More Ways To Invest In Your Writing Business

Your name in freelance writing is your brand. I've written in the past about investing in your business. Beyond getting educated and starting a website, there are other things you can do such as: paying for advertising on high traffic sites, buying books or e-books to help you get information, taking courses to learn new skills, joining groups and organizations that can further your writing career, doing advertising locally and taking the time to do some self-promotion.

If you're not already doing it, try to spend time each and every week working on your own stuff. I try to do this on Saturdays unless I'm already working on a deadline.

If you're not already social networking, here are a few places where you can do it for free to build your brand.

LinkedIn
Professional profile and resume.

Blogger or WordPress
Free blogs and get a Google Adsense account (Blogger only) and start placing ads on your page to generate an income.

MySpace and FaceBook

Online Article Directories like e-zinearticles.com.

Not only might you find gigs but you can build your portfolio and search engine optimization with links to your work elsewhere. Also, don't hesitate to advertise your writing services for hire on places like CraigsList or join a bidding site like ELance or Guru.

Some of these sites are ones that I utilise at times and some of them are areas writer friends of mine use. Not everything works for everyone but it is necessary for those wanting a freelance writing career to continually build their online presence and create their brand. Doing so will establish you as an expert in your niche, bring you writing work and enable you to raise your rates.

Writers: Be Your Own Publicist

A huge part of the writing life is promoting. As a freelance writer, I use a lot of social marketing tools to promote myself. I write articles for article directories, I blog, I guest post and use tools like Twitter, Mybloglog, BlogCatalog, online community forums and others.

Put On Your Publicist Hat

As a writer, you need to be your own publicist. Today, I'm told that publishers are more likely to sign writers that already have a following. If you show them that you have a Myspace page with 5000 friends and established presence on the internet through book clubs, a blog, an e-course or some other social tools, you'll be more likely to win them over.

If you're not spending at least a few hours a week on promoting yourself, your writing career will likely stall. To move forward and get better gigs, step outside of your comfort zone and act as a publicist for yourself.

*Learn about Web 2.0, social media and about ways you can get noticed in the search engines as well as by your target audience.

*If you're solely ghostwriting today, start publishing free e-zine articles or start a blog of your own.

*If you're starting to get well known in your niche, kick things up a notch and try to get noticed some more.

Writers as creative people can come up with all sorts of ways to increase their profile. Happy Promoting!

When Do You Do Your Self-Promotion?

As a writing WAHM life is busy. Busy good but busy. I try to make an effort to do self-promotion every day. How do I do that without ruining my productivity? Tricky question!

The answer to productivity and self-promotion living in harmony is a schedule. I habitually check all my stats in the morning while I'm waking up so this is a great time to do a bit of promotion. That might include a Twitter tweet or posting some blogs. Spending a few hours a week is even better!

Spend Time on YOUR Writing Career

Just as Sundays are my big admin day of the week, on Saturdays I try to spend time writing for myself and promoting myself. I take Saturday mornings for my own internet marketing efforts for my websites and to promote my writing services online. Not only might I have a project on the go for a client but I might take time to submit to article directories for myself, write additional blog posts, do some internal linking tweaks on old posts and do some online SEO for my own websites. Taking time to promote will bring you more search engine rankings, more clients and the potential for more passive income.

Time Equals Money But Investing Time On YOU Equals MORE Money for YOU

Since you're writing to help other people make money online, shouldn't you take a little bit of time to do this for yourself too? An hour or two a week translates to almost a full day of work a month on promoting yourself!

SEO Approaches for Your Writing Services Site

If you're created your own freelance writing services site, you need to think about SEO for it. If you're doing SEO writing for your clients, you already know a lot about search engine optimisation, whether you realize it or not.

Have you got your own website yet?

Yesterday I wrote about the importance of having your own professional writing website. Today will help you learn how to use knowledge gained from your clients (and mine) to help you promote your own website.

I've recently read some reports and e-books from internet marketing gurus and realised that I already know an awful lot about SEO and internet marketing. I am continuing to make efforts to strive to put my knowledge to use to help clients and help myself. It's pretty cool when writing for someone is a really symbiotic relationship and that's why I've chosen internet marketing as one of my niches. It gets me earning money while learning how to earn more money. Very cool. Did I just say cool in two sentences (now three sentences) in a row? Being careful of repetition in your writing is often important but being careful to craft intentional repetitiveness is a huge part of SEO writing.

LSI Writing

If you can get your copy to use similar words or synonyms, you're doing LSI article writing. See how I just did that? I just linked my professional website to a term that I'm ranking for in the search engines already. I did so on a site that's related to writing which is even better. That is going to help me get more clients who want those types of services and will help increase my rankings for this site and my professional website. Last month a client found me on page three for a term related to that one and by doing more linking to the terms I'm already ranking for and related terms, he's going to maybe see me move to page two and I might rank for another related term which brings up my overall rankings in that category.

101 Ways To Tackle SEO

Some clients claim that article marketing, hub pages and squidoo lenses are the way to go. Others create mini websites pointing to their main site. Others create silos. Guest posting can also be a huge help, too. Because search engine marketing is an evolving chess game, I choose to dabble a little in all areas I've learned about. Working as a head content writer for several SEO companies has definitely taught me a lot about marketing myself as a writer. Marketing yourself with SEO will get you more exposure, more jobs and will save you time because instead of trolling for jobs, the clients will start to come to you.

Why Writers Need To Write and Submit Free Articles

Sharon Hurley Hall first told me about submitting to article directories in a writer mentoring chat in the InspiredAuthor.com chat room. I learned a lot about freelance writing in my early days through those chats and writer workshops.

I took her advice and it's helped me tremendously. Using article submission /directory sites is a great way to help your career in many ways. As a freelance writer, you often write for others and you rarely get to see your name on any of your work. This won’t help you further your career and get new clients. In order to do that, you have to market yourself and article directory submissions are a great way to do that. Here is an illustration:

You write articles about niche topics you enjoy writing about. This helps you establish yourself as an expert in a niche topic. Your articles can be syndicated throughout the web and be published in many places. You can also get jobs, help your SEO and earn affiliate income through those articles.

In your articles, your link directs people back to your blog or website. This does multiple things for you. First of all, it helps you with your search engine rankings or SEO. You anchor words that you want to be your target keywords like freelance writer or nutrition writer or Dallas journalist, etc. Not only will people reading the articles have the ability to click through to your website but you will also have organic search engine results that can propel you to the top of the rankings for your targeted keywords.

Also, you can use these articles for samples when applying to jobs. If you write articles in subjects you’re passionate about, it will show through in the writing. If you write articles and post them on these article sites, potential clients might also find you. I have had other websites and blogs feature some of my articles and I’ve had traffic to my blogs and websites because of it. This can also earn me income as an affiliate or for my revenue efforts on blogs such as Adsense, Amazon and others.

Some clients of mine hire me to write and submit to directories for them. Some use this for bum marketing or to help them with their own SEO for their websites as well as to help them be considered an expert in their niche.

There are dozens of free article submission sites and this is also a great way to build your online writing identity. When you Google yourself, your articles will come up. If you are not writing articles yet, get started. Here are a few sites that accept articles and will distribute them for you:


www.ezinearticles.com
www.goarticles.com
www.articleson.com
www.1888articles.com

Some sites have differing results with Google and at the moment, www.ezinearticles.com is considered the most effective option by many experts. There are requirements and limitations of what you can write about and your links so be sure to read the fine print when submitting at any of these sites.

Writing for article directories and posting your own work online is a great way to be sure you’re building a name for yourself, creating buzz and seo rankings for your website not to mention ensuring you don’t focus all your energy writing for others.

Creating Your Online Writing Identity

Your online identity can really help you in writing. It can also hurt you if you’re not careful as well. Here’s some practical advice on how to create your online writing identity to provide maximum benefit for your writing career. I learned a long time ago that shameless online self promotion is vital to help your writing business. I’ve learned a lot about it and use these skills for myself and my clients.

Writers should be aware that everything done online under your name can potentially be found. A blog comment, a forum post, anything…

Case in point:
I searched on my first online identity and found a forum post from several years ago with a question about a medical product. It was nothing embarrassing but finding it did tip me off to the fact that I need to be very careful about what I say and do online because it can be traced back to me and impact my writing career.
I started out writing when I started my first online blog at a site called WritingUp. I was using a nickname, marleymauve, (my ode to my 12 year old golden retriever who is always by my feet when I work) which I used as my username on forums and anything online that required me to log in. Once I got serious about writing, I decided to use my own name. I decided to write under my maiden name and started optimizing myself for Google.

To optimize my name, I created online profiles in many places and I wrote free articles and posted on forums. Many different areas online can help you establish yourself. There’s still a lawyer with the same name as me and a lady who has a personal family website up on page 1 of the Google results under Dana Prince but the majority of page one and two results now point to me.

I want my online persona for my freelance writing business / career to be that of a professional writer. Anyone wanting to know what kind of writing I do can easily find out by Googling me. That search on Google, MSN and other search engines will show them the kind of work I do, the kinds of places I frequent online and can point them to areas where I showcase my expertise. It also points to what others say about me so that’s a lesson in how to treat customers, colleagues and peers. When applying for a job, instead of just having to show my skills off and talk myself up, I have to realize that I can be investigated quite easily and by being cautious about my online activity, I can almost control what people see.

I’ve seen flame wars in community forums and on blog posts and many people using their own names when they participate. This is something I would never do because if I lost my cool or said something regrettable (which we’ve all been known to do) it could easily come back and bite. You might not even know why you don’t get a call back from a client or not get selected for a job. Despite how good your resume looks, when that potential client decides to search on their own to find out about you, what they see could be a turn off. I do Google searches on all the people that I consider who apply to write for me and do searches on people I consider applying to write for.

Here are a few tips to help you get your name optimized in Google:

1. Create social bookmarking profiles under your name. Instead of a pet or nickname, think about who you’d want to be known as if your name was on the New York Times Bestseller list. Tip: LinkedIn, Stumbleupon, Delicious, Digg and other similar sites have great rankings on the search engines and are a great tool for self promotion. If you do non-related work browsing, surfing, etc. use your nickname for it instead of your professional name.

2. Write articles for online directories. I’ll be posting in greater detail about this in an upcoming blog post. You can establish yourself as an expert and showcase your work in a way that people can easily find when they search for samples online of your work.

3. Post in forums. Forum posts get great exposure on the search engines. Think about what you post and how it impacts your online persona. If you do get controversial at times or get caught up and too casual in forums, only use a pen name and never link to your professional website.

4. Create a professional website. If you’re not ready yet, you can create a GooglePage or Squidoo lens. These index well under the author’s name. If you can, buy your name.com as this will clearly index the best. I couldn’t do that (yet) but came up with a variation that’s working well for me.

5. Write a blog under your name. Search engine spiders love the blogs and it's a great way for customers and potential clients to find you.

Promoting your name online is also something you’ll need to do if you become a published author. Today, many publishers expect writers do to a fair bit of self promotion so why not get started early? ;)

Are You Ignoring The Power of The Meta Description?

Are you taking the time to really write those meta tags well? I wrote an article on my Customer Connections blog just now to help my clients and prospective clients learn about the importance of the meta description. I'm sharing it with you here as well because this is something that you can leverage in your writing career to become a better writer and make the most of your self promotion efforts too.

Plenty of clients will ask you to write these as part of your article writing assignments for them but if you don't see the importance of writing them well, you are selling your clients short as well as taking a wee little bit away from your presentation skills when you hand in finished work.

Excerpt:

What makes a great meta tag? A great meta tag tells people in twenty or so words why they should click on your link. It should tell them what they will find. If that tag or description convinces them that they will find the information they want by clicking your link, they will click it.

Click Here To Read more

Happy Writing :)

Writers Helping Writers

The way I got into the freelance writing business was by identifying some mentors and following them around via what I like to call blog stalking.

I’m happy to say almost 2 years later that this resulted in a full time career, a few clips and a
and nice little writing business where I’m now even subbing out work to other writers which is a nice little symbiotic relationship. This industry I’ve stumbled into is the most supportive and helpful business I’ve found. Most would expect that if someone found a way to make serious coin online, they’d keep it hushed to themselves but in this business I continually run across other writers and internet marketers who are more than willing to share the wealth through advice, leads, tips, warnings and freebies.

By getting into a little clique online, you can find insider secrets, get news before it hits the general public and can also become known as a maven in your craft. There’s a real sense of community among freelance writers and if you can get yourself a crowd of online friends/colleagues you can truly benefit as well as help someone else.

Having online writing friends has allowed me to learn of new leads, get help with my overflow, get advice when I’m having a problem, get a sanity check if I need to know if I’m off my rocker or not (which occasionally happens!) and more. I can even get a laugh from someone who knows just what it's like to work as a writer. Sometimes you need to have someone who understands what it's like to live the writer's life.

Just yesterday I sat through a chat with other writers and learned a whole new slew of editing tricks as well as learned a lot about what publishers are looking for from novel writers. The person that was there could have just pointed me to www.lulu.com to buy her book but instead she took time out of her schedule to help others in the field. Sure, she’ll benefit from it through book sales, word of mouth and link love but she sure helped the crowd of writers who were listening to her words!

Support your online colleagues by doing things to help them in their writing career and if they do the same for you, you’ll find that the opportunities increase and it can be very much a team mentality where you can have tour guides and study buddies rather than you feeling like you are lost and alone in the vast metropolis that is cyberspace.

Three Things To Support Friends’ Writing Careers

Here are three things you can do to support your writing friends. Hopefully they will take notice and do the same thing for you:

-Reply on their blogs. Contribute to the conversation. This helps you both really as you’ll get more attention to your blog as well.

-Show some link love. Feature your friends’ blogs, articles or mention their new book on a blog entry. Put their link on your website as well.

-Send them an email with a lead in it if you see a great job listing that’s in their niche

-Support their online presence by social book marking their posts. When they write something awesome, Stumble and Digg it!

Writer Networking
Not sure how to get into a writer network? One of my mentors recently started a networking site called Diva Networking where people with similar goals and objectives work together to help support one another’s writing careers. We spend a couple of hours a month helping our team members (and they help you too) and it can help all our writing careers in the long run.

If you don’t have a group of writing friends, get a group! Start networking and make some freelance writing friends on wahm or writing forums or through online chats like the ones on Friday nights (7:pm EST) in the www.inspiredauthor.com chat room.

Customer Connections Blog

Life is good. My new website is coming along nicely (although I'm still battling a few small details) and I started a new blog. I've called it Customer Connections and it lives on my new writing website.

Many of my blogs are written for my peers such as:
this blog, Inspired Author and Momphabet Soup at writeniche. Communati is more of a social place for me and then there are my health and cooking blogs which I write because I'm passionate about both subjects. For Customer Connections, I hope to provide valuable information to my clients and at the same time establish myself as a subject matter expert to make hiring me an even more attractive proposition

Please stop by if you can and I'd love some link love. If you do give me any, feel free to tell me so here and I'll be sure to visit your linked blog or website and return the favour.

Cheers,
Dana

DanaPrinceWriting.com is finally online

My pseudonym.com has been taken for a long while but I'm hoping to nab it when it comes up for renewal next year. Shhh, the current owner hasn't updated in a while so I'm waiting patiently for it. Don't get me wrong on the pseudonym comment. Those who pay me and who have been paid my me know my legal name. I really am Dana Prince by birth but go by my married name in my off line life. Using my birth name gives me several benefits. I get a degree of online anonymity but I also get to see my writing with the identity I had when I first dreamt up my writing dream.

Anyway, I have been growing my business and felt like my free googlepage didn't display the commitment I have to professionalism. I wrote an article for a client last week and in it expressed the point that if you want to appear professional, your image will be hindered by using a free website to advertise your services.

Last night I took the plunge, finally and registered www.DanaPrinceWriting.com

Courtney Ramirez answered a question on the wahm forum about web hosting and I got a good deal with a Thanksgiving special 20% discount so I set up my website on Host Gator. Since I didn't use an affiliate link, I thought I'd at least give Courtney some link love.

My disclaimer: I know very little about web design. In my previous life as a purchasing agent at an IT VAR I was the department webmaster and used FrontPage but I haven't done any of that in years. I've spent the better part of 12 hours playing and I'm not anywhere near I am not nearly done yet but published my site a few minutes ago. I had no choice because my butt is asleep, I have only done a little work today and I'm a bit achy. I couldn't make myself stop until I hit the 'publish' button. I have a few pages in progress in the background and I think I might eventually build a blog and do more with the site but wanted to get it live asap so please feel free to stop by and drop back in here to give me some suggestions. It's very basic at the moment.

Thanks a million!
Now the fun of self-promotion begins.