Helpful Hints

Getting Started – Your Brand

Getting Started – Your Brand

One of the challenges often faced by freelancers is establishing their own personal brand. If most of your work comes through a freelancing site, chances are this is not going to be a major priority for you. However, if you maintain a website, a blog or even a social networking account such as Twitter, you will want to find a message that speaks to who you are. Establishing your brand is never easy. You may stumble a bit on the way to finding a brand that speaks to who you are. One of the challenges is finding the right...

Read more »

Making a living writing – is it possible?

Making a living writing – is it possible?

One of the questions that freelance writers often ask – especially those just starting out – is if they can make a living from freelance writing.  While it is not easy, there are some ways that you can work towards the goal of making a living from writing. Jack of all trades - If you are just starting out as a freelance writer, you might not know what type of writing you are going to enjoy the most. You may not even be aware of what you can do to find out what your strongest writing style is. In...

Read more »

Adding Value – Client Blogs & Your Work

Adding Value – Client Blogs & Your Work

One of the many challenges you will have to overcome if you are paid to blog is ensuring that you are adding value to your clients blogs.  There are a number of ways that you can do this and there are tools that can assist you in making sure that you can do it consistently. Themes - When you initially start a blog for your client, verify that the theme for the blog matches their overall corporate image.  While there are hundreds of available blog themes, you should make sure that the overall theme is in line with the...

Read more »

Helpful Hints for Freelancers

Helpful Hints for Freelancers

One of the challenges of freelancing is that you often feel like you are alone.  There is not any reason to feel that way, there are others who have been in the same position.  Here are a group of articles that can help provide some tips and tricks to successful freelance writing. Finding paid work from home – One of the biggest challenges in starting a freelance career is finding jobs.   There are some helpful hints in this article that can help make sure that you don’t fall victim to a scam. Getting a job on Craigslist – Craigslist...

Read more »

Online Freelancing – frustrations

Online freelancing is not for everyone.  Along with self discipline, you must also have a second sense about what your clients want, and if they will pay. This is far more difficult when you are working with a new buyer.  Here are some red flags that you can be wary of: 1.  No up front – If you prefer to work with up front payments (and I do) if a buyer refuses to pay something up front in spite of the fact that you have a long history of delivery, you should reconsider before you accept the job.  Unfortunately,...

Read more »

New iPhone Application!

New iPhone Application!

For all of those who travel, especially when you are traveling with a group of people, you know how easy it is to forget not just your room number, but the room numbers of your traveling companions. We can help! As the saying goes ‘there’s an app for that’! Introducing “My Room”. Here’s what My Room can do for you: My Room will keep track of all the rooms you’ve previously stayed in allowing you to look back at your history.  And for those of you who are staying at a hotel with a group of people, such as...

Read more »

The line between enough and too much

As a freelance writer  one of the hazards of looking for ongoing work is finding the line between enough work and too much work. It’s up to you to decide how many hours you wish to devote to working daily.  If you have regular clients with ongoing assignments for freelance writing it may be fairly simple to keep your schedule on track.  However, if like most freelance writers  you have a combination of long-term and short term clients finding the balance between enough been too much work can be tricky. Balancing your time is critical to your success as...

Read more »

SEO Mystery

There seems to be a significant amount of mystery that surrounds appropriate use of SEO and everyone is trying to find themselves at the ‘top of the heap’ as it were.  SEO doesn’t have to be a huge mystery, you simply need to understand the ‘basic’ premise of SEO marketing. SEO in Blogs If you’re trying to get an SEO ranking in your blog you first need to ensure that your blog is relevant.  Let’s face it if you have a blog about writing you certainly wouldn’t suddenly start adding information about sports right? Try to keep your posts...

Read more »

Reviewing Your Portfolio

With the new year upon us it might be a good time to review your portfolio. As a freelancer, our strongest selling points are our portfolios. So here are some tips to help you review your portfolio: A) How old are the samples in your portfolio? I like to keep my samples in my portfolio as current as possible. I typically will add new items if they reflect a change in topic, style or product. In fact I should be looking at my oDesk portfolio because while I have a lot of items in it some of them are...

Read more »

Goal Setting

The beginning of a new year not only allows you the opportunity to set up your new schedule for the year it also allows you to reset your goals. What are your goals going to be this year? A) Make more money than last year - I think 99.9% of us have this as our primary ‘professional goal’. Make a plan to achieve this goal. Set attainable benchmarks to help you along the way; B) Add new clients – are you actively seeking out new opportunities? You can only increase your client base if you’re actively working towards that...

Read more »

Planning for 2009

It’s time to think about how to plan your year, especially if you are a freelancer. It’s hard enough working for yourself without having a plan to make sure that you have work throughout the upcoming year. There’s no time like now to begin planning. A) Plan to Succeed - Of course none of us plan to fail. But the fact of the matter is that more small businesses fail after the first year. Regardless of whether you think so or not, your decision to be a freelancer means you’ve made the decision to be a small business! Today...

Read more »

Freelancing and Holidays

It’s definitely a lifestyle decision to be a freelancer. You’re trying as much as possible to have your future in your own hands, but the reality of it is unfortunately that your future (and your today) is firmly in the hands of your clients.  Unless of course you speak up. First things first Let’s not overlook the fact that many of the people who are hiring us don’t live (a) in our time zone and/or (b) in the same country as we live in.  They also may have different beliefs in terms of what holiday’s they find important as...

Read more »

Virtual Reality 1 – Get real

No, this post isn’t going to be what you think it’s about! It’s more to do with managing your new ‘status’ as a freelancer, working alone, at home and often in your PJ’s. One of the biggest mistakes that many freelancers make is thinking they’re automatically going to do the ‘right thing’ and work 8 hour days and earn every possible dime that they can. It’s not going to happen without some discipline. That discipline might be a lot more complicated than you think it is … follow me…. Give yourself a break! Now it’s a pretty basic thing...

Read more »

Avoiding Back Pain

My best recommendation to avoid back pain at the computer is to invest wisely in a very good chair and watch your posture! Contact some of your local companies and find out what type of chairs they purchase for their staff! I was fortunate enough to be working for a very large company many years ago that started a ‘Work At Home’ program and I did exactly that. While I gulped at the $900 price tag on the chair at the time (this was in the early 90’s) – the chair has been a wonderful addition to my home...

Read more »

Thank you for using IGIT Tweet Button, a plugin by PHP Freelancer