Website: http://daniellemcgaw.info

Specialty: Blogging, article marketing

Rates: .10 per word (rates vary by project)

I have been a freelance writer for 7 years. My main service is blogging and article marketing with an SEO focus. Over the years I have written on a wide variety of subjects including cats, dogs, scholarships, and health. I have also written several e-books. Recently I have been writing on the topics of diet and exercise and careers.

My goal is to provide clients with well written articles, blog posts, and other written material in a timely manner; to give readers interesting content; to give clients content that is search engine optimized without appearing to be.

Please visit my web site for more information or send me an email at danielle.mcgaw@gmail.com.

Website: http://sharonhh.com

Specialty: web content writing, blogging

Rates: 60 per hour

When it comes to writing your content I tick all the boxes. I have 22 years of experience, I am fanatical about deadlines, a polymath who can get to grips with almost any topic quickly, an excellent researcher, and an engaging writer. In the past few years, I have written hundreds of ghostwritten articles on credit cards, loans, mortgages, insurance, banking and much more.

I can write search engine optimized (SEO) web copy with the best of them. I also do a lot of ghostwriting and ghost blogging. If you want your blog maintained and don’t have time to do it yourself, then I’m your woman.

Please visit my site for my full resume and examples of my work.

Why Link Building Is Important for Freelance Writers

As you’ve read here countless times before, the best freelance writing gigs are rarely publicly advertised. Most buyers offering high-paying freelance writing jobs get their writers from their networks and referrals or they search for a writer to find someone who meets their needs. That’s why having a professional website is so important.

It’s equally important that your freelance writing site and portfolio show up in the search results when potential clients are searching for a writer like you. But search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t about keyword-stuffing your pages. It’s about solid content and incoming links (backlinks). The more incoming links you have to your website (using the anchor text people are searching for — like “Web content writer”), the better your site will rank in search engine results and the more likely it is that you’ll get the attention of clients searching for writers in your specialty area.

While great content is the best link building tactic around (we’ll talk more about that later), you can also build relevant and quality links in other ways. It’s probably not a good idea, especially when your site or blog is new, to just sit back and hope the links come quickly. They’ll come. And later on your content will do most of your link building work for you. It just won’t happen immediately, and there’s nothing wrong with being a bit aggressive in link building when you launch your site.

Link Building Tactics for Freelance Writers

Here are some link building ideas you can use if you’re trying to build relevant backlinks to your freelance writing site:

1. Link out to others. — When you blog, occasionally link out to others in the niche (as additional resources, to cite an article you’re commenting on, etc.). Many blogs give you a trackback link automatically. On top of that, those bloggers can see who links to them, so a link out might bring your blog to their attention and they might decide to link to you in the future in a post of their own.
2. Comment on other blogs. — Many bloggers let you include a link to your own site when you comment on their posts. Some will directly pass “link juice” because they’re do-follow links, but others use the no-follow attribute. Even no-follow links have value though — most importantly they let readers of the related blog visit your site easily (they could link to your in their own articles, become regular readers, etc.). They key is to post comments that add value to the conversation.
3. Use article marketing. — Traditional article marketing certainly isn’t my favorite way to build links, but when you’re starting out it can be particularly effective. Basically, you publish an article and you get a link back in the resource box / credit area below. I’m not a fan of the spammy nature of article directories, so I no longer use them personally, but I do advocate more of an advanced article marketing style including guest posts on relevant sites and blogs.
4. Submit your site to directories. – There are a lot of spammy free Web directories out there, and I don’t support the idea of submitting your site to them. They don’t add much value. Don’t discount Web directories as a whole though. They’re an easy resource to use when you’re building links if you use them effectively. That means working with directories that bring in real traffic rather than only other site owners submitting their links (directories like online Yellow Pages, Business.com, or even my client offering a deal below — The Directory Journal). These sites bring in visitors either through reputation or content in most cases. You can also target niche directories that are highly relevant to your site (like a magazine submitting their site to a directory of writer’s markets).
5. Create link-worthy content. — As I mentioned earlier, the best thing you can do is create link-worthy content (sometimes called “linkbait” — and no, linkbait is not a bad thing as long as it’s done right). The concept is pretty simple. You create great content. Other people will like that content and want to share it with others. They link to it from their own sites, social media sites, etc. Your content brings in links without you having to spend any additional time on link building directly, and that frees you up to focus more on your other content, billable hours, or other marketing work for your freelance writing business.

The Directory Journal Special Offer — Free Site Submission

Back to my client’s offer…. The Directory Journal is offering writers and bloggers a free regular permanent submission if they link to DirJournal.com from their site or blog (in a post, in your blogroll, etc.). These submissions include your site profile, the main link submitted, and three deep links to internal pages so you can feature your best content. These submission reviews normally cost $159.95.

To take advantage of the offer, just submit your site and ignore the payment aspect completely. Then shoot an email to contact@dirjournal.com with “All Freelance Writing: Free Submission” in the subject line. In that email, tell them what site you submitted and include a link to the post or site where you linked to DirJournal.com, letting them know you’re taking advantage of this special offer. This “sweetheart deal” will be available until February 14, 2010.

You’ll be able to find the latest posts here all week–this post will be stickied during that time. Be sure to visit each of my wonderful host blogs, read the guest post, and browse around to see what else they have to offer! Here are direct links to the posts:

Monday: 5 Ways to Build Your Writer Platform Online (Hosted by: Lillie Ammann)

Tuesday: Article Marketing as Revenue Stream: Tips for Freelance Writers (Hosted by: Deborah Dera from Writing-Success.net)

Wednesday: Beyond Clients: Income Streams for Freelance Writers (Hosted by Mary Davis of Adventures in Freelancing)

Thursday: Working Smarter, Not Harder as a Freelance Writer (Hosted by Kimberly Ben of Avid Writer)

Friday: Freelance Writers as Miracle Workers (Hosted by LaToya Irby of Writer’s brew)

Well, I recently gave them one more (last) shot. I’m pleased to say, so far so good.

While I don’t believe in using article directories for personal branding or building an authority status (because they simply don’t carry the weight of more targeted outlets for that marketing energy), I figured it might be a worthwhile endeavor to give article marketing in that sense another go in promoting a product (my Web Writer’s Guide e-book).

Now, I’ve only written four new articles so I don’t want to get my hopes up too high, but so far all four were approved without even a hint of a problem like those I had previously.

Let me put it out there to others who use them more frequently then – have you noticed changes for the better with EzineArticles over the last few weeks or couple of months?

Blogger Relations for Freelance Writers

The key in managing a successful virtual blog tour is knowing what blogs your target audience frequent, and building a relationship with those bloggers.

If you’re completely unknown to the blogger, you might want to reach out before pitching a guest post idea (especially if that blogger doesn’t directly solicit them on their blog). That may mean leaving comments on that blog that add value, to directly emailing the blogger to introduce yourself.

Why Run a Virtual Publicity Tour / Virtual Blog Tour?

The reasons for running a virtual blog tour in book promotion are obvious – exposure and sales. Exposure is just as important for freelance writers, and it’s something a lot of writers neglect (myself included sometimes, which is particularly shameful given my PR background).

What a virtual blog tour can do is give you greater visibility with core audiences – either your potential clients or other writers (who can give you work referrals as a result of networking).

How to Run a Virtual Blog Tour

As I laid out in my book marketing post on the subject, there are actually several kinds of virtual blog tours. In the case of being a freelance writer, your best option will probably be offering guest posts. (You don’t have book excerpts like an author on a book promotion tour does, and pitching yourself as a potential interviewee can be extremely tacky if not done delicately).

The first thing you should do is identify the type of audience you want to build exposure with (other writers and potential clients were the examples I gave previously – depending on your specialization, maybe there’s someone else worth targeting).

Next familiarize yourself with the blogs you want to submit guest posts to – even if you’re already a regular reader. Take note of what they cover extensively, the blogger’s general tone and style, and the type of readers that interact on the blog through commenting or other means.

Create a list of at least 2 or 3 blog post options that might appeal to the bloggers you want to submit guest posts to.

Pitch the ideas to the blogger, letting them know why you think the ideas would be a good choice for their blog and their readers – essentially tell them what you can offer. Let them choose or suggest a topic if they prefer, and try to come to some kind of agreement (don’t leave it as “sure, you can submit a guest post” with no real guidelines – you don’t want to write a bunch of posts and have bloggers rejecting them because you didn’t confirm things ahead of time).

If you want to do this in real “tour” fashion, try to reserve specific guest post dates throughout the course of a week or a month. The benefit of going this route is that your name may be put in front of your target audience over and over again (people in certain networks tend to frequent the same blogs).

The trick is to combine quality posts that readers will appreciate with having your name in front of your audience repeatedly over a set period of time. And of course, include a link back to your site below your post with your by-line, so readers can learn more about you, your services, or your own blog.

Think of virtual blog tours as a somewhat more sophisticated, better thought-out form of article marketing.