by Amanda on April 28, 2009
This week my series of articles focus on Elance. Elance is a website where you can bid on freelance writing jobs. It is a paid membership website and this week I want to give you the ins and outs of using Elance, why it’s a good idea to have an Elance account, and how to place bids on Elance. There is a lot of information to cover so be sure to check in daily to read more.
First off let me say I joined Elance back in 2004 and have been a member ever since. Is it something I regret, definitely not. Elance was my starting point as a freelancer and I have gained a lot of knowledge and great clients through Elance.
Do I recommend people join Elance?
Yes.
If you don’t have an Elance account then maybe you should get one. If you are just starting out you might think that you can’t afford to pay a monthly membership but I do believe that $9.95 per month is justifiable.
Like most people you have probably heard that bidding websites should be avoided because they pay peanuts and some of this is correct. Elance however have been around long before these peanut paying jobs started infiltrating the markets and my guess is that they will be around for a lot longer too. With Elance the minimum bid you can place on any job is $50 and the majority of people who place jobs on Elance do so in the knowledge that they will have to pay for this work.
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by Amanda on March 3, 2009
Search engine optimization (SEO) is something that all webmasters want to incorporate into their websites and this includes their content. As a freelance writer is it vital that you understand the logistics of search engine optimization in order to fulfill the needs of your clients and appeal to new clients too.
If you want to be a successful SEO article writer there are four strategies that you need to incorporate. Each of these will be discussed in detail in the next couple of blog posts.
The four strategies are:
1. Keywords
2. Content
3. Formatting
4. Links
Before we move on to discuss the first of these strategies, Keywords, I want to take a moment to explain exactly what an SEO article is.
An SEO article (search engine optimized article) is something that you will be asked to write on a frequent basis. This is basically a piece of writing that will be developed specifically to include targeted keywords. The purpose of these articles is to allow the chosen keywords to rank highly in the search engines. When these articles are written in large batches they can in fact attract large amounts of traffic from the search engines and this is potentially what your cliens will be looking for.
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by Amanda on February 5, 2009
I hope the headline hasn’t shocked you too much and if it has then let me tell you my reason for it. After doing some careful marketing research over the past couple of days I decided to contact a number of Irish based web design companies to offer my content writing services. You may not be aware of this, but more and more web design companies are now including copywriting packages that their clients can choose from. One such web design company is Solas Web Design and their range of copywriting packages is extensive. They offer a Blog Journalling package which includes 4 blog articles per month at 500 words minimum per post for get this….$500. Yes $500 for 4 blog posts.
Now you can see why I thought offering my services to Irish web design companies was a good idea.
I logged onto Google and typed in Web Design Companies making sure that I had pages from Ireland clicked. The first company that I rang was Cobweb. Someone with a very foreign accent answered the phone. I told him that I had been looking at their website and was wondering if they offered copywriting services to their clients. He immediately responded by telling me that the manager was away and to ring back next week. That was the end of my conversation. The next company I tried had a fault with their landline so that was a waste of time also. The next company only listed an email contact address or a mobile number. I didn’t call.
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by Amanda on January 13, 2009
If you are one of the many people deciding to make the transitition into ghostwriting in 2009 then you are going to want to know where to start. Now I could plug my ghostwriting Uncovered manual here but I’m not going to. If you want to buy it you can 
Today I want to list all the websites I know where you can bid on ghostwriting jobs. I probably won’t be able to list them all so if I miss any that you recommend be sure to place them in the comments. I would like to be able to compile a very comprehensive listing here on The Hidden Writer so that anyone looking for ghostwriting jobs will know where to start. I would also like it if people would post their opinions and experiences with these websites in the comments section because that way we can help prevent time wasting.
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by Amanda on January 9, 2009
by Amanda on December 19, 2008
Article writing mistakes apply to all writers and non-writers out there. Now really is the time to start brushing up on your creative writing skills.
How Writing Articles Can Help Your Business
If you want to convert visitors into buyers or you want to promote your business, modern technology has provided one of the most effective means. This is, information based marketing. This is the most effective way there is to get people to your website and once there you can then promote your call to action.
If you’ve been watching the web, you will know that article writing, and article directories are an excellent means of getting traffic and converting them into sales. There are so many different tools available that you can use to make the process of distributing articles a lot easier. This software said to be invaluable and saves so much time when it comes to submitting your articles but before we discuss software options and submission tactics there is something else we need to look at.
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