Two Ways to Add a Blog to Your Professional Website

In response to one of my guest posts on my blog tour last week, (pretty sure that’s where it was) someone mentioned wanting to set up a professional website to move their service listings off of their blog. In other cases, I’ve seen writers inquiring about how to take an existing static site and add a blog to it. In short, a combination of the

101 Niches to Write About

Whether you’re a freelance writer or blogger, you’ve probably had to choose niches to write about at one time or another–perhaps a niche for your new blog or e-book, or choosing what topics to specialize in for client work. There are millions of niches out there that you can write about or blog about, so it always baffled me that people have a hard time

You Can't Help Everyone: When to Let Readers Fend for Themselves

As a blogger or content writer, chances are good that you’ll be contacted by readers from time to time. They may have questions about what you’ve written, or questions about your niche unrelated to your article or post. You probably try to be as helpful as you can–responding to comments, answering emails, giving advice when asked for it, and just generally trying to help your

Easy Ways to Find New Article or Blog Post Ideas

It’s almost inevitable – if you build a large content site or blog, at one time or another you’ll likely feel that there’s nothing left to talk about. Fortunately, unless you’ve chosen an incredibly limited niche, that’s not the case. There are always other topics to write about in your niche, or other angles to topics you’ve already covered in your articles or blog posts.

Freelance Writing Challenge – Blog Evaluations

While I know today’s freelance writing challenge won’t apply to everyone, I think enough freelance writers are also bloggers to make this a worthwhile exercise. Today we’re going to evaluate our blogs – basically look at the factors that come into play when you want to sell a blog, and use that evaluation as a guide to see where we could improve our blog’s value

Flipping Websites – An Additional Income Stream for Freelance Writers

As a part of our series on additional and residual revenue streams for freelance writers, today we’re going to talk about flipping websites. I’ve discussed flipping websites in a previous post here, explaining it in a very general sense and discussing some past sites I’ve flipped myself. Let’s go more into how flipping websites can earn you more money in freelance writing, and what you

What Makes Someone a Professional Blogger?

Not too long ago (it may have been on a forum or something), I saw someone say that you aren’t a “professional writer” until you’re earning six figures. I think most of us would disagree with that (I’d reckon that most “professional writers” – authors, journalists, etc. – aren’t earning a solid six figures every year actually). However, it got me thinking about professional blogging

Getting More Mileage from Your Blog

We’ve talked a lot here about why writers should blog, from using blogs as a marketing tool for your freelance writing services to blogging as an added income stream. Now let’s talk about how you can get more from your blog by moving beyond the blog itself. Here are additional income streams / outlets that blogging can potentially lead to if you levereage it right:

How Perfect Must a Writer's Blog Be?

A lot of freelance writers have their own blogs. Do those blogs have to be “perfect,” though? I’ve seen comments on both sides of this issue, and I’d like to know what you think? Personally, I think there are a few considerations: Blog Purpose Is the blog just a personal blog? If so, I’d not worry so much about the occasional typo or poorly-constructed sentence.

Do Personal Blogs Have a Place in a Business Model?

I’m planning to find out. I finally got around to launching a much more personal blog over at JennSays.com. It’s not a “journal” blog, but a personal-style blog being worked into my overall business model. Why a Personal Blog? I’ve been known on a few of my niche blogs to take very harshly critical views on things – essentially, I’m more likely to rant if

Installing WordPress Themes

So we talked about how to install WordPress on your own domain if you want to set up a new blog to showcase your writing. There Latoya asked a good question – how can you install a new theme / design to change the look (see my past post on how I choose WordPress themes and site templates)? The process is actually very easy, and

Installing a WordPress Blog

Yesterday someone asked me how they would set up a WordPress blog at their own domain. The simple answer is: Register a domain name. Set up a Web hosting account. Install WordPress (from WordPress.org or through your host). I won’t walk you through the process of setting up a hosting account or registering a domain name. Your host can help you with that, and the

Flipping Websites

Here’s a revenue stream option for writers that I don’t think we’ve really talked about much – flipping websites or blogs. Yesterday I sold two of my websites that I didn’t feel like managing / updating anymore – AboutGreenLiving.com and FreePressReleaseWriting.com. I liked the domains. I liked the potential each had. But I already have my “big three” sites that take most of my time,

Setting Up a Website or Blog: My Favorite Resources

I’ve mentioned repeatedly in the past that I think all freelance writers could benefit from having their own professional website and / or blog to showcase their writing and niche expertise. Today I’m going to share my own favorite resources – the tools and services I use repeatedly when setting up new sites or blogs, and why I use them. Web Hosting I have hosting

Using WordPress to Host a Non-Blog Site

Today’s topic on building blogs and professional sites as a freelance writer comes from Zac Schuessler. Zac points out that you don’t necessarily have to create one or the other. If you like working on a blog platform, you can use one to run a more basic site (or a combination professional site / blog). In particular, Zac brings up the subject of magazine-style (or

Moving a Blog from One Platform to Another

I recently asked you to come up with questions about setting up your own professional site or blog as a freelance writer. Today I’m going to address Kristi Holl’s question about moving a site from one blog platform to another. Question: I have heard a lot of talk about moving your blog from something like blogspot to your own website, using a free service like

Free Blog Hosts vs Hosting Your Own Blog

The following is a post I wrote a while back about blog hosting options. It doesn’t only apply to freelance writers, but I wanted to share it here directly, since we’re talking this month about setting up professional websites and blogs. I’m sure some of you will have different opinions, so do feel free to share them. — Many new bloggers launch their first blog

Protected by Copyscape – So What?

I saw someone on a forum giving a blogger really bad advice today – essentially that sticking a stupid Copyscape banner (like the one below) will actually somehow protect their content for them. That’s such a load of BS. Here’s what sticking a Copyscape banner on your site really says: Go ahead and steal my site content, b/c I’m quite obviously not aware of how

Score Points for Better Blogging

Quite a while back, I was introduced to the blog points system from Passionate Blogger (referred by Judy Gombita of PR Conversations). I forgot all about it until today, and decided that this system would be a good tool to help me better manage my multiple blogs. The idea is simple… to be a better blogger you need a certain amount of consistency, and you

Top Ten Reasons to Launch an Author Blog

If you’re an author, you really can’t afford to be absent from the blogosphere. Writing and managing a blog isn’t always easy (especially if you’re determined to do it well), but the benefits of blogging for authors make it well worth it. 10 Reasons to Launch an Author Blog Here are ten reasons you should consider launching an author blog if you haven’t already. Blogs

7 Reasons I Won't Read Your Blog

I was tagged by Misti Sandefur of Life of a Writer to offer seven little pearls of blogging wisdom on what not to do as a blogger if you want to keep your readers, subscribers, and fellow bloggers in your network happy. So here you go… seven reasons I won’t read your blog: 1. Your font choice makes my eyes bleed. I’m still a sweet

Should You Disable the No-Follow Attribute on Your Blog Comments?

I just read a post on Julia Temlyn’s blog about her removing the no-follow attribute on her blog comments, encouraging others to do the same. Personally, I think that’s a really bad idea, and would encourage just the opposite. Here’s my response, posted to her blog: It’s a nice thought in a general sense, but is missing a few points: 1. Having no follow on

One Blog’s Journey to $2000 Per Month

I’m not going to go into too much detail here, but today I hit a milestone: $2000 for the month of June from one of my blogs (if you know me and what I’ve been promoting lately, you may know which one I’m talking about). It’s in the business niche. I don’t blog because I expect them to be big earners… I earn the majority