Almost every listing on every Freelance Writing job board asks for the resumé and portfolio of all those inquiring about the position. In fact, almost to the tee, we are asked for as link to those items.

If you have your own web site that is dedicated to your freelancing business, then you are ahead of the game; if you don’t, shame on you. With all of the free blogging platforms (WordPress, Blogger, and Typepad to name a few) there is no reason you shouldn’t have a site with a resumé, your portfolio, and contact information.

WordPress.com offers over 1400 templates or themes to choose from, so building a professional looking freelance gun for hire site is fairly easy.

Don’t stop at building your home site. You want to create a network of pages that will help get you noticed by a wider group of  those looking for the hired guns. There are plenty of flexible free platforms that a freelancer can create a resumé and provide links to their portfolio.

One of the newest ones is Weedle, in fact, Weedle is set up to be a site that caters to resumés and portfolios. While the platform is truly a web 2.o publishing site, the pages are straightforward and specifically guide the user in posting work skills, work history, and recommendations. The also allow uploads for work samples.

Another great site to construct a resume at is Squidoo. Squidoo is maybe the most versatile publishing platform available on the Internet as everyone from large businesses to work at home mothers publish content in an effort to market something.

Squidoo offers many different templates to work with; possibly the easiest and cleanest template  to build a resumé with  is the SquidWho template.  The SquidWho theme is streamlined and highly configurable with many more widgets available than you could ever use. Personally, I recommend sticking with the text widgets and creating a simple, yet elegant resumé.

A number of simple, but effective resumés can be created and linked together in a short amount of time. The beauty of these pages is they all can be interlinked and linked back to your home site. Many of the available platforms are dofollow and have established page rank; SEO will be made a bit easier.

Don’t forget about LinkedIn; the social network for professionals. LinkedIn is becoming the standard for employment placement utility for thousands of  potential employers and clients. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is updated with links to all of your resumés and portfolios.

Oh yeah, your email signature is another great place to place links to your resumés as well as contact information. If you are using FireFox for a Internet bowser, I suggest the add-on called Wise Stamp. With Wise stamp, a handsome signature can be easily created that will automatically be placed on all of your outgoing email.

Wise Stamp is damn cool. You can include links to all of your social networking profiles, your latest Twitter updates, and the latest RSS feed from your blog.

By increasing your web footprint with many published resumés, a smart LinkedIn profile, and a dedicated site, you can have a better shot at landing some great freelance gigs you have missed out on in the past.

What are some of the publishing platforms you use to shill your skills?

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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As a freelance writer, are you  saving words on the back end of a job by spending a few on the front end, or do you not care that every re-write you do as a freelancer cuts your pay in half? That’s right, every extra word digs into your pocket by taking time away from potential projects, as well as diluting your charge per word by fifty percent.

The best way to avoid unnecessary reworking is to ask questions up front. When was the last time this happened between you and the plumber you trust:

“ABC Plumbing,”

“Hey Bill, it’s John Doe over in Anytown”

“Hey John! What can I do for you?”

“I have a water problem at the house, and I’m at work.”

“I’ll be right over to fix it.” Click.

I’m betting on never. Even the best plumbers know to ask the right questions before getting off the horn and heading over to the trouble site.

Being a freelance writer means that you should too.

Ask the obvious as well as any not so obvious questions:

• What is the target audience?
• What SEO are you expecting?
• Word count minimums and maximums?
• Do you have examples of what you want?

Of course, you should always wait until the first submission has been accepted and signed off before you submit the next piece (for those jobs on a run of submissions); this way you have a reference in case of a rewrite request later.

Another very important step to take is to keep communication between you and your client open, friendly, and clear. Sort of like that refrigerator magnet with the plumber’s name and number on it.

On long running jobs, it is natural to drift off course, even slightly, so it is a good idea to perform a reality check with your client from time to time to ensure that the course is kept true. Most clients will tell you when things are running out of whack, but by showing the initiative and asking  your client how your work is looking can help keep re-writes down to a minimum.

Beware though; too many inquiries and you are a spineless pest. At least that’s what your client will be saying about you around the water cooler.

Get the answers up front, monitor your work along the way, and you will be well down the road to earning exactly what you contracted for as a freelance writer.

Can you think of any questions or tips to be added here?

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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One sure way to get repeat work from a client is to him/her feel good.  With most clients who are hiring freelance writers to provide web content, making them feel good means making them some cash.

That IS the reason they hired us in the first place, is it not?

Let’s face it, whatever we write for the Internet is sales copy, because sales copy is not just about selling a product; no we are trying to motivate readers’ emotions towards a positive movement in one direction. Whenever content attempts to be authoritative,  it is pitching.

As  hired guns, the freelancers’ job sometimes means that we are to provide content that will not only draw potential buyers into the marketing vehicle, but we need to direct them to the checkout lane. We could create a title that is just the right hook and content that builds an emotional crescendo in the reader, but we could still fail by blowing the trigger, or  Call To Action (CTA).

We’ve all seen those big neon yellow and/or orange banners that scream  words such as ‘Buy Now!‘ or ‘Don’t Miss Out!‘, those are CTA’s. In web content a CTA is most often ‘click here‘. But after writing content that is loaded with emotional benefit that greaes the potential buyer up so they can slide into the cart easier, why do we blow it with a typical ‘click here‘ or ‘act now‘?

We can increase the conversion rate of our content if we put just a wee bit of thought into our CTA. Think about this; content is typically talked about as having three distinct sections, Title, Content, and Call To Action. We are always trying to target a particular audience with the bait of the title, reel them in with content, and net them with the CTA. But, we often think that if the content is solid, the net is a mere after thought and we settle for any conversion rate.

We need to target the prospects with our CTA as well.

I own and operate an ecommerce retail store that sells biker leather apparel and accessories. My helmet pages were getting a lot of looks that were delivered from one of the store’s blogs, but the conversion rate was dismal.

To change this, I rewrote product reviews so that instead of the CTA being ‘Check out our fine selection of helmets here‘ to ‘Be legal and be free ~  strap on one of our radical DOT  half-helmets‘.  Knowing that most bikers have a thing about being free and rebellious towards helmets. So, half helmets are huge in states that require helmets, and all helt states require the lids to be DOT approved.

The conversion rate from those articles climbed 5 points. Huge! Especially when you consider that the effort spent was less than thirty minutes.

Imagine if we can make something like that happen for our clients. What would happen if we sold them content that out of the box outperformed what they already had published?

Open your mind and the possibilities will glow like fireflies in a jar.

© 2010, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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Work is work, right? Especially if your a freelance writer and need five dollars for gas money so can get to Wally World and buy some Ramen noodles. Well, it’s either that, or the dog. But, five dollars for 300 words? Can crack whores do better than that for an hour?

Let’s work this one out. If you write 300 words at 60 words a minute, that’s a dollar a minute. Not too shabby. On the other hand,Crack whores might have to work for as long as twenty minutes to get that five bucks, which comes to .40 a minute. Pretty lousy for the mess and short high.

I hope the urge to mock me is setting in right now, because if it isn’t, I can point you to all the five dollars for 300 word jobs you want.

If you ARE mocking me, you know it takes a solid hour to get 300 words researched, drafted, finalized, and approved. No, that hour doesn’t happen all at once, but it does happen.

The question remains, What should we expect to get paid for 300 words? Ooooops. Trick question. The real question should be, what do we think our 300 words is worth?

The answer is all up to the freelancer. There is damn good money being paid to writers who deliver quality with every word. There is just good money passing hands to good writers, and there are the five dollar jobs. It all depends on what you think your work is worth.

I know it takes time to gain a reputation, but to take those cheap jobs, one after another, after another, and so on will dilute your reputation and self esteem. You are providing a solution to a problem, and that problem shouldn’t be the client’s cheap needs. Your solution should be to provide the client with the best work you can, and you’ll soon find that your work is worth more than five dollars an hour.

If you don’t think it is, you’ll be on the streets, turnin’ tricks and smoking the glass god before you know it.

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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Ever looked at a client’s web site and tell yourself that they need more than a writer? Maybe the graphics just were off or out of date, or maybe the SEO had cobwebs on it. Egads, you say as you look further. What a mess.

Oh well, I did my part. Gave the client the three hundred words and now I’ll just sit and wait. After all, they came to me because they DID need a writer. Now is about the time a huge car should happen to drop on me from the heavens. Or maybe I could get away with a duh-oh!.

We writers (yes, I’ll include myself this time) are generally Jacks and Jills Of All Trades out of necessity, well okay, more out of hunger. So why not make use of that? We often forget to include all of our talents when we hang our our shingles , and potential clients may never know what we can do. They will often hire out job specific and not once ask if we can perform other tasks.

But, we are all different and about half of us will say “Hell with that. I’m not doing any more than I’m asked,” while the other half will tell ourselves, “That is ugly and I know I can fix it, but I won’t intrude. Wouldn’t want to piss off the client, you know.”

I’ll just say this; Fuck that.

What if the client would love to bundle services? Don’t you like having all of your related services bundled? I mean, I think it’s dang cool to have a homeless crack whore stop by once in a while. Love, drugs, and the convenience of not having to take her home. So why wouldn’t your client jump at the chance to get a bundled deal?

The only non-benefit I see is the ability for our clients to get work completed on parallel paths. But if we give them a package quote, they may be willing to give a little on the time needed side. Certainly, when we really think about the logistics of seeking more work and having a schedule blocks filled, a bundled deal could pay off for us, the freelance writers.

Next time you find someone in the need of a writer, look around and see if you can offer more. What’s the worst that could happen? A persistent itch or rash? Petty annoyances when it comes to mullah.

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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All righty now. That last list, Ten Things A Freelance Writer Doesn’t Need, was so much fun, I thought I’d come back with another. Only this time, I am r-e-a-l-l-l-l-l-y gonna try your sense of humor.

Freelance writers live an pathetic existence in that we really don’t get much free time. Myself, I find the biggest diversion of the day by going around the island in the kitchen to get to the coffee pot, as opposed to making that straight path. Why just the other day, I found a missing poker chip, or I thought it was until I bit into it pretending it was a cucumber slice. It may as well have been that poker chip; it tasted like it had been AWOL as long as the poker chip, which was about four months.

Where was I? Oh yeah….diversions. What is it we freelancers do with all of our free time? I know you’re dieing to find out, so without further delay, I give you the top ten things writers do in the spare time:

We DO party hard, don’t we?

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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Seems that Top Ten Lists are all the rage now, and I may be late getting in the game. But, I’m going to jump right in and muck the whole thing up with a few Top Ten lists of my own, starting with my take on the Top 10 Things Freelance Writers Don’t Need.

It’s a fact that we Freelance writers are consumed by all sorts of things. The potential for a fat ass, irritability, the penchant for no sleep, and the lack of real food are just a few that come to mind. Taking all this into my tequila tainted mind, I came up with the following list:

See anything on the list you think you disagree with? What item do you think should be number 11?

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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Carry me away

I recently completed a draft for a freelancing job and sent it along to a client for approval. This is a client that usually responds quickly to my e-mail, and after ten minutes of no response, I began to worry that she was composing a scathing critique. Two hours later and I was believing that she was taking the work elsewhere. After six hours, I began to doubt my skill as a writer, and twelve hours after I submitted the piece, the cops were talking me off the ledge to the window in my first story office.

After a week of intense therapy, and a number of raised eyebrows accompanied by “Oh, really” at my mention of being a writer, I sat down at my computer with a handful of Prozac and opened my mailbox. There it was; the mail I was waiting for. Dare I open the note from my client and send my freelance career into another tailspin?

After downing a half a dozen pills, I semi-covered my eyes with one hand as I clicked “open”. Relief flooded me as I read that my client had experienced major computer problems over the last few weeks and was sorry for being AWOL. She went on to say the piece was great and she wanted me to go ahead with another project.

Was all the fretting and worrying I did over the non-response necessary? Maybe not all of it, but I believe that some was warranted, because I write to serve my clients. In the long run, the payoff is greater because empathy plays on even the coldest of hearts.

I also believe that when a client takes me on, I have a responsibility to more than just the writing I am commissioned for. I am representative of my client’s efforts. By thinking like that, I have been able to scare up more work without having to look far and wide. Offering SEO work and additional promotion are only two ways I have helped clients and put a little more cash in my pocket. Think how beautiful that is. The number of drafts and research becomes minimized due to the fact I am already familiar with my client and their needs.

I am a lazy man.

It is no wonder that I worried a bit when I received no immediate response from my client. But, maybe there are ways I can ease my worries in the future. A telephone number for one (gasp), or maybe bury my head in some other project and try to work the worry away. The reality is, I will never put clients too far out of mind; it is how I am wired.

What do you think? Am I too “into” my clients and should only be concerned with the work I’m doing for them? What other avenues can I offer for alternative communication?

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.

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