How to Build a Freelance Website
As a freelancer in today’s world a website is an absolute essential. Even if you don’t work primarily online, your offline clients will likely search for you and your services online. If you don’t have a web presence you’re missing out on clients and freelance work.
Here’s how to build a freelance website:
#1 Choose a website format that fits your personality and your market. There are many options. You can create a single page website that simply lists your qualifications and offers a contact form or information. You can blog and you can create a more elaborate multi-page website. The choice depends largely on how your audience is and what type of freelancing you do.
For example, if you’re a website designer then you’ll want either a blog site that you’ve created or a multi page website. The design of the site will speak volumes about your designing skills. Conversely, if you’re a writer, then the content on your site will be more important than the overall design – though good design is always appreciated.
#2 Make a list of the information you’re going to provide. Here are some of the essentials:
Bio – Who are you, what is your experience? This is a great place to showcase your personality a bit and tell people what makes you unique. It also offers an opportunity to connect with your prospect on a personal level. Consider including a photo of yourself here.
Services – What exactly do you offer? For example, a website designer may only specialize in one designing language or one industry. Tell people what you do and what you have to offer them.
Prices – How much do you charge? Some people prefer to leave this information off of their website and instead negotiate or name their prices when the prospect contacts them. Others believe strongly that transparency is necessary and listing your prices will only serve to benefit both you and your potential customer. It’s a judgment call on your part. Do what feels right for you.
Policies and procedures – What is the process to hire and work with you? Do you have a form people need to fill out? How long does it take to complete a project? These are important questions that people want answers to right away. They help them make a buying decision. Be as up front about your policies and procedures as possible. Consider a FAQ sheet on your website to answer these questions.
Portfolio – Publishing your resume on your website isn’t necessary and it’s a bit old school. However, you do want to impress. So consider approaching it in two ways: List and/or link to the clients you’ve worked with. Big names are always attention grabbing. And include images, samples, or links to freelance work you’ve done.
Testimonials/Reviews – Publishing testimonials and reviews helps prospects solidify their buying decision. It makes them feel more comfortable contacting you. Don’t hesitate to publish rave reviews and client testimonials on your website. In fact, if you have room, devote an entire page to rave reviews. Also be sure to sprinkle them throughout your website where appropriate.
Contact information – Your contact information should be easy to find and easy to use. Phone number, email and maybe even a contact form all make it easy for potential clients to get a hold of you. Be sure to include this information on every page of your website and to make sure it’s featured prominently.
#3 Polish your website and your website content. Remove grammar and spelling errors, make sure all links work, and that all the information on your site is accurate.
Your freelance website is a direct reflection of who you are and what you have to offer. Take time to make sure it accurately represents how wonderful you are.
How to Keep your Office Cool in the Summer for Less
Staying cool in the summer without spending hundreds on air conditioning can be a real challenge. And if there’s one place where you want to be able to work comfortably, it’s your office. Trust me. you’re not going to get anything done if it’s 90 degrees in your office and sweat is pouring down your back.
With a little creativity and planning you can keep your office cool in the summer for less.
#1 Work naked. Just kidding! Though, you can wear less during the summer months and help keep your body temperature lower. And if you’re working alone in your home office, well no one really knows what you’re wearing, or not wearing. That said, if you’re working naked right now, make sure your webcam is turned OFF!
#2 Purchase, and use, thermal backed curtains. These curtains keep the cold out during the winter months and they block the sun’s rays during the summer months. Keep all curtains closed on windows when the sun is streaming directly into your office.
If you have a southern exposure, it will likely mean your curtains are closed all day. Not ideal because you’ll have to rely on overhead lighting in your office rather than natural daylight. However, blocking the heat from the sun’s intense rays will help keep your office quite a bit cooler. And really: Who needs light when you’re working in front of the computer. Right?
#3 Use fans. There are an abundance of fan types you can use. You can install a ceiling fan to pull up the warm air to keep the room cooler. This type of fan can be reversed in the winter to help keep your office warmer too. You can also purchase little fans that plug into your USB port and help keep you, and your computer, cooler.
Additionally, the old trick of putting a fan in an open window and turning it so it faces outside works well to pull hot air out of your office. Of course, if the air outside is cooler than the air inside, turn the fan around and let it pull the cooler air into your office.
And desktop fans are always an option.
#4 Turn off electronics – completely. Printers, computers, televisions and any other electronics generate heat. The more electronics you have on, the warmer your office is going to feel. And it’s going to cost a bit to cool down your office not to mention the fact that you’re paying to keep the electronics on.
#5 Turn off anything you’re not using. Turn it off at the power source rather than just pushing the off button. Plugging electronics into a power strip and turning off the entire strip is a great way to take care of this.
Keeping your office cooler in the summer doesn’t have to cost a fortune. Pay careful attention to not let it get too warm because cooling it down to a comfortable level will take a lot of energy. Stay cool and have a great summer!
How to Bounce Back After Failure
Failure is one of those things we all have in common – like putting our pants on one leg at a time. It’s a human experience. Some people handle the experience well, others not so well. I’ve known business owners who made a few mistakes — shipped out items late — and who disappeared off the Internet after people complained. This was definitely not the best way to handle the situation.
What’s the trick? How do some people bounce back so successfully after failure?
#1 They don’t take the failure personally. Failure isn’t a personal attack or a sign of any type of character flaw. There is a cliché that says something along the lines of “failure means you tried.” People that are actively pursuing goals and dreams fail often and they perceive it as part of the process. Instead of feeling unworthy or like a failure, they reevaluate their strategy and try again.
This is exactly what I’m doing with my business. While my first business wasn’t a failure in that it paid for itself and provided me with a nice income, I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do. It didn’t meet my goals. So I started over.
The next time you experience failure instead of feeling badly about yourself, feel good about the fact that you tried, and try again.
#2 They use the experience as a learning tool. Failure happens, right? Why not learn from the experience. Analyze what went wrong and why? What can you change or do differently next time? How can you use your failure to succeed? One of my clients started out her business with a great concept at a great price. The problem? The prices were too low and she couldn’t afford to pay the labor costs associated with the work her customers were generating. The lesson? She raised her rates and now has fewer clients, less work, but gets to keep a greater percentage of the income for herself.
#3 Sometimes we fail for a reason. Maybe our heart really wasn’t into the effort. Maybe a limiting belief prevented us from achieving success. And sometimes it wasn’t the right opportunity. Generally when we fail there is a reason. Look around and evaluate why. Look for new opportunities and experiences that may bring success.
#4 Be grateful for the experience. Gratitude is a powerful emotion. Feeling gratitude for the failure and the experience will help you move forward with resolve and enthusiasm. Sometimes writing or journaling your thoughts in a positive manner helps you embrace failure as a positive experience rather than a negative one.
#5 Realize it happens to everyone and don’t hesitate to ask for help or advice. One of the great things about failure is it is an equalizer. Know that the most powerful people in the world, the most famous people have all failed thousands of times. When you fail instead of internalizing it and struggling again and again, ask for help and advice.
#6 Embrace your inner child. Remember being a kid and running with your friend? Sometimes you’d fall right? What would you do? You’d jump back up, not even really think about the fall and return to running, right? Children have a knack for focusing on the fun and not letting the failures or falls stop them. Do as the song says, “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.” If you love what you’re doing, you won’t even give a failure a second thought.
#7 Laugh. We all make mistakes and those who can laugh at themselves and their mistakes get over them much faster than those who cannot.
Failure is a part of life. Embrace it as openly as you do success. Enjoy it, learn from it, and welcome it as a lesson and an opportunity to grow.
How to Become a Super Affiliate Marketer in Easy Steps
If you’re an affiliate marketer, you may be wondering what it takes to make more money. What extra steps are required to go from being an affiliate to a super affiliate? Let’s take a look at how to become a super affiliate marketer in easy steps.
#1 Reframe your mindset. Super affiliates know that their business is creating a website and a community people rely on. They’ve found a niche they’re passionate about and plan their business around meeting the needs of their audience.
Many affiliate marketers go into the business looking for places they can place ads and links. It may work to motivate a sale from time to time. However, for real affiliate income, you want to build a business and a content foundation first. The affiliate links will naturally fit into your content and marketing efforts.
To become a super affiliate, know your audience. Plan your content to fit their needs, wants and desires. Answer their questions and solve their problems. Build a brand and a business people want to be part of.
For example, if you’re a web designer who builds websites for jewelry makers, you’ll want to take a look at the unique challenges faced by that market. I did this several years ago with the work at home mom market. I realized that they needed affordable content writing solutions, so I recommend mom PLR options to them.
#2 Participate in social networking. Social networking sites are packed with people who are interested in your affiliate niche. Social networking provides a unique platform to interact, share your knowledge and personality and to connect with your prospects. It also offers an opportunity to increase awareness of your business.
#3 Blog and comment on blogs. Blogging is another form of content to provide to your prospects. It drives traffic, improves SEO and offers value with each post. And commenting on other relevant industry blogs accomplishes several things too. It broadens awareness of who you are and what you’re about. It drives traffic to your business website. And like social networking, it enables you to connect with other people interested in your niche topic.
#4 Information marketing. You already know that content is the way to presell and promote your affiliate products. Articles, reports, video content, podcasts, tutorials, webinars, the list can go on and on about the various types of content an affiliate marketer can use to sell their affiliate products.
However, to really boost affiliate income, consider embracing an information marketing business model. Create information products to provide valuable information to your audience – like an ebook. And use this model to also promote a few key affiliate products.
#5 Build an opt-in list. I could kick myself for not starting a list back in 2002. Today, a list is the first thing I build when setting up a new website. This step is an ongoing step. It starts the day you open your doors for business and it continues as long as you keep them open. Your opt in list is your email list of people who have expressed an interest in your products and information. These are qualified prospects and they’re valuable. Let them know they’re valuable and continue to provide them with information and benefit.
#6 Continue to build a community. Blog, network and integrate these tactics into your marketing strategies across the board. Put links to your social networking profiles on your email signature, newsletter, and on your website so people can “Tweet this” or “Follow me on Facebook,” with the click of a button.
#7 Pay attention. Always pay attention to your prospects and your audience. They can provide valuable information about where to take your business. Use analytics and test and track various tactics to ensure they’re working optimally.
Being a super affiliate means taking your business to the next level. Plan for success. Plan to build a business and a brand people recognize and turn to when they need your information. And plan to build a community of loyal followers around your business.
How to Track Twitter Sentiment
Twitter sentiment is a term that’s used to express, and actually track, how people feel about topics and brands. You can use Twitter Sentiment to tap into emotions and strategically plan your social networking strategy for maximum effect. Here are a few tools to track Twitter Sentiment.
Twitter Sentiment
Named after the information it’s measuring, Twitter Sentiment allows users to track brand mentions on Twitter. You enter in a search term, your business name for example, and the tool highlights all positive and negative tweets that contain that term. It also places them in a chart for easy comparison.
This tool lists the tweets and color codes them – green for good sentiment, red for bad. This is helpful because it enable you to see how it is evaluating the posts. You can then change your Twitter sentiment also enables you to search for a specific date range.
It’s also a great tool because you can then follow or respond to relevant tweets and use it to build your following and interact online.
Social Mention
This tool enables users to track terms, or company names, to find out if they’re being talked about online. It then ranks the term by:
- Strength: the likelihood your brand is being talked about
- Sentiment: A ratio of positive to negative sentiment
- Passion: Measures the likelihood that people will talk about your brand repeatedly
- Reach: Measures your range of influence.
It also lists unique authors, how long people talked about the search term and top users. Like Twitter Sentiment, it lists the tweets that it used to create the data.
Twendz
Twendz is a service that works like many of the other twitter sentiment analytical tools. It updates every minute and evaluates up to 70 tweets at a time. It looks for sentiment and tracks trends. They also offer a We twendz pro service that monitors, measures and analyzes strategic brand effectiveness.
Twitrratr (Pronounced Twitter Rater)
Twitrratr is a sentiment tool as well and it breaks down the search term into:
- Positive
- Neutral
- Negative
- Total tweets
Simply enter your search term and get your results. Like the other tools, it presents the information it used to create the data. It’s a great way to track your brand, your keywords and to find out what people are saying about your topic. It’s also a nice way to find other people to follow and friend.
Twitter sentiment can be used to track how people are reacting to your brand or your competition’s brand. It’s also a good research tool to find out what keywords people use, and what they’re talking about in your industry. This information can be used to create content and to help build your online community.
How to Repurpose your Content Wisely
Regardless of your chosen business model, content is likely your biggest time and planning investment. It makes sense to repurpose your content strategically. By planning how you’re going to use, and reuse, each piece of content you create you maximize your return on investment. It’s good business sense!
Here are __ ways to repurpose your content wisely.
#1 The most common use of content repurposing is to rewrite articles for article marketing purposes.
Article rewriting, when managed strategically, can result in up to five different versions of the same article. Each can be published on an independent article marketing site. And the original can be published on your website or blog. Make sure each version still retains the keywords you need to optimize for search engines.
#2 Rewrite long articles or reports into blog posts.
Long articles and reports can be segmented into smaller bite sized blog posts. Blog posts tend to be a bit more personal – aimed at branding your personality. This can be accomplished by adding an anecdote and/or changing the language a bit to make the post original and serve its purpose.
#3 Compile blog post and articles and create a comprehensive and valuable report.
To make the report feel original and valuable you’ll want to add some new touches including transitions between articles so the piece feels seamless. You’ll also need an introduction and a conclusion and you can fill any gaps with new information and content.
#4 Repurpose blog posts, articles and reports for autoresponders/enewsletters.
Following up with your opt-in list is essential to keep them interested and motivate purchases. This is easily accomplished by pulling key paragraphs and points out of articles and reports and using them to create autoresponder messages. Autoresponders don’t need to be long, 200-250 words are often sufficient to provide a nice amount of valuable information and link to your website.
#5 Ebooks.
Reports and articles can be combined to offer a valuable information product. Just like creating reports in #3 you can create ebooks by collecting content and organizing it in a logical and effective manner. Sell it or give it away as a bonus, lead generator or viral product.
Whether you’ve written the content, outsourced it, purchased PLR or a combination of all three, it makes good business sense to make the most of your investment. And you can use PLR and a ghost writer to fill in the gaps when you’re creating reports and ebooks. Additionally, you can hire a virtual assistant or a writer to repurpose content.
Content repurposing is more than a way to fill in the gaps when you’re on vacation or when you’re struggling to come up with original content. Repurposing your content makes good financial sense too. With each piece of content you create or have created for you, think ahead. Plan how you’re going to maximize the content and reuse it strategically.
Ready to start repurposing your content? See more information about PLR, ghostwriting and internet marketing tactics.
Top 10 Tips to Avoiding Distraction and Preventing Interruptions
Oh, how easy it is to be distracted when you’re working from home!
True, you don’t have your coworkers talking about last night’s America’s Got Talent or showing you photos of their children. However, you do have other distractions, like last night’s America’s Got Talent, today’s Throwdown with Bobby Flay and your very own children.
How do you handle them and still manage to be productive? It isn’t easy.
Here are seven tips to avoid distraction and prevent interruption.
#1 Create “work time” and set limits. Get a do not disturb sign if you need to. Just make sure everyone knows you’re working and not to be disturbed. It’s helpful if you can create special times during the day that are devoted to work and special times that are devoted to family, chores and errands. It also helps if your office is not the recliner in the living room in front of the 62 inch television.
#2 Close any and all computer applications that aren’t directly related to what you’re doing. Yes, that means Facebook and Twitter too! And of course close your email unless you’re checking it. And yes, having 12 tabs open in Firefox counts.
#3 Speaking of email, stop checking it every five minutes! Check it three times a day, max. Check it once in the morning, once in the evening and once during lunch. Yes, you can close your Gmail tab and your world will not collapse.
#4 Turn off your phone or set specific ring tones for important numbers and ignore all other calls. Google Voice is a great tool because you can have voice mail messages sent to you as text messages. That saves you time during your lunch break because you can check your voice mail and your email at the same time. Even better, if you have Skype, you can purchase a local number to give out to your business contacts. Then you can answer the phone from your computer and also ignore calls, which can go straight to voice mail.
#5 Remove the television and the radio/stereo from your office if they’re distractions. Generally, television is a distraction for most people. However, some people find it easier to work to music. You decide. You know yourself better than anyone else. If music is a distraction, remove it from your work environment.
#6 Plan ahead. Take the dog outside before you settle down to work. Use the facilities and grab some food and something to drink so you don’t have to get up while you’re working.
#7 Set time aside for chores and errands. Laundry, dirty dishes and grocery shopping can wait, right? However, if you haven’t set aside time to get them done they’ll loom over you and distract you from getting your work completed. Schedule time for them and the stress is removed. You can focus on being productive.
Distractions are a part of working from home — or anywhere else. As they arise, you’ll need to figure out the best way to manage them and prevent them. Enjoy the benefits of working from home for what they are and the amazing freedom you do have.
How to Use Google Analytics to your Advantage
While a good web hosting company will provide statistics to help you track your website’s visitors, those statistics applications tend to be lacking — at least in comparison’s to Google’s offering.
Google Analytics is a handy tool you can add to your website pages to learn valuable information that will help you fine tune your website and your business.
Important information Google Analytics provides:
- Total number of visits to your site
- Total number of pages visitors looked at
- Average number of pages viewed per visit
- The percentage of users who left after viewing only one page on your site. Aim for under 50%.
- How long a visitor stayed on your website
- The percentage of people who haven’t visited your site before.
Analytics also includes several sections of very important information.
Visitor Overview. This section breaks down the visitor information into more detail including the number of pages viewed overall and the average page view per visit.
All this information can be invaluable. However, it takes a bit of analysis to find the noteworthy tidbits.
For example, if you notice that there are only three page views per visit that might make you worry. People aren’t spending much time on your website. However, if the majority of your visits are not new visitors, meaning people are coming back to your website for information, then the number of page views may not be so concerning. It’s likely that the visitors are just reading your new content.
Traffic Source Overview. This section tells where your traffic comes from. It lists how many visitors came from search engine traffic, such as Google Organic, from direct traffic and from referring sites. You can use this information test your traffic generation strategies.
For example, if you find that 60% of your visitors are coming from Google Organic, that’s good. However, if only 15% are coming from referring sites, you may want to increase your link building strategy. On the other hand, if you find you have low Google organic numbers, you would then know it’s time to work on your keyword placement and optimizing your content and your site.
The traffic source overview also tells you what top keywords people used to find your content. This is of course extremely helpful when creating your content plan and learning what keywords people use and what they’re looking for on your website.
Content Overview. This section of the report lists the top content and the page views for each post or page of your site. This is ideal information for building and creating your content strategy.
It’s more beneficial, however, if you compare the information over time and look for trends.
- Is your top article always a tips sheet?
- Is it always on the same basic topic?
Google Analytics compares your present week to the prior week. However it’s more advantageous to look at your content overview information over a longer period of time.
Analytics also provides valuable information for you to fine tune your keyword strategy. It helps you learn what content people prefer on your site. And it helps you learn where your visitors are coming from so you can adjust your traffic generation strategies as needed.
While it’s not a crystal ball that can put you inside the minds of your prospects and visitors, the information Google Analytics provides is extremely useful to build your business and your business website.
How To Add Personality To Your WordPress Website
Stop a minute and think about your clients. The easiest ones to bring into your business were those who had already heard of you. Perhaps you’d met them in an online forum or a friend had referred you. In short, these clients hired you because they felt as if they knew you, liked you and trusted you.
Your personality is what attracted these clients to your business, which means your personality is your brand.
Additionally, for internet marketing success, building a community is essential. Building a community around a personality and a brand is much easier than drawing traffic and attention to a blog without any identifiable personality or brand.
Here are nine ways to add personality to your WordPress blog:
1. Music – Music can be added to a WordPress pages and blog posts by using the media insert key in the admin panel. You can upload wav files, MP3 files, and midi files. Music can be an excellent way to add personality to your blog posts. Imagine someone hearing AC/DC or polka music during their visit – it’s a sure way to set a unique tone. Just keep in mind that if you’re looking at adding music to your business website, you should not auto-play the music. The last thing your clients want is to have loud blaring music smack them in the ears when they arrive at your site.
2. Video – Video has been around for a while and it’s certainly growing as a medium. Welcome messages can be added to a blog’s sidebar or static pages. And of course you can add video messages into your posts. Video lets your audience both see and hear you and that is about as personal as it gets. As with music, I recommend you allow the visitor to choose when to play the video. No auto playing.
3. Pictures – Studies have shown that people tend to prefer blogs and websites where they can see the person who runs the show. We like to know what people look like. In addition to adding a photo of yourself to your blog, you can use sites like Flickr and upload photos into individual posts to add personality.
4. Stories – Sharing stories in your blog posts and on your static pages is a sure fire way to communicate your personality to visitors. Often, hearing how you personally learned a lesson or applied one to your business will help your readers implement your advice better than just telling them. As authors learn: Show them, don’t tell them.
5. Social Networking – In addition to social networking badges, there are WordPress plug-ins that enable visitors to see recent social networking conversations. It lets them virtually eavesdrop on your interactions and thus see your personality. Hopefully, it also motivates them to join in on the conversation. I do recommend being careful about these plugins. You want to send people from the social networking sites to your blog, not the other way around.
6. Links To Things You Love – Each blog has a blogroll option. Linking to sites you love helps communicate your personality. Link to your favorite coffee shop, your favorite music video or your favorite book and share your personality with blog visitors.
7. Custom Header/Graphics – While there are an abundance of blog templates, customizing yours with a header and graphics that represent your personality will help make your blog unique and stand out from the others.
8. Gravatar – Use gravatars to add personality to your blog. Gravatar is the abbreviation of the phrase “Globally Recognized Avatar.” It’s the small head shot of the author or commenter. Again, it’s another way to show people what you look like. It also helps brand your business because if you use the same Gravatar for your various social networking profiles will be recognized. It will become part of your brand personality and image.
9. Favicon. You can add a favicon to your blog’s URL to help add personality and identify your business brand. There are free favicon generators online and an abundance of tutorials on how to add these little images to your browser bar.
Adding personality to your WordPress blog takes a little imagination and a bit of consistency. Be yourself and be confident to share who you are with your audience. You won’t win over everyone. However the people who do follow you will do so because they like what you have to say and they like you.
What Are Membership Sites Anyway?
I built my first social membership site in 2002. It was a place for parents to hang out and let off steam. I provided the technical support and hosting for the site and, along with the other owners, we attracted thousands of visitors and amassed millions of pages of content. I first heard about business membership sites in early 2008, built my first one the same year and sold it the next. So the membership site concept isn’t a new one.
Even so, I still talk to people today who don’t understand what a membership site is, and just as important, how it can be implemented into their current business model.
So, what is a membership site?
A membership site is a website that requires people to sign up as members in order to have full access to the site’s content and tools. Think of it like a subscription to a newspaper. You get new content with each new “issue” of the membership site.
Unlike most newspapers, membership sites are built around a common issue or theme. They can take the form of service sites such weightwatchers.com, dating sites such as match.com, and content sites such as The Wall Street Journal’s members’ area at wsj.com.
Membership sites are popular because they offer something of value to their members that can’t necessarily be found elsewhere. With membership sites that focus on social aspects, the members are able to experience a sense of community and belonging that they may not be able to find on other sites online.
For members of content based sites, having a ready supply of information at their fingertips is the reason they choose to pay membership access fees. Despite online video games and celebrity gossip blogs, receiving information is still one of the biggest reasons people are attracted to the internet.
What can a membership site do for my business?
Today, people are building membership sites as a way to bring them a lasting passive and residual income. The members of these sites pay a monthly fee to keep accessing the information. If you build a membership site around a subject people are interested in, and you provide quality content, you will find that many people will find it far easier to pay you a monthly fee to access this information, rather than spending numerous hours searching the web for the information.
Of course, you do not have to limit this “content” or “information” to strictly text. You can get creative and offer your subscribers sewing patterns, scrapbook layouts, and other forms of information.
The service based membership site is another route to take. For example, a virtual assistant could create a membership site, and each month the subscribers would be guaranteed ten hours of work time. The virtual assistant would need to limit membership to the amount of clients he or she can realistically serve.
A product seller could also offer a membership site. Let’s say that you make and sell candles. You could offer a “candle of the month” club, and each month your subscribers could receive a few different-sized candles in a new fragrance.
While the paid membership site is a great business model, it is important to note that the membership site model can vary widely. Not all membership sites are paid sites. There are many sites that offer free membership, such as myspace.com. MySpace has millions of members, and the owners generate income through selling advertising space.
There are many ways to start and grow a membership site. Over time, they have the potential to bring you a very healthy, passive, and residual income.
Would you like to learn more about how to build and manage a membership site for your business? See my FREE report “7 Popular Membership Site Models.”