What Is Freelance Blogging?

Blogging (short for "web logging"), born from the Internet age, is one of the newer venues for freelance writing. The Internet has generated a lot of news about the financial possibilities open to bloggers: an audience of potentially millions -- along with possible corporate sponsorship, a byline, and infinite creative control -- captures the imagination of many prospective bloggers, and makes blogging seem like an infinitely desirable, lucrative field.

The truth is it is much more difficult to become a successful freelance blogger. A good knowledge of marketing, web design, and being consistent are skills you need to make a living (or a comfortable extra income) from this new form of media.

The reason for this is the low barrier of entry. Anyone with access to web space can start a blog. Sites like Blogger, Livejournal and even MySpace offer free web space to anyone willing to sign up. This has resulted in millions of blogs in existence today, many of them literate, many of them wildly popular, and nearly all of them free to read and browse.

That variety of free content makes it difficult to charge for access to your writing, no matter how good it is. You could be the greatest expert on foreign policy or nutrition known to man, and few people would be willing to pay $5 -- or $1, or one cent -- to read a blog post by you, the expert, when there are thousands of semi-qualified (but bright and engaging) writers giving away similar material.

So your main sources of revenue are going to come from advertising and from whatever paid content you can fit into the site. Luckily, web advertising is becoming less dicey than it was a year ago. Google's "AdSense" program is a good baseline for a page, providing targeted advertising based on your content and paying you, directly, per click-through (although the pay rate per click is low.) You can supplement that amount with other forms of web advertising, from the comparatively unobtrusive banner to pop-up animations that "float over" the text.

This brings us to the "double-edged sword" problem in web advertising. The most effective advertising is obtrusive advertising; that is, advertising that blocks valuable content until the user clicks on it either to make it disappear or to take you to a different website. However, obtrusive advertising also irritates your readers, which can lead to a lower reputation for your blog overall. On the Internet, reputation is the single best determinant of your web traffic. Using obtrusive advertising can significantly lower your traffic and make your blog that much less attractive to potential advertisers.

So you'll need to find a happy medium between heavy advertising (and light traffic) and little to no advertising (and high traffic, but little revenue.) Luckily, the instant responsiveness of the Internet, along with the commenting features available on nearly all blogging software, make it easy to ask your readers about exactly what level of advertising they'd be willing to accept. Reader connectivity is one of the most important features of any good blog: not only does it allow you to fine-tune your blog over time, eliminating features that readers find irritating or off-putting, but it also allows you to develop personal connections with your readers, the kind of connections that build loyal audiences.




There are other ways to make money by blogging, such as the following:

1) It's possible to sidestep advertising altogether by making some of your content unavailable, except to subscribers. For example, you might only keep your most recent five or six blog entries unlocked, and require a monthly subscription fee to read the rest of the archives;

2) Or you might keep your current posts and your entire regular archives active, but produce some longer or specialized entries or other content and charge a set fee for these;

3) You could even compile some of your best entries into a physical book, along with some new content, and offer it for sale. Even if all the entries are available online, you'd be surprised how many people are willing to pay to have something they can hold in their hands;

4) Additionally, you could go the Salon.com route -- make all of your archives available to anyone willing to watch a short full-screen advertisement -- or you could rely on readers' willingness to support content that they find worthwhile by asking for donations outright.

Many prominent blogs and online content providers have done this and found themselves able to make rent and pay all of their bills every month on donations alone.

No matter how much advertising or subscription services your blog has, it's all worthless if people don't want to read you in the first place. And there are three simple rules to make your blog popular:

1) Write on something you care about
2) Write consistently and thoughtfully on a regular schedule (daily is best)
3) Read and comment on other blogs

People read blogs because they provide a source of information and analysis on topics that traditional media sources only cover sketchily and hastily, or don't cover at all. Don't try to figure out an ideal money-making blog topic and proceed from there. People care about blogs because blogs are about personal, in-depth viewpoints and thoughts.

If you can provide those to your audience regularly, and you can set up a minimally-intrusive but still worthwhile revenue system through advertising or subscriptions, there's no reason why you can't become a successful blogger.

Writing Articles For The Web That Get Read Is Easy When You Know This

Writing articles for the web is a learned skill. And you can learn it. In fact, you can master it. Once a professional writer in the print publishing world, I had feature articles published by some well-known names (Woman's Day, The Washington Post, Family Circle, Christian Science Monitor and more). Fortunately, as a self-publisher online, I'm able to transfer some of my professional print writing skills to this form of online publishing. I don't struggle with writing articles. And that makes filling my websites with useful, well-written information a lot easier for me. But it's not so for everyone. Some people struggle with article writing. Maybe that's you.

Do you struggle with writing articles for your website readers? Do you want to write articles for other newsletters and websites that get free website traffic for you, or just more traffic to your website? If you struggle with article writing or if people don't read your articles, I may be able to help you. While writing content for the web and writing content for print publications is not exactly the same, there is some overlap. Here are some things I've learned about both content formats that might help you write better articles for both web publishers and for your websites.

Your article should have:

ORIGINAL CONTENT - The one word magazine writers hate to hear their editor say is "fresh". Editors frequently use the word as a reason to reject submissions as in "your tips are just not fresh enough". Editors want originality. Their publishers want originality. Readers want originality. Everyone is in agreement about wanting original article content.

But if something has been said or written about a thousand times before, you CAN still say it again. You just need to have your own original spin and be using your own words (that means no plagiarism too). You need to have your own writing style or personality (which you'll develop with time). My research tells me that originality is what both readers AND search engines want from online content. They want original content. The articles at your website need to be "fresh". The articles you submit to publishers need to be "fresh". With practice and persistence and a little bit of diligence thrown in you CAN write original articles for the web or for your website (to add diversity to all those reprint articles collecting on your site).

CATCHY TITLE - The online experts say you need key words in your online article titles or headlines to catch the attention of the search engines in the right way. That means you need to put the term or phrase you think people are searching for on your subject near the front of your article title (or at least somewhere in it). But you also have to remember that you're still writing for readers. So on top of making your article title work for search engine optimization, it still has to entice viewers to read it.

You don't necessarily need a clever article title, just one that appeals to your target audience and briefly describes the article topic. If I'm looking to lose weight quickly you can be certain "Weight Loss - 3 Easy Steps to Lose 10 Pounds in 10 Days at Home" will catch my attention. If I want to know what Britney Spears is doing (and by the way, I don't), a title like "Guess What Britney Spears Did Now" will catch my attention and make me read further. But if I'm trying to learn the difference between a flat panel monitor and a flat screen, I'm perfectly happy reading an article with a boring title such as "Flat Panel Monitors and Flat Screens Defined for the Home User". That title addresses my need at the time for specific information I'm seeking on the web. And it has your key phrase "flat panel monitors" right in front too.




GREAT LEAD - The best title in the world won't keep readers engrossed in your article, if the first paragraph stinks. In the print world, editors happily rewrite their writers' leading paragraphs to make the lead just so. There are MANY ways to write a leading paragraph. Just remember that your goal is to intrigue the reader while giving him a clear indication of what he's about to learn in your article. And the SEO experts say the first sentence, or near the beginning of your first paragraph, is a good place to put that key word or phrase once that you're focusing on for the search engines' sake.

GOOD GRAMMAR AND SPELLING - Sloppy writing affects your credibility and makes you look lazy. And it makes for a bad reader experience. If you want to keep readers coming back to your website for the content (or publishers coming back to article directories to use your content), get a grasp on your spelling and grammar. A dictionary and grammar book by your side while proofreading your article will be helpful.

CONCISE FLOW - In high school, many students fluffed up their articles with extra words when the teacher assigned them the task of writing a certain word count. That trick isn't useful after high school (if you ever considered it useful). Most likely you have plenty to say about your topic if you know it well or if you've researched it well. Tight concise writing is as appreciated in the online world as it is in the print publishing arena. Don't repeat yourself or use excessive words to make a point or statement. That will help keep your copy clean. And know that concise writing doesn't necessarily mean short articles. You don't have to write 300 word articles. You don't have to write 3,000 word articles. Just don't write a 1,200 word article that really can be written in 500 words.

It's these writing techniques that make you a professional writer and not a sloppy amateur whose writing for the web doesn't get read. And it's these techniques that will help you to add better content to your website and get your articles published by other websites and newsletters. And good article writing means more traffic for your website.

Article Writing and Directories

Writing for the simple enjoyment of writing is something I throughly enjoy. If I have something to say and I want to share it with someone or everyone, then I put pen to paper or in this case keyboard to notepad and put together an article of some of my knowledge, tips, advise and sometimes wisdom to share with everyone.

One place that I have found to be a great source for not only submitting my articles for publication, but also a wonderful place to get lost for awhile just reading... article directories.

These wonderful directories are filled with vast varieties of information that cover just about anything you may want to know. These sites are perfect for anyone looking for a place to submit their articles to, if your looking for specific information about something then they are gold mines.

Simply do a search for article directories in your browser and you will be overwhelmed with choices. Some directories are very specific about the information they allow, while the most of them open their directories up to a wide variety of subjects. I've only come accross a couple that charge a fee for use.

If you publish an online newsletter or ezine then an article directory can be a great resource for you. Article directories allow you fresh and informative information for your readers on a daily basis id needed. Some directories will notify you when new articles are submitted that apply to your specific needs. If you have never used the sevice of an article directory as a source of content, I gaurantee you will be happy you did. Content is king!




Webmaster more and more are turning to the use of article directories as a way of boosting to traffic that visits their sites. They are getting this traffic from back links from other sites. By simply writing an article about their website and the products or services that the website offers and then submitting it to article directories they are building back links. Instead of purchasing over priced, non targeted traffic to visit a site, webmasters are building highly targeted, virtually cost free search engine freindly back links. Ahhh, back links... priceless.

Not sure you can write an article? There a writers for hire that can whip you up an article in no time what so ever for a small fee. You just furnish them with the subject and the key points you want to focus on and they will have you as many article as you want or need in very short time. Known as ghost writers, these writing wizards are wonderful.

So, whether you are a seasoned writer or just someone like myself that simply enjoys writing, you will find that article directories are not only fantastic places to submit to but great places to find information for just about anything your looking for.