Are you a traveler? Or by any chance, do you plan to take on a travel adventure? Are you interested in writing? Do you love telling stories or sharing experiences with your friends?
If you just answered yes, then you are all set to start your own travel blog.
Why should you bother?
You get to document your experiences and who knows, maybe inspire others eventually.
Since you religiously upload all your photos online for each of your travel, and even write lengthy captions on the memorable ones, why don’t you take your sharing up a few notches?
Create your own travel blog.
It’s up to you whether you want to merely tell stories just like what you do in a diary, or provide readers useful information, say backpacking tips. Either way, beware that growing number of followers doesn’t happen overnight. You must work hard so people will know that your page exists. And you need to make it really good so people will love you.
Well at least, you can expect your legion of loyal followers in your friends and relatives.
You might just earn additional income.
Let us get one thing straight though: This takes time to happen.
You will first have to establish your blog, build quite an impressive number of followers so advertisers would express interest in working with you. They shall pay you handsome amount of money in exchange of links.
Business owners on the other hand might offer you freebies or even take care of your expenses on your next travels provided you’d mention or write about them in your page as well.
Then again, you must maintain quality in all of your posts to attract these kind of offers.
Meet and learn from fellow travel bloggers.
There are several souls out there who like you are exploring the world and sharing their finds online.
Eventually, you will get the opportunity to talk to and even meet some of them in person. The blogging community works like a virtual brotherhood. You automatically earn your support system. Chances are they will find your blog and shall leave uplifting comments.
They might even follow you on your social networking accounts and from there you can exchange insights about travels, as well as score suggestions on your next travel destinations.
Join contests by investing in your passion.
Every now and then, there’s an establishment that hosts contests open for all travel bloggers.
Travel bloggers are required to answer few questions and once their entry is selected, they get a chance to travel for free.
If the destination at stake is among your dream trips, then you are most likely to do everything to win. But even if you do not, it still is fine. Merely joining is already a fun experience in itself. You also did not feel stressed as all you did is invest in your passion, in what you love doing.
Do it because you want it.
At the end of the day, keeping a travel blog requires commitment. You do embark into it just so you can impress other people or earn bragging rights. It starts with that desire to share, in which you do not expect anything in return. Because if you make it good, rewards shall come without you pushing for them.
Author Bio:
Nettie Gray loves reading travel blogs every morning. She even considers it part of her breakfast routine. When she’s run out of essay writing ideas, she would turn to her favorite travel blogs and find some sort of inspiration. It always works for her.
|
6/26/2013 | Continue Reading...
Having now done a fair bit of freelance work I have learnt a thing or two that I feel may be worth passing onto other budding freelance SEO-ers out there. Here are my top 5 tips:
1) Do a good job!
It goes without say that any freelance SEO expert would want to be patted on the back at the end of a project or after a few months into a new job and told they have done a cracking job at boosting a client’s search performance. Sadly getting this reaction doesn’t come easy – if it was then they wouldn’t have hired someone with your skillset in the first place!
In my mind it is vital that you do as much research as possible; that means understanding your client’s industry, their competition and the services they offer. It also means understanding their goals and aspirations. The latter is particularly important as it will enable you to manage their expectations accordingly, something you should look to do from the outset.
If you set out to do things the right way and look to avoid SEO shortcuts (practices like keyword stuffing, directory back-linking and content syndication) then you will remain on track to do a good job. Try and avoid the pressure of taking the easy option and stick to your guns - white hat SEO will ultimately bear the fruits of your labour if you just stick with it!
2) Don’t make false promises
When someone takes on an Online Search Expert they probably do so in the expectation that you will revolutionise their website’s performance. As a freelance SEO you should know that this is not something you can guarantee.
In my opinion the only thing you can promise in SEO is that you will work hard to set up a website so that it will be better placed to get more visitors. It is not possible to promise that you will get certain keywords to number 1 in the search rankings and it is not possible to guarantee a specific return on investment.
It is therefore imperative that you set your stall out from the start and try and manage the expectations of your client. Let them know what you will be doing and the results you would hope to see – but don’t be pressured into false promises. If you don’t manage to achieve the results your client wants they will no doubt tell you, but don’t make a rod for you own back by agreeing to be judged against something you have no control over. After all, it is the search engines themselves that control rankings, as SEOs we just work with the systems in place.
3) Communicate
One thing that I personally get frustrated with is being kept in the dark. This perceived lack of communication breeds doubt and I have never found this more prevalent than when dealing with online marketing agencies.
My advice would be to try and steer clear of the cloak and dagger stuff and try and be as open to communication as possible.
Obviously it doesn’t pay to spend half your day replying to emails but as a client it breeds a massive amount of trust knowing that the person you are hiring to improve your search rank is just a phone call or email away.
Building a good relationship will only make things easier in the long run, especially if the results aren’t there immediately and take a bit longer than expected to arrive!
4) Be transparent
There’s a fine line between being transparent and giving away your expertise for free. However I do think there is value in letting your client know what it is you are up to on your behalf – after all, it is their website.
They should know the approach you are taking to building up inbound links and understand why you want to amend certain headings and title tags.
Informing your client about the reasons why you are making certain changes to the website goes a long way to demystifying SEO as a technique and can help your client to understand exactly what you are trying to achieve, making it easier to get things actioned and signed off.
5) Don’t take on too much
When you first start out it can be incredibly easy to take on as much work as possible to ensure you aren’t out of pocket. But there are only so many hours in any given day and it is not feasibly possible to do a good job if you are stretching resources (in this case your time & expertise) too thinly.
It may be wise to be selective on the tasks you take on if you think you will not have enough time to achieve the desires objectives or if you simply think you do not have enough experience to be a success. Of course as SEO’s we are always learning, but sometimes your client may want results sooner rather than later, so if you are not 100% ready to run from the off, it may be worth letting that one pass to someone else. Your time will come!
About the Author:
Tom Key has over 6 years experience of improving the organic performance of websites across various sectors. As a freelancer he offers a range of SEO Services in Kent and caters his approach to meet the needs of his clients.
|
6/13/2013 | Continue Reading...
You joined Twitter to connect with your friends. Or perhaps find out why this social networking site is fun as other users say. Or maybe it is for your business that you were encouraged to sign up. Or just so you can claim you are “in” the social circle.
But definitely not because you wanted an essay writing coach.
You’re not mistaken. You read that right. Twitter can help improve your writing skills.
How can a micro-blogging site do that?
You are compelled to be concise.
How many times have you had troubles forming your message using the 140-character limit per post in Twitter?
Okay, so you probably have resorted to using and inventing abbreviations just so to get the job done. Or decide to break down your posts in several tweets.
Excessive abbreviating however kills your writing skills. And it can be a drag reading a story backwards.
As a writer, you know you can’t give your audience a hard time understanding your message.
So you need to work on keeping your posts brief but meaty. This calls that you…
Sharpen your vocabulary
You look for words that can help you express your thoughts the shorter way. You run to a dictionary or thesaurus for assistance.
And the more you are using Twitter, the more you find yourself learning new words and using them more often. Your vocabulary widens.
You now know how to share what’s on your mind without going beyond 140 characters. You make it a habit to get straight to the point when you want something said. You cut the crap out of your statement and publish only what matters.
Your tweets become more valuable. And along the way, you…
Become a better editor
Editors are ruthless. They can afford to return your output all crossed out, and order for a major revision without remorse.
With your frequent Twitter use, you too become that kind of editor.
You read your message over again before you click on the publish button. You experiment on various ways of stating your message. Afterward, you decide which works best. Overtime, you learn to execute this Twitter-posting routine fast.
You get rid of your tendency to use big words, and instead stick to the simple ones. You choose verbs over adjectives because they help your story progress.
You realize that less is more.
And you’ve got Twitter to be thankful for.
About the Author:
Nettie Gray is an essay writing coach who knows the ins and outs of various social medias but what she know does not apply to her. She merely use her online accounts to get updates from her family, friends, and co-workers.
|
5/30/2013 | Continue Reading...
Blogging can be demanding especially during times when you feel you’re running out of creative juices.
You want to deliver only quality content so there’s no way you will rush your next writing output for the sake of increasing post quantity.
You know so much time is wasted if you will only sit there, doing nothing. There are ways how you can set yourself in the mood for writing.
List down topics
It’s okay if you are not yet ready to write an article. Do not push too hard on yourself.
Use your time instead to checking out other blog posts. And do not feel pressured to immediately spot a topic you can write yourself.
The more posts you read, the better. The more ideas you generate, the more writing inspirations that you gather, the more options you make in deciding what to talk about next. Do not worry as well about grammar. That does not matter yet.
The list you create is all yours for viewing after all.
Write drafts
Once you have chosen a topic then you can begin writing your piece.
Again, this does not have to be error-free. You can go back again and edit your work. The rule of thumb is to start with an outline which serves as your direction where you are steering your content to.
Following outlines help ensure that your statements are consistent to your topic. It helps you as well limit characters, if that is another concern you are looking into.
Since this is yet your final output, you can write as you think. The most important thing is that you get to note down ideas that cross your mind. It might take some time before they come visit again.
Look for your productive time.
Do you tend to do more in the morning? Or do you write faster at night when everyone else has already gone to bed?
We all have this particular time when we feel at our most productive. Identify yours and make advantage of it. Prioritize tasks that demand more brain work so all that is left for you to take care as the day progresses are the easier ones.
Do not put too much pressure on yourself. Even the greatest writers write crap too. But they manage to come up with an excellent work because they are at the same time great editors.
Spot your happy place
Aside from that particular time during the day when our brain is functioning effectively, there is as well that specific place that our creative juices favor.
Some are comfortable writing essays in crowded places such as coffee shops or theme parks, while some prefer staying in a quiet place. Libraries for instance.
It is essential that you are aware of your happy place so you can further encourage your mind to work. It also helps that you keep a notepad (your smartphone will do) so you can immediately jot down ideas that suddenly pop into your mind.
About the Author:
Nettie Gray always keeps a pen and paper handy. She’s bad at keeping writing essays ideas safely tucked in her memory.
|
5/17/2013 | Continue Reading...
