By Michelle V. Rafter

Editor’s note: This blog post originally appeared on Michelle Rafter's WordCount blog and is copyright 2009 Michelle Vranizan Rafter. It is reprinted here by permission. The original post can be found here.

Traffic to this blog [WordCount] has grown steadily since I launched it in January 2008 but it’s really started picking up lately. It doubled last month and is on track to double again this month. I attribute it to several things:

1. Timeliness - Writing about timely subjects, such as the story of Roxana Saberi, the freelance broadcast journalist who’s just be convicted of espionage in Iran. I blogged about her situation last month and each time there’s been a development in her case I’ve seen daily traffic spike to four and five times the usual amount.

2. History - My blog’s now 16 months old and people who write about the same subjects - freelancing and digital media - have discovered it, link to it, leave comments on it, etc. I do likewise on their blogs. All of that has added to traffic, though not as much as #1.

3. Consistency - When I first started blogging I was a very inconsistent poster. Then I did a month-long blogathon and posted every day, which gave me a nice bump. After that I blogged M-F for the better part of 8 or 9 months, until earlier this year when I had so much writing work going on I dropped back to MWF. That’s been enough to keep people coming back and traffic increasing.

4. Standing features - Awhile back I started running a recap every Friday of highlights of the week’s news and developments in freelancing and digital media. Now my readers look forward to it - I know because they tell me. I also run Q&As with freelancers on a regular basis. I know other writing bloggers have had equally good results with the standing features they run.

5. Guest posts - Writing guests posts for other bloggers introduces you to potential new readers of your own blog. Likewise, when you ask someone to write a guest post on your blog, hopefully their regular readers will follow them over for the day, discover your stuff and become regulars.

6. SEO - Using tags and keywords helps move your posts up in searches on Google, Yahoo, etc., and that brings more people to your Website. Putting pictures in your posts - and labeling them - is another way to show up on top of search results. Some of my most well-trafficked blog posts got those click throughs because of the pictures I used to illustrate them. Is that cheating? Not really. People may click through for the image, but if you’re lucky they’ll stick around to read the blog post too.

7. Web rings - I’m a very part-time member of a Web ring of freelance writers who help promote each others’ work on social bookmarking services like Digg and StumpleUpon. The few times I’ve asked people to promote blog posts it’s pushed traffic up significantly. If you’re interested in this type of thing, though, you have to be prepared to give as much as you receive, which means spending some small portion of your day Digging and Stumbling other people’s blog posts.

8. Twitter - One of the things I use Twitter for is to promote my blog posts, and it’s not a surprise that traffic to my blog started to really take off right around the same time I joined. When I write a new blog post I tweet about it and include a link. When people follow me, I DM them to say hi and introduce myself, and include a link to my blog. When I see a question about something I’ve blogged about, I’ll answer, and include a link to my blog. That sounds like a lot of promotion it really isn’t, because I also tweet about a bunch of other things. I did an analysis once and figured out that I included links to my blog in only 1 of 10 tweets, and I’d estimate it’s an even smaller ratio now.

9. Links - If you link out to source material that’s related to what you’re writing about and your readers click on those links, pretty soon the owner of that blog is going to come investigate where the traffic is coming from. When that happens, you could take the opportunity to leave a comment on their blog or send them an email - in other words, get acquainted. After that happens, you might offer to exchange links, you put their blog in your blog roll and they do likewise. That drives traffic up for both of you.

10. Good content and good writing - Have something interesting to say, and say it in a compelling way. You can use all the tricks in the SEO book, link like mad and use every social bookmarking trick there is, but if your ideas and writing don’t sing, people will stop in once and never come back.

There are other things too - keeping posts short, lists, sexy headlines, etc., but these are the top 10.

What’s driven traffic to your blog?

Michelle V. Rafter is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. She has spent more than 20 years covering business and technology for magazines, newspapers, wire services and Websites.

Labels: Blogging/Blogging Strategy, Digital, Michelle Rafter

By Michelle V. Rafter

This blog post originally appeared on Michelle Rafter's WordCount blog and is copyright 2008 Michelle Vranizan Rafter. It is reprinted here by permission. The original post can be found here.

In the past week I heard from several writers who are thinking about starting a blog. Bravo! Now comes the hard part.

There are all kinds of reasons for blogging: building a brand, practicing different types of writing, promoting a book, putting your resume and clips online, or just getting stuff out there that you couldn’t or wouldn’t put in a paid assignment.

Though the reasons may vary, the mechanics of getting a blog started don’t. Here are six simple steps to starting your freelance writing blog:

1. Pick a niche that you’re in love with. If you’re not passionate about something, your enthusiasm for writing about it will fade. So pick something that speaks to you. Entertainment writer Jane Boursaw blogs about movies at Film Gecko. Sandra Hume, a freelance writer in Kansas, blogs about Laura Ingalls Wilder. Another freelancer, Roxanne Hawn, blogs about her dog Lily. I blog here about how digital media is changing the freelance writing business, a topic that combines my experience covering the tech business with my personal interest in keeping up with the times as a freelancer.

2. Deal with the mechanics. Once you’ve got an idea, you need to give it a home. You can set up a blog on any number of free blog sites including WordPress, Blogger or TypePad. Or you can download free software from Moveable Type or WordPress.org and pay a service like GoDaddy to host your blog. Most of these services have extensive FAQ sections and user forums where you can get answers to your blogging-related questions.

3. Present interesting and well-written material. There’s no right way to write blog posts. But there are some good rules of thumb. Short is good. Write like you’re talking to a friend. Vary post styles: lists, Q&As, and anything with bullet points seem to be particularly popular with readers. Blog posts that spell out your reaction to new events practically write themselves. Others that offer your original reporting or commentary take more time and effort. I included a bunch of other ideas in this post on writing great freelance blog posts and in this one on whether to plot out posts ahead of time or write on the fly.

4. Commit to posting regularly. How often you post is up to you, but doing it consistently is a sure way to increase traffic. That’s one of the main lessons I learned from my May blogathon, where I posted every day for a month. Now I blog Monday through Friday. Other freelancers I know post a couple days a week. Boursaw, the entertainment writer, writes multiple posts a day, sometimes as many as 10. Maybe it’s why traffic to her blog is through the roof.

5. Build traffic. There are all types of tips and tricks to get people to find out about your blog, including using search engine optimization or SEO to tag your blog posts so Google, Yahoo and other search engines will pick them up, and putting links into your posts. Other traffic builders: maintaining a blogroll, leaving comments on other blogs, and joining blogging networks. Here’s a list of other tips for improving traffic to your freelance blog. You can find more information on these and other techniques on sites such as Copyblogger and ProBlogger and Blogging Basics 101.

6. Have fun! Don’t freak out if your blog’s not popular right out of the gate. Unless you’re lucky or are using a blog to promote a book that’s already bestseller, it takes time for people to find you.

If you’re still not comfortable getting started, you can always take a class online or sign up for a new media seminar.

Got your own suggestions for how to start a writing blog?

Michelle V. Rafter is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. She has spent more than 20 years covering business and technology for magazines, newspapers, wire services and Websites.

Labels: Blogging/Blogging Strategy, Career/Employment, Freelancing, Michelle Rafter

By Michelle V. Rafter

To all the laid-off newspaper or magazine writers looking for work – if you’re thinking of freelancing, consider business publications.

While it’s not the perfect time to be hustling for work as an independent writer – more supply, less demand – your status as a former staffer gives you some leverage. I say this not only as a long-time freelancer who’s made writing for trade publications a specialty but also as a former daily newspaper reporter and a one-time trade magazine editor.

When it comes to writing for the trades, ex-staff writers have advantages over freelancers who’ve never worked in-house at a publication before. Here’s why:

Editors can relate to you. Because you’ve been a staffer, you’re perceived as part of the fold. Editors will take it for granted that you know how to research, do interviews and write news or feature stories, but also do things like write story budget lines, suggest heads and decks and hustle after artwork – making them more willing to assign stories to you than to a freelancer without a similar background. This can be a double-edged sword. Since they expect you can do all of those things, you'd better be able to deliver.

You’re responsible. Whether you worked somewhere one year or 10, getting yourself into a newsroom or your home office day after day shows a potential trade magazine client that you have enough self discipline to deliver what you say you can. Make sure you spell this out in a resume or letter of introduction.

You’ve worked a beat. You know how to mine sources and do other research to generate story ideas, something that can come in handy if you to want write for a particular business magazine on a regular basis. Again, be sure to hit on this point in a letter of introduction or query.

You understand deadlines. That is to say, you know that if a story’s due by the end of Monday that’s when you’ll turn it in, if not before. And if you can turn assignments in early, do it – editors love that and will remember you the next time they’ve got extra work to hand out.

You have connections. If you’re planning to continue writing about subjects you covered as a staffer, you have experience and an established network of sources to draw from. That translates into a shorter learning curve for any business magazine editor who’s considering assigning you stories.

Writing for the trades might not be as high profile as writing for national women’s magazines or glossy shelter publications. I have freelance friends who write for both of those, and based on the stories they tell, the high per-word rate doesn’t make up for the equally high pain-in-the-neck factor. Trades may not have the same cache – though some definitely do – but they offer steady, interesting work at competitive rates, and ex-staffers would be smart to use their experience to capitalize on that.

Bonus tip: If you are interested in writing for business publications, check out Magazine Health Watch. The Website is a regularly updated, interactive database of advertising pages and revenue for consumer and business magazines. It’s run by Inquiry Management Systems, a publishing service company. Here’s why I like it: freelancers can examine the listings to find the names of trade titles in specific business categories they might be interested in writing for. It can also be used to track how healthy an individual publication is based on the ad pages run or revenue collected in the most recent quarter – good information to know in these financially precarious times.

Michelle V. Rafter is a freelance writer based in Portland, Ore. She has spent more than 20 years covering business and technology for magazines, newspapers, wire services and Websites. She also writes the WordCount blog on freelancing in the digital age.

Labels: Career/Employment, Freelancing, Michelle Rafter