Getting Started as a Freelance Writer

Many people find the idea of becoming a freelancer very appealing. You can work from home, and

take on as much or as little work as you like. Getting started as a freelance writer however can be difficult. If you are new to the scene it is hard to win business because nobody knows who you are or what your writing ability is like.

Here is one way to do it (there are others but this one seems to work well!)

1.       Write a sample article to show to prospective clients. Make sure it is the best you can do. Spend time perfecting it and making sure that it is grammatically correct.

2.       Go over to the Warrior forum and post a WSO (a Warrior Special Offer) advertising your service. Offer a really attractive rate to get people to try you out and include your sample article within the advert so that people can see that you write to a decent standard. I would suggest a price of around $1 for every 100 words as a starting point. That should get you some initial clients.

3.       Once you have completed some orders get testimonials from your clients. If they are happy with the work you produce they should be more than willing to do this.

4.       Relist your WSO, this time including the testimonials.

5.       After a few weeks send a follow-up email to your previous clients asking if they have any more work for you. A lot of the people you write for will always be in need of content and will have plenty of work for you.

6.       Set yourself up with a website. Give plenty of samples and include some details about yourself and your initial experience.

7.       Rinse and repeat. Each time you do this you will be gaining new clients and building a relationship with your existing ones. Over time you should find that your reputation builds (assuming of course that you produce good quality work) and as it does you can begin to charge more money.

There are of course other ways of getting started as a freelance writer. Sites such as Elance can also offer a fruitful way of getting freelance work, but I hope that this article has given you some food for thought.

Being a freelance writer can be hard work but it can also be extremely rewarding. For many people it provides an easy way of making money online, even if it is just as a way of funding your other business activities.

Choosing Blogs To Comment On

It’s fairly well know in the internet marketing world that commenting on blogs is a good way to generate traffic and backlinks, as well as making yourself known in your niche and building good relationships with other blog owners. However whilst blog commenting is an effective method, choosing blogs to comment on (ie. choosing the right ones) is paramount to your success.

The first thing you should think about is your target audience.  What sorts of blogs are your market interested in? Whilst it is a given that you should comment on blogs which are in the same niche as yourself, you can widen it a little. For example, consider also posting comments on blogs which are in a different niche but which have the same or similar target audience.

Once you have found a possible blog, the first thing to consider is how active it is. I try to comment on blogs that are well known in the niche and which are posted to regularly, after all there is little point commenting on a blog where the last post was made 12 months ago!

Look at how many comments the blog already gets. An active community means that people are getting involved and a high number of people will see your comments.  It also makes it easier to post comments since you can pick up on what other people are saying and you can debate their points.

When choosing blogs to comment on, it is also important to look at the amount of useful content contained on the blog in question. Many blogs exist as pure advertising ploys (you know the ones I am talking about – blogs which have tons of advertisements and affiliate links but very little useful information.) These are the ones to avoid. You ideally want to seek out the blogs which people look at as an authority source. By commenting on these blogs you will associate yourself with quality content and develop your own reputation.

4 Things You Have to Know about Joint Venture

Joint ventures in business are a wonderful thing. They can allow you to make money you wouldn’t otherwise be able to make on your own, they enable you to tap into other people’s expertise and knowledge, and potentially they can speed up projects, whilst making them more successful and

sharing some of the risk. Joint ventures are talked about a great deal in the internet marketing world, but despite the many benefits there are also a number of drawbacks. Here are 5 things to think about before doing a joint venture:

1.       Joint ventures mean shared profit

Say you decide to join forces with another marketer and create your own product together. You can share some of the development costs and utilise both of your respective expertise, however assuming the joint venture is split straight down the middle then it also means you’ll only make half of what you would if it was solely your own product. Of course in many scenarios this is irrelevant because the project might have been impossible on your own, but it’s something to think about.

2.       Jointventures can go wrong

It can be the case that your joint venture partner simply doesn’t share the same commitment to the project as you do. This can be extremely frustrating if you’re putting in lots of hard work yourself and your partner simply doesn’t do their bit.

3.       Before you start, make sure you have an agreed timetable

It is all too easy for a joint venture project to slip behind schedule because your partner is not good at doing things on time (relating back to the point above) or simply that you both have other commitments and the project never gets finished. Before you start make sure you agree a timetable that both of you are happy with and are sure you can commit to.

4.       Choose your joint venture partners carefully

Are you compatible with the other party? Should you even be considering working together? There is little point in doing a joint venture with someone who has a completely different skill set or way of thinking. Whilst joint ventures allow you to tap into other peoples expertise, it is also essential that you have SOME shared knowledge, skills or common ground since otherwise the venture will become impossible. Similarly it is usually of little value to join forces with someone who has exactly the same skill set or market access as yourself. If, for example, you have a product but no list to sell it to then look to joint venture with someone who has a list but no product to sell to them!  

Blogging for Profit Begins With a Long Term Plan

Many people dream of blogging for profit, and this goal is not far beyond the reach of someone with average intelligence, a willingness to work hard, and a basic grasp of blogging technology. However, very few people manage to reap the profits they want from their blog. Most people who attempt to make money with their blogs do not succeed for two reasons. Often, bloggers have unrealistic expectations of how fast their readership will grow and how much money they will make, and when these expectations are not met the disappointment can crush the desire to continue blogging. The other trap that many bloggers fall into has to do with lack of planning. If you want to turn a profit as a blogger, the key to success is to make a realistic plan and stick with it.

To succeed at blogging for profit, the main thing that you will need is a large readership. The higher your traffic, the more advertisers will agree to pay you. However, cultivating the regular visitors that you will need in order to make a profit isnt easy. As more and  more blogs appear each day, having a great idea or a wonderful writing style is no longer enough to get attention. You need to be able to market your blog effectively.

Too many bloggers spend all of their time writing posts and almost no time marketing their project. To be certain, updating as often as you can is a great way to keep your blog high on blogrolls and high in blog search engines like technorati, and once your readers know that you update frequently they will return to your site on a regular basis. However, it does not matter how often you update if nobody is reading your page, so dont skimp on the time that you spend drawing visitors to your site. To make your dreams of blogging for profit a reality, try decreasing your number of posts and using some of that time to draw new visitors by setting up link exchanges with other bloggers, making contacts in
the blog community, and following other established modes of winning traffic.

Of course, even if you are a marketing genius or have a really great idea for a blog, success is not going to happen overnight. Building the kind of readership that blogging for profit requires takes time, and in all likelihood it will be at least several months before you are able to turn much of a profit. Try to stay committed to your blogging project during this initial rough period. To stay motivated, set goals for how often you will update and how many readers you want to attract, and
then reward yourself for sticking with your plan.