Don’t Be A Copy & Paste Concierge
I’m warning you right now – I’m about to get on my high horse. I do have a very good reason though.
When you had your brilliant idea to start your business, what was the first thing you did? I would take a bet that you jumped on Google and started searching, only to discover the amazing new world of the personal concierge industry. Am I right?
Then, I imagine you started scouring the internet for every personal concierge website you could find, trying to work out ‘how’ they did it, ‘what’ they charged, and ‘why’ some were more successful than others.
Times marches on and its finally time for you to create your own website. Woo hoo! But what on earth are you going to put on it?
Back onto Google you jump, seeking ideas you can ‘borrow’.
This is where things start getting dangerous [note the scraping sound of me dragging my high horse out of the cupboard].
There’s bound to be pages you love, websites you wish were yours. You’re inclined to think that no one’s really going to see your own site. You believe you’re just going to copy and paste this person’s About Us page. You’re only going to use it as inspiration. The final product will obviously be totally different.
Really?
[Picture me now gracefully climbing onto my high horse.]
I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I have discovered my own website staring back at me from the pages of another’s website. Sometimes it’s been a few lines that sound rather familiar. Other times I have clicked on a link only to find my actual logo, and every single paragraph, verbatim, clearly taken from my site. Let me tell you, it is infuriating!
Now, you may be saying to yourself, ‘Oh no, I would never do that!’. Perhaps you are correct. Many people don’t. But I do know that I have taken a look at some of your websites, and I have found a lot of similarities between the different websites out there. I’ve also seen some websites with the exact same images and very similar copy.
I am in no way an expert on website plagiarism. If you’d like to read more please click this link. What I am an expert on is the feeling you get when you see all your hard work blatantly copied. It is infuriating, frustrating, and disappointing. You understand there is the possibility that it has been a genuine mistake. Maybe they were only just starting their website and didn’t think I would see it. I can forgive. However, I would rather this wasn’t a problem at all.
So, what can you do to ensure that you don’t become a Copy and Paste Concierge?
- Think For Yourself – When you’re in the website development phase, before you seek out websites for inspiration, write down everything you can think of for every page you want on your site. Get things in your own words, in the way you would explain it. Try to capture absolutely everything first. It’s honestly the best way to communicate your own message, it just has the additional benefit of being your own work.
- Get Clarity – Now, if you so choose, you can go and look at other websites to see if you have missed anything or forgotten a key piece of information. Make a note of the concept (don’t copy and paste) and then start writing again, in your own words.
- Check For Plagiarism – If you’re not sure whether you are plagiarizing another site, check. You can input your weblink at this site or you can copy and paste your text here. This is also how you can check if others are plagiarizing your own site. It is always better to be safe rather than sorry.
Now that you’ve read this article, you have absolutely no excuse to become a Copy and Paste Concierge. However, if one day you are contacted by someone who believes you have plagiarized their site I suggest, unless you are completely certain that you have not plagiarized their site, that you apologise and remove the offending content immediately. We all make mistakes. It’s how we deal with them that shows our true colours.
[I’m now getting off my high horse.]
Abbie Allen is the founder of The Concierge Society, as well as Lifestyle Elements and le Porter. She started Lifestyle Elements in 2004 at the age of 23 and now operates internationally from her head office in Adelaide, South Australia. She was the 2014 Institute of Concierge and Lifestyle Managers Association Golden Key Award winner, as well as a finalist in the South Australia Telstra Business Women’s Awards in 2012. She works with her husband Tim, and they have three daughters. If you handed Abbie a brand new book, a glass of red wine and some chocolate, plus the time to enjoy it, you would have made her day! Have you joined our free private community? Click here now!