Before you start anything, it is important, to have a plan in mind as you use these methods. They really don’t have to take that much time and effort, but can be very rewarding.

Every promotional step you take online should be part of a strategy rooted to your particular niche as a creative, your expertise and your focused area. If you ignore focusing on what it is that is unique about what you do, you risk wasting valuable time and energy on promoting yourself.

It’s up to you whether you want to use all the methods or one or two. What’s great is that each method will support what you do with the other methods, through cross promotion in the form of links.

Admittedly, these ideas are not new, but for those needing some detail into exactly how these methods work, and just to maybe rekindle your interest, here goes…

1. Writing for other sites

One of the most effective ways of gaining exposure, as well as credibility as a creative freelancer is to offer to write guest posts, online magazine articles, columns (ideally regular ones) on key sites relating to your freelancing niche. You should find success depending on the site you approach, as those running the sites will be happy to off load some writing work to people with fresh new insights.

Particularly on well chosen sites, contributing an interesting post or article will bring ears and eyes to your know-how, your work and your site, and it will get you established as an expert in what you do.

You can use social sites like Delicious, Faves.com, Twitter and Digg, as well as the Google blog search to find sites worth contacting (via their contact page/button) based on popularity. Alexa is a great site you can use to gauge the level of traffic coming into sites.

Obviously, if you can get your name and your writing on sites with high traffic levels, that would be ideal, but don’t forget that even on less popular sites, your writing will be archived for a long time, and can be picked up through people searching on search engines. You can also re-use your post or article in some of the other methods I’m about to discuss.

2. Starting a niche blog

Writing your own blog is an excellent way to gaining long term publicity for your services. The beauty of blogging is that it provides a system that facilitates regular, fresh, new content to be viewed by interested visitors.

Blogs create an excellent position from which to build and develop your personal brand, which friends, fans and prospects begin to recognise you for. Like many of the other methods in this report, blogging adds to your credibility as freelancer, whilst building trust and respect amongst loyal readers who see what you have to say.

It is best to focus the content on your blog into one simple niche, like logo design, electronic music or short story writing, to throw some examples out there, so that people remember your blog for something in particular, and to enable you to write focused, high quality content.

There are a few approaches you can take in getting your name and work out into the ‘blogosphere‘.

The first is to incorporate a blog into your personal website (or vice versa by incorporating a portfolio or bio into your blog site, which can be done through blog platforms like WordPress, and you might need the help of a web developer). You can use this blog to give updates of anything you like, including news on what you are working on, and so on.

The second approach is to set up a ‘standalone’ blog, again through a platform like WordPress.org, Tumblr, WordPress.com (hosted by WordPress) or Typepad, for example. This blog can be linked back to your own site, portfolio, Facebook profile etc.

A standalone blog is useful because the focus of blog posts can be on any focused niche you choose, although ideally relating to your industry, attracting visitors around that niche. This is instead of focusing on your personal blog, which will be focused more around your personal projects.

Unless you are pretty well known already, a standalone blog is likely to attract much more traffic than your personal blog.

By establishing yourself as a bit of an authority on what you share (and this is why it is important to have a focused topic area for your blog/s), particularly if it relates directly to what you do as a freelancer, your self promotional efforts will pay off in the form of a larger fan base and contacts, greater trust and respect, more support and more visitors to your personal site. That includes potential clients.

Another approach to blogging you can use, especially if you don’t have enough time to commit to regularly writing posts for your own blog, is to apply to submit posts to other blogs related to your niche as a contributor. The work of setting up a blog and attracting visitors (hopefully) will already have been done for you.

Group blogs also exist. These are set up to pool the contributions of more than one individual, which serve as a connector and effective promotion source for all contributors. Thunderchunky, the design and illustration portal, serves as a demonstration of this, linking together the contributions of four designers, whilst promoting their work at the same time.

You might consider setting up a group blog with some friends, colleagues or people who are freelancers like you (who can find and contact on forums, social media sites, and other blogs, for example) to promote yourself, and take some of the strain off writing for one blog regularly.

3. Article writing

Here’s a powerful way to share your knowledge and ideas with the world, while bringing traffic to your site, and increasing your integrity as someone who knows and cares about your speciality.

Make sure you write a clear and concise article on something you think many will find useful, and post it to a popular article submission site like ezinearticles.com. Your article doesn’t have to be long. Usually a minimum of 250 words is all that is required. Your ‘return on investment’ in the form of traffic back to your site, can be extremely worth it.

Be sure to give a reason for people to click a link that you provide at the end of the article, such as in suggesting that your site contains more information or examples of what you have been writing about.

You should be aware of who you plan to target your articles to when writing. For example, a freelance graphic designer might submit an article on effective logo design methods if he/she is looking to target people in their own industry. However, to target potential clients, they might submit an article on how to use illustrations on websites to attract customers, for example.

People will find your articles, through articles sites themselves or by searching in search engines. Articles tend to get indexed (ranked) very well in search engine results, and a high proportion of anyone searching for your topic would be taken to your article and link.

A large list of places to submit articles to is included at the back of our ’10 Steps to Powerful Online Self Promotion’ ebook, downloadable here.

4. Commenting on blogs

Commenting on other blogs and websites can prove to be very fruitful in promoting yourself online. This involves finding blogs (through Delicious or Google, for example) that are relevant to what you know and are interested in, and, importantly, are places that would attract the kinds of people you would like to gain exposure to. You then write an appropriate and meaningful comment beneath blog posts that you have something to say about.

There are many benefits one can take from commenting on blogs, making sure your web link or appropriate contact details are attached.

With well written and thought out comments, you can begin to build credibility as an expert or as someone who cares about your field (or at least the blog post in question). This will build trust with readers looking over your comment and will add to your reputation as a creative freelancer.

Blog comments can be sources of traffic to your own site through the link you leave, as people seeing your insights choose to find out more about you. This often brings with it comments left on your own site if you have a blog, often from the writer of the blog you left your comment on. Comments on your site will add to its perceived value from visitors as well.

Commenting on other blogs will point important backlinks to your site (your own link to your site that you left with the comment), which will improve how your site is ranked in the search engines.

It is also an important part of your networking strategy in making friends and building up a following and publicizing yourself. You also never know who might be browsing over the comments, including yours. It could be someone who can get you work or further publicity.

A separate Red Lemon Club post on blog commenting can be found here.

5. Writing on forums

Contributing to, or starting appropriate ‘threads‘ or conversations on Internet discussion boards (forums) can be a great way of gaining exposure. It enables you to meet and interact with people in the same industry as you, get work, gain referrals, gain traffic to your site/s, as well as providing a valuable source of support and inspiration from those people that share your interests and share their work with you.

Posting on forums can be a good way of finding prospects directly, as many people will use the forums for their own research into finding suitable candidates to work with them on their own projects.

Many forum sites have a special area dedicated to posting and finding jobs for freelancers, that you can use for finding potential clients to work with. You will be well positioned to get work if you have built up credibility on the site from previous interaction. You only need to contribute valuable information occasionally to gradually build credibility with those members using the site.

If you are a web designer based in the UK, for example, you can use a site like WebDesignerForum to get some publicity as a web designer and to simply become known in that industry. This particular site has, like many other forums, an area where you can browse work on offer, and an area to directly promote your own services too. Of course, with the Internet, you don’t need to be restricted to do work destined for one country.

It is important to include a link to your site if you have one on your forum profile and within your ‘signature‘ that appears at the bottom of your posts. Like with commenting, this will add important backlinks to your site, as well as bring traffic to it.

6. Publishing a newsletter

If you have a website or a blog, you can publish a regular email newsletter or ‘e-zine’ to those people who have chosen to put their names on your mailing list. The value in having a mailing list, apart from building a list of contacts, is the regular contact you can make with friends, your clients, prospective clients and your network in general, which, for many (if the list is extensive), can be priceless.

Your site need only be a simple one for this to work and for you to place an ‘opt-in‘ box on the site where visitors fill in their name and email address.

You can use Aweber for setting one of these up and building your list. This service attracts a small fee, but there are free mailing list services available like Aardvark and Bravenet.

Your newsletter can be about anything you like, but ideally with updates that relate to what you do as a freelancing professional and creative. It’s also worth sending out brief details on what you are working on and what you’ve recently completed, to keep those who receive the newsletter in the loop.

Newsletters or e-zines can be sent out on a monthly basis, for example (if you are giving updates on what you are doing, I would not suggest sending one out more frequently than this), or perhaps weekly if you are providing helpful information that is not selling anything.

Anyone on your list will be sufficiently kept up to date and reminded of you. It is a great way to keep up relationships without spamming people, as long as you make it possible for individuals to opt out of the newsletter at any time.

Hopefully you will strike the balance just right between alerting people with updates and providing interesting and valuable information.

A Red Lemon Club post on newsletters ’10 Ways a Newsletter Can Drive Your Self Promotion,’ can be found here.

Remember to focus on quality, not quantity in all the self promotional activity you do.

Comments are encouraged!

The great thing about working as a writer is that you can do it at a time that suits you, so that it complements anything else you are working on. There is currently a big need for quality written content, especially on the web, and you can take advantage of that need.

A fruitful place to find writing jobs that can provide some extra (or a lot) cash is online freelance job communities.

I’ve listed 19 good places that you can use to find the jobs that work for you:

Freelancewritinggigs.com

This site is a compilation of blogs, some of which post job leads.

Problogger.net

A site geared towards job postings for bloggers.

Poewar.com

Navigate through to the freelance writing jobs, where you will find jobs compiled from many sources in one easy to view screen.

Bloggerjobs.biz

Another site with a large listing of freelance blogging jobs.

Mediabistro.com

Narrow your search on this job listing site by checking “freelance” to obtain only the listings that are freelance based.

Freelanceswitch.com

This site includes a large listing of freelance writing job posting.

Sunoasis.com

Sunoasis provides links to a large volume of freelance writing opportunities compiled from many sources.

Journalismjobs.com

Under “Opportunities”, narrow your search down to just freelance writing jobs. There are plenty of opportunities on this site to view.

Allfreelancewritingjobs.com

This blog provides weekly links to several job leads. You can also view previously posted jobs and apply to those as well.

Wahm.com

This work at home forum lists many job openings; search through the listings to find those for freelance writers.

Online-writing-jobs.com

This site also offers freelance writing job listings.

Sologig.com

Under “Browse by Categories” select “creative”, and you will find a few writing jobs, and many freelance copywriting jobs.

Gofreelance.com

Go Freelance allows you to search by category. Sselect “writing” and view listing for freelance writing.

Freelancefree.com

A free site to register and find freelance work.

Freelancewriting.com

This is a comprehensive site that also lists freelance writing opportunities.

Indeed.com

At Indeed.com, search for “freelance” and you will find a multitude of freelance writing opportunities.

Virtualvocations.com

Virtual Vocations lists projects available for freelance writers.

Lancepost.com

Lancepost lists a feed of new job leads, sift through to find leads for freelance writing.

Worldwidefreelance.com

Through this site, check out the heading titled “markets”. You can view their free leads and guidelines and also sign up for a newsletter.

Please do comment on your results from these sites, and if you know of others!

If you’re just setting out, the thought of writing a regular blog can be daunting. Even the most prolific of minds run dry from time to time. But the key thing about blogging is that you don’t have to think as big as you think – you see?! No?!

OK, I’ll explain.

Successful blogging is all in the planning and not so much the writing (but don’t tell anyone I said that!). And the best thing to do is build up a reserve of content. But you have to start somewhere, right? So this post looks at five really easy ways of getting blog content together – fast!

1. Borrow from other blogs

Look around at what other blogs are featuring. The blogs you consult don’t necessarily need to focus directly on your topic area, but just by looking at some of the ideas floating around, you’ll trigger your own thoughts.

This isn’t as random as it sounds. For example, if I looked at a very broadly popular blog like Zen Habits and saw something on productivity, I could use this as the basis of a post for my own blog on ‘book pitching productivity’.

Quite quickly I could come up with something short and pithy on how to repurpose book pitches for different publishers; how to minimise distractions when writing; or even how to fit writing book proposals around a day job. In a nutshell, just use other blogs as a hook – it’s what everyone else does!

2. Repurpose something you’ve already written

If you’re an expert on something – and everybody’s an expert on something – it’s very likely you already have a text which can be quickly converted into a blog post.

If, like me, you’re a writer, this could be an article, you’ve already written or perhaps a paper or a talk you gave somewhere. But it might even come from something like an email or tweet you’ve sent that wouldn’t take five minutes to flesh-out.

Don’t start from scratch, again, look around you, what have you already got?

3. Brainstorm the area you specialise in

Write a random but full list of ideas about what you do. I guarantee there’ll be something on that list that to you might seem inconsequential, but for new-comers or outsiders is probably fascinating.

Sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees and getting it all down on a scrap of paper (or whatever) makes it instantly clear which idea – hidden under a pile of others – will be valuable to readers.

I also like mind-mapping techniques to help you branch out into other areas of thought, but that’s an idea for another post – see once you start blogging you can’t stop!

4. Collaborate with someone

An additional option for the idea-starved is to ask an existing friend or colleague, or someone from a blog you know and like, to work on a post or two with you. Brainstorm some ideas (as above) and then email back and forth a few times until you have something that feels right.

If it’s truly co-authored, you can each feature it on your own blog which might even cross-pollinate your audiences. And if you’re really savvy, you’ll collaborate with several people at once and store up lots of good content in advance of dry spell.

5. Ask an expert

This can mean two things. One, if you are out of ideas on what to blog about, find out what blogging pros like Darren Rowse of ProBlogger would recommend for ‘bloggers block’. Two, set up an easy way for experts in your field to contribute to your site. For example, for PhD2Published, I’m interested in content that advises early-career academics on how to get their first book published.

To help me canvas opinions on this, I regularly email publishing houses and published academics and ask them for their top five tips on book pitching. By asking someone outright, and keeping the amount you need them to contribute to a minimum, you can speedily gather relevant, quality material.

It’s that simple!

Blogging doesn’t have to mean embarking on a mammoth writing spree – you’re not writing a thesis or a book! And you don’t need to be boiling over with angst about political wrongs, or ever-distracted by complex philosophical thoughts. You really don’t need to think big at all. Just think – even a little – and it’ll come together!

Having knocked heads and discussed some ideas together, mainly with JC’s eye-opening input, we have compiled some of the main issues that add to as well as detract from great online portfolios. The post is split into rights and wrongs.

Rights

Be mindful of your target audience. Ask yourself the question: “Who is this portfolio site aimed at?” Knowing this, whether it is aimed at potential clients or art-directors, will help clarify exactly how you present your portfolio site. Be aware that the majority of visitors will want your work to be accessed quickly and easily.

Make your best work visible from the start. If you are an illustrator, have your best piece clearly visible or at least easily accessible from the homepage.

Be honest. Try not to embellish facts and details to look more impressive. This will come back to bite you eventually. Have a portfolio that truly represents your work and who you really are.

Be descriptive. Explain clearly and concisely everything that is appropriate to write about (see this post for writing well). This doesn’t mean waffling needlessly about your work, your interests and your background. Give enough information to create a picture of the kind of person you are and describes your work with detail and clarity.

Be mobile phone compatible. Viewing portfolios from a phone like an iPhone is becoming more and more prevalent. JC views a great deal of work from his iPhone, and will likely skip over portfolios that don’t ride well in mobile format. Here’s JC’s comment on iPhone mobile compatibility:

‘I’ve seen that generally they work better with blog-like layouts because thumbnails might end up being too small on the iPhone’s screen. I don’t have much experience with other mobile platforms, but most art directors I know have an iPhone.

Creating an iPhone version of the site is a good solution as well (a la Poolga). Sites with lots of thumbnails could consider organizing them in a list format, so that they are more viewable on a phone.’

Make your work shareable. JC uses the example of an art-director wanting to share samples of the work they see with a client or other members of the creative team. Make it easy for people to email links of specific images, for example, or to be able to copy and save images and other files from your site.

You might also want to consider adding social networking buttons to your portfolio so that it can easily be shared amongst everyone, even going viral.

Have professional and accessible contact information. Include a physical address. People like to know where in the world you are and this will add credibility to you. Include your agent or representative details if you have one. Make sure it is obvious from the homepage exactly where the rest of your contact information is.

Showcase your work in context. Whenever you can, display work you’ve done in the way it was published. For example, if you created an illustration for an advert, you can present an image of the final ad including the illustration in its entirety. Not only does this allow for people to see your work in its applied context, increasing the confidence in your prospects, but this will add value to the work you present.

Be clear and simple. Don’t make the process of viewing your work any more complicated than it should be. The best portfolios are those that display all they need to without being excessive. Clarity means that your site is easy to navigate and avoids clutter. Think zen!

Have your work easy to keep up with. People perusing your stuff might not be looking for your style for their projects right at that moment, but they may need you in the near future.

Make it easy for potential clients and so on to follow your work through enabling RSS subscription, creating a small blog that people can subscribe to, having a Twitter and Facebook account linked to from the site and having a mailing list to sign up to.

Categorize your work. As well as breaking your site down into relevant and distinct pages, consider dividing up the work you showcase according to category, perhaps into separate pages. Categories like ‘editorial’, ‘advertising’ and ‘personal work’, make it easier for prospects and art-directors to distinguish between the types of work they want to see.

Wrongs

Never updating your portfolio. Try to keep your site fresh and ‘buzzing’. It looks unprofessional if nothing changes in a long time. Updates also benefit the way your site gets indexed in search engines, as Google loves active websites.

Small thumbnails. Taking the guessing game out of opening portfolio pieces is recommended for the sanity of people browsing your work! Avoid a page full of tiny thumbnails that, when clicked, take a long time to load. If you do use thumbnails, make them large enough, so that users get a feel for them before clicking on them.

Being trigger-happy with your window settings. Most web surfers prefer having control over the windows and tabs that are up on their screens. Avoid having your page maximize itself, and cut down on pages that pop-up in separate windows.

Use low quality images. I get put off sites that contain images with low resolution, or appear blurry. It looks unprofessional and is a shame to downgrade work that otherwise might have appeared nicely in higher quality.

Make sure images and other files strike the right balance between resolution and internet load time. Save images for the web through editing programs like Photoshop or Gimp.

Using Flash for the sake of it. Some flash sites are well designed and work well for the purpose of the site. More often than not, using flash on a site is unnecessary and overly ostentatious, often proving plain annoying. Other problems that come with flash sites include not being able to link to individual pages from elsewhere, not being compatible with many mobile platforms, including the iPhone, the site taking up the whole screen, the back button dis-engaging, non-selectable text and non-selectable images.

Watermarking images excessively. Placing large watermarks on images etc just makes a portfolio look ugly and tacky. Your true audience, those that care about the work you produce, will be unlikely to steal your work. It is those people who your site is for. Unfortunately it is almost inevitable that your files can be copied if someone really desired them. The good thing about the Internet, however, particularly if you have a following, is that stolen work will likely be reported.

If you must use watermarks, a small signature on an image can be ok.

One last thing…

Provide the option to browse further. Design your portfolio site, if you can, to cater for both people who are skimming your work, and for those who want to delve a little deeper.

This means having a simple opening page with easily accessible work straight away, but also having pages that provide further detail, including testimonials and awards, blog updates, archives, your about page and interviews. Keep these visible, but out of the way of visitors who first arrive.

What does everyone think? Have we missed anything glaring?

Be sure to sign up to the mailing list to get your free book and unique weekly tips.

Here are some tips you should observe in order to deliver better online copy (writing) that will draw readers in and transmit a professional image:

1. Use short sentences

You don’t need to needlessly complicate things to make a point.

2. Formatting

Mix up the use of bold, italic, underlining, colours and font styles to emphasize points and draw in the reader’s eye more effectively.

3. Be positive, not negative

State something that is, instead of what is not. Studies on the psychology behind this show better absorption of the message by the reader for written material delivered in a positive frame.

4. Use space

Break up paragraphs and blocks of text with well-defined breaks, so that reading is more digestible and easier on the moving eye.

5. Use short first paragraphs

This applies to longer pieces of copy like articles and blog posts. These will bring the reader in to read and read on.

6. Take grammar, punctuation and spelling seriously

Try and keep this area in shape, even if it is not 100% accurate. This will transmit a professional image associated with you and your writing. All the small details like apostrophe use are important.

7. Keywords

Including a smattering of keywords that relate to your niche (for example, the word ‘vector’ if you write about digital illustration) in your copy is good for search engine rankings, and will bring more targeted visitors to your writing. Keywords are especially effective in titles and opening paragraphs.

8. Repetition

Without overdoing it, repetition will emphasize key points. Repetition is an important element in persuasive writing too. Be sure to express the same point in different ways to avoid monotony.

9. Lists

Bulleted and numbered lists have been shown to be a popular and very readable writing method.

10. No passive-voice

This is when the subject of a sentence is swapped with the object. For example: “The girl saw the cat,” is in the active voice. The passive voice would be: “The cat was seen by the girl.” Passive writing tends to add unnecessary words to an otherwise clearly written sentence.

What other writing tips to do have that you would like to contribute?