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5 Tips For Becoming a Freelance Blogger

ebourne — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 05:53:51 +0000

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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The Ultimate Dream Project: A Personal Review

ebourne — Thu, 06 May 2010 15:59:34 +0000

I can quite easily be described as a personal development ‘junkie.’ I discovered self-help books when I was in my late teens. Already a complete perfectionist, I think that my initial motivation for reading all of those books, listening to countless hours of tapes, and watching videos of motivational speakers talk about how great your life can be, was to learn how to be the best person I could be.

But at the heart of it–my basic belief was that I flawed and I was looking to these programs and to religiousness, to somehow ‘fix’ me where I was broken and show me how to be a powerhouse of success and achievement. Somehow, despite having read all of those hundreds of books and following teacher after teacher, my life was not improving, I was still working at a dead-end job that I hated and my relationships were a classic, dysfunctional mess.

Then I met Angela Bear on Facebook. I had been meeting several spiritual teachers and life coaches on Facebook and other places on the Internet. They all had a similar message related to the Law of Attraction and focusing on being positive–wonderful messages, but I was looking for something deeper.

I joined one of Angela’s free calls where she was introducing a private, three session class where a small group could work with her personally to get support for our business or personal issues and questions. What I learned by working with Angela during that class and in the private session I had with her transformed my life in a deeper, more profound way than any other book or course I had participated in.

Angela is an intuitive who reads energy, so she can cut through all of the crap, and tell you exactly what is going on. She does not want to hear your ‘story,’ she simply reads your energy and gives you some powerful questions to work with that help to get to the heart of whatever you perceive to be holding you back. By giving you the tools to eliminate those limiting beliefs that create the proverbial ‘glass ceiling’ on your growth, it gives you a new perspective on the contextual reality that we happen to find ourselves in at this time.

Angela helps you to remember that you are an infinite being with absolutely infinite potential to realize your dreams and goals.

The Ultimate Dream Project is a membership program that Angela has created to provide a place where she can meet and interact with her clients and members can interact with each other to learn and grow and express their infinite potential. As you know, life is not all sunshine and rainbows. Sometimes when you are on a path of growth you will meet periods of resistance when you feel blocked and you wonder why you even waste your time trying to grow yourself. When I get into those funky places of resistance, Angela always has a way of snapping me out of it by asking me, “What creation of this energy am I using to validate other people’s realities?”

I cherish working with Angela because she reminds me that there is nothing about me that needs to be ‘fixed.’ I am confident now that I am an infinite being with infinite potential. Now that I have let go of closely examining the wrongness of me, I can put more energy on expanding the Universe, and modeling what she is teaching me and what I am learning for my children.

My business is now thriving, my relationships have been transformed and I feel so much more personal freedom now that I have stopped trying to ‘fix’ myself. I now have the confidence to pursue my dreams and desires because I know that everything I want is on the other side of my fears and limiting beliefs.

So, if you are ready to step away from the need for another ‘hit’ from motivational, self-help gurus who pump you up and get you excited about going for your dreams, but subconsciously, your limiting beliefs are holding up a ‘Stop’ sign on your progress, visit Angela Bear’s website, http://www.ultimatedreamproject.com, and sign up for her email list. You’ll receive a ‘taster packet,’ or what I call little mini-appetizers that will give you a feel for what it’s like to work with Angela.

You are an infinite being and when you are ready embrace the fabulousness of who you are, Angela is eager to support you in your discovery process.

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5 Things Every Article Marketer Needs to Know About Using Scribd.com for Getting Traffic

ebourne — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 14:31:02 +0000

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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The Bank of Facebook

ebourne — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:30:02 +0000

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

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Blog Traffic: 5 Tips for Marketing Your Blog

ebourne — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:39:10 +0000

Blog traffic equals money if you have monetized your blog. There’s no use in mincing words about it. If you’re blogging to generate revenue, then getting more traffic and exposure for your blog should be your primary task.

Blogging is a great way to promote ‘Brand You’, and your products and services. It’s a great way to engage with your market and create a dynamic conversation between you and your prospective customers.

But when your blog is one out of millions of other blogs on the Internet, you’ve got to find some creative ways to stand out from the crowd so that your sparkling prose can actually be appreciated by the masses.

Here are five tips for getting more eyeballs on your page:

1. Write excellent content
Content is what blogging is all about, so make it worth reading.
Keep it clear and concise.
Write in short paragraphs.
Edit ruthlessly.

2. Make it easy to share your content
If a visitor really likes one of your posts, make it easy for them to share it with one click. Use a plug-in that allows them to post to several social media sites without any hassle.

3. Participate in social media
Create a profile and a Fan Page on Facebook and be active in groups on the topic of your blog. Join Networked Blogs on Facebook and visit, comment on and rate other blogs.

Create a profile on Twitter and link back to your site. Selectively follow people that have an interest in your blog’s topic or related topics. Share useful information and be a resource.

4. Be a guest blogger on other blogs
Find popular blogs on a similar topic to yours and develop a relationship with the author. Offer to do a guest post on their blog. You’ll get exposure from a new audience and if they like your post they’ll visit your blog.

5. Submit your blog to popular blogging directories

Technorati
Blogcatalog
Blogtoplist

The most important tip of all is to have fun with your blog. Don’t be shy about revealing your passion for your topic. Your genuine enthusiasm will radiate out and attract visitors in droves. Your authenticity is a magnet to those who share the same interest, so let it shine and you’ll see a steady flow of visitors to your blog.

You’re invited to subscribe to my email update list where you’ll get lots of free tips and resources in your mailbox.

What are your most effective ways of getting traffic to your blog? Speak your mind.

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Facebook Usernames: The Impending Free-For-All Land Grab

ebourne — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:39:17 +0000

If you’re active on Facebook for business or personal reasons you’ll want to listen up. Starting at 12:01 am on Saturday, June 13th you’ll be able to sign up for your own custom username on Facebook. Whereas now you get a randomly generated number as your URL, now you’ll be able to get something like: http://www.facebook.com/jane.doe.

This is one of those times when I am thankful to my parents for not giving me a common name. Amongst the 200 million plus members on Facebook, there are only 4 members with the name Evelyn Bourne, so I think there’s a fair enough chance that I can snag my own name–unless the other Evelyn’s are quicker on the mouse than I.

The new usernames are being given out on a first come, first served basis so get ready to pounce at midnight. Also, you can’t change or transfer your username, so think it through before you select it.

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A Productive Pen» facebook A Productive Pen : A blog about writing, online marketing and personal development

5 Tips For Becoming a Freelance Blogger

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The Ultimate Dream Project: A Personal Review

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5 Things Every Article Marketer Needs to Know About Using Scribd.com for Getting Traffic

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The Bank of Facebook

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Blog Traffic: 5 Tips for Marketing Your Blog

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Facebook Usernames: The Impending Free-For-All Land Grab

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