Freelancing and More!

Take our Survey about Freelance Writing Rates

Doreen Martel — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:21:57 +0000

This is a follow up to a survey we ran in July of 2010. This will be for comparison purposes! Related Posts: No Related Posts

Celebrate a milestone: What now

Doreen Martel — Fri, 25 May 2012 13:06:21 +0000

Yesterday, I crossed a milestone on this blog. I posted my 500th post. The very first post on this site was November of 2008. Clearly, I have not posted regularly, I’ve averaged about 10 posts a month. There is a reason that these posts are somewhat erratic. I have no clear picture of what people are reading or what they want to read! I know this sounds silly but even my traffic doesn’t give a good indication as it’s all over the place. I bet I have a hundred posts that are not showing one single page view. I am getting readers however! Earlier this year I added on a plugin called StatCounter. Here’s what it shows today: Now this really isn’t so bad considering that I don’t post regularly! I have tweaked this system many times in the interest of making it easier to read, easier to access, etc. Yet somehow the traffic does not match. I have to admit to being encouraged with the number of “return visitors”, that at least lets me know that someone is out there reading! I have to admit to being more than a bit pleased with the number of new visitors as [...]

Internet Marketing and Ethics

Doreen Martel — Thu, 24 May 2012 19:51:04 +0000

For my regular readers, you already know that I typically call a spade, a spade. Other times, I’m not as flattering as that. I write about things I believe, I do not accept assignments that I consider questionable, contain bogus health claims and I almost always avoid product reviews. However, after working on my other blog where I call out work at home scams, something occurred to me…..As I’ve mentioned in other posts. In fact, I spent some time writing up a page on HubPages called “The care and feeding of Internet scams” – it suddenly dawned on me today as I was doing some editing on some other work, that SOMEONE is writing this stuff that promotes these scams. Now, I know that seems obvious (and clearly it should have dawned on me before) but stop and think about this. For as many people like me who are out there with a platform for stopping con artists and scammers, there are ten more people out there who are promoting a scam. Why? Simple: They ARE MAKING MONEY FROM THEM! Most of these sites have affiliate marketing links on them. ONE person who falls for a scam will result in [...]

Spam comedy

Doreen Martel — Thu, 24 May 2012 12:10:00 +0000

As annoying as spam comments are, they also provide a tremendous amount of amusement. I usually skim through my spam comments (and good lord, there are enough of them!) to see if by any chance there is anything worth keeping. Generally, there isn’t much but from time to time, there is one that just tickles my funny-bone. As I was going through my comments the other day, I found one linked to the post Safe Affiliate Marketing that was written back in February of 2010. Now the first thing that this shows me is that this is clearly a person who is using some sort of comment bot. But the comment is worth sharing: That Is basically awesome!:) Being a good intern in a Law Office in the past sucked away from me all of the Awesomeness collapsable paper along with stuffing a envelope can bring. But folding a specific lawyer properly, then beautifully and carefully stuffing these people into a envelope? Awesome! You have some good thoughts! Perhaps My spouse and i ought take into consideration attempting this myself. In quality, the story is definitely the sweetest during this noteworthy concern. I approve along with your conclusions and definately will eagerly [...]

Writing a post Panda post Penguin blog

Doreen Martel — Wed, 23 May 2012 13:52:43 +0000

Many websites lost a great deal of traction when Google rolled out the Panda update. In some cases, these websites turned to alternate methods of regaining their page rank. Some sites went to extremes, doubling word count requirements and requiring all articles to have “reliable links” backing up their articles. Still others did little (or nothing). There was a small handful of sites that decided to “play” the Google game and go all out and search for back-links to sites as a way of regaining their “favorability” in the eyes of Google. For these folks who made a “practice” of backlining, Penguin was a bigger disaster than Panda was. They paid, and they paid dearly in many cases. In the case of BMR (Build My Rank) they got while the getting was good and they refunded clients left and right. I can only imagine what kind of havoc this wreaked on many sites. The good thing about Penguin While some sites lost considerable page rank, many others stayed the same while others saw a bump. Many website owners didn’t seem to understand what happened, why it happened to them or how to correct for the changes. Ironically enough, Google provides [...]