Self Promo for Freelance Writers — More Tips and Analysis Advice

By Dana Prince

We’ve talked in the past about marketing and how important it is to your freelance writing biz. By marketing on an ongoing basis, you might not have to suffer from work shortages and won’t have to pound the pavement constantly looking to schedule in your next gig. The work can come to you. Once you’ve started marketing, it’s a good idea to track where your new clients come from. That’ll help you capitalize on what’s working for you and ensure you’re not missing out on great opportunities.

Here are some tips on marketing methods as well as important advice about analysing your results:

Twitter

Are you tweeting? A lot of writers use Twitter to talk to writer friends but don’t forget that potential customers could be reading your tweets, too. Make sure your Twitter account has a link to your online portfolio or writing business site and keep a degree of professionalism on the account (or have more than one account. One for business and one for fun). If you look at Sharon’s Twitter account, you’ll see she regularly comments on the type of work she’s doing This is smart because if someone is on Twitter and needs those services, they might see Sharon’s tweets and touch base through DM (direct message) or via visiting her site. Want to know if it’s working, check your website stats to see if any visitors arrive via Twitter.

Article Directories

Some writers don’t believe in writing for article marketing directories because they only get a byline but if you do try this out, you can track whether or not people are clicking your links and whether or not they’re re-publishing your article. (For the record, I do advocate this. Sharon Hurley Hall told me about this marketing method in 2006 and it has definitely worked well for me!) Syndication definitely has benefits in terms of getting links to your sites for increased search engine rankings and in terms of getting your article seen by a wider audience. If you have an Ezinearticles account, for instance, do check your article reports in your profile as the info can be valuable in helping you plan for future marketing as well as helping you see where your articles are being posted. Don’t forget to link your Twitter account to your EZA account as well. It’ll auto-tweet new articles for you.

Your Blog

Do you blog for promotional purposes? I do and it works. I probably have over a dozen blogs but one of them is entirely for self-promo purposes. If you do, do check and see where your blog traffic is coming from. If you realise that you’re being found through some keyword searches related to the type of writing you do, you can use that info to help you.

How?

-Write more posts on that topic to further dominate that keyword phrase

-Bookmark articles that are doing well to increase their viral potential

-Analyse your site to see if the query people use to get to a page answers their needs. If people click through link to a page looking for something, does your page deliver?

-Look at your bounce rate to determine whether people get what they want. Where do they click once they’re on that page? If it’s not a “buy now” or “contact me” button, you may want to tweak the content or links on the page.

A big part of marketing comes in analysis. By analyzing how your marketing efforts are working for you, you can increase the payoff!