Blogging for Fun and Profit
Got a call out of the blue this week from a company in New York and New Jersey that needs blogs for 15 different websites! While home redecorating goes on downstairs, I’ll be upstairs in my makeshift bedroom/office working on the first batch.
Woo-hoo!
Tags: blog writer, blogging for fun and profit, social media marketing
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Go get ‘em, Liz! Congratulations!
That’s great Liz about the blogging. At Plattform lately, I’m being asked to blog a lot and it’s turning more into SEO with “be sure and use these keywords.” Do you get a decent budget? My fear is they want cheap blogging. They’re out of town. How do you ensure payment?
Hi, Mike –
If they’re still stuck on keywords, they’re behind the curve. Yes, keywords matter somewhat. But as you know, the geniuses at Google change their parameters about every three minutes (actually, more like once a month). For better Google rankings, using keywords and tags doesn’t hurt, but it doesn’t help much, either. Gone are the days of keyword-packed, content-free blogs. What matters today is relevant, useful, frequently changing content.
As to budget, I recently offered a price for a package of blogs that came in above an Indian outfit and below a freelancer who refused to be tied to any due dates (?). I did a test blog for the potential client and discovered that the price I’d offered was probably too low for the amount of time it took to write the blog. It amounted to $33.33 per blog. Actually, that’s pretty high in the blog world. But profitability depends on ability to write quickly and relevantly and usefully. Yes, they do want cheap blogging. And if they can’t get it from you, they know they can have Indian people write their blog posts for peanuts. So why am I even trying to compete in this field? Because unlike an Indian writer, my *first* language is English. That makes a big difference. Indians learn Brit English, and they aren’t familiar with common expressions, so their writing sounds stilted, as if written by a computer program. Heck, maybe they are.
How to ensure payment? Some say get a retainer in advance. You can also get your new client to sign a contract. But I think the best clue is your gut feeling about the person you’re working for. I’ve only had to fire one client, and it happened recently, in the early stages, before I had put in a lot of time on the project. Listen to your intuition. Walt Bodine once told me that if he had it to do all over again, he’d listen to his gut more.
Good luck, Mike.