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.

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.

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 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 »

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 »

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 »

What makes an expert an expert?

Last week Kevin Ott posted an article about some backlash against the practices of some SEO experts. It got me thinking about the multitude of people that call themselves experts. They dub themselves with that moniker, but they don’t appear to know any more about their chosen subject than any one else. The web seems to be clogged with “experts” that know less than you or I.

So, what makes an expert an expert? Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes life seems to get in the way. Most bloggers aren’t fortunate enough to be able to do this for a living. For most of us, it is something we do after spending a full day making a living. The difficulty is, sometimes there aren’t enough hours in the day to fit it all in.

A lot of jobs have seasons that are more busy than others. For instance, anyone working in the accounting industry is rapidly charging full speed ahead into tax preparation season. Read the rest of this entry »

The other day I wrote about the importance of writing often in order to develop your voice, and to be able to write more naturally. However, there’s more to writing well that just writing a lot. There’s a saying that practice makes perfect, but practicing the wrong thing can make you perfectly wrong. Part of developing your writing skills is studying writing.

I’m always amazed when I read the job boards, how poorly some people to claim to be freelance writers actually write. Read the rest of this entry »

One thing that I really struggled with when I became a writer was finding my voice. I had a tendency to be very stiff in my writing. My internal editor was being so strict that I wasn’t able to allow any of my personality to show through. How did I get over that? I wrote, and I wrote, and I wrote some more. The more I wrote, the more my own voice was able to reach the page.

I’ll be honest, when you spend so much time writing to get paid, it’s hard find the time to write for yourself. Read the rest of this entry »

When I first got started as a freelance writer I read a lot of advice that said that to be successful you had to be a specialist. There’s a lot of merit to that strategy. By being a specialist you can market yourself to a niche with the expectation that you will be able to deliver a higher quality of writing because it is your area of expertise. Because you know more, you can deliver more. Because you are an expert on that topic you can demand a higher rate.

On the other hand… Read the rest of this entry »

Slowly but surely the blog is starting to take shape. I have a pretty good list of categories to get me started, so I have a lot of areas to write in. The trick for me is to make sure that I reason of time every day to read my daily posts.

My other task is to come up with a new design. I’m not happy with one I have. It was an AdSense optimized template, but it has so many ads that there isn’t enough room for the other things I wanted my sidebars. Read the rest of this entry »

So here’s the plan.

Last year I got pulled off track by too many low-paying/low potential jobs. In a way they were necessary evils, but now they’re merely distractions. This year I am going to refocus my efforts on areas that have greater potential to get me where I want to be. Because this blog is focusing on my journey as a professional writer I’m not going to spend a great deal of time on my other goals.

My main goals for the coming year are:

1.) Build my current and future blogging projects so that they become a significant part of my writing income. I haven’t determined what “significant” is yet, but when I figure it out, I’ll let you know.

Tapping into the experience and learning from the mistakes of other bloggers like David at PureBlogging, Darren at ProBlogger, Ben at the Blogging Experiment, and Chris at ChrisBlogging (to name just a few), as well as some experimenting on my own, I hope to be able to build several streams of income in the near future.

2.) Begin to market my services to business that could use a good writer for their professional literature.

3.) Increase my earnings as a producer of quality web content. This can be quite difficult considering the rates that some writers are willing to work for, but I believe quality sells, and as I continue to build quality clips, the higher paying jobs will come.

That, in a nutshell, is the goal for the coming year. Over the next several days I will be working on setting the plan to help me achieve that goal. I’m looking forward to the challenge, and I hope you come along for the ride. I could sure use the company.

I must be insane!

What am I doing starting a new blog? I barley have the time to keep up with the writing assignments I already have, but as this year draws to a close it’s time for refocusing of my energies.. With that in mind, I am indeed starting at least two new blogs.

The first blog will be this one. It will focus on my journey as a freelance writer. I will be discussing not only blogging, but writing in general, too. Look for ideas, tips, and techniques to keep your writing fresh and focused.

I will also be keeping you updated on my attempts to earn enough money with my writing and other ventures so that I can leave the drudgery of my current job.

My second blog will be a personal development blog that will focus on improving areas of my life such as memory improvement, time management, staying focused, avoiding procrastination, well, you get the picture. Read the rest of this entry »