Freelancing: Freelance Hints, Tips & Strategies by Michelle L Devon

Let’s Talk Freelancing!

Yesterday, I talked about article marketing briefly and said I would discuss it more today. Article marketing is an inexpensive way to generate a buzz about your business and help you increase your PageRank in Google at the same time, while also branding you or your business as a sort of expert in your field.

Here’s how article directories go: you write a short article that is packed with some information your potential clients might find useful that shows you know what you’re talking about in your niche market and that other websites or ezines/newsletters might want to pick up as a feature article or filler content for their site or mailing.

With that article, your name (byline), and an author’s bio is attached, and that bio will have relevant links to your website. Your article gets indexed in Google, and the links are live, and so there’s a bump to PageRank incoming links, and people can click to come to your site. Then, as people pick up your article and it is distributed across the internet or put on other websites and blogs, with your author bio on it, those get indexed too, with your live links, and people again can come to your site and it helps increase PageRank.

If you do this right, you also can write in such a way that people who read it know you know what you’re talking about… it’s a more personal way of showing your potential clients that you know your stuff.

If you’re an editor, like me, you can do what I do: grammar hints and tips, information about how to improve writing, book reviews, etc.

If you’re an administrative freelancer, write about what you do and your field of admin work, or without being ’salesy’, write about why potential clients should outsource their services to freelancers like you. If you’re in the tech field, write some brief how-to things that let potential clients know how to do something simple, and then in the bio section, tell them if they need more help with more advanced things, visit your site.

Of course, if you sell products, you can write information, reviews, uses for your products; tout their benefits, give inside information, and then of course, links to get to your site where you sell the product. (though this blog is really for freelancers, not product sellers)

My favorite article directory is EzineArticles. I have found them to have the best traffic and the best exposure for pick up and reprint on other sites. I highly recommend them. You can see my articles over there by clicking here.

I know some of you who are writers are going to balk at the fact that you’re putting articles up for free, when I say on my other blog about freelance WRITING that you should never give you writing away for free. This is true that I say this, but understand two things 1) THIS blog isn’t about freelance writing but rather about freelancing in general, and that means not everyone who freelances is going to be a writer and 2) I never said not to give writing away for free, but rather, not to give it away without some type of value attached to it. Linkbacks and word-of-mouth advertising and marketing is worth actual money if you’re trying to drive traffic to your site to get customers and to your blogs and other pages that are monetized.

Freelance writers can write articles about why it’s important to hire writers to do web copy, why it’s important to foster a good relationship with writers, why professional writers are better than doing your own writing, what ghostwriting is and how it can benefit the client, etc.

Other freelancers pick their niche and write about benefits of using their services, inside tips and tricks about what they do, etc.

Article directories are an awesome way to help your site get noticed, drive traffic and brand you as a knowledgeable ‘expert’ in your field.

Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,
Michy

    Let’s talk freelancing!

So now you’ve set up your website and got your supplies in order, you’ve mailed out your intro letters, so now it’s time to start generating some buzz about your business.

PageRank for Your Business Website

Google PageRank (PR) is essentially a tool in Google that tells the value of the link to your website (at least as far as Google is concerned). The higher your PR is, the higher you will appear in search engine rankings when people use the keywords for your site and your services. The higher you appear in search engine rankings, the moer people looking for your services will find your website, and if your site is quality, the more people who will consider hiring you to provide freelance services to them.

One way to get higher PR is to get quality links to your site. By quality links, I mean links from relevant sites that have decent PRs themselves. This isn’t going to happen overnight, and if you don’t create a bit of a buzz about your website, it’s not going to happen at all.

Create a Buzz: Social Networking

So the first thing you can do to create this buzz is to network on social networking sites. The more professional these social networking sites are, the better. LinkedIn is a good ‘professional’ place, and then you can go with other places like Facebook, Myspace or some of the other social networks. You don’t really want to spam or promote too much on these networks, but they are a chance to create your profile, tell the world who you are and what you do, and then drop your links into your profile so that people can find your website, and then the links help build PR.

Submit Press Releases

Also, you should consider Googling ‘free press release submissions’ and then reading a bit about how to create a press release, and then you can do a press release announcing your business, one announcing your services, one announcing your website, and one for each of your social networks announcing you and your business as a new members.

You can do this on multiple press release sites as well, taking only the amount of time required to copy and paste the release you’ve written on the sites. Yes, there is software you can buy to do this, but I’m a frugal freelancer, and I know many people who dream of running their own freelance business and working from home don’t have the money to fork over for these programs. At worst, more people will see your website and press release and might come visit; at best, several places will pick up at least one of you releases for distribution and lots of people will come to your website and see it.

Expert Articles for Reprint / Article Directories

Next, you can write short, insightful, creative, interesting articles for article directories. My next blog post will explain this more in depth. For now, you can just add it to your list.

Blogs

If you maintain any blogs (and you really should at least have one, doesn’t everyone?), you should put the link to your business on the sidebar of all your blogs. It wouldn’t hurt to post an excited and personal post on your blog about how you are freelancing now, and ask everyone to check out your new website as a favor. You never know who might see it and think, “Hey, I could use their services!”

Ask Others To Help / Network

When you put up the blog posts and social networks, ask your friends and readership if they will help you promote your business. Simply ask them to visit your site, and if they like what they see, to please add your link and business name to their blogroll. You can also find blogs or content sites where people do website reviews for free and ask them if they’ll put up a review of your website.

Advertise

As a last resort, you can advertise your site. There are lots of ways to do this, some of which will cost time and some of which will cost money. I actually created a video promo for free (just my time) for my writers forum, and posted it everywhere I can think to post it without spamming. You can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ci0SUE1YjI4.

If you pay for advertising, don’t spend a lot. I’ve found word of mouth and web exposure pays a lot more than paying for ads in the beginning. You can create a few banner ads and ask others to put them up wherever they want/can though, like on blogs and their own websites.

That’s it for today. Just a quickie here: these tips also work for writers who write for paid-to-view content websites to help promote their profiles and articles on those sites as well. Never spam. Never, ever spam. Spamming will hurt your business more than doing nothing at all to promote your business.

Stay tuned for: article marketing for your business and blogs.

Happy freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy

  Let’s talk freelancing!

You’ve picked a business name, applied for your EIN or other necessary business licenses and numbers, bought your business cards, set up your home office, purchased all the required equipment, have a website and email set up, and you’re ready to go with your freelance business.

Now all you need are clients.

Uhmmm, how do you find clients for a new business?

NETWORKING!

Networking is the best way to find clients for your freelance business. Who you know, who knows you, and word of mouth are the biggest things that will get your business going and keep it moving forward. Make a list of all your past business contacts. Think outside the box here. Start with obvious folks, people you’ve worked with or for in the past, people you have wanted to work for or with, and competitors of people you’ve worked with and for!

Then think beyond that to anyone you know in the industry you have chosen, as well as businesses in the industry that provide the types of services you’re going to offer. For example, I am a freelance writer, so I made a listing of all the magazines and websites I might be interested in writing for, as well as a list of people who managed ezines and newsletters I have read over the years.

Make the list and get contact information for them, including email address, postal address, contact name (try to get a direct name and not just a title), and a phone number.

After you’ve made your list, first, write a print letter, a physical letter of introduction, and sign and mail it to these people. In the letter, basically just introduce yourself and your new freelance business. Try in this letter not to be too ’salesy’ here. Remember, at this point, you’re only introducing yourself and announcing your new business, NOT trying to gain a client yet. Marketing is much different than making a sale. You want to network with these people, not necessarily work FOR them.

What’s the difference? Well, networking is saying, “Here I am, here’s what I do, you do something similar, so we should know each other.” Making a sale is trying to get them to purchase your services or DO something. You don’t really want to go there yet. Start by mailing the letter and sending a copy of your business card with the letter.

I don’t suppose I can stress enough how important it is that this letter be professional in the writing, the content and the appearance. Make a nice letterhead or get one for free from the Microsoft Office website for Word. Be sure to put your business name, your name, your contact information including: email address, physical address, phone number, and website. Be sure everything is spelled properly and the grammar is good. Keep it to one page only. Don’t send any sales letters, flyers or advertisements yet. These things can come later. However, you can consider sending goodies. Free pens, scratch pads, lollipops with your business name on the sticks, something cute and memborable that doesn’t cost a lot can really make people remember you.

After  you mail that letter, you can then follow up with an email that addresses the letter, about two weeks after sending the letter out. The email can just basically say something along the lines of following up on the letter you sent, mention that you hope they kept your business card, and then provide them with a link to your website. This will keep you in their mind as well as providing an easy to access link to your website. Most people will at least click to see your site, but they won’t take a printed letter and type your website URL to see it.

About a week after the email, if you still haven’t heard from them, you can either let it go, or follow up with a direct phone call. Make a lunch date. Offer to take them to lunch (and pay for it!), something, anything to get a chance to network with these people you want to work with and for.

Then, always leave it with a, “…keep me in mind, and if you know anyone….”

Letters of introduction do work. However, keep in mind, they don’t work immediately, and you still need to follow up - this is just a way to get your foot in the door and to announce yourself to them.

Tomorrow, I’ll discuss other ways of networking and finding clients for your freelance business, but letters of introduction are a good way to, well, to introduce yourself!

Stay tuned tomorrow for other ways to connect with potential clients and stay tuned also for information about freelance bid sites and how to use them to gain a client list and get references.

Until then, Happy Freelancing!

Love and stuff,

Michy