Social Bookmarking Software & 9 Money-Making Conclusions from Freelance Writer’s Technology Month

November 30, 2007

Part #10 (Conclusion): Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

Following is a two-part post. As I haven’t posted since Tuesday (have been working on getting two new websites up), I had two more posts left in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series. I have to wrap it up because tomorrow is December 1^st (where has the time gone!).

FYI, this post is almost 3,000 words long and took almost four hours to write. It’s jam-packed with what I sincerely hope you find useful information (had to end with a bang!). Here goes:

Part I: Social Bookmarking Software

Social bookmarking is THE thing right now. Like blogging a few years ago, it has taken off like wildfire. It’s here to stay, hence, something that should be integrated into your marketing strategy.

For anyone who’s been under a cave lately, following are some particulars you should know about social bookmarking.

What is social bookmarking? Social bookmarking has been around for about five years now. According to a post on SiteProNews.com, it seems to have been originated by Del.icio.us back in 2003.

The ability to save and categorize a personal collection of bookmarks and share them with others. Users may also take bookmarks saved by others and add them to their own collection, as well as to subscribe to the lists of others. [Source: TVB.org]

Why every freelance writer should integrate social bookmarking into their marketing strategy (especially if they are just starting out)? Because it generates traffic. I use the social bookmarking site Digg primarily. There are hundreds of social bookmarking sites though – many more than I knew about until I started to research this topic.

One SEO marketer I spoke with told me that Propeller was one of the best social bookmarking sites to use. He currently managed 150 blogs for different clients and used it because it is indexed by Google several times a day. This means you could potentially get more traffic sooner if you post here.

Read more about social bookmarking here, and how it can help you in your marketing efforts.

Social bookmarking stats: For how effective social bookmarking can be, consider this: It is quite common, unfortunately, for a dug website to receive so much traffic that it brings down the server. [Source: SiteProNews.com]

To read a real case example of how social bookmarking can increase site traffic, click here.

For some in-depth stats on Feeds and Social Bookmarking, click here. This can help you determine which social bookmarking site(s) you may want to start using.

How freelance writers can make money off the social bookmarking phenomenon: Besides driving traffic to your site/blog, new freelance writing opportunities have opened up around this phenomenon.

IE, blog posting and forum posting. Many SEO companies are hired by website owners to do regular posting to other blogs, in relevant forums and then list those posts on social bookmarking sites.

The pay is not that great – I’ve seen rates as low as 15 cents/per; they usually top out at about $5/post. However, the posts tend to be short (350 words or less), and if you build up a stable of 10 or 15 clients, it can garner you a pretty decent part-time income (depending on your financial needs).

One SEO company owner I spoke with told me that he paid bloggers $100 month for daily posting and $150/month if they linked to post to a couple of social bookmarking sites (eg, Propeller). He said the posts usually only took 10-15 minutes each and that they could be done in bulk and be pre-scheduled (there’s that use of technology).

So, ostensibly, you could sit down and do a week’s worth of posts in a couple of hours and have made $25-$40 for your time. Not too shabby.

Social Bookmarking Software

Create Your Own Social Bookmark: http://www.viralsocializer.com. This software allows you to create your own social bookmarking and tagging service in any niche or market you want.

I wish I had the time to do this for the freelance writing niche, as I find many sites don’t really cater to it.

If I have a grievance with most new technologies, it’s that they are heavily slanted toward tech users, gamers and/or what I term “college boy humor.” Look at many of the videos on YouTube. Many cater to sophomoric humor promoted for entertainment purposes.

Disclaimer: I know nothing about this software, so I don’t promote/endorse it. It is used here only for illustrative purposes.

Social Bookmarking Buttons & Gadgets: SocialNetworkingArticles.com has an extensive list of buttons and gadgets for your website/blog. It’s the most complete list I’ve run across.

I have one DIGG button on my blog. When I ran across this list, I was plum embarrassed. I have close to 300 hundred pages on my website. Another thing I’ve added to my list of things to do in the New Year is to go through every page and add a social bookmarking button. And yes, this will be an outsourced project (you’ll get the meaning of this when you read #7 in Part II of this article).

Note: The cool bookmarking gadget I added to this page is at AddThis.com. It’s free.

I hope I’ve made you realize the value of social bookmarking. Now, choose a button and start bookmarking/tagging away!

Part II: 9 Money-Making Conclusions Drawn from Freelance Writer’s Technology Month

1. Choose how you’re going to make money. This whole series started because I was looking for a way to make more passive money online. Read the full story here.

You may be thinking, “I’ll make my money by writing.” Well, of course. But, how. For example, one thing I decided on during the course of this series was that I wanted to start a Virtual Real Estate Empire (VRE).

What is this? It’s when a webpreneur sets up minisites to create passive streams of income. I’m not talking about those sites with one article and 50 ads either. I’m talking about valuable minisites focused on a tight, tight niche with quality content.

Quality, relevant, fresh, unique content is what separates a bad minisite from a good one. Low-quality minisites throw up a few generic articles, slap some ads on and expect it to generate money. Many buy pre-existing sites that are sold hundreds of times and never add new content. Hence, there’s are hundreds, perhaps thousands of the same site – all competing against each other.

While it may be cost-effective to buy a pre-existing site, how you maintain it is what will make it profitable. Adding new, in-depth content, quality photos, interesting discussions, etc. will separate your site from others.

Many are just too lazy to do this. AND, this is why this could be a good income stream for freelance writers. I plan to use my writing ability on my minisites.

This is what I mean by planning “how” you’re going to make your money as a freelance writer. Read more about how to make money with minisites here.
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Last year I made $3,489.07 from a simple 1-page website.
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2. Look for Technology: As in, look for technology to integrate into your marketing strategy. It will make your life so much easier.

This series has opened my eyes wider than a barn owl to the amount of technology available out there – much of it for free.

If you can imagine it, or have ever whispered to yourself, “I wish there was a way to …”, then believe me, the technology probably exists for it.

When a new marketing phenomenon comes along, (eg, blogging), pretty much simultaneously there is going to be technology to make it easier, faster, quicker, cheaper, etc. to promote that strategy.

So, whatever you do, just because you don’t know of a technology that exists, spend a few hours on the web researching it. Nine times out of 10, the software is there, and if enough time has passed, it’s probably even free.

3. Don’t Be Ruled by Technology: While this may seem contrary to the previous post, it isn’t. Don’t be so quick to try every new piece of technology/marketing strategy that comes along.

Select two or three you can really sink your teeth into and stick with those. Otherwise, you’ll be using a lot, but not really seeing results from any of them.

I’ve learned that you can’t do everything. For example, I set up a MySpace page and a Squidoo lens. Have I used any of them? After initially setting them up, no.

Between blogging, client projects, producing a newsletter, updating my website, setting up my affiliate program (which took forever) and sticking to my existing marketing plan, I simply don’t have time to try out every new “it” phenomenon.

I only started blogging in 2005 – a few years after it was the “in” thing to do. But, you know what, if a marketing technique/new technology is the real deal, it’ll be there when you’re ready to integrate it into your existing marketing plan.

4. Embrace Change: Piggybacking on the last point, don’t be afraid to let go of, or fine tune, what isn’t working.

For example, I’ve recently started to blog only 2-3 times a week. It runs contrary to what most industry experts advise. But, if you read the initial post in this series, then you know my research revealed that this is not necessarily the case.

5. Stop Giving Away Good Content: Now, with free article marketing being touted as the number one way to drive traffic to a site, you may be frowning at this. But, I don’t mean don’t give away any content, I mean don’t give away all of your good, in-depth content.

For example, right now, my permissions statement on my blog reads:

May be reprinted with the following, in full: Yuwanda Black is the publisher of InkwellEditorial.com: THE business portal for and about the editorial and creative industries. Freelance success stories, e-courses, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Get the e-report, How to Make $100/Day as a Freelance Writer — free! Log on to http://www.freelancewritingwebsite.com/ for details.

As of this post, this has been changed to:

Copyright © 2007 InkwellEditorial.com: Freelance success stories, e-courses, advice on the business of freelancing, and more! Get the e-report, How to Make $100/Day as a Freelance Writer — free! Log on to http://www.freelancewritingwebsite.com/ for details. Except where noted, no part of this site may be reproduced in any manner without the express, written consent of the publisher. Violators will be prosecuted.

Why the change?

Because good, unique, relevant content is what drives traffic to a site. Oftentimes I see my content posted on sites that rank much higher than mine. Search engines are really starting to crack down on duplicate content.

What exactly does this mean? It means that it will only give “credit to (ie, list in search results)” the first three or four sites where the content appears. The other sites (eg, my site) won’t show up at all.

By not allowing my content to be freely posted any and everywhere, I, in essence, force sites to ink to the full content (eg, drive visitors to my site).

While I still believe there’s a place for article marketing – after all, I write the book on it – it has evolved to a point where it must be balanced with the full value you receive from it. So, write a great article and submit it to the free article directories, but, save the nitty-gritty details (ie, the really valuable, in-depth content) for your site/blog.

While some may find this controversial, this is just my experience. As the web changes, so must your marketing strategy.

6. Charge Enough to Live – Or Don’t Do It! While this may seem that it has nothing to do with technology, it does.

I’ve recently started to do some SEO writing and am astounded at the low rates many freelancers charge. By my calculations, many are working for $4-$6/hour.

While I believe that its up to every freelancer to determine their own rates because we all have different needs, there comes a point where it’s slave wages. Many freelancers do this with the mistaken belief that it will lead to more work.

Trust me – I’ve been doing this since 1993 – it rarely does. In my opinion, if someone is looking for writers to do 400-600 word articles at $2-$4/pop, they are not looking to give you a raise when they order in bulk. If anything, it will be the opposite (ie, “Since I’m giving you so much work, how about a bulk (read cheaper) rate?”).

Don’t do it. Do something else instead. You might as well spend your time creating a portfolio of samples you can shop to clients who are really to pay you a decent wage. Or, working for a charity that means a lot to you.

So, how does technology play into this point? Many bulk writing buyers operate hundreds of sites – either for themselves or for clients. And, many use software to automate the process (see this post). The most important piece of all of this is the content you provide. Nothing happens on the web without content.

If they can’t afford to pay a decent wage for the most important component of their business, then is it a sustainable business model. That’s why there’s so much junk on the web. Many of these are get-rich-quick schemes where someone has paid bottom-of-the-barrel rates for meaningless content that doesn’t advance the web in any significant way.

The web is most useful when you get targeted, relevant, in-depth results when you type in a search term. Most times, I don’t even look at the first page of Google results any more because it’s filled with generic content that is only meant to get me to that page. Either I click on the sponsored results, or go to the second page to start my reading.

Thankfully, search engines are starting to penalize these types of useless sites. Don’t use your talent to contribute to this. You’re worth more, your talent is worth more.

7. Outsource What You Can’t Do: I recently tried to set up a WordPress Blog. I’m switching because, while I like Blogger, WordPress blogs have more tools for marketing purposes, and new ones are constantly being developed by this team.

I also happen to think they look more professional than Blogger blogs. After spending a few hours trying to set it up, I got it up, but wasn’t satisfied with the look and feel of it. So, I gave up and have put it into my marketing calendar to outsource in February (big client check comes in).

I’ve held myself back so many times by trying to do it myself. I’m a natural DIYer (do it yourselfer) and I tend to be pretty thrifty (years of freelancing have taught me this).

But it has been to my detriment on more than a few occasions. I often wonder how much I can add to my bottom line by outsourcing much more than I do (this is so hard for me because I like to control every aspect of a project).

But, I’m learning that the more successful I (you) become, it is cheaper to pay someone to do what you can’t do, don’t have the time to do – or simply don’t want to take the time to figure out how to do.

8. Stop Shortchanging Yourself: Freelance writers are famous for wanting to share. But, don’t do it at the expense of your business.

I was in a popular freelance writing forum a few weeks ago and the administrator was lamenting how much time it took her to moderate the comments, research and post freelance jobs, and figure out the glitches that had caused some of her forum members problems.

She was saying that she was seriously considering either selling the forum or starting to charge a membership fee because it was so time-consuming to maintain. That resonated with me because there are days when I want to abandon my blog for some of the same reasons.

She polled the readers to see how many would be willing to pay a membership fee. While she got enthusiastic responses, it didn’t appear that there would be many takers.

Now, this is an extremely popular freelance writing forum with a lot of solid, first-rate information. I felt saddened.

As freelance writers, we shortchange ourselves so much. The reason I decided to cut back on my blogging – instead of abandoning it all together – is that relative to the time I put into it, it doesn’t return enough measurable financial results. FYI, I usually spend an hour to an hour and a half on each post, which is a good chunk of my 7-9/hour work day.

Some posts can take two hours or more if I happen to have to do some research (ie, this post/this series).

As blogging is part of my overall marketing strategy – and one I happen to enjoy – I can’t abandon it altogether. But, I can limit it so that it doesn’t take away from more lucrative projects.
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P.S.: Make $250/day writing SEO content: I’m doing it and you can too!
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9. The Web is Maturing; Are You? The web is maturing to a point where quality information is going to be hard to find for free. My sister lamented to me just the other day how she was having a hard time finding statistics on a story she was writing because all the sites with the good information had paid memberships.

She was like, “You’re right about what you said Wanda. It IS hard to find good information on the web for free now.”

This is a good thing for freelance writers because it means more providers will have to post quality information to compete. And, you ain’t going to find quality in a $2 article.

Going into the New Year, my wish is that freelance writers will realize their true value to the most important piece of technology to come along in the last century – perhaps since the industrial revolution – the Internet.

Nothing happens without content. And, you provide it! Charge enough to make a decent living.

Something to think about, no?
Yuwanda
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

SEO Tips: The Basics of How to Optimize Your Website to Get More Traffic

November 27, 2007

Part #9: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

One of the things I’ve learned in my research for Freelance Writer’s Technology Month is how important search engine optimization is. One extremely valuable lesson I’m taking away from all of my research is how to optimize my website to get more traffic.

Why Optimizing Your Website Is Important

The short – and most important answer – of course, is so that your website gets found. The technology behind that though is a bit more complicated. Here I will lay out a few basic tips that every freelance writer who has a website should use to optimize their web pages.
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Make $250/day writing SEO content: I’m doing it and you can too!
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Treat Every Page Like Its Own Minisite

Before this series, I would simply write text and upload it. After all, my whole website and blog are about the business of freelance writing. So, if someone is searching for that, I figure they’d have a good chance of finding my site.

Some search phrases my website and/or blog can easily be found under? Freelance writing job (#15 in Google search); freelance writing career (#14 in Google search); Freelance writing advice (#15, 16 & 17 in Google search); and freelance writing help (#4 and #10 in Google search).

Following are 5 things I do to optimize my website (I only do 5 of the 7 listed).

7 Tips for Optimizing Your Website to Get More Traffic
(even if you know nothing about SEO)

Basic Tip #1: Know how your visitors search for you online. To be honest, this is something I still have to figure out. I don’t know the search phrases surfers use to find my sites online. I’ve been online so long that my site kinda gets traffic by osmosis.

That aside, you need to know this to figure out which keywords to use in your content and coding, which I’ll cover in a minute.

Basic Tip #2: Define a niche. Even if you choose to cover a broad topic like “small business marketing,” treat each page like its own minisite. Each piece of content you add to your site/blog – whether it’s a short blog post, an article or a long, detailed case study – should be optimized for a particular set of keywords. That way, you can get found online.

For example, take my niche – freelance writing. It’s very broad. When I type the term “freelance writing” into Google, it returns 1,420,000 results. So, to make it more relevant so that I get found easier online, I need to define what about freelance writing I may be discussing at that point.

Take for example this series on technology. I’ve discussed minisites, seo article writing, traffic generation, etc. All of these are specific topics. And, each web page should be optimized to reflect such.

So, what’s exactly entailed in optimizing a web page? Click here for a great post on how to optimize a web page. It goes into more technical detail than I ever could on the subject. At a minimum, I now do the following – religiously – for every page I upload to my website.

Basic Tip #3: Title Tags. I make sure that my title tag reflects exactly what the post is about. Hence, it is usually the name of the post. For example, the title of this post is How to Optimize Your Website So You Get More Traffic. That’s what’s in the title tag as well.

FYI, a title tag is “An HTML tag with text describing a specific Web page … The title tag should contain strategic keywords for the page and be constructed following specific guidelines. The title tag is important because it usually becomes the text link to the page found in search engine listings, and because search engines pay special attention to the title text when indexing pages.” [Source: CavalierWebSolutions.com]

The title of your articles/posts are extremely important in search engine optimization because more than likely, this is how a surfer is going to find you. Experts generally agree that your title tag should contain your keywords.

For example, I started to name this post, How to Optimize a Web Page. It’s short and relevant. BUT, the title I finally settled on is likely to bring more traffic. How do I know?

Basic Tip #4: Use a Keyword Analyzer Tool. Using Google’s keyword analyzer tool, I saw that this (get more traffic) was a very popular search term. So, if a surfer types in “get more traffic” and “website,” this page on my website has a good chance of showing up.

I played around with some other titles that could have fit this post (eg, website marketing tips, generate more traffic, online marketing tips), but this one was the most relevant that fit this post. The others were too generic.

Basic Tip #5: Choose a Descriptive, RELEVANT Title. This may not come first. As I explained above, you may begin with one title in mind, but by the time you complete your writing, a more appropriate, keyword rich title may become evident.

Furthermore, do away with cutesy writing – especially in your titles and subheadings. Eg, I could have named this post “Don’t Get Lost in the Online Forest.” But, that title wouldn’t mean a darn thing to search engines, and would likely bring visitors searching for information about hiking in a forest.

Even though your content may be the greatest, if it doesn’t pop up in the search engines, no one is likely to read it.

This is why a lot of web copy can seem dry and boring. BUT, remember, people go online to find information. The search engines are their guide to the most relevant information – make sure your content can get found.

d) Properly name files, directories, web pages, etc.: Suggestion #11 in the How to Optimize a Webpage checklist says, “Name files and directories with keywords, separating them with hyphens, not the underscore key.”

This has been one of the best things I’ve started to do and have gotten great results from my efforts.

For example, yesterday’s article in this series was about what to charge as an seo article writer. So, what did I name that page on my site: http://inkwelleditorial.com/seo-article-writing-rates.

If someone were researching what to charge as an SEO article writer, they may conduct a Google search using the following: “seo article writing” “rates”.

Guess who’s site is #1? Well actually, it’s my blog. And, as I “Dugg” it, it’s also number 3 in the search results. Now, if I could only achieve the same results for the term, “freelance writing.” Oh well, can’t win’em all.

Basic Tip #6: Repeat Your Title in Your Text. Suggestion #12 in the How to Optimize a Webpage checklist reads: “12) Have keyword phrases appear about 3-5 times in the body text, and have keywords appear at least 10 times in the body text.”

Alternatively, I ready somewhere that you should make an effort to repeat your title/main keywords once every 200 or so words in your text. (I couldn’t find the article again when I went to write this article (reminder: clean out “Favorites!”)).

There’s no hard and fast rule about this that I could discover in my research. And, how often a phrase/keyword appears depends on the article length. In a 400-word article then, your title/main phrase should appear at least twice.

I’ve always hated keyword writing for this very reason. BUT, it’s a necessary evil and as I’ve come to learn, doesn’t have to be as tedious as I thought. It’s a skill, just like any other, that must be developed.

Basic Tip #7: Use Your Label/Keyword tags. I won’t regurgitate this here as I wrote about it in the article Freelance Writers: How to Get Found on the Internet Using Labels & Tags.

FYI, since I started using the label/keyword tag indicator, InkwellEditorial.com is now #79 in a Google search for the phrase “Freelance Writing Jobs.” Before, it didn’t appear in the top 10 pages of results at all. And, this is in about a 6-week span. Not bad!

Conclusion: To generate more website traffic, take the time to learn more tips you can incorporate into your online marketing efforts. As witnessed by the list here, you don’t have to be an SEO genius to optimize your website to get more traffic. A few simple SEO tips, used all the time, can do the trick!

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Make $250/day writing SEO content: I’m doing it and you can too!
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

SEO Writing Rates: How to Determine What to Charge as an SEO Copywriter

November 26, 2007

Part #8: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start making $100-$250+/day writing SEO content?]

In preparation for Freelance Writer’s Technology Month, I spent a solid week doing research into how to really make money online. It was eye opening on several levels.

One of the areas I read about in great deal was content development. Of course, this covered article marketing. What I found surprised me to a certain degree.

SEO Article Writing: No Longer Bottom-of-the-Barrel Rates?

It seems that we are slowly emerging from the days where website developers want to pay bottom of the barrel rates for content. Many of them are wising up to the fact that in order to make money online, you have to have good, well-written, unique content that provides solid information.

Guess what? This means paying skilled writers. This is good news for those freelance writers who may have discarded article writing as a niche they’d write in.

Freelance writer and blogger Jennifer over at CatalystBlogger.com gives five reasons in her 10/8/07 post a freelance writer might want to consider taking on these types of projects.

While you will still find ads on those bid-for-pay sites wanting to pay $100 for 50 articles, they are quickly becoming a thing of the past. So, how much should you charge as an SEO article writer?
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Last year I made $3,489.07 from a simple 1-page website. Click here for details.
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How to Determine What to Charge as an SEO Article Writer

Following is what my research revealed about SEO article writing rates.

Note: I specifically did not choose stats from bid-for-pay sites, as I don’t think they’re a true indicator of what SEO article writers can get for their work.

$2-$25 Per Article: The blogger at WriteNonsense had this to say about SEO article writing rates: “SEO articles can go for anything from $2 to $25 each or more, but most of us seem to find ourselves working on the bottom end of this scale. Like any other industry, web content writing has vast earnings disparity. So what makes some article writers well paid, and others not?” [Source: WriteNonsense.blogspot.com]

.02 Cents Per Word: This post was found on SEO1.net’s forum in response to a poster’s request for an SEO article writer: “I can write seo related articles for you if you want, you can see example at estebanpanzera.com all blog posts there were written by me, I would charge $0.02 per word.”

This works out to $10 for a 500-word article (a common length for an SEO article).

$5-$15 Per Article: On the other side of the coin is a website owner proposing a rate to SEO article writers. The following ad was found in DigitalPoint.com’s forum. It read, “I am in need of SEO articles. About 20-50. Willing to pay up to $15 Per Article. Must be completely unique and accurate to SEO. Will check copyscape for verification. Post your work here and PM with price.”

The article length requested was a minimum of 400 words.

$10-$20 Per Article: The rate depends on the article length, as outlined below.

This listing was taken from the forum at DaniWeb.com, a networking site for web developers, internet marketers, software developers, etc. Company placed an ad with the following prices listed.

The ad read in part, “We are a US/UK company [specializing] in keyword-rich articles and content. All our articles are unique and written to your own specification.; all of our writers being based in the UK & US, their first language English. We do not use offshore writers.”

Rates: Up to 250 words, $10 per article; 250 – 400 words, $13 per article; 400 – 600 words, $15 per article; 600 – 800 words, $18 per article; 800 – 1000 words, $20 per article.

FYI, as I wrote in the article 5 Ways to Get a Job Writing SEO Articles, forum lurking is a great way to find SEO writing gigs – and find out about going rates.

As you can see from these examples, SEO article writing rates are all over the place. This is true in every other aspect of freelance writing as well, so you’ll have to find what works for you.

Why SEO Article Writing Is the Next “Hot” Thing for Freelance Writers

Rate Tip: I spoke with two SEO specialists about rates. One was a marketing director for a major marketing firm; the other runs an online SEO company.

The owner of the SEO company told me that he pays writers half of what he bills clients. And, his rates were above what most SEO content buyers pay. For example, the least you could make was $10 with is firm because he charged clients a minimum of $20 for a 400-600 word article.

His firm offered a multitude of services, eg, web content in HTML format, web content in MS Word format, blogging, forum posting, etc.

Each service had different prices, eg, delivering content in HTML format paid from $25-$50/page; blogging pays from $100-$150/month for daily posting (250-400 word posts); premium article development paid $20/article. Premium article development included researching, editing and fine-tuning articles for clients.

The owner of this firm told me also that his clients rarely ordered less than 10 articles, and that quite a few of them ordered articles by the thousand. Eg, he had one client who had ordered 1,000 articles for three months running.

The marketing director told me that they routinely give new writers a chance because they have such a need for fresh content across a variety of spectrums, and that it was difficult to find good, dependable writers. I sent them my rate card, along with my areas of specialty and a few samples. They were impressed and have a couple of projects they want to send my way.

My point in relaying all of this is that there are a wealth of opportunities in SEO content development. And, in my opinion, this field is only going to expand. I also believe that rates will go up, for two reasons:

Why SEO Article Writing Rates Are Going Up

a) Burnout: The two industry specialists told me that they have a hard time finding dependable writers. I think this is because rates are so low. Sure, someone may take on a few projects for $3, $4 or $5 an article.

But eventually, they are going to get tired of working for such low rates and move on after figuring out that “Yeah, I may be able to make a living writing for such low rates, but I don’t want to have to work 14, 15 or 16 hours a day to make a decent living.”

b) Industry Maturity: This all starts with the web surfers, ie, people who go online to search for information. Once they start skipping over those sites that are obviously there to sell something — eg, those sites with one badly written article and 20 ads urging them to buy something – those website owners will see a decline in revenue and disappear from the web altogether.

Also, search engines like Google are starting to get hip to these types of sites and are banning them altogether. All of this means that sites with relevant, meaningful, well-written content will rise to the top.

And, to get relevant, meaningful, well-written content, web entrepreneurs are eventually going to realize that they have to pay writers a decent rate. No skilled writer is going to slave over a detailed, well-put-together 500 or 600-word article, and sell it for $4.

The marketing director at the marketing firm told me that they find it very hard to find skilled, dependable writers. In spite of what many think, good writing is a skill. And, not everyone can do it. I’ve surfed a lot of forums lately, and have been pleasantly surprised at the number of website owners who say they’d gladly pay more for good writing.

Now, don’t get me wrong, many are almost always willing to give a lowballer a shot; but, many lamented how disappointed they were in the quality of writing from some of the lowballers and that it simply wasn’t worth their time to outsource major content writing needs because they couldn’t depend on consistent quality, ie, the first one or two pieces would be fine, but the quality of the writing would fall off at a certain point.

At $4/article, is this not to be expected?

How to Succeed as an SEO Article Writer

It’s those writers who realize the value they bring to clients who will succeed in this SEO game. And, as it’s a relatively new genre, the field is wide open for those writers who: i) realize their talent; ii) price it correctly; and iii) learn how to market it effectively.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Learn about other ways to make money as a freelance writer from the comfort of your home: I’m doing it and you can too!
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P.P.S.: Remember, at InkwellEditorial.com you’ll find everything you need to know about how to start, grow and/or maintain a freelance writing career (eg, writing for the web, blogging, forum posting, seo writing, freelance writing jobs, newsletter writing, article writing, ebooks on freelance writing and more).

UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

SEO Copywriting: 5 Ways to Get a Job Writing SEO Articles

November 20, 2007

Part #7: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start making $100-$250+/Day writing SEO content?]

In yesterday’s post, Post #6 of Freelance Writer’s Technology Month, we discussed 4 controversial ways to drive more traffic to your website/blog.

Almost any type of traffic generation for websites and blogs begins with content. It truly is the “golden egg” if you want to make money online. And, there’s a lot of money to be made as a content developer/SEO article writer (I know, it’s what I’ve been transitioning into lately).

So, you may be wondering, “How do I find a job writing SEO articles?”

Following are two definitive ways to get a job writing SEO articles. Also mentioned are three more recommended suggestions.
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How to Find a Job Writing SEO Articles

1. Forum Lurking: As in, visit the forums frequented by webmasters. Webmasters are natural potential clients because they need content for their sites – and also the sites of their clients.

Here you will also find many website owners who are looking for recommendations on good content writers. This is your chance to advertise your services.

Forum Lurking Advice: Many forums have rules that prevent you from posting outright ads. Proper internet etiquette is to chime in on a discussion with some helpful advice.

All of your “advertising” is done in your signature line. For example, say a new website owner had posed a question on the forum asking, “What is the ideal length for an SEO article?”

Your could respond with something like the following:

In my experience as an SEO article writer, I’ve noticed that 450-650 words seem to be about the proper length. You can get good keyword density in a nice, “natural sounding” way. Anything shorter and you won’t be able to accomplish this. Anything longer and you risk boring the reader.”

Remember, web surfers want information in quick tidbits – they rarely want “novels.”

This is just my 2 cents,
Jane, SEO Content Provider
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Jane Smith, SEO Content Provider, www.JaneSmith.com
Driving traffic to your site via powerful SEO articles.

The bold part is your signature line. Most forums require you to register to leave a comment. FYI, you can usually browse with registering. When you register, you will create your signature line, which will show up in every post you make.

Choose a few forums to visit regularly and post often. If you become a trusted source for helpful information, you will have more clients than you can handle very quickly.

2. SEO Companies: I ran across this idea in a freelance writing forum I frequent, AboutFreelanceWriting.com. One poster – and I regretfully couldn’t find the post to acknowledge the poster – suggested contacting SEO companies directly.

He said that he simply sent them emails with a quick note explaining that he was an SEO article writer and he’d welcome the chance to work with them.

He went on to say that this technique had acquired him several clients – who’d go on to give him repeat work.

Out of curiosity, I did a Google search for SEO companies and came up with 253,000 results. Many had links to lists of others, so locating the companies is not a problem.

All you have to do is prepare your portfolio of sample articles so when they do contact you, you will have something to show them.

Other Ways to Find Work as an SEO Article Writer

3. Graphic Designers: Like web designers, they do a lot of work for website owners. Ask to be put on their referral list.

4. Website Owners: Go direct to the customer, contact website owners directly. This can be a bit time-consuming, but you can streamline the process. Send out a certain number of emails each day to a targeted list of websites.

5. Blog Networks: Eg, BlogCarnival.com. Because these are communities of bloggers, you have a targeted market right at your fingertips. Capitalize on it!

Marketing Tip for SEO Article Writers: Be ready to start working once you start contacting SEO companies. They usually respond pretty quickly and want you to start almost immediately, especially if you provide quality samples.

When I first contacted a few companies, I sent a brief bio, my rates, a few samples and my contact info. I sent out about a dozen emails and in the first two days was contacted by three companies with everything from simple article writing, to more complicated sales writing (for the web), to daily blog posting.

The work comes fast and furious. I’ll write about this more in a post in the future (ie, what to expect when SEO companies contact you with work).

Good luck!

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Start a Freelance Writing Career – Today!
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

Get More Website Traffic: 4 Controversial Ways to Do So

November 19, 2007

Part #6: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

In Post #4 of Freelance Writer’s Technology Month, we discussed software tools for niche sites, ie, software that helps you easily create niche websites and blogs.

As you know, getting a site is only 1% of the battle; the other 99% is marketing and promotion. To make money online, you have to promote. Following are three ways to generate more traffic for your website and/or blog.

Warning: Many consider the following “unethical” online marketing strategies. You decide.
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3 Ways to Promote Your Niche Site

1. ARTICLE GENERATING SOFTWARE: I’m almost embarrassed to admit it, but I didn’t know about this type of software until I spent a solid week researching how to make money online – real money, not pennies.

The technology available to freelance writers to help them increase their online income is amazing. Using even a few of them can exponentially increase what you bring in on a daily, weekly, monthly basis.

For example, take the article-generating software JetSpinner. Want to create hundreds of article fast? Whether you’re an SEO article writer for other webmasters, or run a multitude of minisites of your own, content is key to making money online. It is the foundation of any online business.

How does JetSpinner work? In essence, it takes one article and creates hundreds of versions of that same article – instantly. As explained on JetSpinner.com, “Once you learn the basic syntax you can easily create a seed article within an hour that will generate hundreds of unique articles instantly.”

Instead of spending hours creating content by hand, this software saves you hours, days and weeks of time.

NOTE: Many question whether the articles are indeed unique enough to get past the search engine spiders without being tagged as duplicate content. As it’s a free software, try it for yourself. It can be found at JetSubmitter.com.

2. BLOG POSTING SOFTWARE: One of the best ways to get found online is by posting comments on blogs and in forums. Did you know there’s a software that does this for you?

You can post comments/adverts on literally millions of blogs with the click of a button. As described on TrustedArticles.com, the software “… takes less than 1 minute to install [and] only 30 seconds to set up. It can run automatically 24 hours a day, … placing your links on blog websites that are targeted to your exact niche, or you can use it to mass market your advertisement links to millions of blogs.”

This software has obviously been used to post comments to my blog. For a few days, every times I posted to my blog, I’d get the same comment from a company that advertise freelance jobs overseas. The first time, I posted the comment.

When I got the same comment again though on a different post, it seemed a little out of place, ie, not relevant to the content that was posted. So, I deleted the comment instead of posting it.

This happened a few more times – and then, nothing. They stopped coming.

But, the one comment did get through (I haven’t had time to go back and figure out which post it occurred on, so it’s still there).

Just think, if this software posts comments/adverts to millions of blogs and even a fraction of them got through, that’s thousands of backlinks generated for the poster. Which brings me to my next promotional idea …

3. BACKLINKS: What exactly are backlinks? For the uninitiated, “Backlinks or “back links” are links from other websites to your site. They’re sometimes known as incoming links, inbound links, or even IBLs.” [Source: AssociatePrograms.com] FYI, there’s an excellent example on Blogger.com.

How can backlinks drive traffic to your website or blog? Search engines rely on backlinks to determine how popular a site is. If you have a lot of them, the search engines consider your site important – hence, your ranking (ie, PR Rank*) is higher.

Consider this: “While no one knows the exact algorithms used by search engines to determine rankings, most SEO experts agree that the number and quality of backlinks to your … web site [is] critical in determining [its] ranking … the title or anchor text of your backlinks will often determine the keywords or search terms that you rank highly for.” [Source: BankLink.com. Visit this page to learn more].

BackLink.com offers free text linking software that helps website owners generate backlinks. Another way to generate one-way backlinks is submitting to directories. There’s software for this also, aka Directory Submission Software. To learn more about the pros and cons of directory submission software, click here to follow the forum discussion on SEOChat.com.

*Don’t know what PR rank is? There’s an excellent explanation in Inkwell Editorial’s free article marketing e-book, Everything You Wanted to Know about Article Marketing. Subscribe to Inkwell’s newsletter to get your free copy.

Disclaimer: I’m not recommending any of the techniques outlined here, only making you aware of the technology that’s out there — all in the name of Freelance Writer’s Technology Month.

Your thoughts?

Tomorrow: Remember in Post #2 when we discussed how to write SEO articles? As this is one of the easiest ways to get started making money online as a freelance writer (and $100/day is very feasible doing this), tomorrow we’re going to take a look at how to go about getting a job as an SEO article writer.

Best,
Yuwanda
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

How to Make Money with Minisites: Turn $1/Day into an Online Empire

November 15, 2007

Part #5: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

When many think of making money online, they dream of building one website (or these days, a blog), getting boocoo advertisers and raking in the dough.

However, many online entrepreneurs have taken a more subtle approach, turning $1/day into an online empire. How? Via minisites.
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Want an easy, proven way to make money online? No money, no experience and no skills needed. Go to “Promote Products” to get started!
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What are Minisites?

Minisites (aka Mini Websites): Minisites are defined as “… small sites with information about a topic and the subjects around it written with SEO in mind to obtain high results for a set of keywords to bring in traffic.” [Source: Smart way to update your Minisites, TheAdnand's Ripple's website, 9/12/07 Post]

They are usually only a few pages; many are only one page.

So, how do they generate money? Usually via Google’s Adsense program. When people click on the ads, the site owner makes money.

The kicker with minisites is that the owners usually don’t try to make a lot of money from one site. Some webpreneurs own hundreds of these sites.

Do the math: if you own 100 sites that are making a minimum of $1/day each, that’s $100/day; $200 sites at $1/day, $200/day; and so on.

Why are Minisites So Appealing to Many Trying to Make Money Online?

I have no scientific data to back this up, but I think it’s due to a few reasons:

1) Impatience: Many simply don’t have the patience required to build one site into a moneymaking machine. It can take years to do this. Minisites appeal to the get-rich-quick entrepreneur who lives within most of us, which leads me to my next observation . . .

2) Competition: Let’s face it, it’s tough to make a living on the web. Minisites however, seem to lessen the competition. After all, you don’t have to get tons of traffic, or work to be an industry leader to make $1/day from a website.

FYI, no matter how many online gurus tell you differently, there is no “easy” way to make money on the internet. Processes, systems and know-how can be streamlined to make it easiER, but you still have to put in some hard work to make a decent living as an online entrepreneur.

3) Technology: Quite simply, technology has advanced to the point where practically all you need to know how to do to start an online business is operate a mouse.

There are even companies who will churn out sites for you as often as you like. All you do is “personalize” them and … you’re in business. The reason personalize is in quotation marks is because many of these sites are cookie cutter, template sites.

You simply add your business name, maybe change the color of a sidebar, or the font style … and that’s about it.

NOTE: The search engines are catching onto sites built strictly to generate ad revenue (eg, Adsense sites). If you go this route, be sure to build your site out and cut down on the ad placement.

Nothing is more aggravating to web surfers than coming to a site that was obviously thrown up to generate ad revenue. To make money online, repeat customers are the goal. Ad-only sites may get you first-time visitors, but that will be the last time they visit also.

Are minisites a smart way to make money online? That depends on the person and what they want, need and expect from an online business.

This can be a highly effective way to make money online though. To build a “legitimate” minisite business, choose a niche that you really have an interest in developing. An example?

One of the case studies I read while researching the Site Build It! software discussed in yesterday’s post featured an infopreneur who is turning his birthday party for kids website into a succession of sites. Read his story here.

Following an example like this is not only smart, it can be very lucrative.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Make $250/day writing SEO content: I’m doing it and you can too!
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P.P.S.: Remember, at InkwellEditorial.com you’ll find everything you need to know about how to start, grow and/or maintain a freelance writing career (eg, writing for the web, blogging, forum posting, seo writing, freelance writing jobs, newsletter writing, article writing, ebooks on freelance writing and more).

UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

Intro Post: New Series – Freelance Writer’s Technology Month

Software Tools for Niche Websites

November 14, 2007

Part #4: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

Yesterday, in Post #3 of Freelance Writer’s Technology Month, we discussed niche marketing. Specifically, we covered how to choose a profitable niche to start making money online.

Today we’re going to examine some software tools for niche websites that make it easy and affordable to get started – and drive traffic sustainable traffic to any niche site.

When most think of online presence, they think “website.” But, blogs have become all the rage, especially in the last three years or so. Because they are, for the most part, free to start, it’s a really affordable way to test drive ideas for making money online.
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Want an easy, proven way to make money online? No money, no experience and no skills needed. Go to “Promote Products” to get started!
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The really neat thing to come out of this is that large companies are realizing the power of blogs and are hopping on the bandwagon to help customers make money, ie, the eBay Affiliate Blog System (aka the eBay Blog Builder).

What is the eBay Blog Builder? Essentially, it’s a wordpress blog that’s pre formulated to conduct business as an eBay affiliate. According to the sales page for the system, it also offers the following features:

Features of the eBay Affiliate Blog System Software

A system that shows you how to quickly find profitable eBay niche products you may have never thought of before;

Details on adding relevant eBay RSS feeds to blog posts.

Instructions on setting up an autoresponder for each of your eBay affiliate blogs; and

Information on how to create and oversee multiple eBay affiliate blogs at one time.

Cost: $17.

Want to Build an eBay Empire? BuildaNicheStore.com May Just Be the Answer

Another piece of software along the same lines – but for eBay websites, can be found at BuildaNicheStore.com. What does it do?

This software lets you churn out custom, niche eBay websites in no time at all. Billed as a software for the technically challenged, it offers features like:

Multiple Product Display: You can display up to 100 products per page.

Different Template Layouts: There are three to choose from.

Various Search Features: Eg, you can search by product description, product title, price, etc.

SEO Features: Pre-populated title, meta and header tags; keyword rich product content descriptions; search engine friendly URL pages, and more.

Cost: $97.

Make Money with Niche Sites: Just Site Build It!

Don’t want to be an eBay affiliate, but still want to get in on affiliate profits. Site Build It! might just be for you. It’s an easy way to create an online presence that can start making you money almost right away. What exactly is Site Build It!?

What is Site Build It! and how do you make money with it? In essence, Site Build It! allows you to create a niche site without having any technical knowledge (eg, search engine optimization, programming knowledge, coding skills, etc.).

You focus on content. Site Build It! focuses on the “behind-the-scenes” processes that drive pre-qualified traffic to your site.

As explained on their site, “Your site deliver[s] great content on a particular set of topics (all related to your site’s theme). People find your content through your high rankings at the Search Engines (and other techniques). They click on your related merchant links. Your merchants pay you commissions for the sales …”

Cost: $299.

Many tools exist to help you succeed at making money online – especially if you decide to go the niche market route. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Do some online research to figure out what works for you and your financial goals.

Eg, if you’re just aiming for a few extra bucks a month, then you might choose one program; if you want to make a full-time go of it, then you will be looking for something different in a program.

Keep this in mind as you do your research.

Disclaimer: At this time, I am not affiliated with any of these programs. ]I’m seriously considering becoming an affiliate for Site Build It! Reading their case studies section makes me want to try it myself!]

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
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UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to all of the posts in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

Niche Marketing: How to Choose a Profitable Niche

November 13, 2007

Part #3: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

Part #1 of the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series, I outlined the four fundamentals of making money online. To recap briefly, they were content, online presence, search engine optimization and choosing a monetizing model. Read the full article here.

In Part #2, we talked about content development, specifically, how to write SEO articles.

In this part, Part #3, we’re going to move on to developing an online presence. As I said in the introductory article of this series, developing an online presence doesn’t necessarily mean a blog or a website. Although, it usually does. So, that’s what we’re going to discuss.

Which Do You Need to Make Money Online – a Blog, a Website or Both?

To be honest, whether your online presence is a blog or a website or an affiliate squeeze page is irrelevant. Making money online depends on which monetizing model you use, to a large degree.

Here, we’re going to discuss what you need to make whatever online presence you choose successful.

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NICHE IT! Most of the research that I came across when trying to figure out how to make real money online preached niche, niche, niche. As in, develop an expertise in a certain sector and go wide and deep.

This was a relief, because it was something I’d always believed in. The key to profiting from a niche however, is to pick the right niche, which is where many online entrepreneur go wrong.

3 Steps to Choosing a Profitable Online Niche

Some of this is going to run contrary to what you may have been taught about business. But remember, the goal here is to make money online (real money).

a) Online research: This is one of the first things you’re going to want to do. How do you do this? By researching what people are searching for online. This can be done using online search tracking tools like Google’s HotTrend, PopularSearches.com, Yahoo! Buzz, or my personal favorite, SEOmoz.

I like SEOmoz because it gives you a look at popular searches across a myriad of sites, eg, Google, Technorati (blog tracking site), Ebay Pulse, etc.

Once you gauge what’s popular, you can start to build a niche around it.

b) Ignore your “unprofitable” interests: This is very, very important. Many business experts will tell you to go with your passion. And, to a certain degree, I agree with this. If you have a passion and it turns out that its in a niche that you can make money from – then great. No problem.

BUT, if you have a niche and discover that it’s highly unlikely you’ll be able to make money from it with reasonable hard work, then by all means – leave it as a hobby. Making money online is hard enough without choosing an unprofitable niche.

I speak from firsthand experience here. My niche – the business of freelance writing – is not profitable when compared to others. But, you may be thinking, “There are plenty of wannabe freelance writers out there. Certainly you can make money from them somehow.”

My response: “Popular is different from profitable.” My blog and its accompanying website are labors of love. They don’t bring in nearly the income they should considering the time I invest in them.

That was one of the reasons I started writing ebooks and producing freelance writing seminars. When I say that this niche is not as profitable – I don’t mean from the finding work standpoint. Freelance writing is a relatively simple way to make good money.

When I’m referring to profitability, I’m referring to passive streams of income, eg, affiliate marketing, making money from ads, etc.

Why this niche is not as profitable as it should be – I don’t know for sure. My guesses are that it’s oversaturated, it’s a field where everyone who can write considers themselves an expert and finally, it’s a field where a lot of information is given away freely.

If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t choose this niche. But, I’m one of the lucky ones in that I have built up someone of a reputation as an expert in this field, so I don’t struggle like someone who’s just starting out might.

c) Assess the Competition: As mentioned above, some niches are so saturated that it would be hard for a newbie to enter and start making money in a reasonable amount of time (eg, 2-3 months).

Most experts agree that some of the most saturated markets have to do with web hosting, making money, ringtones, domain names, adult, loans, refinance, gambling, pharmacy, etc. Getting recognized online in these markets would be tough – not impossible, but tough.

Some markets you might want to look at are dieting, game cheats, freebies, recipes, etc. Still saturated, but not as much as the others.

For more on assessing the competition, click here to view this thread on DigitalPoint.com’s forum.

NOTE on entering a saturated niche: Just because a niche is saturated, don’t let that stop you from entering it IF you have a definitive, workable marketing plan.

The reason sites dealing with making money online, web hosting and gambling are so popular is because there will always be an audience for these. You only need to capture a tiny slice of the online pie to make it profitable for you – you don’t need to be an industry leader.

I often think of Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show when I think of this. Could the market have been more crowded when she started her talk show in 2003? I remember thinking, “Great, just what TV needs, another talk show by a comedienne.” Remember Rosanne and Whoopi’s stab at it.

BUT, Ellen has managed to bring something different to the table – old format, new twist. You can do this too.

So, do your research, stick to ideas that are profitable and assess the competition.

After doing all of this, then it’s time to decide how you want to get busy creating that online presence, which we’ll discuss tomorrow.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda

UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

SEO Content Writing: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Website

November 8, 2007

Part #2: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

In yesterday’s post, The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money Online, we laid out the big picture of how to make money online.

The first of these fundamentals was content. Content is what drives traffic to websites. Sites without content don’t get found – even photo sites. The photos have descriptions, which is how you find the picture you’re looking for online.

So, words, words, words … they are extremely important to your online business.

But, there is a way to write the content so that you get found online. Here I will attempt to walk you through the basics of writing effective content (SEO articles) so that you drive more traffic to your website – which is what SEO is all about.

First off, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. There are far better explanations on the web than I can give you here, so do a search for “what is SEO” and do some reading.

I suggest this article at SEOmoz.com, a leading SEO company that “… provides companies around the world with consulting, Internet marketing and search engine optimization services.”

Why You Must Know about SEO to Make Money Online

FYI, the above-referenced article includes a link to a free 30-page ebook about SEO. I’d suggest downloading and reading it.

It’s well worth the investment because once you fully understand Search Engine Optimization, you will be able to select the best ways of driving traffic to your site. And, more importantly, discard the ones that are full of crap.

There are tons of people out there selling crap, especially in the SEO sector. So, take the time to educate yourself – like a college degree, you’ll never regret it. [An no, I have no affiliation with this company or its products]
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Want an easy, proven way to make money online? No money, no experience and no skills needed. Click here & go to “Promote Products” to get started!
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The Basics of Writing SEO Content in 4 StepsKeywords are what your article/content is all about. Think of them as hot button words a surfer can type into a search engine and land on your article.

1. CHOOSE KEYWORDS:

Take this article for example, the basics of writing SEO content. So, what words/phrases do you think web surfers are likely to type in to find this article?

Some might be “SEO Content,” “SEO Articles,” “Write SEO Content,” etc.

Now, comes the tricky part. Everyone searches differently, and the key words you think surfers would type in to find your content may not be what they’re actually using.

So, get in the habit of using keyword research tools.

When I used Google’s keyword research tool for “SEO Content,” for example, some strong alternatives were web content, website content, seo copywriting, seo marketing, seo placement, seo keywords … and the list went on and on.

The key here though is to choose strong, relevant alternatives, and build your article around that. This can be hard when there so many good options.

I keep it simple though by using the KISS principle (keep it simple sweetie). Think of a two year old trying to relay a message to you. When they’re hungry, they don’t say, “I’m ready to eat.” They say, “Eat, eat,” or “hungry.”

It all comes down to boiling your content down to the basics.

Content Writing Tip: Most web surfers use two-word phrases when they search. According to a 2004 report by Onestat.com, “Of all the search phrases worldwide, about 33% of the surfers use 2-word phrases in search engines.” Three-word phrases came in second (almost 26%), followed by one-word phrases (19%), four-word phrases (almost 13%), and five-word phrases (almost 6%).

So, when you run your keyword density report, check for the keyword density of your main two keyword combinations.

What are Keyword Research Tools?

Think of keyword research tools as “electronic synonym generators.” What do I mean? Do you ever use the thesaurus in your word processing program. It generates alternatives for words.

This is what keyword research tools are. They generate alternate words/phrases for you. And, they go a few steps further. They tell you, for example, how popular a word/phrase is by showing you things like Search Volume and Advertiser Competition.

Search Volume, as described by Google’s keyword search tool is “Statistics showing the relative number of users searching for that keyword on Google. The green bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword.”

Advertiser Competition as it relates to Google’s keyword search tool is Statistics showing the relative amount of advertisers bidding on that keyword.”

Try Google’s Keyword Analyzer here. Two others are Overture or Wordtracker.

I like Overture’s tool because you don’t have to subscribe or register to use it. Simply type in the applicable word/phrase and it spits out the following: Related searches that include your term; and How many times that term was searched on last month.

Try them all; you’ll eventually land on your favorite. They’re fun to play around with.

Keyword Analyzer Writing Tip: Write articles around the most popular keyword phrases on a topic. You can slant one article/topic two or three different ways, using different, popular keyword phrases.

This will make your site not only content rich, but heavily optimized (translate: easy to get found on the web!)

2. KEYWORD DENSITY: Keyword density is simply “The number of times a keyword is used on a webpage divided by the total number of words on the page.” [Source: TheSearchAgency.com]

Now that you know how to find the keywords, it’s time to get down to writing the article. Remember, SEO content is repetitive and tightly focused. Many SEO articles are only 300-500 words long, but they can be any length you want them to be (eg, this content).

The point is to make sure you repeat the keywords enough so that your content’s density is between 3-5% (recommended by most experts).

Keyword density tip: Don’t overuse your keywords, or the text can look like English is a foreign language to you. You know those articles you see on the web that either don’t make sense or use one word/phrase so much that it’s just bad grammar.

Well, these articles are more than likely written for the sole purpose of driving traffic to a site. These are bad examples of SEO writing – and should be avoided.

Not to mention, the search engines are getting hip to this type of writing, and will penalize your site for it (eg, drop your site from its list of results).

If you stay within the 3-4 or 5% range, you’ll be doing good. More than this, you risk being penalized by the search engines; less than this, you risk not getting found.

FREE Keyword Density/Text Analyzer: Textalyzer. I like the version of this software posted here though, because you don’t have to type in any variables. You just type in text and it spits out a report.

The report is rather lengthy, but this good because it will allow you to become familiar with how to read them, and then, which categories to focus on (ie, the density of the two-word phrase frequency).

3. CREATE STRUCTURE: As alluded to above, SEO articles should be structured. This means coherent text.

As a side point, this is why so many find it hard to write SEO articles. Without taking into account article structure, you can easily churn out SEO articles. BUT, they won’t be good and it’s doubtful you’ll have repeat visitors.

Good SEO writers partner SEO tactics and with structured writing norms. Master this, and there’s a wealth of work on the web for you.

Blogger Matt Cutts put it best when he wrote: “…the purpose of writing SEO articles is threefold not onefold: provide information, rank high when used on your site and increase link popularity. That means the practice must follow the purpose. … Whether you’re writing content for a website, an article or any type of SEO copy, you must think of the reader first.” [Source: Writing Useful Articles That Readers Will Love]

4. KEEP THE END GOAL IN MIND: Finally, the last piece of writing good SEO content is writing with the end goal in mind. Let me explain.

Most content on the web is written to sell (I’m talking about those trying ot make money on the web – not personal bloggers, or hobby website owners). The only difference is whether you want that person to buy something now – or later.

Each tactic requires different language. When you want a direct immediate sale, you’re gong to use different language than when you’re going for a sale down the line (eg, subscribe to my newsletter).

“But,” you may be thinking, “I just want to write an article to drive more traffic to my site.”

I counter with, “Drive them to your site to do what?” There is always, always, always an end goal in mind. Figure this out before you sit down to write. In fact, your online buisness should have a business plan, as I discuss in the article, The 3 Most Common Mistakes Freelancers Make (& How to Remedy Them).

For more on how to write SEO content, check out the following: eHow.com, Suite101.com, WebUpon.com.

Labels/Keywords: How to Write SEO Articles, SEO Content, SEO Copywriting, Search Engine Optimization

NEW ISSUE of Inkwell Editorial’s Newsletter: The new issue, which came out yesterday, features ghostwriter Amanda Evans. She gives some great info on how to start, how she gets clients, what this niche entails, etc. Subscribe to read this and all previous issues.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
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UPDATED 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

Intro Post: New Series – Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
Post #1: The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money Online
Post #2: SEO Content Development: How to Drive More Traffic to Your Website
Post #3: Niche Marketing: How to Choose a Profitable Niche
Post #4: Software Tools for Niche Websites
Post #5: Turn $1/Day into an Online Empire: How to Make Money with Minisites
Post #6: 4 Controversial Ways to Get More Traffic for Your Website
Post #7: 5 Ways to Get a Job Writing SEO Articles
Post #8: How to Determine What to Charge as an SEO Article Writer
Post #9: How to Optimize Your Website to Get More Traffic
Post #10: Social Bookmarking Software & 9 Money-Making Conclusions from Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
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What’s in Inkwell Editorial’s Newsletter? There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell Editorial’s newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest the phrase, “starving freelancer.” Subscribe to read all previous issues.

Previous Issue: Sue Fagalde Lick, author of Freelancing for Newspapers. Whether you are an experienced or inexperienced freelance writer, this is one market that eagerly accepts freelancers, as Sue outlines in her book.

Current Issue. Ghostwriting: Want to know what type of work is out there in this genre? How much it pays? Where to find it? How to go about getting it? Ghostwriter Amanda Evans gives us the skinny on this freelance writing niche.

Gain clients, web traffic and brand awareness. How? Let us interview you for our popular newsletter? Full details. Read the first issue here and subscribe to read all previous issues.

Freelance Writers: The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money Online

November 7, 2007

Part #1: Freelance Writer’s Technology Month
[Want to start a successful career as a freelance writer?]

As I announced on Inkwell’s blog yesterday, I’ve declared November “Freelance Writer’s Technology Month.” For a full understanding of what follows, I advise that you read this post first.

Now, on to the first post in the series. . .

Freelance Writers: How to Make Money Online – Going Back to Basics

It’s hard to forget what you know – especially when you think what you know has brought you some modicum of success. But, when you reach a plateau – as I feel like I’ve done in my freelance writing career, it’s time to re-examine systems and procedures so that you push through what’s holding you back.

So, here I am – back to basics. And, what did I learn?
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POST CONTINUED BELOW
Want an easy, proven way to make money online? No money, no experience and no skills needed. Click “Promote Products” to get started!
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The “Oprah Way” of Making Money

I just took a quick lunch break and was watching E! Online’s show about the top money-making TV earners. Seinfeld was there ($60,000,000 last year), but Oprah made his look like lunch money. She earned a whopping $260,000,000 last year. Yes, that’s one year’s earnings!

As the show was signing off, the announcer was summarizing how Oprah makes her money. Eureka! This was just what I was going to write today in my post – more or less.

Oprah made her money in a systematic way. I don’t know if she had this plan from the beginning, but at some point in order to make real money, you have to have a master plan. So, what is the Oprah way of making money?

A) The first thing Oprah did was choose a career. She knew she wanted to be a journalist, so she did that. So, you’ve made the choice, you want to become a freelance writer.

B) The second thing Oprah did was choose a mass (think, popular) medium – TV. She didn’t choose to be a journalist in some obscure sector. This was perhaps one of the smartest things she did. You’ll see why in a sec.

C) Build a mass following: As she had the right medium (TV), she could now go to work building her following. How did this happen? She was spotted by some hotshot TV producer to host a morning show in Chicago.

Just being herself garnered Oprah a huge, loyal following (keep this part in mind). When she got her own show, she had a built-in audience.

D) Monetize the following: Oprah is the master at this. Once the Oprah talk show was established, Oprah deepened and widened her brand via tv, movies, magazines and radio and a host of other products and services.

Some of her holdings include producing the Dr. Phil show and The Rachel Ray Show; producing a Broadway play (The Color Purple); and hosting a radio show on Sirius satellite radio.

All Oprah has to do is mention a product on her show and it produces massive profits for the seller (think Oprah’s book club and O’s List of Favorite things (from her magazine)).

What if you could sit down, write an ebook and sell 10, 20 or 30,000 copies just by releasing it to your subscriber list? This is the power of monetizing a brand.

But, as you can see, it’s a systematic approach – and this is where most freelancers fail. Now, I’m not going to tell you that it’s going to take one, two or three years to make money online.

As my research has proven, it doesn’t. But, you have the big picture in mind before you can take “shortcuts” to make it work for you. This is the point of this post – to give you an overall picture so that you can pick and choose the best ideas – and take legitimate shortcuts to online money-making success.

Now, that ends our Oprah segment.

Back to our lives …

The 4 Fundamentals of Making Money OnlineOut of some 100 or more hours of research (I’ve since put in more time that what I mentioned in my introductory post), I’ve learned that there are four fundamentals to making money online. They are:

1. Content: Before anything happens, you must have content. Why? When you think about how the internet works, it naturally makes sense. People use the information to find information.

Now, how they find and use that information will drive the two other points I’m going to discuss in a minute. But, you need the content first.

The Good News for Freelance Writers Who Want to Make Money Online

This is absolutely wonderful news for freelance writers because we are content providers.

So, you may be thinking, “Why then do so many freelance writers find it so hard to make money online?” Good question, and they are a myriad of answers to this question, which we’ll explore throughout the series.

Just keep in mind that content is the biggest piece of this online-money-making puzzle. And you’re the king of that jungle because you are a freelance writer.

2. Online Presence: Once you have content, you need an online presence. And, I don’t necessarily mean a blog or website. In fact, you don’t need either of these to make money online. But, you do need an online presence, which can come in many forms.

Again, we’ll discuss this later in this series.

3. Search Engine Optimization: Once you have your content and set up your online presence, you need to know how to get found on the internet.

Just because you have an online presence does not mean that visitors will start coming to your site. Many online web marketers find it hard to get a few hundred visitors a month – no kidding. You need much more than this to make any kind of sales, so you have to work on driving traffic to your site.

This is how many online entrepreneurs get sucked out of a lot of money. They spend money for get-traffic-quick schemes without fully understanding how traffic is driven to a site.

Understanding the basics of search engines and how they work will give you a leg up on 98-99% of online marketers. If you don’t first understand this, how will you be able to determine is PPC (pay per click); article marketing, or key word optimization is best for your business model?

Most online entrepreneurs are serious about making money online, but they are not serious enough to put in the serious time it requires to learn even the basics of search engine optimization.

Remember, search engines are the motor of the internet. They, for the most part, determine whether a user finds you – or not.

4. Choosing a Monetizing Model: The third piece of making money online involves choosing how you are going to go about it.

There are two basic ways to make money online: 1) create and sell products of your own; or 2) sell/promote the products and services of others (Affiliate Marketing).

Many subcategories fall under these categories – quite a few of which we’ll discuss as this series goes along.

NOTE: I’m not trying to be vague or string you along by telling you “we’ll discuss this later in the series throughout this piece.” Remember, this is an on-going tutorial. And, today’s topic is the 4 basic fundamentals of making money online.

I’m trying to divulge information in a systematic, organized, easy-to-digest format. This means staying tightly focused on the topic at hand, which leads to waiting to reveal information.

Series Tip: I can’t possibly cover everything in this series. I’m going to leave out things, forget to mention things and flat-out don’t know some things. So, if you have a question, send it in. The wonderful thing about making money online is that the majority of us wouldn’t be able to do it if we couldn’t easily log on and find information from others.

TODAY in Inkwell Editorial’s Newsletter: The new issue, which came out today, features ghostwriter Amanda Evans. She gives some great info on how to start, how she gets clients, what this niche entails, etc. Subscribe to read this and all previous issues.

Sincerely,
Yuwanda
P.S.: Make $250/day writing SEO content: I’m doing it – and you can too!
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P.P.S.: Remember, at InkwellEditorial.com, you’ll find everything you need to know about how to start, grow and/or maintain a freelance writing career (eg, writing for the web, blogging, forum posting, seo writing, freelance writing jobs, newsletter writing, article writing, ebooks on freelance writing and more).

UPDATE 11/30/07: Following is a link to every post in the Freelance Writer’s Technology Month series.

Web	InkwellEditorial.com

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