If you read this blog, chances are that you also read others that offer similar content. I wanted to offer up two more blogs that are sure to teach you quite a bit.
First off, check out Yaro Starak and his Internet Business Blog. He is an entrepreneur from Australia, and in my opinion, one of the top bloggers out there. Although he does not have the name recognition of some others, his blog takes a backseat to none. With over 4,500 RSS subscribers, Yaro must be doing something right.
Michael Kwan, a freelance writer and blogger, runs the blog Beyond the Rhetoric. As you can imagine, this is one of my favorites because we have similar career goals and interests. Michael has mentioned my blog several times, and recently gave my contest a plug as well.
Take the time to read these two blogs if you are interested in learning from a couple knowledgeable guys in the areas of internet business and freelance writing.
For a freelance writer to succeed, repeat work is a must. When it comes down to it, “one and done jobs†are not going to get you very far. Sure, you can make some money this way, but you need to keep clients coming back time and time again. This is how I have grown my freelance writer career from $0 to $5k to $10k per month, and something that you will definitely want to keep fresh on your mind.
I found one of my biggest repeat clients at GetAFreelancer, even though I did not see this coming initially. Up front, they asked for 100 articles at $10/each. Since they were only short pieces of about 200 words, I decided to go for it. Over the past year, they have paid me more than $7k for similar work. The moral of this story: when you start working for a client, you never know if it will turn into repeat jobs in the future.
The best way to secure repeat work is to offer your best the first time around. Simply put, if the client does not like your writing on the first project, why would they offer you more in the future? This alone is reason enough for you to put your best skills forward on each and every project.
Obviously, if a client tells you that repeat jobs are going to be available, you should fall over yourself trying to win the project.
The best type of client is the one that comes back for more, time and time again. Some clients will send one job right after the next, whereas others will wait for weeks or maybe even months. It comes down to what they need, and of course, how much money they can afford to spend.
Although repeat work is huge in the freelance writing industry, this holds true among other jobs as well. Everybody from web designers to car manufacturers know that repeat customers can help them to grow their business, while increasing profits.
Trying to increase traffic to your blog is not an easy task. All in all, this is one of the main reasons that a lot of people give up on blogging after only a couple of weeks. Although I felt good about this blog’s progress at the end of July, I am even more optimistic about the future after the way things went this last week.
On Tuesday August 1, I posted my freelance writing income for July 2007. While I thought that this would get people talking, I was not expecting the results that followed. Within a couple of days this post made its way around the blogosphere, and really hit it big when John Chow featured it on his blog.
You are probably wondering what this did for my blog, right? First off, it has helped to increase comments. To me, this may very well be the biggest benefit; I feel that comments are a great way to make the most of the blogging experience. At this time, my freelance writing post has 33 comments; my personal best for this blog.
Additionally, my daily traffic has doubled. I thought that this may only be temporary, but it appears that the numbers are holding steady for the most part. The reason that I am optimistic is that my RSS readership has also doubled. Obviously, this will have a positive effect as time goes on.
Although a lot of this success has to do with top ranking blogs linking to me, I feel that the quality of my original post is where everything started. Think about it this way: if my original post would have been poorly constructed, nobody would have ever taken notice. This is why you need to make sure that you put your all into every post that you write. You never know when a John Chow or other big time blogger is reading!
Despite the fact that I got a huge boost over the past seven days, I am not going to stop working hard this month. The way I see it, the more great posts I make, the more publicity this blog will receive. Sounds easy enough, right?
