Being a blogger can be fantastic. You can spend your days doing something that you love and making money from it. Of course, when you’re expressing your opinions publicly, there is also a chance that you will upset or offend someone who will take it badly and begin to harass you. There have been numerous cases of people being trolled and even physically stalked after becoming bloggers. This shouldn’t put you off from taking the plunge and launching your career as a blogger, but it should make you think more about your privacy should you choose to do so.
Here are some simple things you can do to protect your basic privacy as a blogger:
Get a Virtual Mailbox of PO Box
Most bloggers work from home, but it doesn’t make much sense for them to post their personal addresses in their contact pages if they want to ensure their privacy and their basic security. What many bloggers now do and what you should seriously consider doing is either getting a virtual mailbox from the likes of physicaladdress.com, which provides you with a secure physical address for mail to be sent, which is then scanned and delivered to you digitally, or paying a few dollars per month for a Post Office box, which you can check at your convenience.
Set Up a Blog Specific Email Address
When you’re blogging, you should never use your personal email address, which if you’ve been using it for a long time, could be connected with all kinds of accounts and could make it easier for people to track you down. Instead, you should set up a blog specific email, which will look more professional anyway, and which will allow you to separate your personal and public personas online.
Post a Privacy Policy
Whether you’re blogging professionally or just for fun, it’s sensible to create and post your own privacy policy, which is prominently displayed on your website. This will tell your readers what is and is not acceptable and help you to nip confrontations with disgruntled readers in the bud. Just make sure that you write a privacy policy that covers as many possible areas of conflict as you can think of.
Block Abusive People
If you start to get abusive comments from readers of your blog, whether they choose to attack you in your website’s comments or on social media, just block them. There is little point in engaging with them and the less contact you have with them, the better you’ll be able to maintain your privacy and move on with your life.
Change Your Passwords Regularly
I know it’s a pain, but changing the passwords to your blog, email addresses and social media accounts on a regular basis will help to thwart those who would seek to hack into your accounts to access your personal information or make trouble for you. Ideally, you should make your passwords as complex as possible and use a tool like 1Password to help you manage them. This is the best way to stay safe online.
Are you a blogger? What steps have you taken to protect your privacy online?
These are great privacy tips, privacy is very important these days.
I worry about this as someone who visits, replies in posts and enters giveaways across so many different blogs. Viruses are out there and they are sneaky!