Freelance writing jobs

Difficulty: Hard

Time Required: Approximately 20 minutes per job

Here’s How:

1. Keep a regular Freelance writing job-seeking schedule. Doing so ensures that you devote enough time to this activity, helps you keep on top of industry news and openings, and helps with the next step . . .

2. Apply early. There has been many times that I’ve spent 20-40 minutes putting together an application, only to get a message back stating that the job has already been filled! It has been my experience that individuals who are hiring tend to choose early (especially those that post via Craigslist), whereas companies may take a little longer in carefully choosing the right applicant. In addition, many Freelance writing jobs get dozens, if not hundreds of applications- there may be a point when it’s just impossible to keep considering every application fairly. You need to be considered before that point.

3. Prepare each application individually. This should not be news to you. Every Freelance writing job needs its own cover letter, targeted clips and maybe even an individually arranged (for example, for an editing job, put your editorial work at the top, for a fiction job, put your published stories at the top, and for a corporate job, put your past corporate experiences at the top.

4. Match yourself up well. Do NOT bother with jobs that are a reach, no matter how much you want them. There’s simply too much competition, and too little time. Instead, write down what you are missing from the qualifications list of your “dream job” and figure out a plan to get those qualifications. This is a much better way to spend your time.

5. Check back once. Generally, I won’t bother to check back, but I’ve got enough bites in the past couple tries that I’ve made it a habit. Feedback from employer has indicated that they were simply overwhelmed with sorting through applications, and were in a place to be convinced by a second letter after their mailbox had cleared.

Tips:

1. Proofread! Proofread! Proofread! In sorting through hundreds of applications, those hiring generally want to get through their inbox and eliminate many of the applicants. Don’t give them an excuse to delete you.

2. Generally, I get about 10%-20% of the jobs I apply for, and I’ve seen other freelance writers cite about this same stat.Keep this in mind as you plan your applications.

What You Need:

* Resume
* Clips
* Website

Not many people know this, but when you click on a link on the search engine, it won’t take you to the page you’re looking for straight away. In fact, Google, Yahoo & Bing will all take you to a special link on Google.com / Yahoo.com / Bing.com in order to track your searches and other metrics. All search engines redirect your results, meaning that if you have the redirect virus, it’s going to show when you search for something online.

The reason why this virus is difficult to remove is because it doesn’t leave any “footprint” or “trace” on your system. Unlike typical virus infections (which will place a fake file / application onto your PC), the search redirect virus will just change the redirect settings for Windows and then disappear. This means that most antivirus programs are powerless to remove it.

If you happened to see Google’s interactive Earth Day doodle on Friday, you undoubtedly noticed the pair of Panda bears frolicking behind the omnipresent “G”. Do not be misled – those cuddly creatures mean business, and they are a not-so-subtle reminder to every company on the Web that the recently updated search algorithm nicknamed Panda is here to stay.

Most online businesses are having to make adjustments to achieve the desired search rankings under the new algorithm, and their approach to building links has to change as well. No longer do the old rules of link building apply, and the sooner that a company accepts that fact, the better its SEO results will be.

Here, then, are some guidelines for building links in this new Panda era:

Clean your own house first
The goal of the Panda update is to improve the quality of content on the Web, thus improving the quality of Google’s search results. Sites that engage in content farming or otherwise low-quality, “spammy” content creation have been the primary targets, and the updated algorithm was designed to punish those sites by significantly lowering their SERP rankings.

How this affects link building going forward is that businesses must be very careful about whom they share and receive links; linking to and from sites that Google has deemed as having a low quality of content is a virtual death sentence. Before setting out on any new link building initiatives, however, businesses and website owners must ensure they their own sites do not fall into this category, because their chances of acquiring quality links will be greatly diminished until they do this.

A professional design is imperative, as are acceptable page load speeds and signals of trust that provide clear indications to users and other businesses that your business website is a reputable destination. Most important, of course, and the whole reason behind Panda, is the ability to produce quality content that is useful, accurate, authoritative, current and free of grammatical and spelling errors.

New content strategy, new content
Panda does not require that all Web professionals suddenly become Pulitzer nominees, but a re-evaluation of your current content strategy is still a good idea. Even if it requires a temporary or part-time hire, ensuring that all existing content meets the above criteria before embarking on any new link building efforts is critical.

The next step, then, is to consider how your business can provide a high quality of useful content going forward, and that may require trying some new channels you have previously avoided until now. If your company is already producing regular blog posts and whitepapers that will draw in links from quality sites, perhaps now is the time to consider video, webinars and/or podcasts, and distribute them through YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler, Slideshare, etc.

Be social, but smart
The first, and most important, part of building links in the Panda era is about producing useful content to which quality sites throughout your niche will want to link. The second and next most important part is about forging and building those relationships that will be the most valuable to your business.

Like the mention of video in the section above, if you have not been taking proper advantage of social media until now, it is definitely time to start. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are three excellent places to start for finding and exchanging links with reputable websites in your specific niche or business category, but they are only the beginning. Building links in the Panda era requires a lot more work than previously, and hours of research and dozens of emails and phone calls may be required to build and maintain the necessary relationships with other website owners.

But be careful about the relationships you pursue, because the Panda algorithm will judge your business by the quality of the links you are able to build. That much has not changed; what has changed is the premium value put on today’s content, and the amount of work that will be required to create and distribute that content in order to build the quality links that will net the best search results.

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Below you’ll discover what the search engines look for when determining your page rank so you can optimize your pages for best results. This is often called SEO or search engine optimization.

To this day, the marjority of my traffic comes from the major search engines.
How Search Engines Determine Your Rank

Before you try to add your site to the search engines, you should understand what they look for when they decide how to rank your site. Just because you’re listed doesn’t mean you’ll get traffic. You have to make sure your site is search engine ready.

The general rule of thumb is that most engines use a “formula” to determine keyword relevancy. The technical term is called an “algorithm”, and each search engine has its own unique algorithm that it uses to rank pages.

Generally, this magic formula consists of your page title, overall body content and the number and quality of links pointing back to your site, how long people stay on your site, etc.

It’s important to note that every engine is different. Some may look at inbound links (number of people linking to you), others may place more emphasis on your body content.

You also need to know about meta tags. These are hidden descriptors that appear at the beginning of your HTML code, inside your tag. They may be invisible to your visitor’s eyes, but search engine spiders can read them.

They usually consist of a title, description, and keyword tag and they look something like this:

<head>

<title>Title of Your Site</title>

<meta name=”description” content=”Description of your site here.”>

<meta name=”keywords” content=”keywords separated by commas”>

</head>

Because of abuse, many search engines no longer use these tags to help rank pages, but you should still include them because they do use them to display information about your site.

For example, whatever is inside the tag is what the search engines will use as the title of your site in the search results. You want to use keywords that describe your page and entice visitors to click.
Watch a Video on Adding Meta Tags

What You Need to Know About SEO

Don’t stress out over the meta tags. You should definitely use them on every page. Just understand that how well you rank depends on how popular your site becomes over time. Watch the video below for more info on how to rank well for competitive keywords.

The Big 3 Engines – Google, Yahoo and Bing (formerly MSN/Live)

There are a handful of engines out there that bring traffic, but the reality is a very large percentage of search engine traffic comes from Google, Yahoo and MSN. Yes, there are other engines like AOL, etc, but they pull their results from the Big 3.

So in other words, once you start getting traffic from Google, Yahoo and MSN, you’ll rank well in the others automatically.
How to Get Listed In Google

There are three ways to list your site with Google, but I will warn you that using any one of these 3 methods no longer guarantees your site will be listed.

Google is getting more and more selective about who gets in, and the first step is ensuring that your site is full of useful, unique content.

After that, work on getting quality, relevant sites to link back to you. These days those two steps are the best ways to find your site in the almighty Google.

Having said that, here are some methods that may also get you in…

1) Get your site listed in The Open Directory – www.dmoz.org.

This is a directory that is managed by volunteers that act as “category editors.” To list your site, simply go to the most appropriate category for your web site, then drill down to the relevant subcategory and select the “Add URL” link at the top of that category’s page.

Wait about a month to see if your site appears. If it does not, I recommend emailing one of the category editors and asking for advice on how to get your site listed. If you’re lucky, you’ll receive a helpful response, but most of the category managers do not answer emails.

Sometimes it may take up to one year for an editor to review and list your site and other times it may only take a couple of weeks. Be patient and please don’t keep submitting!

Unfortunately since DMOZ is run by volunteers, the time it takes to get your site reviewed really depends on the availability of the volunteers. Sometimes they may not check the submissions for weeks, which can be quite frustrating for people trying to get listed.

Lately, it seems to be more and more difficult to get in, but the good news is this is not the only way to get into Google. Years ago this was one of the fastest ways to get listed and ranked. Fortunately there are other options that are just as effective, and I’ll discuss those below.

Warning: Don’t try to submit to The Open Directory unless you have enough useful information on your site. If your site is only one or two pages long, then you won’t likely get listed. They want medium to large sized web sites with useful and unique content. Strive for at least 15 pages.

If you need more content, articlecity.com has some free articles you can post on your site. Simply find the category that closely matches your theme and add them. Be careful though, don’t use too many articles because the engines may penalize your site if you have too much duplicate content.

2) The second way to get listed in Google is to use their own Add URL form located here http://www.google.com/addurl.html. This method is not as dependable as listing with The Open Directory, but it can get you in. Google admits that they may not add every site, so don’t be surprised if this does not work for you.

3) The third way to get listed is to be linked from another web site that is already in Google. That way, when Google’s spider goes to visit that site for updates, it will pick up the link to your site and add it. This method does not always work, but many sites do get in this way.
Getting into Yahoo

Most websites get into Yahoo and Live by getting spidered from other sites. Meaning if you’re already linked from another site or web directory, Live and Yahoo’s robots will eventually find you when they update their search index.

If you don’t want to wait to get spidered, you can submit directly to Live by going here http://search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx.

Do not keep re-submitting your site. It will not speed up the process of getting listed and may even get you banned.

Yahoo’s direct submission site is https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/submit.
The Yahoo Directory

Not to be confused with the regular Yahoo search function, the Yahoo directory is also a place you can add your site.

When you go to Yahoo.com and enter a search into the box, you are using their regular search engine, not the directory. So it is possible to be included in Yahoo’s regular search index and not be included in their directory.

The Yahoo directory is actually a categorical listing of sites located here http://dir.yahoo.com and it’s not used very much by web surfers.

The real benefit to being listed here is to have a high quality link pointing to your site. Many search engines look at who is linking to you and if you have a link from the Yahoo directory, it may give you some “credibility” points.

Some believe that having a listing in the directory will help boost your rank in Google and other engines. There is no solid proof of this, however. Yahoo also states that if you are listed in their directory, it does not have any affect on your position in their regular search results.

If your site is commercial it will cost you $299 per year to be included in Yahoo’s directory. So if you can justify/afford the cost, I would still recommend getting into Yahoo just to have the high-quality link pointing to your site – but don’t expect a lot of traffic from the actual page you’ll be listed on.

It’s up to you to decide if it’s worth it or not. Many webmasters do quite well in the “Big 3″ search engines without a listing in the Yahoo directory.
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At the time I’m writing this, I’m ranked on the first page for the keyword phrases flat stomach and ab crunches.

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Here’s why we generally prefer to work with WordPress …

… Because…

* It Can Be Done, and (Quite) Easily Too

• If you were avoiding WP for your news or portfolio site because you thought WP could only be used as a blogging platform, think again. You would be surprised at the multitude of ways WP can be used as a CMS, and how easily you can customise it to do your bidding. The huge repository of currently available WP plugins already ensures that your job is half done.

* You’re Familiar With It

• This is probably the No. 1 reason why anyone would want to use WP as a CMS. Familiarity not only breeds trust in the system, but also the ability and expertise to customise it to fit your every need. For those who love to tweak the stuff they use, you’ll be saving a lot of time in the long-run from not having to learn/master a whole new CMS. While you might save time initially from using a CMS more specific to your needs, what if you need to bring in a new function or two?

* It Integrates With Your Blog Perfectly

• I’m going hit you (or is it get hit with?) with a big duh! here. There’s no need to worry about integrating your blog with whatever CMS you’re using for the rest of your site if you use WP for everything. Imagine having to integrate your e-commerce CMS with WP. Urghh…

* It’s Very User-Friendly

• More robust and feature-filled CMSes tend to be weak(er) in user-friendliness and high on complexity (think Typo3). Teaching beginners to handle WP is a much, much easier task. Here, I’m referring more towards the front-end of things with regard to community sites with multiple contributors, where it’s likely that the people who publish the majority of articles are less experienced CMS users.

* There are Tons of Great Themes/Templates for It

• I challenge you to find another CMS with a better stock of free themes/templates (in terms of both quality and quantity). In fact, I’m willing to risk my neck and say that many of the more feature-laden CMSes have a real lack of free and great themes. But just on Blogging Pro alone, you’ll find a huge selection of great WP themes you can customise to fit your CMS needs.

Apparently, there are free online programs that you can participate to earn extra cash without having to work hard and there are also opportunities that can help you make enough for your living but you’ll need to devote more time and effort to make it happens. It is all depending on how much you want to earn and what you’re interested to do when it comes to choosing the opportunity that is best for you. If you have chosen something that you love to do and meets your income need, that obviously is your best way to make money.