Freelance Career Tools: Blogs

August 24, 2:33 PMSeattle Freelancing ExaminerL.J. Bothell

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If a freelancer truly has a good long series of industry and skills-related hints, tips, resources, and reader-focused information related to their service, a professional blog can be useful - but it has to be about the audience and their needs first, rather than a need to sell a product, service, or oneself.

Everyone is inundated with advertising, promotions, networking, blogs, and many other attention-grabbers, and few can retain anything that doesn't directly engage and help them improve something/find a resource they need. Everything else about a blog can pretty much be a waste of time. A good use of a professional blog would be a designer who shares tons of tips, links, and pieces of know-how and creates a viable network in that way.

If you plan on using a professional blog as part of your freelance self promotion, check it out:

DO:

• Add valuable information regularly. Blogs die fast when neglected.
Focus on tips, hints, tools, and expertise. Offer examples, samples, case studies, event listings, advice, and tutorials.
• Focus on what the reader needs and desires rather than selling yourself.
• Write punchy-to the point headlines, content, and conclusions – with your own personality quirks.
• Pick/design a layout, format, color scheme, and overall pleasing and professionally-attractive look.
• Use solid information that builds your reputation and drives people to visit regularly.
• Use good keywords in your content that relate to your skills and expertise.
• Respond to the blog comments and offer help, expertise, etc.
• Stay on top of your industry and provide value-added information and commentary.

DON’T:

• Focus on products or services, or on your personal wants, needs, and insecurities.
• Try to be cool, hip, edgy, or something you and your information is not. Focus on offering your personality and expertise, and it will be cool all by itself.
• Add distracting experiences and doo-dads that don’t directly support the very info-overloaded audience’s experience.
• Use it to rant about the industry, world, or bad employment experiences.
• Use for shorties more appropriate for Twitter.
• Choose a hard-to-view, access, or read design and format.
• Have unscreened comments if the comment tone starts to go off-topic at all.
• Have advertisements for businesses or services.

DRIVE VISITS:

• Give your links to your portfolio, LinkedIn, and professional blog equal status in your self-promotional materials.
• Link your blog to LinkedIn, BizNik, your portfolio/samples, you online profiles, etc.
• Link to a few other relevant blogs in your industry that you respect, and see if any of them will cross-link to you.
• Have links to industry-related info and resource sites, publications, and tools.

Questions? Contact L.J. at ljbnomad@gmail.com. Note: developed from an LJB LinkedIn answer.