Blog commenting, when done authentically and not like a total spammer, are a great way to draw attention to your blog. I would say more, but this infographic by Fairy Blog Mother does a great job explaining exactly the right way to do comments. Happy commenting!

The post How to Write Great Blog Comments appeared first on Pongra.

When you’re searching for a blog topic, you know all the obvious places to look: Twitter, Facebook, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Google News, Yahoo’s search pages and so on. You can often get some good ideas from these sites, but the problem is that everyone else is looking there, too, which means you may be writing about the same thing as 50 other bloggers.

To make your blog truly stand out, you need to keep coming up with unique topics. Here are a few off-the-beaten-track ways to find them.

Alexa

Take a look at the What’s Hot page on Alexa, an online traffic-ranking site, to find out what is trending. It’s usually a bit different than Google’s rankings and gives you an overview of overall web trends, not just what people are looking for on search engines.

Read a Trade Magazine

Whether your blog focuses on holistic alcohol recovery or rat poison, there’s probably a trade magazine that also focuses on that subject. Peruse it regularly to find inspiration for topics that relate very narrowly to your industry. You could find an upcoming rule change or interesting feature that sparks an idea. Or you could find the name of a contact that can help you drum up new and interesting topics through an exchange of emails.

Try Something Different

Not every blog post needs writing. Have you ever made a vlog (video blog) or tried podcasting? In addition to allowing you to deliver through a different media, it will help you develop new technological skills that can really help your business. Adding podcasts to your site, for example, can give it a whole new dimension and set your site apart from competitors.

Look Back at Older Posts

Blog archives are an underrated place to find inspiration for current topics. Revisit something that you wrote about a year ago. Perhaps you’ve developed a new perspective, changed your opinion or discovered fresh information about a topic. Maybe you could shape it as a “where are they now” feature, revisiting an interesting person you wrote about in the past.

However you approach it, readers always appreciate a follow-up on a post that drew a lot of traffic the first time around.

Examine Your Analytics

Ever wonder what brings someone to your blog? You probably know for internal traffic-building reasons, but this can also be a fun blog topic. Many sites have a few really outlandish inquiries that landed folks on their page, and you can give your readers a good laugh by sharing them. Say someone Googled “purple watermelon juice” and somehow got to your blog. Can you offer a few reasons why they would have been directed there? Even better, can you say something funny about watermelon juice?

The post 5 Unexpected Places to Find Great Blog Topics appeared first on Pongra.

A blog post has the potential to become the most creative and engaging update in your blog’s existence, but it can go completely overlooked if you do not take the necessary steps after publication to ensure its visibility and viral potential. Even if your blog has a substantial following, simply publishing content does not equate to growing readership. You need to let others know you published a post, while also enticing them into reading it.

1. Promote on All Social Media Platforms

Become familiar with Facebook pages, Twitter, and Google+. You should post a link to a new blog post each time it’s published, with an alluring tag line that encourages them to read it. Call-to-actions in the tag line can be useful. For example, a food blog’s Facebook page can ask “Are pancakes your favorite breakfast food? If not, what is?” when posting a pancakes recipe.

2. Individualize Postings on Social Media

Since you will be cross-posting links to blog content on social media, it’s important to know tips to ensure visibility on these networks. For example, on Facebook it is a good idea to upload a large picture relevant to your post, so it has a likelier chance of appearing larger on followers’ Facebook feeds. On Twitter, conciseness and clarity are important. Strategies should not be uniform across all social media due to their variation in both users and interface.

3. Social Bookmark and Stumble Your Site

Sites like StumbleUpon are great tools where one can add web pages and appropriate keywords. Doing so with a blog post can result in an influx of many new readers, potentially even thousands. Submitting to StumbleUpon and sites like Reddit can increase the chances that a visitor will stumble across your site via a keyword, potentially leading to word-of-mouth buzz.

4. Interact in Communities and Comment on Other Blogs

Without coming across as a self-promoting nuisance, mentioning and linking to a blog post on a niche-relevant forum or in the comments section of a similar blog can be a great way to expose a new blog post. Just be certain that the blog post is absolutely 100% relevant to the content above it, or else you run the risk of being banned from that forum or web site.

5. Contribute on Yahoo Answers, Quora, and/or LinkedIn

There are a vast amount of questions asked every day on the answer, particularly on sites like Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn. Search for keywords related to your blog on these sites. This may lead you to unanswered questions that a new blog post can answer. Link to the blog post within an answer, a strategy that is doubly productive because it helps others while also exposing your new blog post.

For example, a 2000 Mustang parts company can use these sites to answer very specific questions about energy usage, a topic reserved for specialists and one that is therefore more likely to contain a variety of unanswered questions, ripe for promotional opportunities.

6. Shorten Your Blog’s URL

This is optional but useful. Using a URL shortening service like Bit.ly can make it easier on certain platforms, like Twitter, where conciseness is important. It also can make the link easier to share in mobile form, increasing the odds of mobile users sharing your new blog post.

7. Add Blog Content to Your E-Mail Signature

Apps like Wisestamp for Gmail make it easy to include a link to your most recent blog post in your e-mail signature. If you send e-mails frequently throughout the day, this is an easy and effective way to stir up interest in a new blog post.

Following the seven tips above after publishing a new blog post can help ensure it receives the recognition it deserves. When these strategies combine with quality content, it’s very difficult for those interested in the niche to ignore these blog posts.

The post 7 Things to Do Every Time You Publish a Blog Post appeared first on Pongra.

WordPress has quickly evolved into one of the most popular website and blog creation tools on the internet. Everyone from causal mommy bloggers, to marketers for big businesses and everyone in between are taking advantage of WordPress platforms to make their voices heard. The freedom of expression that WordPress affords users and its simplicity make it an elegant solution for meeting a variety of site building needs.

For people who’ve never used WordPress, these advantages might not seem straightforward. In order to utilize WordPress to run your blog or website consider the following five tips for beginners.

1. Utilize Keywords

Keywords are important tools for bloggers on a number of levels. From a reader’s perspective, they make it easy to discover relevant content. From the perspective of the blogger, keywords are critical for making content perform well in search results. WordPress makes it easy for bloggers to optimize their content for certain keywords.

For example, if you were writing a post about cars and wanted to utilize the keyword “mosquito control for backyard” you could utilize the phrase in the title of the post, the body paragraphs and the meta description that will accompany it in search engine previews. Also, picture captions and meta tags for photos present themselves as other viable options for distributing a keyword throughout a post.

2. Schedule Posts in Advance

One of the keys to successful blogging is maintaining a consistent pattern with the content you share. Regularly sharing posts makes it easier for you to plan your work and allows readers to anticipate new material. Luckily, for WordPress users, it isn’t necessary to make your schedule revolve around a consistent posting timeline. WordPress gives users the option to schedule content to be shared in the future.

When viewing the edit screen on a post that you wish to schedule, next to the “publish” button you’ll find text that reads “edit”. Clicking the “edit” text will allow you to select the exact date and time this content will be published on your blog. Once you’ve selected the desired publishing date and time, you’ll find the publish box now reads “schedule”. Clicking this button will instruct WordPress to share your post at the indicated time.

3. Social Sharing

Whether you blog as a hobby or leverage your blog for business, encouraging people to read your content is likely your main goal. Facilitating the sharing of your blog posts via social networks is a key strategy to increase readership. One of the best ways to encourage people to share your content is to include social sharing buttons on your blog. Plugins such as the “Socialable” plugin will give your blog a convenient sidebar that allows readers to share your posts with a simple click.

4. Google Analytics

After putting all of this work into creating your blog and writing quality content, you will surely want to get some feedback. Google Analytics presents itself as a multifaceted tool for analyzing the performance of your blog posts. This includes analyzing how many people are viewing your posts, how they are reaching them, whether they’re being shared and a variety of other useful content.

Simply download the Google Analytics plugin for WordPress in order to begin tracking your blog’s results. As you become more familiar with Google Analytics, you will be able to manipulate your results to reflect trends, conduct content experiments and many other useful tasks.

5. Engage Your Audience

One of the key advantages of a blog is that it serves as a medium for communication between you and your target audience. Whether these people are potential customers or readers in a niche field, they are the people who are relevant to your blog’s goals. Encouraging people to comment on your posts with a call to action, asking questions and encouraging feedback are good strategies for generating conversation. Also, when people comment on your blog posts be sure to answer them in order to keep the conversation rolling.

WordPress presents itself as a valuable tool for users who wish to share their content. The aforementioned tips can help new WordPress users begin taking advantage of this platforms broad range of features and benefits.

The post Beginners Guide to WordPress appeared first on Pongra.

Sometimes, getting page views and followers isn’t as simple as “putting yourself out there.” You may have all the technical tools at your disposal for better exposure. Unfortunately, there is a chance you are actively sabotaging your success in a way you never actually considered: with your own words.

Here are a few helpful tips to keep your unique writing style from inadvertently driving away regular readership.

Make Sure You Proofread

A typo is forgivable and a few errors here or there are also understandable. But a blog filled with nothing but badly-typed information will go nowhere fast. This is true even if the content is creative and unique. A person could be intelligent and funny, but that’s something that often doesn’t translate well when it comes to poorly-typed articles. If you want to tell readers about charter schools in Philadelphia — and be sure they’ll come back to learn more on future posts — keep your spelling and grammar on point.

It only takes a couple of minutes to glance over what you wrote. If you’re willing to take the time to put forth your best effort, it will show.

Make Sure the Color Scheme Doesn’t Clash

Raise your hand if you’ve ever visited a website you had to navigate away from because the background and text colors simply hurt your eyes. You surely have. If your color scheme makes it too hard to read what is written, then many people aren’t going to make the effort. Whether you opt for a bright or dark background, be certain the text works well and isn’t too hard to read. Be mindful of font size as well as background images — sometimes images you don’t mind seeing can be awkward and ugly to visitors.

If you need help, seek feedback from others regarding how your web space looks, and make the suggested changes.

Be Intelligent and Engaging Rather Than Crude And Standoffish

There are few things more annoying than blog owners who think they know everything, and anyone who disagrees with them is stupid or jealous.

It’s true that you are the master of your castle and you get the last word on who visits your blog. But the comment section shouldn’t exist for you to gather as many yes-men and -women as possible. A community grows based on intelligent dialogue and mutual respect.

Also, being crude and foul can turn a lot of people off from what you’re writing. If you’re dropping f-bombs every five words, you may feel edgy, but your audience will be less than impressed. Anyone can swear; it takes a real desire to engage your readership and find other ways to get your point of view across.

The post How To Avoid a Writing Style That Drives Readers Away appeared first on Pongra.

Having a blog only makes sense if you have people reading it! You can have the most interesting content in the world but if you’re not creating engagement, you’ll find it doesn’t offer a great return. The good news is that with a little know-how, you can easily increase and maintain engagement on your blog. The most important rule is to be human and be yourself! Think about when you’re reading blogs or on social media – you never want to feel like you’re interacting with a robot or like you’re asking questions or generating conversation and never getting anything back! Make sure that, even if you’re posting as a business, your blog has a very human quality to it. In addition to that cardinal rule, here are 5 different ways to increase engagement on your blog:

Social Shares

People can’t read your blog if they don’t know about it! Make sure you do as much as you can to get your blog visible to the public. Share it on your Facebook page, tweet it out, slap it up on Google +, Pinterest, etc. Anything you can think of! Don’t be afraid to ask people you know to share it as well! People are often happy to help.

Ask Questions

If people get the sense that they are being talked at instead of talked to, they won’t be as likely to contribute their opinions or to interact with you on your blog. Ask questions to get a conversation started. Open ended questions like “What do you think about killing field mice?” tend to get good responses as do multiple choice questions “If you had to choose between X, Y and Z…”

Answer Them!

One of the best ways to drive engagement is to respond to every comment, question or post that someone leaves. Then people will feel confident that if they post on your blog, they’ll get a response from you – and that’s generally what everyone is looking for in the blogosphere!

Keep Your Content Fresh

Nothing will drive people away from a site more quickly than noticing that it hasn’t been updated in six months. Post on your blog often so readers learn to come back often.

Use Lots of Different Media

Old-fashioned text posts are great but it’s a good idea to mix it up with images, videos, sound clips and anything else you can think of that might grab someone’s attention. It must be said that cute puppy photos, though not appropriate for all blogs, never seem to disappoint! Building an audience is important but engaging them is the only way to make sure you maintain an audience and to help it continue to grow! It doesn’t have to be a full time job but it does require a little TLC to make sure you’re getting the most out of your blog. Use these simple tips to build the reputation of your blog and keep your audience happy and loyal.

The post 5 Ways to Increase Engagement on Your Blog appeared first on Pongra.

Day after day, more people are finding themselves dreading the daily grind that comes along with their job. Lack of motivation, boredom and feeling unfulfilled are all indicators that passion and enthusiasm have somehow found their way out of your work life, which can unfortunately carry over into other parts of your existence, too.

Luckily, doing what you love or at least incorporating your interests into your job is not an unattainable task. Focusing on even just a few key aspects of the relationship between your passions and your job can truly make a difference and create a sense of enthusiasm about your profession. So what exactly can you do to feel more passion in your career? Let’s find out!

Get Excited

What is it that excites you? What were you most looking forward to when you started your job? Whatever it may be, discover that excitement again and reclaim it! When you are truly passionate about something, you can feel yourself becoming happier even when you’re only thinking about it. So why not apply this principle to your career? Think about your work routine, and find something in each task that is exciting to you.

Now visualize yourself completing these tasks while focusing on the aspect that excites you. Isn’t that better? Concentrate on what provokes stimulation and excitement, and passion will find its way into your job.

Develop Passion, Don’t Just Find It

What you are passionate about is not always a producer of instantaneous gratification, which many people in the workforce can see as a letdown — but don’t let this keep you from working at it! Increase your competence and knowledge, and let the passion follow. Enjoying your work is important, but it can be extremely daunting when you aren’t experienced enough in the areas that would allow for your passion to thrive.

Get through the tough times on the job by learning as much as you possibly can to develop your expertise and cultivate a passion for something you might not have been great at on your first few attempts.

Location

You need to keep in mind that where you are is just as important as what you are doing. Is your hotel job in Miami getting you down because of your love of the snow and mountains? Perhaps you should be putting your skills to better use at a resort in Colorado. Are you a technology professional who is also passionate about the French language? Maybe you should consider working for a French VPN company.

Your geographic location can play a big part in igniting passion for your work. It not only allows for a way of life that is tailored more towards your personal interests, but it also allows you to use your passion-filled skills on the job, leading to greater career satisfaction.

Look Within

Unfortunately, the ideal job that is perfectly molded to your skills and passions most likely doesn’t exist. A specific job title or pay grade isn’t going to have everything that you want, so you need to look within yourself and create the role that will make you passionate about your work.

You know yourself better than anyone, and you can take this self-knowledge and apply it to your job. Do more of the tasks that bring out your inner passion and even find a way to transfer that into the tasks you find a bit more menial. No matter the job, company or task, the actual passion lies within you. Grasp whatever that may be, and utilize it in your career to create a continuous cycle of enthusiasm.

Feeling more passionate about your job can be simple — embrace it! The work you put into figuring out what really excites you will lead to much higher job satisfaction in the long run. Develop your skills and competence to allow your passion to shine, and what you see in yourself will transfer into your career. While these aspects of creating more passion are just a few examples, they will surely get you started on the path to feeling much more excitement and self-worth in the workplace.

The post How to Feel More Passionate About Your Job appeared first on Pongra.

Our goal is to make you a quality home that looks and feels exactly how you want it to and more. We work with you and ensure that the home building process is as quick and easy as possible. Don’t worry – we’ll guide you every step of the way so that you never have to settle for a production house again.

What We Offer

We offer you the unique ability to design your own home, from the ground up. You tell us what you’re looking for and we’ll build it for you. Your materials, textures, colors, appliances and other features are all yours too choose so you can build a house that truly will feel like home.

Costello Builders features four distinctive neighborhoods built exclusively by us: Stonehenge Reserve, Stonehenge Reserve II-III, Deaven Woods and Spring Haven. With locations from Lancaster county to Hershey, our four luxurious developments provide great locations in which to build your new home.

Why Go Custom With Your Home?

Because you call all the shots!

It can take a lot of time, effort and money to find an already built home that meets all of your and your family’s needs. Why search for the perfect home (which may not exist) when you can have us build it for you?

Every decision is yours to make. Different families have different functionality and aesthetic preferences. All families are not built the same, so why should all houses be? We ask you to choose your materials, textures, colors, appliances and other features. We can meet any desire, want or need that you have for your new home. Do you want a walk-in shower? We’ll build it. Do you want a red accent wall? We’ll paint it. Do you want granite countertops? We’ll install them.

Not only can you choose the features in your home, but you can also choose a development where you want us to build it. If your family is growing but your neighborhood isn’t, a custom home might be the way to go in finding a new home with room for your loved ones.

This customization saves you money in the long run.

1. You won’t need to worry about home improvement or remodeling. You’re investing in a home that’s already made just for you, so you won’t have to spend any money down the road on renovations.
2. You can choose appliances and insulation that will minimize your utility costs. You can choose to use “green” appliances and insulation for your home, which will severely cut down your utility costs over time. Also, we make sure that your home is built right the first time – we don’t tolerate cracks or leaks when we install your insulation. You know that you’ll never risk losing precious heat or air conditioning in a Costello house.
3. Costello doesn’t cut corners. Many production builders may use products that minimize the cost of construction and maximize profit. These homes don’t have the life expectancy that many homebuyers desire. With Costello, you select only the products that meet your standards, so you’ll never have to worry about a job half done.

At Costello Builders, our goal is to make you a quality home that looks and feels exactly how you want it to. We work with you and ensure that the process is as quick and easy as possible on your end. Don’t worry if you’re unsure of what you’re looking for – we’ll guide you every step of the way so that you never have to settle for a production house again.

The post Costello Builders: A Profile Of Central PA’s Leading Custom Home Builder appeared first on Pongra.

So… you did it. You researched, designed, and outreached an infographic and it was awesome. It got featured on a couple big sites, and syndicated on a couple others. Nice! But wait – it’s not quite time to shelf that project, just yet. You can still get a lot more links out of that infographic, if you do your job right.

Every time you get an infographic on a big site like Mashable or even a site that is big within a niche, such as TreeHugger in the environmental niche or 12 Keys in the rehab niche, that infographic will usually find its way onto a number of smaller blogs. But because those bloggers don’t know any better (yet!) they will often link to the bigger source as credit, not to your site or your client’s site. Or they’ll link to nothing. This is a great opportunity!

One of the hardest parts of this process is finding the sites that posted your infographic, which can be difficult if they used few words for you to search by. Still, there are a variety of tricks you can use to pick them out of the crowd. You’ll probably find a few more people who posted your infographic, and if you’re lucky you might find some that you didn’t know about who are already linking to you. Easy win!

Go Back Through Your Initial Contacts

If you originally reached out to a list of people with your initial outreach, chances are that most of them didn’t write back – that’s to be expected. But sometimes bloggers liked the content, but are just too busy to reach back out to you after posting it. Revisit everyone’s site and do a quick perusal for your infographic. If it’s a site that posts frequently throughout the day, you might have better luck plugging some search queries into Google such as [site:TheirURL.com “Name of Your Infographic”] or [site:TheirURL.com “Keyword Related to Infographic”]. If they did post it, be sure to write back and thank them for posting it. If they posted but didn’t link to you or your client, try sending them a polite message asking for the link – if you’re respectful, they’ll most likely be happy to go back and add the link.

Reverse Image Search

Reverse image search is the holy grail of reclaiming infographic links. Go to Google Image Search and click the camera at the right end of the search bar to begin a reverse image search.

Then either paste the URL of the image from your blog post about it or from the biggest site on which it was featured, or upload the image from your computer. Since infographics are big files, I recommend just pasting the URL of the image.

Poof! If your infographic was popular, you’ll have page upon page of results, and even if it was only moderately successful you’ll probably have one or two. Google will also suggest similar images, but this is usually useless as they’re not the same infographic at all. If your graphic was popular on Pinterest, you might have to sort through a lot of Pinterest results; for the moment you don’t seem to be able to take them out of an image search by adding [-site:pinterest.com] to the searchbar, but perhaps Google will add this in the future.

Although you’ll probably have the greatest success with Reverse Image Search, you might still find more postings by using a few more text-based searches.

Search by Title

One of the first things I try when I am looking for people who posted my infographic is searching by title. In theory, especially if the infographic has the title within the image, if a blogger puts any text at all with the graphic it will be the title. I typically start with a simple search for [“Title of Infographic”] but if it’s a title that’s been used elsewhere (or a pun or common spin on an idea) I’ll add the word “infographic” to my search: [infographic “Title of Infographic”]. Try a few variations of the title if you think it would help locate more postings.

Search for the Accompanying Blog Post

I’m not a fan of duplicate content, and neither are legitimate bloggers, but you will sometimes find a blog that posts the infographic and just “borrows” the accompanying post. Search for a random sentence or two from your original blog post accompanying the graphic. Also try a sentence or two from the biggest blogs that posted the graphic.

Search for Syndications

Sometimes big blogs get syndicated by smaller blogs (and occasionally big blogs get syndicated to even bigger sites, which is even cooler). Search for syndications by searching for the title the big blog used for your graphic, or for a few key phrases, such as [infographic “Name of Big Blog” “Keyword Related to Infographic”]. If you happen to just know offhand where they get syndicated, or you find a list of places it syndicates, look through those sites, too.

Search Your Embed Code Text

When all else fails, I try to search the snippet of text containing the link in my embed code. This is less to find places that didn’t link (although occasionally they will remove the link from the embed code and leave the text) and more just to find additional postings. This will work less and less as you or your client create and outreach more infographics, but sometimes if you’ve outreached it recently you can use the Google search tools to set it to instances of that search in the past month.

Reverse “Video” Search?

If you create motion graphics in addition to infographics, you may be wondering if a tool exists to find where people have posted these. Unfortunately, at the moment that is not the case, but there is one thing you can do to see at least a few of the places your video has been embedded and played, if it’s on YouTube.

In your YouTube Analytics, choose “Playback locations” from the left-side menu and click “Embedded player on other websites.” Enter the title of your motion graphic into the search bar at the top to see results for just that video. At the end, you’ll see a list of all of the domains where that video has been posted and played at least once. You should be able to find your embedded video on most, if not all, of those domains using searches like [site:TheirURL.com “Title of Infographic”].

Sending Your Link Requests

Your link requests should be written individually for each big site you’re asking for a link from, and at least personalized templates for all the other sites. Don’t let link request etiquette completely fly out the window just because you’re eager to get a link.

If someone hasn’t included a link to any site at all with the graphic, politely remind them that just because content is on the internet doesn’t mean it’s free to use without attribution. Most infographics are licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs (or CC BY-ND), which means that anyone, commercial or not, is allowed to share the image, as long as they give credit to the creator and do not make derivative works. You can explain this to the blogger and even link to the CC license in your email, and ask that they add a link to your site.

If a site has syndicated the graphic from another site, it may be difficult to get them to change the link, but you can try. And some blogs, especially those who have been heavily hit by Google updates, may be critical of linking to other sites or only give a no-follow link. You can try to convince them otherwise, but be prepared for rejection.

That should just about cover it. Good luck getting those links! Do you have some brilliant search query you use to find rogue infographics? Share it in the comments!

The post How to Reclaim Infographic Links appeared first on Pongra.

Just like almost anything else in life, freelance writing has its pros and cons. The highs of having freedom and the ability to be creative are tempered by the lows of unsteady pay and occasional feelings of isolation. It’s important to consider all aspects of becoming a self-employed freelance writer before actually taking the plunge. Knowing all the facts and being prepared for potential pitfalls are the best things a hopeful freelance writer can do for themselves. Here’s a look at the best and worst parts of freelancing.

The Upside of Freelancing

Most any writer will say that the very best part of freelancing is the freedom it affords. The only boss you are accountable for is yourself! Freelancers can work on their own time, whether it’s bright and early in the morning with a cup of coffee or late at night with a glass of wine. It all depends upon the workload, when creativity strikes or even working around a child’s schedule.

In fact, freelance writing is a great opportunity for moms. Many women appreciate the fact that they can continue working from the comfort of home without the need for daycare. It’s a great way to make a financial contribution to the family and also continue having a professional career.

Many freelancers also like the fact that they can stretch their brains. Since a freelance writer never knows what assignment will come his or her way, it’s a great opportunity to learn new things. Having that ability to research and write about any topic means one day a writer may have an assignment on plants, and the next on power tools. There’s always an element of surprise that many people find refreshing and challenging.

There are so many things freelance writers can do. A writer can find themselves working on a magazine article, writing a blog or proofreading a web post for different companies on the same day. This is a great set-up for multitaskers.

It’s best for freelancers to establish a strong client base to ensure steady work. Signing contracts with SEO companies, local publications or a blogging website can help create stability in what can be a sometimes unsteady career choice.

The Downside of Freelancing

The biggest negative freelance writers have to contend with is the lack of a steady paycheck. There is no guaranteed income, or even passive income; some months may be feast and others famine. A writer has to accept the fact that there can be slow times and also incredibly busy times.

When it comes to getting work, competition can be tough. Many writers may find themselves bidding on jobs or writing for content mills for little pay. There are a lot of fellow writers out there, so freelancers must say on their toes when it comes to finding work.

There’s also more to being a freelance writer than just writing. Not only are you working as a writer, you are in essence, running your own business. This means keeping on top of contracts, billing for and tracking payments for multiple clients, and paying your own taxes. It can be a lot to keep track of and it helps if you have a computerized system for keeping things in check.

One other negative of being a freelancer is feeling isolated. There are no co-workers to socialize with, eat lunch with or head to happy hour with. Although this may not bother some people, it can be a problem for others. If so, try taking your computer to a café for an hour or two each day for a bit of social time.

If you’re considering becoming a freelance writer, it’s important to carefully consider all these points before moving forward. It may also help to join an online writers’ group or professional organization like Editorial Freelancers Association to feel like part of a group and to find job leads. Being a self-employed freelance writer can be a rewarding and challenging career, and lifestyle choice that can pay off in many ways.

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