Angela Booth's Writing Blog

Your Writers' Website: Yes, You Still Need One

Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Amazon... I know many writers are abandoning the thought of creating their own websites, and are depending solely on social media sites.

This article Authors: Where is the Taproot of Your Web Presence? | Creative Content Coaching, makes some great points, including:

"If you publish original short-form fiction directly on your Facebook fan page, stop at once! Use Tumblr or WordPress to publish there first, using canonical tags so that search engines know that your website hosts the original content. Then push those stories automatically to your Facebook page using Facebook’s Import Notes function."

I've got nothing against social media sites. However, sites come and go online. It doesn't matter how popular they are, or how many users they have. Ultimately, you can only count on the Web. AOL was a popular walled garden years ago. Before that, CompuServe. I've no idea what happened to MySpace. I suppose it's still around.

I've been online since the mid-1980s, the days of Bulletin Board Systems.

Change happens. That's inevitable. The Web changes, and walled gardens change.

Stay independent. Create your own website, or blog, on your own domain. You'll know you have control: your words are your own. Keep them.

What If You Were Making $1,000 A DAY From Your Writing?

What would that mean to YOU? Perhaps it means paying off all your debts... taking two or more vacations every year... feeling more secure...

Take a moment, right now.

Think about making $365,000 this coming year, and the benefits that would bring, not only to you, but also to everyone around you.

How would your life change?

You can make the journey to $1,000 a day, as long as you get out of the trap...

Discover how, with my new program -- The Writers' Ultimate Cash Formula: Make $1,000 a Day.

Once and Forever -- Your Writer's Website (Ezine)

In this week's issue of Fab Freelance Writing Ezine, we discuss your writer's website. Your site can either be a powerful tool, which gets you all the writing jobs you want, or it can be a complete waste of time... Your choice.

You can put your site to work, if you wish.

Here's an excerpt from the Editorial:

Your site is FOREVER. However, that doesn't mean that you can create your site today, and call it done. Far from it. Your site needs to be updated constantly -- at least once a week.

Firstly, let's look at what we mean by "forever"... The Web's a wild, weird and wonderful place, so the more you understand it, the better.

Just like diamonds, your site is forever

Yes, your site is forever, to all intents and purposes. The very first site I created for myself way back in 1998 is still kicking around online. Heaven knows why. I haven't paid any hosting for it in over a decade, but it's still there.

Everything you create online is forever.

Yes, all those photos of you on Facebook, even the ones you didn't post. All your Twitter tweetings, everything. All your forum posts, too. Email isn't secure either, nor is online chat... copies exist of everything you do online.

Read the rest in tomorrow's ezine -- you'll be looking at your site in a new way -- and you'll discover the most frustrating paradox you can imagine.

(The ezine's free, and it comes to you in downloadable PDF.)

Your Writer's Website: Use It to Achieve Your Goals

Your writer's website is the most powerful tool you possess. Not only can it help you to improve your writing, it can also help you to get clients, and to keep them.

I have many websites. They were all created to achieve specific goals, and each one is aimed at a specific audience. 

Here's a tip: stick with one website initially, until you have somewhere between 500 and 1000 pages on the site. You'll easily achieve this over time. 

Here's how your site helps you to achieve your goals.

Your Writer's Website Helps You to Stand out and Differentiate Yourself

The web is full of "writers". This makes it very hard for clients. Most of your clients, unless they're publications or are large companies which are used to dealing with writers, have no experience in hiring writers.

Therefore they can't tell the difference between someone who's a professional writer, and someone who's decided that writing would be nice thing to do to pass the time.

Your site assures your clients that you're a professional writer: they can see the results on the site.

Your website is also helpful in another way. 

It helps you to qualify  prospective clients. You can't write for everyone, and you don't want to. Your website can make it clear what kind of budget your client will need. This means that you won't have people contacting you who want you to write 100 articles at one dollar each.

Your Writer's Website Helps You to Stay in Touch With Your Clients

Your clients will stay with you for years, if you remember to stay in touch with them.

Add a form to your website, so that your clients can sign up to a mailing list to receive information from you. 

Send regular updates. In your updates, you can describe new services you've added. You can also provide case studies, and white papers or reports, thereby educating  your clients, and helping them in their own businesses.

Your Writer's Website Helps You to Launch Products and Services

How many services do you provide? Chances are that you provide at least three or four. However somebody who's hired you to write a series of articles may not be aware of the other services which you provide. 

Whenever you add a new service, just send a message to your client list directing them to the information on your site which describes the service.

Your writer's website can work for you, if you put a little thought into what your clients want, and how you can help them to achieve their own goals when they hire you.

The time you spend on your site is never wasted; it can help you to achieve any goal you care to set.

 

Blog for Big Companies, and Make a Six-Figure Income

If you're looking for writing gigs, you'll have seen that many businesses advertise for bloggers. Unfortunately, the businesses which advertise are all doing so because they're looking for cheap content.

You can do much better.

You can find clients who don't advertise, but who pay well for blogging. Did you know that experienced professional bloggers charge their clients a minimum of $1000 per month, per blog? Consider that if a blogger's working for 20 clients, that's $20,000 a month.

You can blog for businesses too, if you're prepared. Discover how, with Blogging Ace: Make Six Figures in Nine Months by Doing What You Love.

Your writer's website: treat it like the goldmine it can be

Do you have all the writing clients you can handle?

Successful writers with great websites turn clients away; they cherry-pick with whom they want to work.

Therefore, if you want to sell your writing, your website can be a literal goldmine for you: it's potential clients' introduction to your and your services.

Unfortunately, few writers know how to create a site which works.

I wrote the article: Freelance Writing: 3 Reasons Your Site’s Not Getting Clients for You | Writing Hacker by Angela Booth to help:

"Look at the home page of your website. Do you focus on yourself and on what you do?

This is a mistake. Your prospects are concerned about their own problems and challenges. Harsh as it may sound, they have zero interest in you."

If you want to get clients, and make the income you deserve, it all starts and ends with your website.

Read the article, and revise your website, so that it works for you; the article's tips will help.

Today's writing tip: your (writer's) website: WHO are you?

Start by adding content to your site which tells your visitors what you do, and for whom you do it. Describe your products and services, and the benefits they provide. Tell site visitors how long you’ve been in business, and who past customers are.

via angelabooth.com

Your About page is the most important page on your website. You've got mere seconds to establish yourself in your visitor's mind. Think about how you want potential clients and others to see you.

Vital: be honest, be genuine, and above all, be enthusiastic.

Today's writing tip: your writer's website

Start by adding content to your site which tells your visitors what you do, and for whom you do it. Describe your products and services, and the benefits they provide. Tell site visitors how long you’ve been in business, and who past customers are.

via angelabooth.com

Who are you?

That's the first question your website visitors ask themselves, and you need to provide the answer asap. Your "About" page should provide the answer, since that's the first place people will look.

Important: please don't waffle. Be straightforward. If you're a writer, say so, and tell your site visitors a little about your writing journey.

In the above article, I explain that while you may know what you do and how you do it, your site's visitors only know what you tell them.

So tell them. :-)

Read my article "Beyond Your Writer’s Website: Achieve Your Writing Goals" for more info on your writer's website.

Your writer's Web site: should you add AdSense advertising?

Here's a writing question which comes up regularly.

You have a primary Web site, on which you sell your writing services. The site is for your clients, current, prospective, and past. It's your "sales" site.

Should you run AdSense advertising on this site?

(AdSense is Google's Web site advertising... If you're not sure what AdSense is or does, just Google it.)

My gut response is a big fat NO. As you can see if you check out my Hot Web Copy site above, which is for my Web copywriting services, I don't use AdSense, or any other kind of "foreign" advertising on the site.

Here's why my answer is NO:

* You're advertising your competition. If you have keywords like "freelance writer," "Web content", "writing services" on a page, the page will display advertising from your competitors. Is this a good thing? :-)

* It's confusing. Since AdSense is so ubiquitous, most people won't even notice the ads. But many will... it makes you look a little as if you're not sure what you're doing on the site. Are you selling YOUR services, or not? Site visitors will wonder why you're promoting your competition.

* You look inexperienced. You look as if you don't know what you're doing. This is a bad thing. Your prospective clients want a confident, knowledgeable writer.

Does this mean you should never, ever run AdSense advertising on a self-promotional site you own?

No. On some sites it doesn't matter. For example, my Creativity Factory blog is part of my angelabooth.com site and I happily run AdSense on it. This is because this is a blog I created to enhance my Web presence. Yes, I promote my copywriting services on the blog, but only in a branding sense, not specifically.

In brief, think about the site's reason for existence before you slap AdSense advertising on it.

Please share your thoughts in the Comments. Are you running AdSense on your primary promotional site? If so, why?

Make money writing Web sites

If you can use a word processor, you can write Web sites.

Many writers shy away from creating Web sites... they imagine it's too techy, too complex. It's not. A small simple site can begin earning money for you very quickly.

As a rule of thumb, if you've created a site in an area in which there are advertisers you can start earning five to ten dollars a day per site. Now $10 a day isn't much. But what if you had ten sites all earning $10 day? That's $100 a day, which is $36,500 a year, just from ten simple sites. What if you had 20 such sites, all earning you $10 a day - or even more - in fact, some sites will earn you $100 a day? "Super-Fast Money-Making Web Sites For Writers: Join The Web-Publishing Bonanza" shows you how.

Your writer's Web site: getting traffic

You've set up your own Web site, congratulations! Now you want people to VISIT your site, and of course you want them to give you writing jobs.:-)

Getting traffic to a new site is always a challenge. This is one of the reasons I recommend in my Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) training and elsewhere, that you consider setting up Squidoo lenses and Blogger blogs for your initial foray onto the Web.

Squidoo utilizes RSS, as do all blogs. Any site with an RSS feed gets found very quickly by the search engines, whereas static sites take (much) longer. This means you'll get traffic much sooner.

Here are some simple ways to prime the pump, and get traffic to any site, whether it's blessed with an RSS feed or not.

* Comment on blogs. Whenever you read a blog, leave a comment. You'll be given an opportunity to leave your Web site's address, and this forms a back link, which leads to traffic;

* Interact on forums. In forums, you can add your Web address to a signature file;

* Use Craigslist to promote your site. Over the past few months, Craigslist has taken a blow torch to people abusing the site, but if you post relevant, unique ads, you'll get found in the search engines fast;

* Use article marketing: post promotional articles to articles directories. I enjoy writing, and article marketing has always been my promotional tool of choice;

* Advertise, either using Pay Per Click, ezine advertising, or some other form of advertising. I rarely advertise, simply because once you stop paying the traffic stops. I prefer article marketing as a form of advertising because the traffic doesn't stop. :-)

So there you have excellent ways to start the traffic flowing to your writer's Web site.

Your Squidoo lenses - send me the links

I've been urging Sell Your Writing Online NOW (SYWON) subscribers to create Squidoo lenses, in lieu of "real" Web sites, so you can get at least some presence on the Web.

If you're not au fait with Squidoo, I've created a couple of Squidoo tutorials to get you started.

So get your writer-related Squidoo lens online, and then leave a link to the lens in the Comments to this post. Every little link helps to get you traffic. :-)

Your writer's Web site: stop writing for "exposure"

I've had a couple of questions this week about writers' Web sites. Actually the questions weren't about writers' Web sites per se, they were whines about the tiny pay at "article" sites online.

I asked the writers why they didn't have a Web site, because that would eliminate the "for exposure/ credit" reasons they had for writing for these sites.

You can make money from your words

You can get your own exposure by developing your own site - you don't need to write for others who will make money from your words, you can make money from your words yourself (see my PLR ebook) when you know how to create Web sites.

Over at my Web writing blog I've got some posts about writers' Web sites, but let's look at a couple of EASY ways you can create a small site:

* Google Page Creator - free, and easy

* Blogger  - free, yes it's a blogging app, but blogs are EASY Web sites for beginners.

If you want to push the boat out, you can read my ebook "Super-Fast Money-Making Web Sites For Writers: Join The Web-Publishing Bonanza", it shows you how to create sites with free applications and make money from them too. There's a great bonus. If you're a visual person, as I am, you can watch my NVU videos.

So please, if you're writing for "exposure", stop it right now. You can expose yourself on your own Web sites. :-)

Your writer's Web site

Over on Fab Freelance Writing Blog, I've been explaining why you need a writer's Web site if you're considering writing for publication. (BTW, if you're considering a blog, a blog IS a Web site, so you're good to go with that.)

Time Bete on Where I Live has a great post "Creating an author's Web site" which has all the info you need on how to create your own Web site. Do it. In the months and years to come, you'll be happy that you did, I promise you.

Technorati Tags: Web publishing, Web site versus blog, YOUR writer's Web site

Creating a Writer’s Web site 3: Your site’s pages

In this series, we’ve covered deciding on the aims of your site, and you’ve got a domain name.

Now it’s time to choose the number of pages you want to create as your basic site. You’ll add to these pages as you go. The first pages are just the starting lineup, so to speak.

Review your goals and think about other writers’ sites you’ve looked at.

You could choose to begin with these pages:

* Your home page, with some information about yourself, and your aims for your site;

* Your portfolio: links to published work, or just a list with some graphics;

* A contact page, with ways to get in touch with you;

* A directory page, or a page for other writers, if you want to provide useful information for others.

How many pages you begin with is completely up to you. You can start with just one page.

Technorati Tags: YOUR writer's Web site

Creating a Writer’s Web site 2: Domain names-- get YOURS!

The next step in creating your writer’s Web site is important. Your domain name. Your domain name is your Internet address, it’s part of your URL. It identifies your IP (Internet Protocol) address online, and it must be unique.

IMPORTANT: Buy your own name as a domain name. With a little luck, your name will still be available. My domain name is angelabooth.com. The “dot com” part of the domain name is the domain level, read more at Wikipedia about domain names.

How do you find out whether the domain name you want is available? Just enter “buy domain names” into any search engine to find a site which registers domain names. There are many.

Register.com is one place to check out.

Of course, if for some reason you don’t want to use your own name (buy it anyway), you can use any name you like or make up as a domain, if it’s still available. There’s a thriving trade in domain names, so if you like a particular name, BUY it. Chances are that if you don’t and try to buy it a week or a month from now, it will be gone.

Technorati Tags: Writer's Web site, YOUR writer's Web site

(New series) Creating a Writer’s Web site 1: Your site’s aims

Want to create a Web site for your writing? From the questions I get, I know that although many writers want a site, when it comes to planning and creating the site, they’re STUCK.

Here’s a new series on creating a writer’s Web site from go to whoa.

The first step is planning your site. When you plan, you must decide WHY -- what do you want your site to achieve? What are the site’s aims? I’ve often omitted this vital step, deciding that “oh, let’s have a blog” or “let’s have a new site” and ended up with a mess. Deciding on your site’s aims first prevents messes.

You might want your site to:

* Display your skills as a freelance writer (an online portfolio);

* Act as a shop front for your works-in-progress, where you post chapters and synopses from novels or non-fiction books you’re trying to get an agent and publisher for;

* Help other writers;

* Build your platform (agent-speak for “oh, I can’t sell your books, no one knows you -- get a platform”);

* Build your confidence in writing for an audience.

Whatever your aims are in developing the site, write them down. When you have goals that you want to achieve, they act as a guiding star as you work on all the minutiae of developing a site.

Check out other writers’ sites, and try to work out what their aims were in creating their site. Count how many pages in their sites, so you can work out how many pages you need.

That should keep you busy today. More tomorrow. :-)

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Technorati Tags: YOUR writer's Web site, Web writing

Writing articles to promote your Web site

Writing articles for other people to post on their Web sites (with your resource box) is a great way to promote your site online.

Beware duplicate content
You've got to be aware however, that it's not just a matter of adding dozens of articles, all with exactly the same content, to article directories as well as to your site. The search engines are becoming much smarter, and the pitfall is "duplicate content", which is penalized by the search engines in various ways.

Here's a great post on when and how to publish articles online.

Over the past three years, my own article-writing habits have changed. I reserve exclusive writing-related content for Pro Write, and am wary of posting articles hither and yon, because of the duplicate content issue.

When I start publishing promotional articles again, to promote new projects I'm working on, I'll be SELECTIVE about where and when I publish the articles. From around 2000 to 2005 "gotta get links" was an effective search engine ranking mantra. For my own content I'll be emphasizing content for my own sites and blogs, and only occasionally offering articles elsewhere.

Technorati Tags: Writer's Web site