Comments on: Website Basics for the Freelance Writer

By: » Writers: Is Your Website Working for You? : All Freelance Writing

» Writers: Is Your Website Working for You? : All Freelance Writing — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 22:07:32 +0000

[...] Website Basics for the Freelance Writer [...]

By: Casual Friday: A few fun and creative gems | This Laptop for Hire

Casual Friday: A few fun and creative gems | This Laptop for Hire — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:28:46 +0000

[...] …and forgot to mention my guest post at Freelance Writing Job earlier this month. D’oh! I just got so busy that I missed it. (I was actually dealing with a small crisis, but that’s a post for a different day. Probably a Monday. It would be a good post for a Monday.) Anyhoo, get on over to Deb Ng’s site and learn about website basics for the freelance writer. [...]

By: Jerry

Jerry — Mon, 12 May 2008 08:43:55 +0000

Funny. I have been building, operating and selling web sites for a decade. I have about a dozen now, but none of them have anything to do with my writing. The odd thing is that freelance writing now provides more than half of my income. You would think I could find a free weekend to add another site to my arsenal. Color me lazy.

By: Matt Tuley, Laptop for Hire

Matt Tuley, Laptop for Hire — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:56:05 +0000

Timing is everything. The folks at smashing Magazine have just put up an overview of 25 WYSIWYG website editors. They call it a review of 25 editors, but the “reviews” are so brief that “overview” is a more honest description.

Check it out: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/05/06/25-wysiwyg-editors-reviewed/

By: Matt Tuley, Laptop for Hire

Matt Tuley, Laptop for Hire — Tue, 06 May 2008 20:44:26 +0000

@Laura Thanks for pointing out Google Apps. Since most of us are lone freelancers, using them to set up a site makes good sense. I only played around with their stuff a little bit, but it struck me as being easy to use.

@Courtney Good point about bartering with graphic designers. Works especially well if you can find someone else starting out. You can get a site, they can get copy, and you can form a partnership that can turn into a long-term working relationship that drives more work to the other.

@Phil Your situation sounds a bit tricky. My advice would be to create two distinct sites, one to promote your journalistic efforts and one for your PR stuff. As to the time it took to set up the site, well, that’s hard to say. The initial setup of Wordpress was automated and fast. The ongoing tweaking of the colors, graphics, plug-ins… It all adds up. It’s on the order of hours, anyway. Plus, I’m not a website designer, but am familiar enough with HTML and CSS to work “under the hood.” Based on your comment, I’d recommend hiring someone like James to do it for you.

@Ann G. Is Geocities still around? If my status bar showed the link I was about to follow led to Geocities, I passed. Bad.

@m and Erika Thanks for the kind words.

A reminder: A site doesn’t have to be just a blog or just static. Blog platforms such as Wordpress and Movable Type support the inclusion of static pages, too. If you look at my site, for example, every button in the top menu points to a static page on the site, and it was easy to do.

By: Erika K

Erika K — Tue, 06 May 2008 19:58:06 +0000

I’ve got a few free blogs over at Blogger, but I’m seeing the advantage of a more professional looking one over at Wordpress. I have a new gig that has one there and I really like it. Might need to consider switching.

Great post – we writer’s need to know this stuff!!

By: The Writing / Editing Job Roll » 05/06/2008 Writing Jobs and Links

The Writing / Editing Job Roll » 05/06/2008 Writing Jobs and Links — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:59:40 +0000

[...] Website Basics for the Freelance Writer Jobs from Indeed [...]

By: Cherrye

Cherrye — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:58:36 +0000

Thanks for the info, Matt. I am trying to figure out how I can make my blog more professional and use it for this purpose!

By: Ann G.

Ann G. — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:51:02 +0000

@Matt – like I said, I have a static site for my book review site and though it’s cheap, I find that the review site ends up costing me money because people just are not buying books as much as they used to. I’ve landed a number of jobs through the Freewebs site and just was offered a full-time proofreading/writing job through my Freewebs site, so I don’t see a need to pay for one. I went with Freewebs because they keep advertising to a bare minimum. I know some who have used Geocities in the past and I hate those sites – they load slowly and the ads drive me nuts.

By: James Chartrand - Men with Pens

James Chartrand - Men with Pens — Tue, 06 May 2008 11:30:04 +0000

@ Phil – Well, it’s a little unfair for me to say how long it took us to set up a new site, because 1) we’re designers and 2) we’re skilled website content writers.

I will say that when clients come to us, we usually turn around a new site within a week when we have clear guidelines to the brand and image the client wants to convey.

The results can be instantaneous. Monika Mundell hired us for a website redesign and the site gained her 4 new clients within a day – the site paid for itself three times over.

In our particular case, a site redesign shot our blog to celebrity status very rapidly. We’d been blogging for almost a year with slow results. A new look and a comfortable fit with our personalities… whew. What a ride.

People who have a good website that fits well feel better, more confident, prouder, earn higher wages, and generally do well in business versus those who have a poorly designed site or no site at all.

That help?