Singer/Songwriter Tom Waits was once asked why he used different instruments when he composed music.  Early in his career his music was mainly written with piano and guitar, but as his music progressed it became an eclectic blend of may different, and sometimes obscure, instruments (singing into a bullhorn, playing a saw).  He said that he stopped using the guitar and piano as much as he had in the past because he felt his hands were like old dogs - they wanted to keep hunting at the same old places.

It can be the same as a writer.

This violates one of the rules of being a writer - find a location that is your “writing spot.”   While that is great advice for building consistency in your writing, sometimes you need to find a new hunting ground.  The problem with too much consistency is that we are in a business that asks for creativity.  Even as an SEO writer there is a certain amount of creativity needed to craft an article.  I find that when I go to the same spot every time, and I look at the same surroundings every time, it tends to trigger the same thoughts and ideas.

Occasionally it is helpful to find a new spot to write from.  Pack up your laptop or your notebooks and head for the local coffee shop.  Go to the public library.  Find a nice picnic table in the park.  You’re not looking for a new home here; you will still return to your writing spot, but sometimes it’s good to chnge your surroundings even for a little while.  It’s amazing how a little change in locations can bring a big change to your creativity.

I have a few problems as a blogger.  First, I’m not necessarily patient.  I look at the work I put into a blog, and I want to see better results as far as ranking, traffic, and most importantly, income.  When results aren’t happening quickly enough I get frustrated.  That frustration can get in the way of writing.  It can become a chore to get past the “Why bother” stages, and force myself to crank out more posts.  Then something will happen to show that I’ve been on the right track, and everything gets back on track.

An example of that is my working to improve my blogs Page Rank.  I’ve written about building links as a way to improve your blogs position in the search engines, but I wasn’t seeing any results for my own link building efforts.  Over the past several days Google has been doing updates of Page Rankings, and this blog went from PR-0 to PR-3.

Another of my problems is that I am not a marathon runner, I’m more of a sprinter.  I tend to write in batches.  There is a lot of activity, then I slow way down while I try to catch my breath and get ready for the next sprint.  It makes it much harder to post with any kind of consistency when my writing habits are so inconsistent.  So my blogs tend to show a lot of posts in a relatively short period of time, then long stretches with very few posts.

I’ve written about setting up a writing schedule, but I’ve not made it an important enough priority to actually stay with it.  Well, I’m trying a gain.  You’ll be able to see the results for yourself.

I’d love to hear what it is you do to stay on track.

I decided today to include links to the sites I use to find freelance writing work.  These are in no particular order, but they are the sites I check on a regular basis.

• ProBlogger Jobs Board
• Freelance Writing Jobs
• The Core Creative Group
• Accentuate Writers Forum
• Local Craigs List

I also check on sites like Guru and GetAFreelancer, but these sites tend to attract a lot of the $3.00 articles that I try to avoid.

So, what about you?  Where do you find your freelance writing jobs?

For those of you who don’t use FireFox, you should check it out.  It is a great alternative to Internet Explorer, and it works great for the majority of sites on the internet.  One thing I love about it is the ability to download and use Add-ons.   You can get everything from Flickr and YouTube add-ons, to Google notebook add-ons, to blog posting add-ons.  They’re simple to install, and very easy to use.

One add-on I’ve been using that has really helped with the SEO work on my websites and blogs is called SeoQuake.  While everyone will not be able to appreciate all that it offers, if you are doing SEO work to promote your site, you should give it a try.

Once SeoQuake is activated (it is easy to turn on and off)it does a couple of things.  It will place a small bar under each search result, and it will place a small bar at the top of each page you visit.  It give a lot of information about Googles Page Rank, Alexis rank, internal and exernal links, and keyword density of the site you are visting.

Another tool it offers is the ability to see whether comment links are set to nofollow.  I wrote yesterday about this, and SeoQuake gives you a quick visual look at whether the blog you are commenting to has nofollow tags turned on.

Check out the information page, then decide for yourself if this is something useful for you.

There is a bit of a disconnect between what SEO gurus say, and the reality of blogs.  I don’t think it’s intentional, but it does exist.

SEO 101 says that a great way to build back links is to comment on other blogs that are relevant to your blog.  You get to have a backlink included with your name, Google picks that up, and over time, your Page Rank improves.  Here’s the disconnect: WordPress defaults to setting a “NoFollow” on Comment links.  Most blog owners either don’t know about it, or they never got around to removing the no follow.   That means that although other readers can click through to you blog, the search engine spiders will not follow that link back to you.  Even the big boys like ProBlogger use the nofollow block.

The reason WordPress sets comments to nofollow is simple; comment spam.  Some sites, especially porn sites will run programs that look for blogs that they can post comments that will allow the link back to their site.  So the simple solution is to stop all comment links.  Unfortunately, that punishes your readers who you are encouraging to participate on your blog.

I’m experimenting with removing the nofollow on my comments.  Links within the comment will still have a nofollow block on them, but not the signature.  That means you will be able to take advantage of the backlink potential of posting comments, just like the gurus promised.  If the spam becomes overwhelming, I may have to revert back, but for now, we’ll see how it goes.

The plugin I am using to make this happen is: remove-nofollow.zip. Just load it up, activate it in your Plugins menu, and the nofollows will be removed from your comment headers, while leaving the block on links within the comments.

I’ll keep you updated on how it works out.

Too often it seems we tend to forget the past when we move on to something new.  Big mistake.

Yesterday I wrote a post at PureBlogging titled “Throwing the Baby Out with the Bath Water.”  The main gist was that we tend to abandon things that have worked in the past because something new comes along Read the rest of this entry »

I mentioned in my last post that I was going to start righting about how to improve your search engine results, and attract more readers to your blog. So this is the first step in that process.

One of the things I love about the blogging community is the spirit of cooperation that exists. There is a sort of camaraderie among fellow bloggers that you don’t always find in other areas of life. That doesn’t change the fact that other blogs are your competition, especially blogs that are in your niche. Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote before about joining in the Thirty Day Challenge. While I was a little moire than 30 days in reaching my goal ( it was 40 days, and I made a little over $50), it was an eye opening experience in how to drive traffic to a web site. The biggest benefit for me was that it started me on a journey of learning how to compete with other web sites that are in a similar niche.

Let’s be honest, we’re in this because we want readers to our blogs, otherwise we would just be writing in diaries. Read the rest of this entry »

I got another one of those emails the other day. You know the ones. The emails that start with “You won’t believe what is happening!” or “You have got to check this out!” Well, I do check them out, and the vast majority of the time they turn out to be false, or at the least, very inaccurate. I can usually learn the truth behind these “important” messages in only a few minutes. Read the rest of this entry »

A short while back I wrote an article about using Squidoo, and I thought I would take a little time to revisit the subject. For those that don’t know, Squidoo is a free service that allows you to set up a one-page site on almost any subject you want (certain restrictions apply). They call this site a “lens,” because it focuses on a particular subject. Rather than having your site be all over the place with the subject, you narrow your focus down to one particular aspect of the subject.

As an example, I was recently playing around at Squidoo, and I set up a lens that focuses on how to set up a lens for earning money. Read the rest of this entry »

A classic scene in the movie “A Few Good Men” involves a scene with Tom Cruise’s character interrogating Jack Nicholson’s character in the court room. Cruise yells “I want the truth!” Nicholson’s memorable response is, “You can’t handle the truth!”

It still amazes me the number of people that look for the road to easy riches on the internet. They buy up books like “Six-Figure Blogging” or “Six-Figure Freelancing” thinking that the secret is hidden in there. What they choose to ignore is all of the statements these authors make letting their readers know that it takes time to build a profitable business, and it is a lot of hard work. Read the rest of this entry »

Wow, this past month has really been intense. I have been taking part in Ed Dale’s Thirty Day Challenge, and it has eaten up all of my free time. No freelance work, but I have been writing my butt off. I have started three new blogs that I have been using for the 30DC, plus I have really increased the amount that I have been writing on my restaurant blog. I haven’t made any money yet, so I haven’t won the challenge, but I have learned some very important lessons about what it takes to get your site ranked. I’ll be writing more about that in some upcoming posts. Read the rest of this entry »

PureBlogging has two seperate cash giveaway contests going on right now. The site is rapidly closing in on 3,500 comments, and David wants to reward his readers for their participation in the site.

The first contest is for the person who posts comment #3,500. The winner will receive $100 and 500 Entrecard credits. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve written in the past that traditional outlines don’t really work all that well for me. Even back when I was forced to use them in school, I found myself writing the paper, then going back and recreating the outline. So I don’t typically use outlines for the majority of my blog posts. I do, however, find that I need to at least get some thoughts down on paper before I begin writing. I’ve also found that I need to capture those thoughts when they first hit me, or chances are they will be gone forever. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the topics that consistently come up in blogging is how to come up with topics to write about. I’m not going to bore you with the same old list of places to go for inspiration, because you probably already have your favorite places. One problem with that is, many times you find an idea, but when you start to write, it feels like you’re just rehashing what someone else has written. Your inspiration ends up not being very inspiring. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll admit it. I tend to let deadlines dictate my schedule. Even though I know better, I still allow circumstances to determine what I work on, and when I work on it. While some of this is natural, most of the things that affect my schedule are well within my control. I try to be better at it, but my efforts seem to come in fits and spurts. Something comes up and I put off what I had scheduled, always planning on getting to it sooner rather than later, but ending up putting off until the deadline is looming.

It shouldn’t be that way! Read the rest of this entry »

Do you remember the old Klondike Bar commercial. It involved asking someone to do something they wouldn’t normally do, in order to get their hands on this frozen treat. As freelancers, you may find yourself in a position where you are asked to compromise in order to earn a paycheck. You may have to ask yourself, “how far am I willing to go?”

Last week I wrote about getting awarded a job that was going to bring in a tidy sum this month. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the things we need to do to be successful at freelancing is to constantly market our services. We work at getting our name out there, bidding on jobs, and building our network. With all of that forward-looking activity, it is important that you don’t forget your past.

It can be a great thing to be forward-looking. In fact, without those activities your business will shrivel and die. Read the rest of this entry »