Use a Blog to Build Your Freelance Career

Whether for business reasons, personal reasons, or just out of plain necessity, many people are looking to build a freelance business. These entrepreneurs face many challenges along the way, from finding startup funds, to incorporating their business, to having business cards printed. But, the biggest issue for any freelancer is getting exposure to the right people and having sample work to prove their abilities. Fortunately, both issues can be easily overcome with a simple solution.

When ArcticLlama, a professional freelance writing business, started a freelance writers blog, traffic (and clients) increased quickly.

The Freelancer Blog

While in years past, blogs may have been the playthings of political zealots and teenagers, today blogs have become an important source of information for a wide range of professionals and businesses. As an entrepreneur starting a new freelance business, a blog can showcase a range of skills and talent, while at the same time providing much needed publicity to the new freelancer and the new business.

In order for the freelancer's blog to reflect properly upon the business and talents of the new freelancer, it is important to make the right choices about how the blog should look and sound.

First, a fully hosted domain name is crucial. Nothing screams amateur quite like a blog with a domain name at 'TrustMePro.FreeSitesForTeens.com'. Also, keep in mind that as a freelancer, the opportunity for business can strike at any time and at any place. Thus, it is crucial to have an easily remembered domain name as well. Ignore advice to have a "keyword heavy" domain name. While such a domain name may have a tiny affect on search engine results, it can make it harder for people who are actually looking for YOU , as opposed to searching for ANYONE to find you. The odds significantly favor a new contact that you met at a wedding reception remembering TrustedPros.com over Great-Freelance-Business-For-All.com. In fact, since the goal will be to eventually build a brand around the business name, it is usually best to use the name of the business as the domain name whenever possible.

Second, a professional blog must look professional. Fortunately, it is possible to generate a professional looking blog with virtually no experience. The best choice for freelancers is generally the Wordpress blogging platform. Choose a website host that offers Wordpress as a built in service, so there is no need to understand the complexities of installing it. Many web hosts offer such a service via a scripted add-on process. The most common is called Fantistico, but there are many others as well.

To get that truly professional look, it is important to get the right theme for the Wordpress blog. Themes are easily available all over the Internet and offer a way to set a blog apart from all the others that all look the same. It is not necessary to buy a custom or one-time use theme. Virtually any theme that does not come with Wordpress by default will be different enough. When choosing a theme, focus on where and how the text is displayed. Ignore the graphics or pictures on the theme, because they will be replaced by your logo and website graphics eventually.

Once the blog is installed with the professional theme, it is time to start filling it up. Start by making sure that no link anywhere on the site goes to a Not Found page. If necessary, type in very short text that can be expanded later. For example, on an About page, just type the name of the company and the name of the freelancer along with a short blurb about what the business does. Things like a full bio can be added later.

Once the overall template has been filled in, it is time to start building the site to serve the purpose of finding new business. Start with a post about the business being started. Make sure the post includes a line which says something like, "While this venture may be new, the people at Trusted Pros bring 15 years of experience..." This will address concerns about being new.

Then, start posting. Post about anything even remotely related to the business. Long, short, it doesn't matter as long as it happens frequently. Every day is best, at least once a week is mandatory. Along the way, develop samples that show of the skills available. For example, at my professional freelance writing business, ArcticLlama there are links to dozens of samples of my work. At first, these samples were nothing more than articles I wrote on my own. As time progressed, those articles were replaced with links to live content. This can be done for virtually any freelance business, whether it is sample programs and code, sample designs, sample marketing campaigns, and so on.

Lastly, the new blog needs to get some traffic. Be careful about trying too hard here. Regardless of how much search engine optimization a site employs, a quick rise in the search results can be difficult in anything be uncompetitive categories. Instead, focus on building a reputation or personality on other websites, chat rooms, and forums related to the business. Focus on those sites that allow a profile with a link to the site. Also necessary, is a signature line on each and every message with a link and email address. When enough participation has occurred, people will begin to regard these postings and participation as authoritative and noteworthy. When that happens, they'll follow those links to see where that great information comes from. Once there, they'll see the site, all of the insightful postings that show an understanding of the inner-workings of the field, and of course, they will see those beautiful samples.

Then, you have a new client.