Blogger Beware!

by Joe Wallace

I literally just got off the phone with one of my writing pals who was filling me in on the latest gossip; she told me a story that should serve as a cautionary tale for new writers and bloggers, so I’m sharing it here (with all names and vital details changed, of course.)

Since I got this information second hand, regardless of the source I must relate it in a way that screams “fiction” instead of “reportage!” So bear with me.

And please note that I did NOT write “bare with me” as so many of the kids today seem wont to do. … Continue Reading

Content Marketing: Here’s a Cat, and Here’s the Bag

Wired.com has a section called the How-To Wiki. On January 10, 2010 an entry called Internet Article Marketing showed up there, detailing how you can market your blog by creating articles and posting them in places like Squidoo and Associated Content.

The idea is simple; put an article with a one-way link back to your low-ranked site from a higher ranked site and you can earn yourself more Google clout in the process. That potentially means better placement in search results.

This is nothing new, blog-for-money how-to sites like the Green Ninja talk about this stuff all the time.

What IS new is that the practice has finally crept into the mainstream with Wired letting the cat out of the bag.

What this tells me is that it’s entirely possible that “Internet article marketing” days are numbered. I have nothing concrete to base this on, just a hunch that those who don’t change their game in 2010 will end up on the losing team in the end.

Google has this funny habit of modifying itself to stay a step ahead of the masses. When certain “tolerated” practices became more widely used, Google just mutated and made those practices “sandbox” worthy. (As in, do those things and Google will probably dump your site at the bottom of the search rankings.)

… Continue Reading

RSS Feed Basics

by Catherine L. Tully

Are you RSS savvy? If you would like to keep up with a variety of blogs, but don’t want to get bogged down trying to get to them all the time, RSS feed is the way to go. If you don’t know how to set this up, check out this brief primer on the subject and get the info you need.

Oh, and sign up for ours while you’re at it. Make life easy.

TutorialBlog: Tools To Make Your Life Easier

by Catherine L. Tully

I stumbled across TutorialBlog while doing some mindless surfing and bookmarked it to share with Freelance-Zone readers. This site can come in handy for freelance writers as it has a wide range of tutorials that will help with everything from blogs to Photoshop techniques. There is information on there about freelancing, self-promotion and equipment as well as writing and editing advice.

What Blogs Do You Follow?

-Catherine L. Tully

OK. Truth be told…I am a blogger that doesn’t follow a whole bunch of blogs every day. I find most kind of predictable, or lacking in solid information. I can get hooked on an interesting idea or a fact-packed presentation, however. And not all the blogs I follow are about writing…

Before I list a few of the main blogs I do check in on, I’d like to pose the question to you–what blogs do you follow regularly? I’m curious to see what you guys are checking out.

Here’s a taste of the ones that I peek in on most often… … Continue Reading

Make Money Blogging? The Game is Changing

by Joe Wallace

We all want to make money blogging by inserting Google Adsense, Chitika and other pay-per-click or affiliate links.  According to a recent AdWeek story the landscape could be changing, especially for those who struggle with the technology to insert ad code and modify blog templates to accomodate it.

According to AdWeek, an experiment is underway by the Wall Street Journal and other top-level publishers. What do readers get during the test? Something called “interruptive” ads” that pop up as you try to access a web page.

It’s not a new idea, but according to AdWeek if the idea catches on there will be much more intrusive advertising cluttering up our laptop screens.

What does this mean for bloggers?

For those using freebie Wordpress, Blogspot and other platforms, some of these ads will happen with or without your permission if the owners adopt a more aggressive ad policy. For others, the challenge will be incorporating these more intrusive ads into their current placement systems. If Google hops on board, chances are the ads will eventually be as ubiquitous as the hated pop-up once was.

For blogging noobs eager to make a buck with as little effort possible, this experiment is probably a welcome development, but for the rest of us who actually care about readership it feels a lot like a step backwards to web 1.0. aesthetics.

In fact, intrusive ads–in the minds of some (me) are just as annoying as pop-ups and (with luck) the shelf life of this not-so-new ad delivery method could be limited. But the future could hold a vast amount of annoyance if this experiment gains traction.

Why Do They Do That? Freelance Blog Mysteries Explained

This post will annoy some people because I’m pulling the curtain back on certain practices that, for better or worse, drive traffic to blogs in spite of their user-unfriendliness.

There’s a fine line between “Don’t do anything to alienate potential readers” and being honest and transparent about silly practices and bad advice about our craft. More than once I’ve felt that playing by the rules or obeying the status quo is a bad idea. In the blog world, one sometimes has to choose between having an uber-sticky, traffic-laden site and telling it like it is.

Some Google-bait blog practices are relatively harmless at best, simply annoying at worst. One blog for writers has a forum section linked from the main page. “Ohh!” You might think, “A new forum to make friends and network with.” But don’t light the fireworks just yet; when you click on the link you get taken to yet another page which has “Click here to access the forums” on top in large letters.

Click on THAT link and you get taken to a message page saying the site no longer offers forums. Now you’re just plain irritated. WHY do they DO that? Why don’t they just take down the links and stop directing people to parts of the site that don’t exist?

Simple–traffic.

The users who are used to having the forums there get a notice that the forums are dead, but the site still has those forums–or at least the forum landing page–indexed by the search engines. Rather than loose that Google clout, the page stays up, retaining the power to annoy for ages.

That’s just one of the eyeball-rolling practices blogs employ. But what about more harmful practices? … Continue Reading

Debug Magazine and Continuing Education

by Joe Wallace

I am truly enjoying Debug Magazine, which I discovered by accident while researching and doing query prep. Debug sounds like a coder’s blog, but this is actually aimed at freelancers of many creative disciplines including writers.

I was particularly inspired by the article Freelance Work and Continuing Education. The best articles on freelancing, at least for me, are the ones that make me think about things the author probably never intended. In this case, the post concentrates on education to further your work in your own field of expertise, but I wound up thinking about ways to expand my writing horizons by doing things like getting a real estate license or explore a gym instructor certification. I write plenty about FHA loans, insurance, fitness, medicine and related technical topics, but how much farther could I go writing about these things with a certification under my belt?

There are plenty of ways to add credibility to your existing body of work. Continuing education is one way to do that. Thanks to Debug, I’ve got plenty to chew on this weekend. Recommended reading.

Top 100 Books for Freelancers–InkThinkerBlog.com

To begin with, DAMN. A list of 100 books is pretty ambitious, and the fact that this collection is well organized into lists by category makes this my new favorite collection of resources. Inkthinker.com hasn’t been on my radar until now, but here’s a site worth watching. Kristen King has a very impressive, highly detailed blog going here, well worth a busy freelancer’s time.

Of all the books on King’s top 100 list, Website Marketing Makeover is the one I’m most tempted to pick up on her recommendation alone. Most writing-related sites (including FZ) could use a refresher course on this stuff. Other good entries on her list include The Well-Fred Writer and a sequel to this great book I was unaware of til now, thanks to Kristen. I have no idea where King finds the time to do a top 100, but I am very glad she did as there’s plenty to keep you busy here.  Recommended.

The New Absolute Write

I have to confess, it’s been a while since I visited Absolute Write but I was pleasantly surprised to see the site has finally evolved into Web 2.0 with a new reader-friendly design. Congratulations, AW! The site is 110% more attractive and easy to navigate.

Absolute Write has been a favorite of mine since the earliest of my early freelancing days. I’ve used it for everything from networking to hiring, and the site continues to be a relevant, entertaining place. Especially for new writers–if you are just getting started in the biz, you could do your career a world of good by becoming a regular there.

The Super Affiliate Handbook

There are plenty of guides out there, including this one by Rosalind Gardner, that explain the ins and outs of affiliate marketing and how to make it work for you. Many people get very excited after reading books like The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436, 797 In One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.

There’s just one teeny little problem–not with Gardner’s book, but with the people who read it and get over-excited. Bloggers who think they can throw up a few posts and a few subsequent affiliate links and turn a profit tend to forget that you have to have an audience in order to get the clicks. And since most affiliate programs don’t pay you by the click, but rather by the purchase, that equation gets a little more challenging.

The key to a successful affiliate program on a blog or website? Focus. Decide what you want to do and stick to it. If you want to supplement a blog with some affiliate income, there are strategies and techniques you can use specific … Continue Reading

Five New Year’s Resolutions

Sure, it’s a few weeks early to be obsessing over New Year’s resolutions, but here are my current five favorites for 2009:

5. Pay attention to my back.  2008 has been full of bad ergonomics, couch-slouching with the laptop and overall crappy posture. If I want to be writing comfortably at my desk for any length of time, I’m going to have to pay more attention to good ergonomics. Otherwise, I’ll wind up looking with a nickname like “Jerry the Pretzel Boy”.

4. Stop working around the clock. Another bad habit I fell into late this year. Writers go freelance presumably so they can have a life. Where’s mine? Oh, there it is, buried under those deadlines over there. Smell the roses, you.

3. Exercise more. This one ties directly into #5. The mind-body connection cannot be ignored when it comes to cranking out good, dependable material…unless you are Hunter S. Thompson…and he’s dead now. So what’s MY excuse?

2. Buy a damn filing cabinet. All of 2008’s receipts are currently overflowing out of TWO boxes, and it’s a shameful state of affairs. Organization is the key to good record keeping.

1. Buy an iPhone. Yes, I plan on becoming ONE of THEM. Tully beat me to it on this one, usually I’m more geeked out than that. This year they caught me napping.

I currently plan on keeping ALL these resolutions…but especially #1. If I do nothing else next year, the iPhone is on the list. THEN I’ll climb Kilamanjaro, cure an infectious disease and spread world peace.

Top Five Ways to Get More Clicks with Hot Headlines & Subheads

You might not consider an investment website like The Motley Fool to be a place to learn how to blog effectively, but think again. Learn by example by taking a good, long look at their great article This Week’s 5 Dumbest Stock Moves. Let’s break it down–why is this piece so excellent? How can you learn from this post? It’s simple, really:

1. An eye-grabbing headline makes you want to read more. Why are these stock moves so dumb? What makes the writer think these companies are wrongheaded and silly? You’ve already got a million questions and you’ve only just read the headline. Brilliant.

2. The use of “Top Ten” and other numbered lists ala David Letterman is a proven winner when it comes to getting your attention quickly.

3. Each entry in the top five gets its own goofy, but still clever subhead. Corny as they often are, you get an idea of what’s to come without duplicating the content in the first paragraph. Well done, Motley Fool!

4. The meat of  the writing under each subhead is easy to understand–OR is explained in layman’s terms to help the uninitiated. ThisFool.com blog post is a very good example of writing clear, concise material for an audience of varying levels of understanding of a complicated topic. The subhead teases you, but the paragraphs themselves give you plenty to chew on without choking on the finer points of investing.

5. The article is chock full of relevant outbound links to help you further understand the piece. Note that some of the most relevant outbound links are very close to those clever subheads. Coincidence? Perhaps not.

Take a lesson from Fool.com and watch interest in your next blog post rise.

Scary Times For Freelancers?

The New York Observer reports Conde Nast making a five percent cut in budget AND staff across the board. The existence of at least one title, Men’s Vogue, is in doubt at press time, and freelancers were mentioned by name as one of the resources that could be cut to fit the bill. Five percent doesn’t sound like that much for an organization as large as Conde Nast until you read further and learn that the five percent cuts apply for EACH PUBLICATION, not an as-a-whole, company-wide reduction.

Combine that news with the parting shot the Christian Science Monitor fired this week when it was announced the venerable publication would stop printing hard copies of its daily edition in favor of web-only publication and you have some interesting times for freelancers ahead.

The breed of writer I call “newsstand freelancers” are going to suffer as the big-money titles start shaving their budgets, but any freelancer who knows how to market, diversify writing gigs, and look in unique places for new work shouldn’t have much to worry about at this point, at least not in my view.

The key to all this is reading the headlines and anticipating the next round of tough times. Take a close look at your current situation. Are you earning the bulk of your income from a single source. It’s time to start adding clients to protect yourself. Is your resume page outdated or in need of a new look that helps it look more “web 2.0″? Invest the time, you may need to use that page soon. Are you a new full-time freelancer? Solidify your existing relationships with clients and editors by turning your projects in early, being flexible as possible, and willing to take on short-notice gigs that are inconvenient to you but endear you to your editor.

The key to avoiding the lay-off axe, the budget cuts and the tough times is to make yourself as indispensible as possible. Ask yourself how you can do that with your current editors and get to it. You’ll find yourself in a much better position as a result. The tough times are here, but not for everyone. Where you stand depends greatly on how you seek new work, approach the editors and deliver the content.

Editors Only

Don’t ask me how this one escaped my attention all this time, but I finally stumbled on Editors Only. This is a print publication with a high subscription price, and I haven’t read the print mag so I can’t vouch for the contents. In today’s market, the EO business model seems risky to me, but if they’ve got a following I say more power to ‘em.

What most FZ readers will like this site for is the classifieds section. There is a help wanted section AND a professional services section and you can post to it for free. Newcomers to freelancing take note, I strongly suggest reading the other ads before you decide to post. This classified section is full of credentialed professionals, and if you’re short on published clips and experience, do yourself a favor and look longingly at this one, but wait until you have a stronger resume before posting. The heavy-hitters on this site are tough for a newcomer to compete with.