Well naturally I have both. Professional Site: www.internetauthor.net Blog: www.realmom.net I have a few other sites that I have with partners. The blog is hard to keep updated just because my time is so limited, but I enjoy having it. One day when I have more than 2-3 hours in a day to work, it would be much easier to update on a more regular basis. You don't have to be passionate to write about something, but you can almost always tell when someone enjoys a topic rather than doing it for the money. Rebecca
I've been blogging for almost two years now on a personal blog Chaos in the Country, then I started The Guilty Parent, and once I had done some paid blogging I began Mommy Know How, which has landed me some clients looking for product reviews, paid blogging etc. I like it all and I think that comes across when I send people there. Chaos in the Country started out as just a way for me to deal with being tossed into sahm life after my FMLA ran out and I couldn't return to work (therefore having my job being given away). I've spent the last three years working on writing, getting better at it and I am finally at the point where I think like many other people do, that a website is necessary. I hesitated at first because I didn't know what to expect. But I am a leap first look later kinda gal sometimes so I figured it was now or never. I had gotten and heard so much advice on why to do it and how to do it and I had a friend critique me (a fellow writer as well) the entire time I created it. It's the Writing in the Raw that is in my signature. The hardest part in developing it was deciding on what clips to share. I am always willing to provide with as many clips and samples as they need but I really wanted some diversity since I write for a newspaper also. I agree that sometimes it's hard to maintain the blogs but I've tried to post a few times a month on each of them. I am usually good at posting (which The Guilty Parent needs this weekend) when I can remember my topic ideas (I have to write them down or start a draft or forget it! LOL). In this day and age it is almost a necessity to have some sort of portfolio you can send people. Sheesh even if you made a slideshow it would be better than nothing, but you at least have to have something out there so people know what you're capable of. Great Topic BTW!
Up until this year, the majority of all of my clients had been word of mouth. I'm booked most of the year, most of the time. But last year, my two biggest corporate clients evaporated. One went private and pulled everything in house and the marketing director even left. The other merged with another mega corporation and the agency through which I worked on that client, did not win the account. Fortunately, I had other clients. But there was a big hole to fill. Because I was already on the internet with a website, I just applied my SEO knowhow and started marketing myself differently because the corporate and local business culture was simply hacking budgets in half. I still maintain a local clientèle which is building again. But it took a dive for a few months. So what I'm getting at is that you never know. And you need to keep marketing yourself even when you are up to your eyeballs. Jenn is really good at this, by the way. And no matter how good you are, it will happen at some point. I've been freelance 15 years. If you have a website and/or blog, you have an opportunity to use it as a sales and marketing tool. It can do so much for you. And you could do a blog quite easily. I'm just speaking from experience.
I use my blog as a business website. The main page basically serves as a sales letter, just letting people know how a ghostwriter can help them. Then I have a page with a "contact me" form, another page contains my rates and services, and a fourth page has my writing samples. I went into the code and removed the dates from all the posts so it doesn't look like it's a blog.
I guess from the posts above, it's not having the blog that's important but how/whether you market it successfully. Like a website. Blogs need to be updated more frequently to be useful, isn't that so? and now with CMS products, a blog and site are often the same thing really. SueC
Sue, Yes, blogs and websites can be the same thing. Zac mentioned earlier in the thread that Wordpress can very easily be used to create more standard-looking sites now with magazine-style themes as an example. Any website or blog will only be successful if it's marketed effectively, and that's a good point to bring up. While they're a marketing tool for your services, they need to have their own marketing plans in place. As a side note, I did address the two previous topics brought up here over on All Freelance Writing - magazine-style themes, and suggestions for coming up with new blog post ideas. If you have additional questions you'd like to see covered, don't hesitate to ask here or ask me privately via PM or email - they can be about setting up your own sites and blogs as a writer, or any topic at all relating to freelance writing.
Geez, my signature looks like yours Jenn. I didn't mean to do that. I'll go change mine. Sorry about that. And marketing your site is key. I have to say the copywriters here were helpful when I was redesigning a page and couldn't decide how to do it.
I'm not sure what it looked like, so don't know how they were similar. It really doesn't matter though. I change mine all the time anyway.
This is a great topic. I wonder what your thoughts are when a writer writes about several different types of writing? How can you best set up a website -- without looking like you are trying to do everything? I would think it would be hard to brand yourself, say as the "go-to content writer" when you also do other things and want to be sure to attract those clients too. I've been hesitant to set up a website --- would welcome your thoughts about how to do this successfully.
Thanks for the article on blogposts. That's very expansive and all-inclusive. Lots of great ideas there. Blogger's block will no longer be a problem.
There are a couple of ways to do this. I handled it this way. Freelance Copywriter- What I do. I guess you could also have two sites that address your areas of expertise if they are very different. But I do know what you mean. It's niche all the way these days and I really have experience with a number of media. I also design and can code a website. But I decided to put it all together. I can tell you that I added this more detailed page a few months ago and it's a popular page, visited often and people have actually expressed that it made things very clear. So if that helps you at all. Bascially it's just an outline with some java script.
Websites are a "must" for freelance writers - if you don't have one then you're missing out on a lot of exposure and closure. Clients can find you through your blog or website and learn more about you so they're more comfortable with offering you work. Here are my sites: ProFreelancing.com (Freelancing Blog) TheWriteChoice.ca (need to update it, but I used this to launch my freelancing career) CopywritingSells.com (Copywriting Blog - launching in a few months)
Then what does that have to do with this thread - being a writer with your own professional site or blog?