It’s easy to fall foul off optimistic estimates of what you can achieve in in given time frame, and it’s beyond your control when things happen to prevent you from completing work. The difference between a professional freelancer and an amateur is in the attitude you take to getting the work done when things go wrong. An amateur might wait until the deadline, hoping against hope to get the assignment done in time. A professional will keep lines of communication open, and have back up plans in place for contingencies.

It’s important as a freelancer not to accept work you don’t think you’ll be able to complete, on time and to specification.

Of course, sometimes you’ll have to do some research before you can provide the article your client wants to the standard they require, and it’s possible to underestimate the amount of research a given subject might take.

It’s also possible to accept an assignment and then have ‘life happen.’ A good example of this would be having the power supply on your computer die on you at a critical time, or losing your Internet connection.

So just what do you do if you find yourself suddenly in a position where it looks as thought you might not be able to meet a deadline?

First, don’t give up at the first hurdle. When it comes to research, it’s important not to panic if a subject turns out to be more complex that you initially imagined. Instead, make a list of the questions you need answering and allot as much time as you have to it, then work through the list, getting the best answers to the questions you can.

If your client is more clued up on the subject than you are, a quick phone call or email asking for clarification on one or two points won’t generally go against you. Certainly it won’t damage your client’s faith in you as much as writing an article with inaccurate information or faulty argument.

It’s also sometimes OK to include points of confusion in your article. Sometimes you can’t find a satisfactory answer, or are confronted with differing opinions because experts disagree. In these cases noting the opposing opinions and who supports which, giving your readers the opportunity to make up their own minds is the best way to go.

As far as ‘life’ goes, signalling issues as they arise to clients, and how you hope to overcome them, is a better move than disappearing off the face of the Earth with no explanation. You might re-emerge days later with excuses hoping your client will forgive your lapse. Even if your client doesn’t dump you like a hot brick, they will have lost some of their trust in your abilities.

If instead, you communicate technical or other issues as soon as you are aware of them, a minor disaster could actually end up growing your client’s trust in your reliability.

If you lose Internet access, remember you can always ‘borrow’ it from somewhere else. Get into the habit of storing files relating to clients’ work online, on a service like Google Docs or something similar. Keep their contact information on your phone, and keep a paper record as well. Sadly, it’s possible for more than one technological device to die on you at once. In the same vein, keep multiple records of assignments, guidelines and due dates.

This post is especially for writers – I started off at oDesk with ‘data entry’ as my initial job description because I was terrified with the idea of writing articles and SEO was an acronym that was well beyond me — in fact, I knew absolutely nothing at all about it!

That was in the Fall of 2007.  I was however determined to do better than a few dollars an hour doing data entry so I set about teaching myself a few things:

A) I learned as much as I could about SEO – this is no easy task as there are scams galore out in the world telling you what SEO is really all about. I also learned early on that a website that was telling me about SEO that in fact had a page rank of 0 was probably not where I should be looking for advice on how to properly optimize articles and blogs for SEO;

B) Next I spent a lot of time reading about writing styles, Chicago & AP style which are different as you are probably aware;

C) I “played” with Hub Pages and Squidoo to get some writing experience under my belt – I elected to do this on these sites because I could get feedback and because I could edit to my hearts content and delete the units later if I decided to;

continue reading "What dedication and commitment can do for you"

As part of our ongoing series offering hints for tools to work at home, we continue today with time tracking and task management.  Whether we want to admit it or not, all of us waste a fair amount of time. There are ways to curb waste of time, but first you must identify how you wasting time. There are several free tools that are available for tracking exactly what you are doing online. One of the easiest ones I have found, is a free open-source program called WR Time tracker. This program allows you to set up a free account, turn on the timer, and make notes of what you working on at the time. What this will allow you to do, is at the end of a specified period of time you can go back and see how you’re spending your time.

One of the biggest challenges with freelancing, is making sure that you use your time to the best advantage. remember, when you’re working for yourself time is money. The more ways you can identify to cut back on wasted time, the easier it is for you to invest our time and money making.

continue reading "Work at Home Requirements V"

Since I’ll be posting regularly to freelancing and more, I thought a quick introduction might be in order.

Currently, I write for Helium and a few contract clients. I also publish articles on Triond every now and then, and have accounts with various other online writing sites that I’ve never quite gelled with, as yet. I have a blog (paying-hobby.blogspot.com) which I’ll get onto it’s own domain at some point, and a website www.fresh-weightloss-approach.com that’s in it’s fledgling state and looks set to stay that way until I get a quiet hour or two at least.

But much like Doreen, and if you haven’t read Doreen’s inspiring story, you really should, I came late to the freelancing game, and never had any intention of freelancing at all. I didn’t even want to be a writer.

In fact, if you’d asked me as a child what I wanted to do, you would have gotten the same answer every time: either a sculptor or an archaeologist. I loved history, and loved making things with my hands. It was only in my late teens I discovered a love of words, and a small talent for writing. But back then I wrote poetry.

Throughout my somewhat erratic career, I amassed some great material for small talk. I managed to become a published poet, an award winning website designer, (neither as grand or exciting as they sound) the only Librarian in the UK with a certificate to change abrasive wheels, and the only florist in the country trained as a Hostage Negotiator. Oh, I also did quite a bit of public speaking, and even “appeared” on the local radio.

What can I say? I’m an Aquarius.

The strange thing was, in amongst all this, I somehow became a ghostwriter. Mostly for clients of the web design company whose sites I’d designed, but not exclusively.  Eventually I found myself writing web copy for catalogues, sales letters, recruitment materials for Network Marketers, and from that came the first exposure to article writing online.

Even then I didn’t jump at the opportunity to become a freelance writer. I wrote a few articles for directories like ezinearticles.com and that was about it.

My freelancing career proper, like Doreen’s started as a result of a lack of work and after the end of a long term relationship. having closed my own Florist shop and moved 100 miles to a new city with a new partner, I discovered mine was not the only shop to close as a result of the sudden and deep recession in 2008/2009. After months of fruitless searching for a job, I told my mother one day if I couldn’t find a job, I would make my own.

Not wanting to return to web design, I turned to writing instead, and quickly built up a respectable income from promoting articles on various web sites, and finding regular clients. Of course, when I say respectable, it’s not earth shatteringly impressive, but it covers my basic bills, and that’s what matters. Fortunately my bills are very, very basic

So my posts for you come from the perspective of a long time Internet ghostwriter who’s come out from the shadows. Hope you find useful information in them, and I’ll speak to you all next Monday.

The path to freelancing

In our last posting, we talked about some of the tools for blogs that could help you successfully work on your client’s blog. Today, we going to examine some of the other helpful items that can help add value to your clients blogs. You’ve probably noticed, that most of our blog postings contained some sort of graphic. Most people who are well versed in search engine optimization will advise you that the use of graphics can help your search engine rankings.

There is a catch however the first predicament is getting graphics that are not going to cost you an arm and a leg. The second, is finding the appropriate graphic for your blogs. It’s pretty simple to figure out that you’re not going to use the same graphics in a legal blog that you would use in a plumbing blog.

This is where IStockPhoto comes into play. This is perhaps one of the most cost efficient methods of utilizing graphics. In fact, chances are your client may already have an account. Do check with them. In most cases, appropriate graphics only cost one “unit” although you may find others that can be upwards of 14 to 20 units.

About the only concern I have with this site, is the filtering options. I strongly recommend in fact that if you find a graphic “set” that you like and save it in your light box. Light boxes stay active for one year, and allow you to easily identify graphics that are appropriate. If your client does not already have an account, discuss with them how they want to handle graphics. There are free programs available, however in my experience most of them do not offer a broad enough range or quality enough photos to make them worth the time it takes to search for them.

Effective use of Graphics

One thing I have noticed, is how ineffective some graphics are in posts. In fact you may have found yourself looking at a photo and wondering what in the world it has to do with the post you just read! One of the little-known features for brand-new WordPress users, is that you can add keywords onto your photographs. These keywords get searched just like the rest of your post. You can use the keywords utilizing the key words in your post, or additional keywords that are relevant to your post. You can also use graphics to link back to another website if you choose to.

continue reading "Work at Home Requirements – IV"

In spite of the fact that I am calling this “requirements” these tools are optional.  However, I have found that they can be helpful.  For those who are maintaining blogs for clients, you will want to include links to other blogs, photos and from time to time videos.

Unless a blog is set up before you start working with it, you may be asked to set it up completely including selecting a theme.  For this, your best bet is WordPress themes.  Even if your client is doing a self-hosted blog, WordPress can be helpful to you.  You will need to select a theme, download it or access the site via an FTP processor. Don’t panic, these are easy to do and simple to learn.

WordPress

WordPress – If you are a blogger, no doubt you’ve heard of it a time or two.  When you are selecting blog themes, make sure that you are sending the message your customer wants.  If they have specialized headers, search themes for “header” and you’ll find a list of those who allow you to put in customized headers.

WordPress Plug Ins - One of the most valuable tools you have if you are using WordPress themes is the plug in directory. It can make your life a lot easier. Plugins offer everything from instant social networking icons to spam stoppers and nearly everything in between.  Use only the plugins you need to make the blog effective as some of them can slow the posting of pages down. Don’t forget to take advantage of the newest set of plugins for making blogs “mobile friendly” so you are not alienating mobile phone users from your blogs.

continue reading "Work at home requirements – Part III"

Earlier this week, we discussed some of the requirements that you would need for tools to work at home. As promised, here are second set of tools that can help you be more productive while working at home.  We talked about antivirus programs, office suites, and invoicing programs. Today, we will talk about mainly communication tools.  One of t.he biggest challenges when you’re working at home with you working for a company or your freelancing, is keeping in contact.  These tools, can help you stay in regular communication.

Skype: I am a firm believer in utilizing Skype. One of the biggest attractions for me was the opportunity to get an “online telephone number”. I did this because I was not particularly interested in giving out my home telephone number to people that I barely knew. The advantage of the online telephone number, is that it is simple to shut off.  Just log out of Skype, and it will not ring. Skype also has built-in voicemail-which can be extremely convenient.

Yahoo! Messenger -Yahoo messenger also offers voice option which I have never used. That’s not to say, that it would not be sufficient for your own needs. Yahoo was reliable, you need only have a Yahoo ID to utilize it. One of the biggest advantages that I have found with Yahoo is the ability to store instant messages. While Skype is certainly capable of doing this, is not as clean as Yahoo’s options.

continue reading "Work at home Requirements Part II"