iFreelanceWork.com Blog

I’m sure you’ve seen many articles regarding the economy, what to do, how to stay afloat. I must say, I too have been thinking hard about staying in business or not, with companies going out of business left and right; companies like Circuit City, National Wholesale Liquidators,  Steve & Barry’s… well, you get the idea. But what is their to do?

The truth of the matter is.. ride it out. With lack of sales & revenue, being conservitive would be the way to go. Things like cutting back on certain expenses is a good start. Even cutting back on spending on advertising. Now of course, I don’t mean to take your name out of the running completely.. after all, you still need to stay in business.. But, perhaps it’s time to try and find ways to advertise for free.

But of course, you think .. well, I already did all that .. what more? My advise.. Hang tight.. wait it out.. and bring in income any way you can; even if that means obtaining a second income until things pick back up.

But, for those of us to stubborn to go that route, I suggest freelancing. I know it sounds like “spending”, but think of what your time is worth. Let’s say you are starting a business.. More than likely, you’ll need a website. But most importantly, once your set up, you need revenue.. Which means, you are out selling. You don’t have time to learn what a web server is. You don’t have time to decide whether you want Linux or Windows, PHP or ASP, Java (is that coffee?) or whatever other computer mumbo-jumbo is there.  And to be honest, on websites like iFreelanceWork.com, getting someone to build a website shouldn’t cost you more than a few hundred dollars. Whereas, had you tried to do it yourself, it might have taken you one month. Putting this in perspective, if you are or were getting paid 60,000 at your previous job, you just cost yourself 5000 bucks .. and remember, any money you spend, is all tax deductible.,

I am not one to publically display my political views. Whether or not any of us wanted a democratic president or a replubican one is in the past. Complaining about it or being excited about it changes nothing. We have what we have. Our fate (both your’s and mine) rests in the hands of our newest president .. I will say however that I believe he is for the people, and will do what is within his power to get us out of this slump. And, that’s all I’ll say about that.

Getting off topic slightly, let’s return to what captured your attention: promotion. Promotion, as we all know, is the key to a successful business. Of course, just because people are coming to your site, doesn’t mean they are going to buy. But, we’ll save that for a different topic. People always say that Google is the place to be. Other’s say Yahoo.. I say, sort of and sort of. Google is good, but getting on the first or second page probably won’t happen in the first 10 years of your existence, unless your site is getting tons of outside hits and links from other sources.  Adwords will get you on the first page for sure, but you better have the big bucks to pay for it. Let’s put it this way: I did a study by putting up a site and setting to just $25 a day. Now, for a small business starting out, your budget is very thin, especially for a company with no backing other than what’s in your wallet. So, let’s do the math: $25 x 30 days (people surf the web on Saturday’s and Sunday’s and all hours of the day and night) = $750 .. a month.

Many people think that $750 is a lot of money, but necessary to promote your site. But wait.. If you are paying (and I’m low balling things here) $0.50 a click that means you get a whopping 50 clicks per day starting at 12 midnight. If you are advertising worldwide, then you probably will have 50 clicks by 6am local time.. and if you are advertising nationally, you’ll be lucky your ad is running by noon.

Answer? Well, their really is none, but perahps I would try Yahoo. They are slightly cheaper, and their are still a ton of surfers around the world using it.  I would also start locally, building a local business.. or regional.. START SMALL..  Trust me from experience, start small.. don’t look at the big fish already swimming in your money.. rather stay focused on what you are donig and what you have.

Good luck! See ya soon..

Uncle D

Amazingly, I have found the topic of SEO to be quite popular. However, day in and day out, I see post after post and blog after blog on this topic. Furthermore, I see countless questions (including my own) on how to rank your site at the top. So the question is, “How do you get your Google Pagerank number greater than zero?” After much research, here is what I came up with.

Popularity. Popularity seems to be the keyword when it comes to SEO and page ranking. The one thing I notice the most in any blog, article, or website I have read in the past regarding this topic (success stories mind you) they seem to come down to “one way links”. Basically, this means that your website is linked from someone else’s website who already has a good page ranking. But, the key isn’t getting your site linked by just one site. You need to have it linked by 500 or 1000 before Google may recognize you as a serious player in the optimization field.

The key, as I stated before, is links. Getting hundreds of links from well ranked page will up your ranking in a heartbeat. Google feels that if your good enough to be linked from a page that is well ranked, then you are good enough to be well ranked. Unfortunately in today’s “Google algorithm”, page ranking isn’t necessarily the key to being on top, but it surely doesn’t hurt.

So what’s the best way to get linked? It surely isn’t asking a thousand websites to put your link somewhere on their page. The key is to write articles. Articles with good content (hopefully like this one) that people want to read will get the attention of other bloggers and readers. Thus, they will begin feeding your site via RSS or a straight post onto their site with your content and your site attached to it. They key is that you need to continuously post genuine articles that catch the attention of others getting webmasters to post your stuff. But you ask, “Why don’t most articles contain links?” Good question. The answer: From a webmaster standpoint, you better have a good article. But from a Google page ranking standpoint, the footer box is the key. Putting your link in your post (be it blog or article listing) is just going to piss people off. Make sure you write a great but small bio of you and your site and why you feel you are eligible to write what you are writing. That footer box at the bottom of any article or blog you write will carry with your posts, and allow the link back from there. Basically, you get the best of both worlds.

Make sure you love what you are writing about, because you are going to have to write a lot about it. Be sure not to get to wordy where you bore your readers, but be sure to write enough content to make your readers bookmark, or better yet post your article onto their site.

In conclusion, let it be known that any Tom, Dick, and Harry can link to you. Plus, any one way links you have from sites that also have a zero page rank from Google means squat for your ranking.

iFreelanceWork.com, now being less than a month old, is really gaining ground. Our goal is to give you as much as a step by step for people wanting to grow their exposure in the world as a freelancer, or as a business.

Much to our surprise, freelancers and project managers are signing up left and right getting ready to use our site to look for work or find talent respectively. We have mainly advertised on google’s adwords program, which seems to be our most successful marketing program to date. However, we have not yet tried yahoo or msn ads yet either so we can’t comment on those yet.

Like everyone else, we’re trying to promote our site, gain internet traffic, and help people get work they may have never been able to get. With a down economy, we hope to become the number one place on the net for people to come to find talent cheaper than they may at other sites such as monster, and at the same time bring people worldwide together to give them an opportunity to enhance their skills and resume.

We have been constantly researching ways to gain exposure. You probably can Google “iFreelanceWork.com” and find questions we asked on sites like Yahoo and such regarding internet traffic. Originally, it was suggested that we create this blog to promote our site. But, we realized even before we started the site that a blog seems to be more of our way of giving back. I personally am somewhat of a religious man, and realize that what goes around comes around. I felt early on that if I give the knowledge I know and learn along the way, it will be returned in good faith. My goal as time goes on is to give you a path to help grow your business/site that can probably be used in all fields, but will be geared more towards freelancing.

One of the cool things we were introduced to regarding our blog is FeedBurner from Google.. It seems with feedburner, they help submit blogs and information one writes about out to the search engines and such, and even helps make it easy for one to subscribe. From what I saw, it seems that people could find your blog which might never would have happened otherwise. So far, we give Feedburner a thumbs up.

Remember, sometimes your friends, family, and colleagues are your best source of free advertising. First thing on your list should be sending out a mass email to everyone you know, don’t know, and then some! Even people you only emailed once that your Outlook for web based email program saved for you. You never know if they need someone, or know of someone who is in need of your service. Next, add a footer to your emails. Every email you send out, whether it is personal or professional, put something on the bottom of each email linked to your site; a one liner is best. Plain, simple, to the point. To much wording will lost anyone’s attention; to little wording and the person reading won’t understand what it’s about. What’s the middle ground? Good question. As their is no right way, following these ways should give you a good middle ground to start on the right track. Afterward, tweak as needed until you feel it is just what you are looking for.

Of course, to be successful at anything, you need to maintain and keep up with things. And, most of all, you need to write something worth reading.

Until next time..

-Uncle D

Don’t forget the WORK in iFreelanceWork.com

Like a child, it seems like everyday you see your child, they look the same. Now, looking at that same child by a realtive you lives far and see’s this child once a year, is amazed on how much the child has grown.

We at www.iFreelanceWork.com feel the same way. Working to improve our site on a daily basis it seems like we’re getting nowhere. But today, we felt a slight light at the end of the tunnel. Why? Today, so it seems, our site has actually grown. Only starting this site a couple weeks ago (the site was actually launched to the public the beginning of October 2008) we have grown into worldwide over 100 freelancers & project managers. Being new to how Google analytical work, I’m still not a 100% sure our daily hit rate, but I can definetly see each day increases in the amount of hits.

The most difficult thing we seem to be running into is publicity. We are constantly googling and coming up with creative marketing ideas to publicize the website worldwide to get the most freelancers and projects on the iFreelanceWork.com site. And boy is it a challenge!

We thought originally running the site would be the hardest thing, but we have done well getting things automated to the point where most things can be done hands free or mobile, and the users of the site have been given enough flexibility to maintain themselves well.

Our blog will continue, sometimes short and sometimes lengthy. Our goal for this blog is to document our path from start up to success (such a relative term since everyone measures success differently). We will try and document our path as we grow, as we see what works and what doesn’t. And, most importantly, try and document our path to making it to the first pages of most major search engines.

We hope you’ll follow us, and comment along the way. We hope to educate you, ourselves, and readers to come.

Until next time..

Blog Writer
iFreelanceWork.com

According to my clock, it’s well past working hours. It’s almost 10pm. My wife is wondering when I’ll be done working. I usually give the generic “in a few minutes” statement, but it seems to be getting old.

I told her that starting a business isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.  In the beginning, the idea was to be able to create our own scedule, work from home (saving gas is a pretty big priority these days), spend more time together, and perhaps a little “oochy koochy” in the middle of the work day.

Unfortunately, most of the daydreaming of being my own boss and setting my own hours went straight out the window. Making my own hours became 16 hour days, and being my own boss meant answering to a higher authority: the customer. Not to mention, I all of a sudden needed to wear the design hat, implementation hat, the sales hat, marketing hat, keeping the customer happy hat, finance hat… well, you get the picture. Needless to say, I’ve been looking for my face for about five months now.

I recently attended a SCORES meeting at my local library where they were talking to people who were thinking of starting their own businesses information and up-front obstacles that perhaps could deter some from trying to get out. I silently laughed at some of the reasons why people wanting to go into business for themselves. Most answered along the lines from financial freedom to feelings of success or self righteousness. But, I had to laugh when I heard one woman state “to make my own hours”. I thought the same way; hence, past tense.

As the seminar went on, I thought about the “financial freedom” someone mentioned. I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about, especially starting a business from scratch. Their is no steady income, lots of money going out and hardly any coming in. And, much to my dismay, only 30% of businesses started today will still be in existance 10 years from now.

One of the addressees at the meeting nailed starting a business on the head, or so I think. He asked the crowd “When starting a business, their are only two keywords that should be instilled in your brain. If you don’t have both, you are wasting your time. Any guesses?” Now I must say, I didn’t raise my hand to contribute, but I did think about it .. I came up with education and love. Unfortunately, I was only half right. What were the two key words? “PASSION” & “FEAR” ..

Passion I understood right away. I think it falls in the lines of what I had said “love”. But it is true. You better have the passion to work your tail off to make it perfect, otherwise you’ll be smuthered in concrete.

But FEAR took me for a spin! I never looked at it that way. But it’s true. What’s the fear? Where’s your next meal coming from? How are you gonig to pay your mortgage or electric bill this month? How are you going to feed your spouse? Do you have enough money for toilet paper? With all that in mind, I say that has made me work harder and harder ..

But don’t be discouraged.  One of the reasons I started www.iFreelanceWork.com was to help people go into business for themselves without starving. You can check the site for posted jobs and bid on them. You can do the job from your own home, and have guarantee that you’ll be paid when completed successfully.. Start small.. Even the biggest companies freelance work out, or take on jobs themselves when times are slow..

Until next time.. because this time has run out.

-D