Blogging has proven to be one the most successful ways to get your name out there in freelance USA. You can pay for a blog page or you can start a free blog. I pay about $90 a year for a website plan which includes a wordpress blog. That kind of flexibility allows me to direct my traffic to and from my blog and website easily. WordPress, Blogger and Orble are some of the more popular blog platforms. They are available free of charge, although those versions do not allow as much versatility.
Blogging pros will tell you that ‘evergreen’ content, or blog posts that do not a have expiration dates, are best for bringing longterm attention to your blog. Your blog content should also be streamlined and not random. If you are a freelance travel writer, your blog should reflect the world of travel. If you are freelance sports writer, you blog should reflect sports. You would probably want to stay away from cooking recipes or rants that do not have to do with who you are or how you want to be defined in the spectrum of freelance writing.
Submitting to search engines is one of the most commons ways to promote your blog. When you submit your blog, the search engine includes the blog in its directory and will update your information whenever it updates its listings. Search engine submission should definitely be used, but it’s only one tool at your disposal. You may still get lost in the cloud of other bloggers doing the same thing.
The best way to get noticed on the web and climb higher in the search results is to get back linked. This is a process of building links to and from your site. An easy tool to use in your blog is called Zemanta. This program works as an add-on to your blog and searches terms in your posts to help link to other relevant articles and blogs on the Internet. It then gives you the option of linking to those locations. Why do you want to link to another blog? The more information you provide, the more useful you become to your audience. Soon you become the site of choice for what they are most interested in. The blog you link to will also notice the increased traffic to their blog and respond by linking back to you to attract your audience as well.
Social networking has made back linking very easy. Go to Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, or whatever social network site you think might help build your popularity. In addition to social networking sites there are blog rolls to list your site on. One that I recommend is Networked Blogs. When you join and link your blog, your posts will be automatically fed to your Facebook page. This recently resulted in a 400 percent increase in traffic to my blog. The results were even better on my website which links back to my blog. In January of 2010 I had only 600 hits on my website. In January 2011, I had 20,000.
Richie S is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.
