vendor we
use. We cannot and do not provide any
guarantee for actual availability of
your GroomWise™ Blog. Typepad strives
for 24/7/365 availability and has a
strong track record of achieving 98% or
better uptime.
Do you offer
grammar and spelling check?
Your blog’s post page requires a secret
user name and password. After your login
the entry screen provides a
spellchecker, but not a grammar checker.
Good grammar is expected. We encourage
authors to write, spell check and
grammar check their works using a
quality word processor such as Microsoft
Word® and thereafter copy and paste
final versions into their GroomWise™
Blogs.
Is there a
contract or agreement I must sign?
Yes, there is a Agreement to sign with
Find A Groomer Inc. and it basically
serves as your acknowledgement of the
terms of use, conditions, policies and
procedures required to maintain a free
GroomWise™ Blog.
Do you provide
stats for my GroomWise™ Blog?
During the initial year
of GroomWise™ stats may not be
available. However, it is our goal to
provide you with the number of visitors
monthly to your blog, but not their
identity such as IP addresses etc in
order to protect their privacy.
Statistics are owned by Find A Groomer
Inc. since it is the company contracting
and paying Typepad for hosting services.
We are under no obligation to provide
you with visitor identification, and in
fact, our PetGroomer.com Privacy Policy
does not allow our sharing of visitor
information to anyone including banner
advertising sponsors. We take the
privacy protection of our visitors very
seriously. We never sell or share email
addresses of our visitors, nor do we
require email addresses to access
GroomWise.
Can I collect data
regarding visitors to my GroomWise™
Blog? This is
sensitive subject and various states
have different regulations. Our
PetGroomer.com Privacy Policy states
that we never require visitors to
register or pay for access to any
PetGroomer.com website including
GroomWise.com. You cannot include a
mandatory registration procedure to
access your GroomWise™ Blog. Further you
cannot install any code in your
GroomWise™ blog with the intent to
collect statistics regarding visitors to
your GroomWise™ or to develop visitor
identification such as accepting signups
for an external email or postal mailing
list or a Guest Book. You may of course
conduct these procedures at your own
external website.
Do you submit my
GroomWise™ Blog to search engines?
Yes, we do submit your GroomWise™ Blog
to at least 10 major search engines at
no charge to you. We make no guarantee
for results of any kind by this action.
No other publicity is implied or
guaranteed beyond submission to major
search engines and promotion of
GroomWise at PetGroomer.com.
Censorship and
Termination If
we receive complaints about the content
of your GroomWise™ Blog, we will contact
you to discuss and resolve the matter.
Obviously if your activity is against
our Disclaimer Notice, Terms of Use and
other policies and procedures we will
expect you to amend your works or
presentation. If there are problems
reported to our office related to
activities at your external website
where GroomWise™ visitors were linked to
through your blog, we will contact you
to discuss and resolve the matter. We
expect that you will work quickly with
us for a resolve. If we cannot come to a
mutual resolve of the matter we do
reserve the right to terminate your free
GroomWise Blog at any time without
reparations. Please refer to the
Free GroomWise™ Blog Agreement for
details.
If accepted for a
free GroomWise™ Blog, what will I need
to supply?
Please do not forward any graphics or
information mentioned below until you
are approved. Once approved you sign an
Agreement and then work with our
GroomWise™ Webmaster to setup your blog.
Here are the basic requirements after
approval, but don’t rely on this list
below. An email will be sent to you
instead with details after you fill out
the Blog Request & Terms of Service
Agreement Form. • A
portrait photo of you for your
GroomWise™ Blog (strongly recommended).
• A short bio, about 100 words focused
on your professional background related
to pets (required).
• Additional graphics: we need to create
a header for the top of your GroomWise™
Blog pages. You may design and provide
the header to our office meeting
specifications or we will create one.
• If you plan to link your GroomWise™
Blog visitors to your external website,
an ad banner linked to your website
meeting specifications will be required
too.
What’s my next
step to secure a free GroomWise™ Blog?
You must complete a Blog Request & Terms
of Use Agreement Form online at:
http://www.groomwise.com/blog_agreement.htm
You fill it out online and click the
Submit button. Your completed form is
then sent to us by email and you will
receive a reply from the GroomWise℠
Webmaster in 1 to 3 days. We may want to
get to know you a little better, perhaps
you are PetGroomer.com sponsor already
and we already know one another. If
accepted we will send you an email with
the materials we need to design your
blog, like a short bio and picture etc.
We appreciate your interest! Any
problems or questions, contact me at
findagroomer@earthlink.net and I
will assist you. Stephen,
GroomWise℠
Webmaster |
