Today I want to share that .05 cents could save your writing reputation. Small price to pay, huh?
There's a valuable writing tool for web writers called Copyscape. Copyscape has a free service that looks for copies of work online and allows five searches a month but the premium service is only a nickel per search and can help you check your articles before they get posted online. You can buy a block of 100 searches for just $5 and as a self-employed individual you can write off this expense on your taxes.
Why use copyscape?
I now use it almost daily. I use it because I have a team that I sub work to and I've been let down a few times so I've become gun shy and it's important for me to protect my reputation and my business. I've now decided to use it on everything I have written for me because I got an email from a client this morning that pointed out a project done a few months back that had blocks of text that were NOT original.
Plagiarism!
The person I subbed to was an experienced writer. She has written for the web longer than I have. She came to me highly recommended. She copied several sentences of text directly into articles that were clearly defined as needing to be unique. This isn't the first time this person did this. They did it one other time and I gave the benefit of the doubt. Once bitten, twice shy.
Thankfully I have a good relationship with this long-time client and they appreciate that this has happened unintentionally and I've assured them this writer is never going to work on their projects again. I've said that anything I don't write myself for them will be run through Copyscape. I've already paid the freelance writer for the work but this weekend will have to spend several hours of my own time rewriting text for a disheartened client. I'm also going to check everything this person has done for me so I can be sure I'm not about to have any more nasty surprises.
It could have gone differently. Perhaps the client may never have told me and I could have lost a decent chunk of business. Perhaps they could've complained publicly about my business. It could have ended very badly.
Use Copyscape if you sub work out. You can use it on your own work as well and you can use it to see if anyone is trying to copy you. You may use it if you are asked to rewrite PLR articles to make sure the new content is unique. You may also use it so you can see if anyone has plagiarised you. Five cents per 2,000 words means you can use it for a few articles at a time if necessary. It just might save your reputation!
Friday, 20 February, 2009
Thursday, 19 February, 2009
Writers Helping Writers: Getting Traffic
I thought it might be time to start a new series here on The Writer's blog called Writers Helping Writers. Instead of this just being my soapbox to talk about my journey as a writer, I'm going to move the apostrophe and make this The Writers' Blog for a bit and hope some other writers will participate in the conversations.
This writer loves getting traffic and has had some great advice given to me about getting it and have found a few secrets to getting traffic to blogs and articles online. Self-promotion is key in writing so learning to promote yourself and your articles online can help you increase your success significantly.
Here are several tips for getting traffic to your website / blog / article. Hopefully some who read this will find it useful. Hopefully some of you will share your traffic-getting tips also.
Cheers,
Dana
1. StumbleUpon. I love Stumbleupon. Not only can you get traffic from your own stumbles but when people love your site and give it a thumbs up it can really go viral. Some say that bookmarking creates false traffic because it's not targeted enough but I disagree. When you tag, optimise, and categorise your bookmarking efforts the right way, it can get indexed in search engines and get categorised on bookmarking sites so that people with those interests will find the posts.
2. HubPages and Squidoo lenses. When I write lenses and hubs I like to add links to some of my articles. After lenses and hubs are published, I can go back and edit in a link if I find one that seems really useful. HubPages frowns upon too much self-promotion so I try to stick to just a few links per hub but I haven't found that problem with Squidoo so far. Another thing I like to do is put various RSS feeds into these sites because people viewing them will have an opportunity to click to an ever-changing list of links that updates on a regular basis.
3. Widgets. Put some widgets on your blog that point to articles you've written on various article directories and blogs. MyBlogLog has a great widget for that and the MyBlogLog site can bring you a lot of traffic if you actively participate there. I have my ezinearticles widget on my business site so that potential customers can quickly click to a list of articles I've written online. I try to regularly write in my top niches so I can use those as samples AND I do article marketing for my own affiliate marketing efforts so it's a win-win.
4. Write about blogs on other blogs/articles. If you try to link in every post to another post you've written about a topic, you're going to give your other articles SEO love as well as entice visitors to click on your other articles. When they do that, your articles could get shared on other blogs, your blogs could get blogrolled, and you can make sales if the article lives somewhere that's monetised. Article directory resource boxes are great for this purpose and you can link to sites, hubs, lenses and other articles.
5. Social bookmarking on other sites like FriendFeed, Twitter, Plurk, Reddit, Mixx, and others. I try to bookmark everything I write with at least one service and I vary it sometimes. It doesn't hurt to ask friends for the odd Digg, retweet, etc as well.
What are some of your blog / article traffic secrets? Looking forward to hearing some other article /blog traffic tips from writers.
This writer loves getting traffic and has had some great advice given to me about getting it and have found a few secrets to getting traffic to blogs and articles online. Self-promotion is key in writing so learning to promote yourself and your articles online can help you increase your success significantly.
Here are several tips for getting traffic to your website / blog / article. Hopefully some who read this will find it useful. Hopefully some of you will share your traffic-getting tips also.
Cheers,
Dana
1. StumbleUpon. I love Stumbleupon. Not only can you get traffic from your own stumbles but when people love your site and give it a thumbs up it can really go viral. Some say that bookmarking creates false traffic because it's not targeted enough but I disagree. When you tag, optimise, and categorise your bookmarking efforts the right way, it can get indexed in search engines and get categorised on bookmarking sites so that people with those interests will find the posts.
2. HubPages and Squidoo lenses. When I write lenses and hubs I like to add links to some of my articles. After lenses and hubs are published, I can go back and edit in a link if I find one that seems really useful. HubPages frowns upon too much self-promotion so I try to stick to just a few links per hub but I haven't found that problem with Squidoo so far. Another thing I like to do is put various RSS feeds into these sites because people viewing them will have an opportunity to click to an ever-changing list of links that updates on a regular basis.
3. Widgets. Put some widgets on your blog that point to articles you've written on various article directories and blogs. MyBlogLog has a great widget for that and the MyBlogLog site can bring you a lot of traffic if you actively participate there. I have my ezinearticles widget on my business site so that potential customers can quickly click to a list of articles I've written online. I try to regularly write in my top niches so I can use those as samples AND I do article marketing for my own affiliate marketing efforts so it's a win-win.
4. Write about blogs on other blogs/articles. If you try to link in every post to another post you've written about a topic, you're going to give your other articles SEO love as well as entice visitors to click on your other articles. When they do that, your articles could get shared on other blogs, your blogs could get blogrolled, and you can make sales if the article lives somewhere that's monetised. Article directory resource boxes are great for this purpose and you can link to sites, hubs, lenses and other articles.
5. Social bookmarking on other sites like FriendFeed, Twitter, Plurk, Reddit, Mixx, and others. I try to bookmark everything I write with at least one service and I vary it sometimes. It doesn't hurt to ask friends for the odd Digg, retweet, etc as well.
What are some of your blog / article traffic secrets? Looking forward to hearing some other article /blog traffic tips from writers.
Wednesday, 11 February, 2009
The New Kindle 2 - Will The E-Book Business Boom?
I'm drooling over the new Kindle 2 for two reasons.....
Some impressive Kindle 2 features:
Could The Kindle 2 Help My Writing Career?
Not only do I want a Kindle 2 for myself (psssst......if anyone would like to send me a free one, I'll happily review it!) but I think it is going to further my writing career.
When I first saw the first Kindle I never thought I'd want to read a book without feeling the paper between my fingers but after doing so much reading online for several years as a freelance writer, I can say I WANT a Kindle 2.
Beyond the fact that it is something that'd be great for me to have, the Wireless Reading Device could open up plenty of ebook opportunities. Hopefully this electronic book reading device will become as popular a device as an iPod or Blackberry (or maybe those devices will merge with something like a Kindle in future generations) and the e-book writers of cyberspace can look forward to even more opportunities to profit from our writing.
Sounds like a good deal to me!
Some impressive Kindle 2 features:
-Wireless access to the Kindle store to buy titles (no wireless fees or worrying about finding WiFi) electronically
-Kindle can use text to speech functions to read text to you if you want
-Holds up to 1,500 titles
-Crisp text makes it as easy to read as a page, even in the sun
-Weight of just over ten ounces
-You only need to charge about every 2 weeks so this sounds great for vacations
-You can subscribe to newspapers, magazines, and blogs to be delivered to the Kindle
-Free access to Wikipedia.org
Could The Kindle 2 Help My Writing Career?
Not only do I want a Kindle 2 for myself (psssst......if anyone would like to send me a free one, I'll happily review it!) but I think it is going to further my writing career.
When I first saw the first Kindle I never thought I'd want to read a book without feeling the paper between my fingers but after doing so much reading online for several years as a freelance writer, I can say I WANT a Kindle 2.
Beyond the fact that it is something that'd be great for me to have, the Wireless Reading Device could open up plenty of ebook opportunities. Hopefully this electronic book reading device will become as popular a device as an iPod or Blackberry (or maybe those devices will merge with something like a Kindle in future generations) and the e-book writers of cyberspace can look forward to even more opportunities to profit from our writing.
Sounds like a good deal to me!
Sunday, 8 February, 2009
Business Integrity: It Can Cost You But It Will Pay You
I believe wholeheartedly in living my life with integrity. This is not a sales pitch for me. Sometimes it costs me money or extra time and effort but because of my principles, my actions don't keep me up at night due to a guilty conscience. My conscience speaks much louder to me than greed so it's in my best interests to listen to it. I also know that when little miracles happen in my life, there are times when they might be happening as a reward for how I live my life. I'm certainly not flawless but I am honest.
This past week I was faced with a situation that might have tested my integrity and I guess I passed because I didn't even hesitate before doing what I believe was the right thing even though it probably cost me some dosh. My integrity paid me by increasing the trust between myself and my largest client and it looks like it will pay me financially after all. Maybe not as much as it would pay me if I'd chosen to handle myself differently but there are more important things in life than money.
Here's what happened:
The other day I placed a bid on Elance, the job bidding site, for a project I was qualified for. It was for a trial order and if the buyer liked the work it would lead to large orders in the coming months. It was one of a few bids I'd placed that night and I didn't really think too much of it because there were several competitors biding aggressively. In fact, I didn't even drop my price to get aggressive because I knew that if this one was meant to be it'd happen and it would require expertise that I wasn't really willing to discount.
So, the next morning I had an email that I'd won the bid for this project which at first was a nice surprise. The buyer remarked they would be in touch. Fantastic! Then I opened an email from someone who was already a client revealing that it was his bid on Elance that I'd just won.
Oh?
Uh-Oh.
So what was the problem?
The problem here was that the client wasn't "my" client. He's a customer via an agency I'm a team leader for and although many of the end users are anonymous to me when I do writing work for this agency, the owner trusts me enough to have me interact with many of her clients directly. Even though I'm a freelancer and don't 'work' for her, we have an arrangement and with that arrangement there's trust.
While I have greater earning earning potential without a middle person, the agency relationship provides volume and variety so it's symbiotic for myself and for my team.
The buyer knew who I was when he awarded the bid to me because:
a) I used my name and he speaks with me regularly about an ongoing project and
b) I used one of his blogs that I manage as a writing sample.
I immediately told the buyer that my bid was unintentional and told him I'd need to speak with the agency. I said that if they objected to my doing this one order direct, I would have to decline and refer him to the owner. I told the agency owner what happened. The agency had not bid on this project and didn't even know about it and I had no idea what their client's Elance buyer ID was so it really was just a coincidence. Thankfully, the owner understood and decided that we needed to talk through this issue together (all three of us).
The end results:
1. The agency now has extra business because the bid is for hundreds of articles in the coming months.
2. The buyer is going ahead with using me for the work but through the agency.
3. The agency owner probably now trusts me more than ever.
4. The buyer has decided to award me with what he called "a loyalty bonus" and is paying for the project TWICE. Once through Elance and once through the agency to thank me for my integrity. Nice, huh?
5. I'm thinking he might also add positive ratings to my Elance feedback which increases my ability to get other projects.
I won't make as much money on projects on an ongoing basis as I would direct but that's how it goes. The narrow road can be a more difficult one but it leads to life.
(Matthew 7:13-14)
Sure, I don't have a non-compete clause but I knew when the buyer contacted me that it would be wrong for me to go ahead and accept an order from them directly. I have an existing standing order through the agency managing this client's blog so the answer was clear.
Is Integrity Ever A Quandary?
Nope, not for me it isn't. Last year another client of a client came directly to me on purpose and I handled things the exact same way.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn here but I just felt compelled to share this story to illustrate that integrity does pay off, even if it takes time to bear fruit. I'm sure I'm going to benefit in more ways than one from my actions and even if I don't, I can hold my head high. There's not much in life this glass-half-full girl uses the word "hate" regarding (it is considered a swear word in my house) but I HATE cheating. I'd do without rather than steal.
Someone I mentioned this story to said that the agency wouldn't have even had this business since it was put out for bid and that I would earn a lot more money by taking it direct and maybe I should've stopped and pondered it a bit longer. The agency doesn't 'own' the customer and I've never signed a non-compete clause for them. But none of that matters to me. Since I have writers reporting to me for my own little agency who can sometimes see who my clients are, I am simply doing unto others as I'd have done unto me.
Integrity is vital in my business and personal life and I know that my actions have paid me more than once. Even if I have to give up a few dollars an article for this project, I'll be a richer person overall.
This past week I was faced with a situation that might have tested my integrity and I guess I passed because I didn't even hesitate before doing what I believe was the right thing even though it probably cost me some dosh. My integrity paid me by increasing the trust between myself and my largest client and it looks like it will pay me financially after all. Maybe not as much as it would pay me if I'd chosen to handle myself differently but there are more important things in life than money.
Here's what happened:
The other day I placed a bid on Elance, the job bidding site, for a project I was qualified for. It was for a trial order and if the buyer liked the work it would lead to large orders in the coming months. It was one of a few bids I'd placed that night and I didn't really think too much of it because there were several competitors biding aggressively. In fact, I didn't even drop my price to get aggressive because I knew that if this one was meant to be it'd happen and it would require expertise that I wasn't really willing to discount.
So, the next morning I had an email that I'd won the bid for this project which at first was a nice surprise. The buyer remarked they would be in touch. Fantastic! Then I opened an email from someone who was already a client revealing that it was his bid on Elance that I'd just won.
Oh?
Uh-Oh.
So what was the problem?
The problem here was that the client wasn't "my" client. He's a customer via an agency I'm a team leader for and although many of the end users are anonymous to me when I do writing work for this agency, the owner trusts me enough to have me interact with many of her clients directly. Even though I'm a freelancer and don't 'work' for her, we have an arrangement and with that arrangement there's trust.
While I have greater earning earning potential without a middle person, the agency relationship provides volume and variety so it's symbiotic for myself and for my team.
The buyer knew who I was when he awarded the bid to me because:
a) I used my name and he speaks with me regularly about an ongoing project and
b) I used one of his blogs that I manage as a writing sample.
I immediately told the buyer that my bid was unintentional and told him I'd need to speak with the agency. I said that if they objected to my doing this one order direct, I would have to decline and refer him to the owner. I told the agency owner what happened. The agency had not bid on this project and didn't even know about it and I had no idea what their client's Elance buyer ID was so it really was just a coincidence. Thankfully, the owner understood and decided that we needed to talk through this issue together (all three of us).
The end results:
1. The agency now has extra business because the bid is for hundreds of articles in the coming months.
2. The buyer is going ahead with using me for the work but through the agency.
3. The agency owner probably now trusts me more than ever.
4. The buyer has decided to award me with what he called "a loyalty bonus" and is paying for the project TWICE. Once through Elance and once through the agency to thank me for my integrity. Nice, huh?
5. I'm thinking he might also add positive ratings to my Elance feedback which increases my ability to get other projects.
I won't make as much money on projects on an ongoing basis as I would direct but that's how it goes. The narrow road can be a more difficult one but it leads to life.
(Matthew 7:13-14)
Sure, I don't have a non-compete clause but I knew when the buyer contacted me that it would be wrong for me to go ahead and accept an order from them directly. I have an existing standing order through the agency managing this client's blog so the answer was clear.
Is Integrity Ever A Quandary?
Nope, not for me it isn't. Last year another client of a client came directly to me on purpose and I handled things the exact same way.
I'm not trying to toot my own horn here but I just felt compelled to share this story to illustrate that integrity does pay off, even if it takes time to bear fruit. I'm sure I'm going to benefit in more ways than one from my actions and even if I don't, I can hold my head high. There's not much in life this glass-half-full girl uses the word "hate" regarding (it is considered a swear word in my house) but I HATE cheating. I'd do without rather than steal.
Someone I mentioned this story to said that the agency wouldn't have even had this business since it was put out for bid and that I would earn a lot more money by taking it direct and maybe I should've stopped and pondered it a bit longer. The agency doesn't 'own' the customer and I've never signed a non-compete clause for them. But none of that matters to me. Since I have writers reporting to me for my own little agency who can sometimes see who my clients are, I am simply doing unto others as I'd have done unto me.
Integrity is vital in my business and personal life and I know that my actions have paid me more than once. Even if I have to give up a few dollars an article for this project, I'll be a richer person overall.
Sunday, 1 February, 2009
Bukisa Update: First Payment Surprise
I haven't spent much time on Bukisa since I initially started The Bukisa Experiment and earlier today was alerted that the Bukisa index was lowered to 3.65 for February.
Dropping Bukisa Index?
First it was 4.0 (I believe), then 3.95 and now 3.65. Is this a problem? This doesn't really concern me because I know a new site has to attract members at first and then may need to scale back their payout levels awaiting their own payments through revenue sources. I'm hopeful that as the site continues to grow, the index will climb up OR that there will be enough traffic that the existing index payment rates will be worthwhile. I'd also love it if they incented further based on actual revenue. Hopefully that is going to eventually be the case.
I didn't think I'd hit payout this month and heard that the person that signed me up has just hit her first payout so I decided that in February I'd kick my efforts up a notch. But, this morning I got an e-mail from Bukisa support who wanted to pay me early if I was interested because I was already close to the payout level. Talk about a nice surprise!
An early payout is pretty rare and this further demonstrates the great personalized service I've been raving about regarding this site so of course I agreed. This is a good call by this company to keep people interested and hype up people like myself who started out strong but have let Bukisa slide to the back burner. If site members feel it's nearly impossible to reach payout, they won't bother and if they only move along slowly, they'll quickly lose interest. When people reach payout sooner than anticipated, they'll most often get right back at their efforts so they can reach payout again so this was a very good call by Bukisa.
If you haven't yet joined, I'd be pleased to have you as part of my network. Click here to join. It doesn't cost you any of your earnings to join under someone. My % comes out of Bukisa's end, not yours. And then the more people you recruit, the more money you make.
P.S.: I regularly browse through articles in my network and give them social bookmarking love :)
Bukisa: More than spare change...
This site is bringing me some cash with my articles, yes, but it's also bringing me a good deal of page views on my various blogs according to my site statistics so those page views are bringing me Bukisa earnings, and when they click one of my links and get onto my own sites they bring me potential earnings through Google Adsense on my other sites as well as my other affiliate programs. There's also the backlink value from an SEO perspective and as the author of more than a dozen blogs, I LOVE backlinks.
Are you making money on Bukisa yet? Beyond the eHow writer compensation program and Bukisa, what other pay per page view writing programs have you found lucrative?
Dropping Bukisa Index?
First it was 4.0 (I believe), then 3.95 and now 3.65. Is this a problem? This doesn't really concern me because I know a new site has to attract members at first and then may need to scale back their payout levels awaiting their own payments through revenue sources. I'm hopeful that as the site continues to grow, the index will climb up OR that there will be enough traffic that the existing index payment rates will be worthwhile. I'd also love it if they incented further based on actual revenue. Hopefully that is going to eventually be the case.
I didn't think I'd hit payout this month and heard that the person that signed me up has just hit her first payout so I decided that in February I'd kick my efforts up a notch. But, this morning I got an e-mail from Bukisa support who wanted to pay me early if I was interested because I was already close to the payout level. Talk about a nice surprise!
An early payout is pretty rare and this further demonstrates the great personalized service I've been raving about regarding this site so of course I agreed. This is a good call by this company to keep people interested and hype up people like myself who started out strong but have let Bukisa slide to the back burner. If site members feel it's nearly impossible to reach payout, they won't bother and if they only move along slowly, they'll quickly lose interest. When people reach payout sooner than anticipated, they'll most often get right back at their efforts so they can reach payout again so this was a very good call by Bukisa.
If you haven't yet joined, I'd be pleased to have you as part of my network. Click here to join. It doesn't cost you any of your earnings to join under someone. My % comes out of Bukisa's end, not yours. And then the more people you recruit, the more money you make.
P.S.: I regularly browse through articles in my network and give them social bookmarking love :)
Bukisa: More than spare change...
This site is bringing me some cash with my articles, yes, but it's also bringing me a good deal of page views on my various blogs according to my site statistics so those page views are bringing me Bukisa earnings, and when they click one of my links and get onto my own sites they bring me potential earnings through Google Adsense on my other sites as well as my other affiliate programs. There's also the backlink value from an SEO perspective and as the author of more than a dozen blogs, I LOVE backlinks.
Are you making money on Bukisa yet? Beyond the eHow writer compensation program and Bukisa, what other pay per page view writing programs have you found lucrative?
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