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How do you handle subscriber complaints from your email list community? Do you take it in stride as a part of doing business, or does it freak you out a little bit and send you scrambling? I must admit to the latter, but I am learning to grow a thicker skin, get over myself and realize that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, and that making mistakes sometimes is part of being human. In this post, I’d like to explore the idea of handling complaints, and what’s the most fruitful way to resolve an issue and move on with your day so that you don’t end up in a bit of a tizzy as I found myself the other day.

In addition to my RSS feed, my visitors are invited to subscribe to my email update list where I send an email about once a week with updates about what I’m up to in my business, I share things I’m learning, little victories and course corrections as I make them. BTW, this is a double opt-in list, meaning that subscribers first fill in a form with their own email address and then they click on a confirmation message in their inbox to complete the transaction.

So, I was poking around in my Aweber email management account setting up a broadcast message when I saw a bit of orange highlighting around one of the numbers in the stats for one of my email lists. It turns out that was in the ‘complaints’ column. “OMG!” I thought. Someone had complained about one of my emails. My heart started to beat very quickly as I opened the broadcast message in question, and it was typical of the kinds of messages I normally send, and until that particular incident, there have been 0.0% complaints. I was baffled, so I dove into the Aweber knowledge base to research what this was all about and find out what I could do about it.

But I learned that if a subscriber reports your email messages as spam to their ISP, Aweber will automatically delete that subscriber from your list. So, I took a step back and took a breath and realized that you really can’t please everyone all of the time. I will never know what it was in that email that might have pissed that subscriber off to the point that they would report it as spam because that’s a pretty serious complaint and too many of them can cause your ISP to shut you down.

When I looked at the situation I understood that there was really nothing that I could do about it, so there was no point in getting all anxious about it. If a person had complained to me directly, I could have handled it and settled it with them personally and done whatever was required to make it right, learn from it and then move on. But there is no way to address an anonymous complaint, so I decided not to let it get to me.

So, I guess what I’m trying to do here is to share this as a “teachable moment.” When you have a business where you will be dealing with the public, you will have complaints. There is no avoiding it. All you can do is deal with them and move on and not let it freak you out. Establish a policy for how you will handle complaints to make things right with the customer. Discuss the issue with your team, and if it was indeed a mistake that was made, take the opportunity to learn and grow from it.

As far as my email subscriber list goes, I am going to take this opportunity to send a little survey (which I will address in another post) so that I can get a clear idea of what they want to see more of from me, and what I should avoid. This way I can provide the best information possible for my subscribers.

But in the end some people just like to grumble and gripe and they are difficult to please. You can’t lose your confidence or cool when you come across these kinds of people. I say keep your head up and keep on plugging away and offering your very best.  Some people will appreciate it, and some will not, but as long as you always put forth your best effort you are a winner.

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1. Establish a consistent publishing schedule and stick to it. At least three posts a week is ideal.

2. Add an opt-in subscription box ‘above the fold‘ close to the upper, right-hand corner of your blog. Offer a valuable free product in exchange for their contact information.

3. Send weekly updates to your email list with a link back to your blog.

4. Make it easy for your visitors to share your blog posts on social media sites. Add plugins such as ShareThis and Wibiya to allow visitors to quickly share your content.

5. Brand your site along with your social media profiles so that your visitors recognize you on those sites and
click on your links.

6. Include a ‘Contact’ link on your blog.

7. Create a ‘Privacy Policy,’ and ‘Disclaimer,’ links if you offer affiliate sales on your blog. Providing up-front, full disclosure is now a requirement by the FCC, and it puts your visitor’s minds at ease when they are clear on exactly how you will be using any information that you gather about them.

8. Include a ‘FAQ,’ or ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ page to answer questions for your visitors and provide them with everything they need to know when it comes to doing business with you.

9. Use your email subscriber list responsibly. Your visitors did not sign up for your newsletter to be spammed with ads. Offer them ‘susbscriber only’ specials and send them free ‘subscriber appreciation’ gifts to remind them of how valuable they are to you.

These are just a few tips and strategies you can use to keep your reader’s interest and keep them coming back to your blog. The main draw to your blog, of course, is your stellar content. Writing sparkling prose that is keyword rich, relevant and useful to your readers is the best way to keep them coming back for more.

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Freelance blogging involves writing blog posts for other bloggers. You will be helping other bloggers keep their blogs supplied with fresh, well-written content while doing work you enjoy for decent pay. Adding freelance blogging to your portfolio can be an effective way to keep a more steady flow of work coming your way while adding more variety to your work life.

Freelance writers enjoy an enviable lifestyle that affords them the ability to work where and when they choose,  and for clients that they choose doing work that they enjoy. One of the downsides is that there tends to be a bit of a ‘feast or famine’ cycle of being swamped with work, and then sometimes, work is difficult to find. Adding more skills to your service offerings gives you more opportunities to serve a more diverse client base.

Aside from a love and passion for the craft of writing, you’ll also need a solid foundation in Internet marketing, effective website design and some knowledge of basic SEO practices to become a freelance blogger.  Knowledge of how to manage the popular blogging platform, WordPress, is also important. Your clients may want you to write the posts and then publish them to the blog as well.

Because basically anyone who can write a sentence, and who has Internet access can slap up a blog, you’ll have to differentiate yourself from the teeming masses by providing excellent, well-written content that’s beyond what the average person would be able to find upon doing a cursory online search.

Here are five tips for getting started with freelance blogging:

1. Start your own blog.
Your first step is going to be to demonstrate that you can create some results with your content. Create a blog on a topic that you are passionate about and work towards getting it ranked high in the search engines for your keywords. Cultivate an audience and engage with them on your blog. Demonstrate best practices and show potential clients that you know how to build and maintain an effective blog.

2. Create a page for your blogging services
Decide on what price you will charge per word, giving a price for a range of word counts from 350-400, 500-600, and 1,000 word posts. Although blog posts tend to be more effective when they are shorter and to the point.

Post your resume and a way for potential clients to request references.

Provide sample blog posts and consider sharing traffic data for particular posts.

Include testimonials that describe the results your blog posts have helped other blogs achieve.

3. Create relationships with potential clients by guest posting.
You can begin by offering to guest post for bloggers that you’d eventually like to write for. If they like your work they may consider hiring you in the future.

4. Comment regularly on blogs that you’d like to work with.
Leave thoughtful comments that add value rather than trying to show how nifty and smart you are. Join in the conversation and keep coming back to blogs that you like so that you can establish a reputation and credibility.

5. Utilize social media to gain exposure.
Use your Facebook profile, create a fan page for your blog and use the Networked Blogs app to connect your blog with the millions of other blogs on Facebook. Use Twitter to get traffic by tweeting when you publish a post. You
can also tweet about your topic and what’s happening with you.

If your blog is on a more serious business topic you’ll want to create a LinkedIn profile, add lots of relevant connections, and join participate in and start groups on your topic.

Visit the following forums to find blogging gigs:

• forum.freelanceswitch.com
• forum.freelancevenue.com
• jobs.problogger.net
• bloggerjobs.biz

You can also find blogging gigs on the regular freelancing sites such as oDesk, Elance and Guru.com.

If you’re an online freelance writer looking to expand your reach, freelance blogging can be a fun way to branch out , attract more clients and increase your bottom line.

Resources:

http://www.bloggingteacher.com/how-to-become-a-freelance-blogger

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Writing for the web is not the same as writing for print. If you are going to be writing content that will be consumed online there are a few concepts that you need to get clear on. By now most people understand the fact that we don’t read text online in the same way that we read text in hard copy such as a book or a newspaper that we hold in our hands.

People tend to skim online copy very quickly with their eyes.
The Internet is by nature fast moving and bright and shiny. Our brains and eyes move hyper-fast when we are online and if what we are looking at does not appeal to us, we can quickly get rid of it within a nano-second by clicking the next link.

As writers, we need to get in touch with the way our readers engage with our work online so that we can create a product that will be both useful and enjoyable by those who consume it. You want to craft content that makes your readers stop long enough for you to convey the message that you are trying to send. Your words must draw them in so that they can consume your content and in exchange for their attention you must fulfill the promise of supplying the information they were searching for.

Write for human readers but with SEO in mind.
Another unseen audience that is consuming our content online is the search engines. Since our human readers’ eyeballs are our most important audience we write for them, but it’s also important to keep the principles of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, in mind as we create web content.

Since many of us learned to write prior to the Internet age, there are a few specific strategies that we can employ in order to be effective at online writing.

• Do Keyword research and write content that focuses on one or two keywords while delivering concise information that the end user is searching for.
• Link to other related pieces of content within the site that add to topic.
• Link out to related authority sites that have high search engine rankings and provide additional information for your reader.
• Use images that illustrate your point and break up the text on the page.
• Write in shorter paragraphs allowing for sufficient white space on the page to give the reader’s eyes a place to rest.
• Use bullets and call-out boxes for the skimmers to grab information quickly.
• Use meaningful sub-headers to introduce ideas.

Tips for sharpening the saw:
This is a list of five tips that can help you to improve your online writing skills, but this does not pretend to be an exhaustive list. You’ll want to keep learning and constantly strive to improve your craft over time–’sharpening the saw’ as Steven Covey calls it.

1. Read excellent writing
While it might sound far too simple and obvious, but reading good writing is really the best way to improve your own writing skills. Read widely on diverse topics. Pick authors whose writing style you admire and read several of their books. Get suggestions for good reads from fellow book-lovers, or make friends with your local librarian.

Here are a few blogs that feature both excellent writing and compelling content for writers:

• http://www.copyblogger.com/
• http://www.problogger.net/
• http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/
• http://sethgodin.typepad.com/
• http://www.doshdosh.com/

2. Join a writing group
This can be tricky because a really good, established writing group can be quite challenging to find. You may end up starting one of your own, but find a group of fellow writers of varying levels of skill and accomplishment where you can share your work and get honest feedback on how you can improve it.

There are tons of writing groups online, but I prefer live groups because it gives you the chance to interact with other writers and create real relationships with real people who share your interests. Check out meetup.com to find a local writer’s critique group, or search online writing forums to find local writing groups.

3. Take a class
Visit your local University or Community College’s website to see if they offer an online writing class. It may, oddly enough, only be offered online, but you can find some live online writing classes as well. Other resources for online writing classes include:

• The Education Portal has an article with links to 10 Universities that offer free online writing classes

  http://education-portal.com/articles/10_Universities_Offering_Free_Writing_Courses_Online.html

• The Gotham Writing Workshop

  http://www.writingclasses.com/

• Wrter’s Digest University writing classes

  http://www.writersonlineworkshops.com/

4. Hire a writing coach
Working with a writing coach is an excellent investment. If you want to write a book, but you would like to polish up your writing style, a coach can help you to get motivated, get unstuck, create a writing routine that works for your lifestyle, and most of all hold you accountable to the goals that you have set for yourself.

• http://www.writingforward.com/category/writing-help/writing-coach
• http://writingcompanion.wordpress.com/2007/11/27/writing-mentor-coach/
• http://www.genreality.net/ten-reasons-to-hire-a-writing-coach

5. Practice, practice and more practice.
“A writer writes,” as they say. Write something everyday. Set a daily word count goal that you feel that you can stick to, but that will also force you to stretch yourself a bit. Commit to meeting this goal, but don’t beat yourself up when you don’t. Just pick up where you left off. Keeping a daily longhand journal can be therapeutic and help you clear out what’s on your mind so that you can focus on creating good writing.

Keep a blog where you write about whatever inspires you. Write a new post every day and before long you will begin to notice that you are developing a unique style that your readers will come to enjoy.

Additional Writing Resources:

• http://www.webanddesigners.com/20-ways-to-improve-websites-readability
• http://www.problogger.net/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/
• http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/fifty-50-tools-which-can-help-you-in-writing.html

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When you launch your first blog and publish your first post, you’re full of excitement and anticipation. But the frightening news is that your new blog has been thrust out into a blogosphere that is full of millions of other blogs all clamoring for your reader’s attention. Guest blogging on established blogs in your niche/topic is an effective way to gain some favorable exposure with your audience quickly.

What you want to do is to find a way to show up where your ideal audience is already hanging out. Guest blogging is an effective way to do that. One of my favorite quotes on this topic is by Jeff Herring, the Article Marketing Guy, who says, The best way to get traffic is to find out where the traffic is going and get out in front of it.” When you get out in front of the traffic you can then direct it wherever you want it to go.

Begin by becoming familiar with the top blogs in your subject area or niche. You can do a search on alltop.com, blogsearch.google.com, technorati.com or simply type your topic into your favorite search engine. Let’s say you are looking for blogs on the topic of bird watching. Type: bird watching + blogs into the search field and see what you find.

Make a list of the blogs that appeal most to you and start commenting on them leaving a link back to your site. Actually read the posts and make comments that add value. Next, contact the blogger and ask if they are interested in guest posts. Keep the email short and tell them exactly what you are prepared to write about, but show that you are actually familiar with their blog and their audience.

Make contact with several bloggers and try to schedule your guest posts to appear closely following your launch. If the readers like your posts, they will come to your blog. It’s up to you to provide excellent content on your blog so that when your new visitors arrive they’ll find a reason to come back and maybe even subscribe.

For lots of great tips and resources to help you get started check out this guest blog posting guide. Save the time and frustration of trying to figure it out on your own and instead hit the ground running with fabulous results.

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If you are using article marketing to drive traffic to your blog, and you have not yet tried Scribd.com, you are missing out on a fabulous traffic source. Scribd is also a good resource for selling your eBooks, and establishing your credibility as an expert in your niche.

Called the, “Youtube.com of documents,” by Business Week, Scribd.com is a document sharing social media website where you can upload documents in several formats including .pdf, presentation or word processing documents for anyone to discover and read online or on mobile devices. After you have published a document you can get live statistics on page views and downloads.

Scribd.com is a vibrant community of users that make up the largest social publishing and reading website in the world according to their ‘about’ page. Through connections with Facebook and Twitter, and search engines like Google, a vast variety of free and paid documents are shared around the globe.

Discover a new audience for your articles
What this means for you as an article marketer is that you’ve got a whole new audience with which to share your articles and get exposure for your blog and your products. One of the limitations of the traditional model of article marketing has been the strict limitations that some of the better article directories place on writers.

Get more back links and targeted traffic to your blog
When you use social networking sites such as Scribd to publish your articles and eBooks you can put anchor text links in the body of your article allowing you to get more back links along with some nicely targeted traffic. If you know anything about Search Engine Optimization you know that the more, high quality, relevant back links you have to your site, the more important Google considers you to be.

Here are five quick tips to help you to make the most of scribd.com in your article marketing efforts:

1. Use a different profile for each topic/niche that you publish in. There is a ‘More from this user’ box on your profile page that allows viewers to see all of the previous documents you have published. If you have some articles on list building, some on fly fishing and another on porcelain doll collecting, you may come across as a dabbler and not a knowledgeable expert in any of those disparate topics.

2. Format your articles so that they are visually appealing. There will be a snapshot of the first page of the document. Make sure that you spell check and format the document so that it looks clean, professional and error-free. Use images where appropriate. Use Keywords in the title.

3. Tag documents with relevant keywords. Use the free Google Adwords Keyword Tool and enter your main keywords. Select 20-30 related keywords appropriate to your article’s topic and add them to the ‘tag’ field separated by commas.

4. Write a clear, thorough description using keywords. People will read the description to decide if they are going to click on your document to read it. The description will accompany the title in the search results, so make sure it contains a brief synopsis of what they will find in your article.

5. Integrate with Facebook, and Twitter. There are buttons that you can click that will integrate your profile so that your Facebook profile and Twitter feed are updated whenever you add a new document to scribd.com.

Follow these five tips and you should see a nice flow of traffic to your blog when you publish documents to scribd.com. If you’ve used Scribd.com, please share your impressions.

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Guest blogging is the new–or not so new article marketing. The practice of bloggers inviting other bloggers to publish on their blog has been going on since blogging began, but now this somewhat quietly kept practice is becoming more and more popular. If you are an online freelance writer you’re always looking for ways to get more exposure for your writing to attract more clients. The occasional guest blog posting gig can get you exposure with a new audience, confirms your expert status and attracts fresh traffic to your blog.

As bloggers see the fabulous results that they can gain from both guest blogging on other blogs and hosting guests on their blogs, they are engaging in the practice more and more.

In this article I want to share five simple tips for getting your feet wet so to speak as a guest blogger:

1. Choosing the right blogs
Your goal as a guest blogger is to find a new audience for your writing, to get wider exposure and to attract fresh traffic back to your blog. So, it makes sense to choose blogs that focus on keywords similar to yours, within the same industry and a similar compatible niche.

Choose blogs that are more established and higher ranked than yours for the biggest bang for your time, but don’t neglect those up-and-coming blogs with a growing, loyal following.

Spend the time to regularly visit the blogs in your niche that you would like to guest post for. Make note of their idiosyncrasies, practices and biases. Take notes and keep these issues in mind when you are writing your post so that you don’t slip up and offend your host.

2. Making contact with the author
Compose a simple email to the blog owner explaining that you are offering to do a guest blog post for them. If this is your first contact with this blogger, briefly explain your blog’s topic and include a link.

Let the blogger know what you like about their blog and how your writing will fit in with their blogging style and topic.

3. Establishing a clear, mutually beneficial arrangement
Guest blog posting is a win-win for the guest blogger and the host blogger. The guest blogger gets exposure to a fresh audience, a nice boost in traffic back to their blog and more favorable search engine ranking from the highly relevant link.

The blog host wins because they get some fresh, relevant content that provides something new for their readership, and buys them a bit of time to do other things. But the blog readers also benefit because they gain exposure to a new writer and a different look at the topic.

Be sure to spell out the terms of the arrangement so that both parties are clear on things like the approximate word count of the post, publication date, number and types of links, ownership of the content, etc.

4. Coming up with the right content for the blog
Refer to the notes you took when you were choosing blogs to guest post on, and write from the perspective of someone who is familiar with the audience. Read through recent posts to get ideas for filling in and rounding out the blogger’s approach to the topic. Ask the blog host if there is a particular topic they would like for you to cover.

Be sure to always present your best work when guest posting. Do your research, format the post carefully and ask for someone to proofread it for you before you submit it.

5. The importance of follow up
After your post has been published, be sure to check back and respond to the comments. This is a great opportunity to forge a real relationship with another blogger and their readers, so don’t overlook this important part of the arrangement.

Go ahead and start guest blogging. It’s a great way to broaden your reach as a freelancer, create relationships and get some new, targeted traffic for your blog. If you are looking to host guest bloggers, it’s a great way to add fresh perspectives to your blog and give your readers a bit of variety.

For more of the gritty details about getting started check out this guest posting guide. Save the time and frustration of trying to figure it out on your own and instead hit the ground running with fabulous results.

Have you tried guest blogging, or hosting a guest blogger on your blog? Share your results here.

**Affiliate Disclaimer**

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I came across this video on my colleague, Vincent Wright’s website. Watch and learn. The future is now.

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Facebook began in 2004 as a social networking site for college students, but it has emerged on the social media scene as a giant that is not overturning Google’s reign over Internet advertising and searches. They won a U.S. patent this year for their news feeds helping them to become the most frequented website at 400 million users, and 39 billion page views per month.

The exciting thing about Facebook users, and what makes this such a dynamic audience is that they actively use the site. Of those estimated 400 million users, 50% of them log in at least once a day, and about 35 million of them update their status daily.

If it is your goal to get your offer or ideas in front of as many pre-qualified people as possible, then it’s really time to consider using Facebook as a part of your marketing efforts.

Using Facebook Ads
If you want to get started using Facebook ads, your first step should be to read through their content guidelines:
http://www.facebook.com/advertising/

Facebook is strict about what kinds of ads they will allow on their network. But the good news is, you don’t need to worry about coming up with a huge list of keywords, and there is no quality score to concern yourself with as with other Pay Per Click services.

A good way to get started testing the waters is to do a search for ‘free Facebook Ad coupon codes’ so that you can learn how everything works before you start spending your own money.

Facebook ads can be laser targeted so that only the people who are interested will see your ads, and they are as much as half the price of other PPC ads.

Are you finding success with using Facebook ads? Leave a comment and let us know your experience.

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Today I attended the CHAMPS Links Lunch, which is a local small business networking group that meets once per month at a local restaurant. They meet to network and discuss the challenges that local small businesses face. As a ‘solopreneur’ writer who spends the majority of her time in the house in front of the laptop, this was a fabulous opportunity to get out and mingle with other small business people.

Washington, D.C. might appear to be a big city from the outside, but you don’t live here very long before you discover that it is a city of several distinct neighborhoods. I live near the Capitol Hill neighborhood. I lived ‘on the Hill,’ when we first moved here, but I have since moved just a few blocks away, and over a bridge that is a dividing line, which in many ways, can be compared to a ‘Berlin Wall’ of sorts in this city.

Washington, D.C. is made up of distinctive neighborhoods, and Capitol Hill is one of the most close-knit, exclusive, ‘clickish’ neighborhoods in the city, and I love it. It is very much like a small town in the shadow of the larger city. I have learned that many of the small businesses in Capitol Hill are very insular and they tend to be a bit leery of outsiders at first. But once you’ve been around for awhile and they get to know you they are wonderful, warm people who are willing to be supportive.

I want to feel more apart of this vibrant community, so I decided that it was time to get out of the house, come from behind my laptop and mingle with some real people for awhile. My typical workday consists of writing and marketing, talking to clients on Skype, emailing other clients and marketing my blogs and my clients’ sites. I would love to be able to offer my services to some of the small local businesses, who are riding out this recession just like the rest of us, and might benefit from getting increased exposure online.

At Today’s CHAMP meeting, I met a health & fitness instructor, two financial planners, a wardrobe stylist, an attorney, a local ISP, an acupuncturist, and an ad executive. We had lively discussions about how one might get their foot in the door in the Capitol Hill business community, the advantages of owning your blog verses starting out on a free platform such as Blogger. We talked about how to leverage Linkedin as a way to make connections and reach the right people, and, of course, we discussed the vagaries of Twitter and how you can use it along with blogging to get your message out and gain exposure.

I plan to join CHAMPS and participate in more of their activities because it’s just a great way to meet other local business people. Another unanticipated bonus was that I got so many article ideas from that meeting my mind is fairly bursting right now.

Bottom line–local networking is a good thing. My recommendation is that you should look up your local small business networking organization and attend a meeting. Join your local Chamber of Commerce and get involved locally. It’s an opportunity for you to contribute your knowledge, meet other local business people and learn a thing or two in the bargain.

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