Get Paid to Write Online » blogging

GhostBlogging – 5 Tips to Help You Be A Great Ghostblogger for Your Clients

Dana Prince — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 02:06:52 +0000

Ghostblogging is a great way to get paid to write. As I’ve said before, blogging is how I got my own start in freelance writing and a good portion of my income today comes from blog writing, posting, and the marketing of client’s blogs. People and companies pay writers to write for their blogs and these writing gigs are much more informal than many other types of writing jobs, which is what some ghostbloggers enjoy most about it. You can get paid to blog for others in many different niches, offering you a great opportunity to make money doing something that could be a lot of fun. It’s most fun when you have an endless supply of things to blog about and make it as interactive as possible.

Blogs need to be focused for them to be effective. A lot goes into the successful ones and if you’re blogging for someone who is using their blog as a platform to increase their brand, improve their SEO, sell something specific, and / or improve customer relationships you’ll want to: write about things that are interesting to readers, utilise good blog optimisation practises, and if you’re doing it regularly, you’ll want to find a way to keep great ideas coming. Here are some of the ways you can do all of that so that you’ll get results for your customers, resulting in their wanting to keep paying you to write for them:

Industry research. Stay on top of the industry you’re writing about. Subscribe to other blogs in that niche and set a Google Alert for topic-related phrases. Google will send you links, save you research time, and could supply you with endless blog post ideas. I love checking Google Blogs Search and Google News with keyword phrases when I need help.
Find out which keywords your client should rank for. Keyword optimisation isn’t everything but keeping it in mind will definitely help you help your customer rank for words and phrases that will get them the results they want. Pepper the blog posts with these phrases, especially in the title, subheadings, anchor text, and image tags. I also look to see who is currently ranking for those words and work to help my client look better in the search engine results than the existing top spots.
Interact. Interact with the blog readers. Try to inspire conversation in the comments with your text and get involved in conversations that get started as a result of your posts. Comments are good for the client’s search engine rankings and conversations attract crowds (which is always a good thing in the blogosphere).
Social media. Suggest to your client that social marketing and bookmarking services are part of what you’ll do for the blog. This provides you with additional invoicing opportunities, increases the blog’s exposure, and participating in discussions about the topic as part of your project will provide you with further ideas for future blog posts.
Linking. Take opportunities to link internally to other posts. This will keep the reader on the site longer and benefits the site from a search engine optimisation perspective. Don’t hesitate to link to authority sites in that niche as well as interesting news articles and other blogs. The readers and authors of those blogs may follow track backs back to your customer’s site. Talk to your client about your strategy to ensure they’re on board but when you do link in and out of the blog, it will benefit the reader and the blog itself.

I love blogging. I have about a dozen of my own blogs and regularly blog for other sites as well as ghostblog for clients.

Oh, and…if you want to learn more about getting started in blogging, Sharon Hurley Hall has just released Getting Started in Blogging for the Kindle.

GhostBlogging – 5 Tips to Help You Be A Great Ghostblogger for Your Clients was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

Getting Started In Blogging – Now On Kindle!

Sharon Hurley Hall — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 19:10:47 +0000

Getting Started in Blogging is now available in a Kindle edition. I decided to try Amazon’s Digital Text Platform using the excellent advice in this post from George Angus. The steps are just as George outlines, making it an easy way to publish your book.

There were a couple of things I noticed in the process:

1. Although Amazon lets you upload HTML, when I tried changing my Word file to HTML I didn’t like the results – maybe it depends on the version of Word you’re using or the export tools you have installed.

2. I didn’t even attempt to upload the PDF because I’ve seen the results of Amazon’s PDF conversions and they’re not all pretty.

3. Uploading a Word file worked best for me, but when I used the preview tool (a must, as George points out), I noticed that any text that had been in white in the Word document simply didn’t show up. I had to make sure all text was black, remove unnecessary images (I’d had one at the back) and try again. Even with that, I’d done the whole thing in half an hour.

4. Amazon said it would take up to 48 hours to approve my book; it took a day.

5. It’s easy; more people should do it. I plan to provide Kindle editions of all future ebooks (and, for those who are using other readers, I will eventually publish regular editions through Smashwords.)

So now, I have a favour to ask. If you have previously downloaded and enjoyed Getting Started in Blogging and you have a couple of minutes to spare, could you go over to the Amazon product page and leave a review? I’d really appreciate it.

(And by the way, there’s also a Kindle edition of this blog, if you want it.)

Getting Started In Blogging – Now On Kindle! was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

Guest Post On Get Paid To Write Online

Sharon Hurley Hall — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:38:00 +0000

Get Paid To Write Online welcomes guest posts. General guidelines are as follows:

Get Paid To Write Online welcomes guests - write for us.

1. Search the blog to make sure that the topic you write about matches one of the categories on the blog and has not previously been covered in the way you intend to handle it. I am also open to new categories, but please check with me first.

2. Contact me to discuss your post idea – I’m open to any reasonable suggestion. I welcome posts from both new and experienced writers. You don’t need a CV or a long list of previous blogging credits to be considered.

3. Your post should be between 400 and 600 words; if you want to write a longer post, then maybe we’ll break it into two.

4. Please provide a link to an appropriate image (creative commons or public domain, please).

5. I do not pay for guest posts, but you will get credit for your work. Add a two sentence bio with one link at the end of the post. (Note: I know some people don’t want to write for free. if this is you, then maybe we can exchange guest posts.)

6. Proofread the post to avoid spelling and grammatical errors; I’ll do that too.

7. Submit the post (if you have followed step 2 you will have my email address).

8. I’ve accepted most of the guest posts submitted in the past couple of years, but I have final editorial control; expressing an interest in seeing your post does not imply a guarantee to publish it.

9. Please disclose if you have a material interest in the subject of the post.

10. If your post is published, please reply to any comments left on the post. You can promote it via social media if you want, too, though I’ll do that anyway.

(Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mithril/2614298620/)

Guest Post On Get Paid To Write Online was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

14 Great Posts On Writing And Blogging

Sharon Hurley Hall — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:13:53 +0000

It’s a long time since I’ve done a post roundup. Although I’ve streamlined my RSS reader, there are still quite a few posts that hold my attention. Here are 14 of the best I’ve read recently:

15 Applications No Online Business Can Live Without

Why Personal and Business Branding Work Best Together

7 Tips To Get The Best Out Of Gmail For Freelancing Digital Nomads

How Not to Promote Your Blog: Top 10 Broken Blog Promotion Strategies

What Freelancers Must Know About Ergonomics

Freelancing vs. Full Time Telecommute

Why You Should Go Back to the Day Job

35 Online Tools That Make Your Freelance Career Easier

30 Days to Become a Freelancer

How to Say Nothing in 500 Words (A Lesson on Writing)

The Naked Writer

Six tips to avoid being an overworked writer

How To Make Your Business Look Good Online

Location Independence: What’s In It For You (Yes – You, You & Even You!)

14 Great Posts On Writing And Blogging was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

The Joy Of Blogging

Sharon Hurley Hall — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:03:24 +0000

People always ask about making a success of blogging – how you get started, how you can earn money, how it fits in with the rest of your career. Over the years, I’ve answered a few of those questions and shared the lessons I’ve learned.

Getting Started

We all had to start somewhere. Here’s my story as well as those of several others.

Blogging And Writing

Writing and blogging go hand in hand for me. Here are some of the thoughts I’ve had about blogging over the years.

Promotion Plus

This section is about successful blogging – getting out there and letting people know you’re around.

Earnings/Monetization

How do you earn money with your blog and what’s the minimum you should accept? My thoughts are in these posts.

Get Paid To Blog – Program Reviews

There have been some changes since I wrote this series, but some of these programs are still running under different names.

Blogging Start Writing Project Posts

Sharon Hurley Hall — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:18:19 +0000

Thanks to all those who took part in the Blogging Start group writing project. There have been some fantastic posts over the last couple of weeks. Here they are, in order of appearance:

How Did You Start Blogging? - David Bridger
From Paper to â€˜Puter – One Womanâ€™s Journey – Deb Wunder
Blogging Start – Shelly Bryant
How Did I Start Blogging? – Lissie
My Blogging Genesis – Dana Prince
Why I Started Blogging – Sheryl Adair Vanvleck
The Born Again Blogger – Sharon Hurley Hall
How we started working for ourselves – Alex and Justin, Freelance Twins
How I Started Blogging - Umar Siddiqi
How I Started Blogging, Or Ready, Fire, Aim – Brad Shorr
In The Beginning – Deb Boyken
WritingUp’s Failed Social Experiment – Claire Moylan
The Joy Of Being A Blockhead – Jean Browman
30 Things I Didn’t Know Before I Started Blogging – Joanna Young
How I Got My Blogging Start - Sue Jeffels
Why I Started Blogging – Courtney Ramirez
Why In The World Did I Start This Blog? – Joan Kremer

If your post is missing from this list, please let me know and I’ll add it.

Blogging Start Writing Project Posts was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

The Born Again Blogger

Sharon Hurley Hall — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 10:19:56 +0000

The false start to my blogging career is lost in the mists of time. Really. As a confirmed technophile, I started using Blogger when it first came out, didn’t like it and cancelled my account with a week or two, wondering what all the hoopla was about blogging. Just goes to show that I have no future as a fortune teller (where is a crystal ball when you need one?)

Starting My Blogging Career

The real start to my blogging career came in 2005. When I went freelance, I read a lot about setting up sites and raising your profile, and I was advised to set up a blog. So I bought a domain and set up Sharon’s Writing Lab, which has now moved to WordPress.com.

Even then, I didn’t quite get it, though it was nice to have somewhere to put my creative writing. However, a month later, I joined a now defunct site which had an active blogging community, many of whom were writers. We spoofed famous novelists and poets, had writing competitions and generally had a good time. I discovered that blogging could be fun and I made friends and connections whom I’m still in touch with today.

The Addiction Begins

When I joined that site, I blogged daily and soon became addicted to it. Plus, people were enjoying the stuff I wrote, which gave me an incentive to continue.Â I was distraught when the site disappeared, but was able to move my content to an interim home on Blogger before giving it a permanent home on this blog. You’ll find much of that content in the archives. (Go on, have a peek at my early posts – you know you want to.)

Spreading My Wings

That was the start of something big and I now describe myself as a born-again blogger. Although I no longer blog daily on my own sites, you will see me popping up all over the web. I blog regularly for three or four sites (more to come soon), and guest post on many more. My blogging career had a humble beginning, but turned out to be very worthwhile.

This is my entry for the Blogging Start Group Writing Project.

Ad Revenue Share Is NOT A Paid Blogging Job

Sharon Hurley Hall — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:49:20 +0000

I am a professional blogger and writer, so pay me in cash. Pay me by Paypal, wire transfer, direct credit or even e-cheque, as long as I get paid for my work. Why do I feel the need to say this? Because I applied for a blogging job today. The ad stated that it was a paid blogging job. I spent some time crafting a suitable letter, emailed it off and waited for a reply. When it arrived, it turned out that the ‘compensation’ they were offering was simply ad revenue share.

The ad asked for high quality bloggers. I’ve been blogging for a few years now and have racked up a lot of well written posts on a lot of topics, so I think I qualify. But that’s exactly why I expect to get paid for my work. What they want me to do is to spend hours, days and weeks creating a good blog for someone else’s site on the off chance that their marketing methods will drive lots of traffic to the site. Sorry guys, been there, done that, got the hole in my bank balance to prove it, so I won’t be taking up your underwhelming offer.

I have nothing against making money from blog advertising, but I don’t need to go to another site to do that. Somewhere out there are about four blogs making me a pittance from the measly page views they garner despite the site owners’ promises of promotion and traffic, so I’m not going down that road again. On this blog, where I have put in the time to develop it and nurture it, I make money from advertising – and I don’t have to share it with anyone.

Ad Revenue Share Is NOT A Paid Blogging Job was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.

Posts On Writing April 2008

Sharon Hurley Hall — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 22:46:22 +0000

I haven’t been quite as rigorous in collecting posts in the last month. That was in part due to blog woes, to an unexpected trip and to switching back to Google Reader after a three month flirtation with Netvibes. However, I have found time to stop off at a few favourite (and new) sites. Here are my picks for April.

ProFreelancing often makes me think. If you are wondering if you are doing the right job, consider 13 Reasons Why You Should Not Be A Freelance Writer. Have you ever wondered what to do if a potential job just didn’t feel right? Maybe you should think about rejecting work based on ethics. It might help with career improvement.

I always want to know how to be more effective as a writer and a blogger, so I was interested in three steps for beating the boring content blues and five steps for writing effective articles in less time. (That makes eight steps so far, but who’s counting?) Actually, the fact that I mentioned that shows that my inner boss is alive and well.

Problogger weighed in with advice on adding depth to your blog. I had to wonder if using any of the eight ways to make money with my blog would end up increasing my blogging workload, but then I thought that if I used my daily life as inspiration I might be able to make better use of these valuable post types and use them correctly. I might have more time if I cut these five words from my vocabulary.

I was glad to read a post that cut to the chase, and told me exactly how to get piles of subscribers. links and comments on my blog. There is a danger, though, that this might turn me into even more of a blogging addict.

Finally, I want to end with a few favourites from the Pen Men, who ask whether it’s ok to charge more, whether low rates are holding you back, and if you’re a good web worker. But for me, the most interesting question I was asked this month was what writing means to me.

Happy reading.

Appreciating Blogging Writers

Sharon Hurley Hall — Mon, 14 Apr 2008 15:49:34 +0000

It’s Blogger Appreciation Day, according to Darren Rowse, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to show some appreciation to my favourite bloggers. I’ve already said thanks to all the wonderful blogging friends who visited my blog in March and I’ve reviewed the blogs of some of the other bloggers I appreciate, so I won’t list them all again. However, I’ve also met a few new bloggers (new to me) who also have great blogs. Here’s a short list of some of the bloggers I appreciate:

Thanks for providing inspiration, mentoring and insightful comments.

Technorati Tags: blogging

Appreciating Blogging Writers was originally published on Get Paid to Write Online, copyright 2005-2010, owned by Sharon Hurley Hall. If you are not reading this in an RSS reader, please contact Sharon.