Is Freelance The Way Forward For You? Part 1

It is very important to consider all of the benefits and pitfalls of being a freelancer, so you can decide if it is really for you or not. Many people do wonder what the benefits are for pursuing such a dream, but if you investigate carefully, you will find that there are many. Ultimately that depends on the amount of knowledge you have before you get involved, so do you research first.

There are definitely more risks and responsibilities involved in this type of day to day work. If you decide to work for someone for a fixed project or period of time to help them achieve their goal then that makes you a freelancer. What you are actually doing is selling your skills and time to that particular company.

Freelancers are normally paid by the hour, but you can also negotiate projects rates if it is easier for you. It really depends on your level of experience, expertise and ultimately your confidence. Remember, the rate you charge is entirely up to you, so get sound advice from others before deciding what to charge.

You might be wondering what the client gets out of hiring a freelancer, right?. Well, they are a number of benefits, firstly, freelancers are far more flexible than regular employees. Passionate freelancers will be prepared to work all hours in the comfort of their own home or office ,unlike the employee who will go home at a set time each day.

It helps to keep a solid relationship with your client by hitting your deadlines and pushing quality work. Companies who hire like the fact that there is little commitment involved, because they are only hiring you for one off jobs. Employees sign contracts which means that they will get paid regardless.

Freelancers usually specialise in a particular area that the in house design team are not familiar with. If you are thinking of becoming going into this area, it helps to find a particular niche or style that is not easily available. This will make you a great asset to many companies who are looking for something a little different.

You will actually save the client money because of the non commitment involved. They do not have to consider paying you when you not well or on holiday. There is no redundancy money to pay out or tax, so it means less administration work for them.

Article Marketing Creates Tremendous Traffic to Your Website

Writing and submitting articles to article banks has been proven to be one of the most effective of all traffic generating techniques. You may not actually generate any real traffic for your website in the next few days by learning to write and submit articles but this technique will serve you very well and it is worth the effort to learn how to do it and use it to your fullest advantage. You may think that you have no writing ability at all but you are probably wrong. You might not be ready to write the Great American Novel but you can write articles about the topic of your website and about the products that you are selling. You just need to know the rules for making them effective. The first and most important few words of your article are in the title or the headline. The title MUST contain the key words that relate to the topic of your website and to the products that you sell. This is the first thing that other website owners or E-zine publishers will look at when they are deciding whether to reproduce your article on their websites or in the publications because they know that the key words are what search engines use to determine the results of searches.

* Note: The search engines are the method by which people find products or information that they are looking for on the Internet. To find those products or that information, they type key words into the search boxes of the search engines. For example; they might type in fish bait or fishing lures. The results that the search engines provide are based on the key words that the searcher uses.

Your article title or headline MUST grab the reader’s attention. Simply using a title of “Making Money” probably won’t do. The title must grab the reader by the throat and not let him go. It must make the reader want to keep reading. “Making Money Online”… well, not very good either. How about “Making Money Online in Your Houseshoes” or “Making a Bundle Online Before Breakfast”. Something to capture the reader’s attention if they are interested in making money on the internet.

After the title, the next most important words in your article are in the first line. Experienced internet surfers are well known for having a short attention span and rarely read anything word for word unless it is information that they think will meet their needs, solve a problem they have or make life better for them. So…the title…and the first line become the bait and the hook that is used to lure the reader to truly read the complete article. If the first line contains the key words it must also be be attention getting. “The customers were begging for more tips after the first line!” If you were an internet marketer, wouldn’t you keep reading?

One more thing about your articles is that they need to be short if you intend to submit them to article banks. Very short! No more than 400 words but closer to 300 words would be more appropriate. Sometimes we can get carried away and all of a sudden have an article that is 1000 words or more. This can happen if you are writing about a subject in which you are interested and knowledgeable about. When this happens just break a long article down into a couple of shorter articles.

Keep in mind that short attention span we discussed earlier and use short sentences and paragraphs. And don’t use big words or run-on sentences. Make your article pleasing to the eye and it will be read.

Excess punctuation shows a lack of respect for the reader. Especially exclamation points - one can be used to show excitement or importance but any more are just plain rude.

Your resource box at the end of the article is the part that is most important to you. Other website owners or E-zine publishers who download and reproduce your article are required to include your resource box. This box needs to contain your full name, your contact information and, most importantly, a link to your website. That link is the little thing that is going to help increase traffic for you.

Warning! Do NOT word-wrap this link! Type it out in full, www.whatever.com. All email programs that E-zine editors use to send out their newsletters and E-zines do not support word-wrapped links so you can defeat your own purpose by word-wrapping the link to your website.

Submitting Articles: Once you have found article banks and article repositories on the Internet by simple doing a search using your favorite search engine it is time to submit your articles. Every site has their own guidelines for accepting articles which you must follow or risk rejection.

Software is available for use in automatically submitting articles to the article repositories and banks. The problem here is that most of the larger, more effective repositories and banks will not publish automated submissions. So even though this software can save time when submitting to smaller sites, this doesn’t help much with the bigger more well known sites.

Submitting articles can be time consuming and boring, but it is work that will provide a lot of targeted traffic to your site. Every person who reads an article you’ve written is also exposed to your URL. If they like the article because it provides good information for them, they will visit your site. Once there, they may buy something you are selling or maybe opt-in for your mailing list… or possibly even do both. There are services available to submit your articles for you. You do have to pay for this service.

Another solution which I use is Unique Article Wizard. UAW submits unique articles to hundreds of article publishers at the click of a mouse. Spend a couple hours writing your article, click Publish and watch the traffic grow to your site.

Author Porfirio G Krasternak uses theUnique Article Wizard to make sure each article submitted is distinctly different. For exciting information on how you can submit unique articles to all the eZines, check outUnique Article Wizard.

Ways To Get More Traffic To Your Website

Now that you have your website set up and looking good, it is time to work on getting people to visit your site. After all, your site won’t perform well if no one comes to see it. Even the best site won’t help you make money if you are not able to bring in traffic. The good news is that there are many ways that you can bring in traffic to your site. Here are some of the top ways that you can work on getting more traffic to your website.

Pay Per Click Marketing

Pay per click marketing is also one good way to boost traffic in your site. This tool allows you to bring interested online users to your website by the use of ads and text links. Pay per click marketing is a form of Internet advertising where the advertiser (company) bids on keywords and pays for clicks on their online ads. For the most part, PPC advertisements display on search engine results pages (SERPs) and run at the top of the SERPs and also show on the right hand column. Pay per click marketing on the other hand is like leasing traffic.

Article Marketing

Article marketing is another way that you can generate more website traffic. What you do is simply write articles that are related to your website and then publish them on article directories where people can find them. At the end of your article you are able to add in a resource box that can include the link to your site. It is fairly easy to write these articles yourself or you can hire them out for reasonable rates as well. It is easy to get hundreds of articles out there, and all of them will be linked up to your website, driving in more traffic.

Viral Marketing

Viral Marketing is an increasingly popular marketing trend that is becoming a common place expression among online marketers. This simple but effective strategy has turned many average people into multimillionaires literally overnight. Viral marketing can increase your business on a shoestring budget! Viral marketing is all about giving your customers what they really want — and really want to share.

Running a Contest

With a contest in your site, you can have more traffic as well as good list of possible customers.Set up a contest that requires people to fill out a form to register to win the prize that you are offering. Get their email and ask for permission to email them while you are doing this. This way you build up a good list of leads and you also draw traffic with the promise of a good prize at the end of your contest. Just make sure you actually deliver on that prize or you will ruin your credibility.

Writing High Quality Business Articles

Writing and reading business articles can be very beneficial to an individual. People are constantly looking for articles about business tips, procedures, and business experiences that can help them better run a business. Article writers can leverage this medium to build their brand and authority in any given industry.

To begin writing a high quality business article, you should begin with the discovery phase. This is the time where you take a good look at your industry and start to really examine any problems that you see. Is there a major issue that might be greatly impacting your industry or marketplace? Is the topic that you are going to write about really going to interest people? If not, you have more than likely wasted a lot of time researching and writing an article that might just get pushed aside and never read.

The next phase is the research phase. This is one of the most important phase of them all. This needs to be taken very seriously if you are wanting to establish any credibility with your readers. If you are developing a trustworthy source of information, you better have all of your facts straight. Make sure that you have all of your resources you need before you start writing.

The actual writing process is probably the easiest of the processes, however, most writers tend to get it wrong. Think back to your days in school. It is vital to follow the same structure that you were taught when you were young.

Grammar is another downfall when it comes to writing business articles. However, it is very important that you get it right to show that you are a professional in all that you do. You need to make sure that your document is as clean as possible.

The next step is usually pretty tough for most people, however, if you follow it, it will make a huge difference in your writing. You need to put away your work for a period of time and then revisit it when you are fresh and have new ideas. Doing so will help you make high quality revisions.

No one likes to rewrite their business articles, but this step is absolutely crucial. This is where you fix all the grammar and spelling errors and make sure it reads properly. You should also try to eliminate any unnecessary words and tighten up the prose as much as possible.

Finally, you can move on to the publishing phase. This is where you can start to reap the benefits of all the work you put into your business articles. If you’ve done it right, your readers will benefit from your experience and knowledge, and you will begin building a strong reputation within your community of peers.

Automated Marketing Strategies

Marketing on the Internet can be a brutal and vicious experience as you may well know. Making the right decision on how to go about doing your task can sometimes mentally exhaust ones mind. The first thing you need to do is figure out what type of marketing you want to do, then find the right tool to accomplish this task and just stick with it. Don’t let your mind play tricks on you from staying focused.

I know that seems like a tough task, but its really very simple once you clear your mind and just focus on one thing at a time. I have found myself thinking I have to do it all at one time and what happens I end up spending all my time researching everything out there and not getting nothing done, when I could have been spending all those countless hours actually doing something productive. Let me explain what I am talking about here.

Here are the major 4 basic steps to marketing any website or blog. Using RSS feeds, submitting articles to directories, submitting to web 2.0 authority sites such as Wordpress, Hubpages, Squidoo etc. and bookmarking your site on social booking sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and so on and so forth. You can create 1000’s of back links from doing any of these examples, I personally do them all. Your should to.

This may seem like a lot of and trouble, but if you just take one step at a time it will be well worth your time and effort. It doesn’t really matter what order you do them in, but I tend to do the RSS feeds and social booking sites first because they don’t take as much thought and they take considerably less time then the other two procedures, and I like to get something out there as quickly as possible to start building those backlinks.

Now even though these are all FREE ways of marketing, you will want to invest a little money on the tools to automate all these processes. The key to today’s marketing is automation. Having the right tools will expedite each process so you can move on to the next project. Without automated tools doing these steps can literally take days and weeks to accomplish. If you are working on a low budget, then once again pick one tool at a time until you can afford to purchase another one.

I personally have 4 tools I use on a consistent basis. Even though there are literally thousand’s out there, I feel I have done enough research to know I am using the best and most powerful ones to get the most bang for my buck at a price I could afford at this time. To be honest, even if I had a million bucks there is only one more tool I would like to have, but for now the ones I use now are sufficient and does everything I need to do. AND THEY WORK!

You don’t have to spend a fortune on tools to get the results you need. I’ve got a under $200 invested in two of them while one is a $67 dollar a month subscription and the other one is absolutely free. Even though I didn’t get them all at once I feel that is pretty reasonable for all the backlinks they have created and the recent success I have been having. The best part of it is they can be used time and time again for any other projects that I may come up with.

So in closing the best advise I can give you is to be patient and stay focused on the task at hand. Take the time to go through any learning curves you run across and move on. Don’t let your time and energy be wasted on endless searches for something new that keeps leading you around in circles. Pick a product that works for you and your budget and stick with it. You will have a lot of success if you follow these simple rules.

This just goes to show you that the tools I use must be doing something right if you are reading this article. Take the time to take a look at them at www.bestarticlesubmitters.com

Stealth Internet Marketing Strategies For Massively Propagating Your Links

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