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How I Got 2 Blogging Jobs Without Having My Own Blog

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Before I start this post, I have to make a disclaimer. If you want a blogging job, the best way to get the job is to have your own blog.

But what if you don’t have your own blog?

That’s the situation I was in a couple months ago. I wanted to get into freelance blogging. However, I didn’t have the discipline and patience to create and keep up my own blog. Instead, I did these things to get hired as a freelance blogger for two blogs.

Get Published Online

I wrote a couple articles for Performancing and Associated Content. Also, I wrote a short 7 page report that I gave away to my SEO clients. I showed these things to blog owners who were looking for freelance bloggers.

By getting published on reputable sites, you show blog owners that other webmasters like your content.

Know Your Stuff

I wanted to freelance blog for SEO and internet marketing blogs, because those are the niches I was passionate about. Also, I was knowledgeable about those niches. I’ve spent about 2 years reading many of the popular SEO and internet marketing blogs.

To get a blogging job, you need to know your niche well. Blog owners want to hire experts in their niche, so make sure and learn all you can about the niche.

I see too many people trying to get blogging jobs. However, they don’t have enough experience and knowledge about the niche.

When I applied to write for Net Business Blog, the blog owner asked each of the applicants to write a 200-400 word post. He wanted to see how his readers would react to the posts. Instead of writing a short post, I spent some time writing an informative 1100 word post. This post helped me get the job because it showed the blog owner and his readers that I knew what I was talking about.

Conclusion

If you want to get into problogging, but don’t have a blog, you could still get blogging jobs by getting published on reputable sites and demonstrating your knowledge and expertise.

Three months ago, I used these two principles to get these two problogging jobs.

1. Smart SEO Blog
I wrote for this blog during July and August. I quit because I was offered a more lucrative job with another company.

2. Net Business Blog
I still write for this blog. I was hired in July.

Note: Because of my posts from these two blogs, I was recently hired to write for Sea Waves and Eaton Web.

Warning: Read This Before Starting A News Blog

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I don’t have anything against news blogs. There is always a place for news blogs in any niche that has a lot of news. However, the problem with news blogs is that they are easy to copy. By their nature, news blogs are basically saying the same things.

You may have heard of the “echo chamber”. This phenomenon occurs whenever many of the blogs in a niche begin to link to and talk about a popular news story.

There is nothing wrong with this, of course. However, oftentimes, the bloggers just write a general post about the story. They don’t add unique commentary or a unique angle. So, when you browse through the blogs, they’re all just “echoing” each other. There is no real difference between the posts. They all say the same thing.

That’s the problem with news blogs. If you are going to start the next Engadget , why should I visit your blog instead of Engadget? If I can get the same basic information from Engadget, why should I read your blog?

Unless you have the advantage of getting the news before the other bloggers, it will be tough to be successful. Only a couple news blogs per industry will be successful. These blogs will get the bulk of the links and traffic because of their branding and their dominant positions in the search engine results pages.

Be Different

If you have a news blog, strive to be unique. Do things that will set you apart from the crowd. Write more opinion pieces. Write with a unique angle. Get an attention-grabbing blog design. Add interesting commentary of the news.

Even if you only create one unique piece of content a week while the rest of time you just report the news, that content will go a long ways in setting you apart from the rest of the news blogs.

Exceptions

There are exceptions to my principle. Here are a couple of them.

Big market
Who knows? Maybe the tech industry is bigger than I think. Maybe because of it’s huge market size, there is room for another news tech blog to be successful.

Low competition
If there are only a few quality news blogs in your industry, you could be successful.

You’re already established
Your news blog has been around. You get a lot of traffic. Many people in the industry know you. Your blog is branded well. My advice is not for you. 🙂 My advice is for people who are thinking of starting a new news blog.

For New News Bloggers

Don’t think as a new blogger, you can just enter a niche and expect to get traffic because you’re doing what the other news blogs are doing. Remember you’re competing against them. They’ve had time to build their brand, build a lot of links, build relationships with other webmasters, and age their site (Google likes old domains). Be unique and you’ll increase your chances of being successful. Also, if you’ve got the money, one of the best ways to enter a market with a news blog is to buy an established one.

Feedback

What do you think of news blogs?

Are You Writing Content That Attract Links?

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SEO is links, and links are SEO.
– Aaron Wall

If you want more search engine traffic, you need links. You can do keyword research for every post. You can tweak keyword density just right. You can optimize title tags. But if don’t get links, you won’t get search traffic.

Search engine algorithms are weighted heavily towards links. If you get a lot of links, if you get links from trusted sites, you’ll score top 10 Google rankings. It’s that simple.

How To Write Content That Attracts Links

So, how can we get more links? There are many principles to good link building. But today, let’s look at the foundation of blogging: content.

Content is king.
Write good content.
All you have is content.

We’ve heard it all before, but how do do you apply these statements practically? Here are some things you can do so your content will be a link magnet.

Rule #1: You don’t decide what is link worthy. Other webmasters do.

This is probably the most important principle to link building. Just because you think your content is deserving of links doesn’t mean other webmasters will agree with you.

Don’t think too much about what you like. Instead, find out what the linking audience, or the Linkerati, likes. Figure out what kind of content they would link to. Go to their sites and examine at their outbound links. Try to understand why they link to certain pages and sites. Take your time. You want to have a really good idea of what’s considered linkworthy in your niche. Once you have a good idea, write some linkworthy content and then promote it to the Linkerati in a non-spammy way.

Anything to do with popular news can attract links. The Linkerati likes to link to what everyone else is talking about. Keep up with the popular news in your niche and see if you can create something that relates to it. Also, you increase your chances of getting links by having a unique viewpoint.

For example, I write for a blog in the make money online niche. A couple days ago, the big thing in the niche was the launch of BlogRush, a free traffic generating product. Everyone was talking about it. I jumped in the conversation with this post, 5 Ways To Increase BlogRush Traffic, and got a couple links without doing any marketing.

Warning: Sometimes what the Linkerati likes may be different from what your readership likes. This is the balancing act many bloggers will have to face if they want to do serious link building. In many niches, the Linkerati comprise of only a small part of the total niche audience. With this in mind, don’t alienate your audience. Write content that will attract links, but don’t overdo it if it’s not appropriate for your niche.

Let’s look a common example. One of the best ways to get a ton of quality links is to hit the Digg front page. The Digg audience is a big audience. And much of this audience is part of the Linkerati. These online users own blogs and participate in forums. Also, the Digg front page is watched by journalists with websites. So, a front page Digg article can get you a lot of links. But don’t neglect your readership for the sake of links. Continue to write for your readers.

If you’re always writing for Digg, you may lose your audience. My general rule with general social media sites like Digg is to write for them 20%-30% of the time. These numbers depend a lot on the niche you’re in. The more your niche relates to the Digg audience, the more you can write for Digg without alienating your audience.

If you have a wedding blog, you can’t write for Digg very often. If you have a video game blog, you can write for Digg with every post. (Quick note: If you’re in a niche that Digg likes, try not to hit the front page more than twice a month. Anymore than that and you could be labeled a spammer and Diggers will bury your content.)

Consistently take risks. Don’t get into a rut. Create totally unique content that’s not in your niche. Cover important areas of your niche that don’t get enough coverage. Oftentimes, by being unique, the Linkerati will reward you.

Feedback

What other tips do you have for creating content that attracts links?

How Bloggers Can Adapt To Universal Search

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How Bloggers Can Adapt To Universal Search

Google’s universal search is a huge change to the organic search landscape. On May 16, Google told the world their super popular search engine would be filled with not just text based websites, but also images, videos, news, books, and maps. Yes, the search engine results pages (SERPs) like look a little different.

So, how can bloggers take advantage of these changes? How should our SEO, marketing, and traffic building efforts change?

VIDEOS

I think Youtube and other video sharing sites will be huge in the new search world. Google bought Youtube, so I’m sure they want Youtube videos to rank highly. And let’s not forget that Youtube is the fourth visited website in the world (according to Alexa).

It’s time to start testing video on our blogs. Camtasia and Cam Studio are screencast software that can help you make videos. And your webcam may prove to be a tool to help you reach the top ten of the SERPs. To really make a splash, you can shoot quality videos with a good video camera.

As an added advantage to making videos, traffic from web videos is pretty good quality. This traffic seems to convert better than other types of traffic. This means video traffic is more likely to click on an adsense ad, buy an affiliate product, or opt-in to a mailing list.

PRESS RELEASES

Another tactic to consider in light of universal search is making the news. With online press release site, it’s easy to submit press releases. As news items begin to rank higher, you’ll want to write press releases for your website and your niche.

If you have some money to spend, you can submit your press release at PRWeb. You’ll get traffic and a strong backlink. PRWeb used to be free, but now they charge $80 for a press release without anchor text and $200 with anchor text. If you don’t want to spend money, there are free press release sites like PR-inside.com.

IMAGES

Another thing to consider is the use of pictures and images. In many niches, internet users are looking for pictures. For example, I did keyword research for my wedding blog and found keyword phrases like “wedding dress pictures” and “wedding flower pictures.”

Furthermore, images are the first results on image related SERPs. You’ll get many visitors if you get one of your pictures on the front page of these searches. So, if you’re in one of these industries that love pictures, add more images to your blog with keyword-rich alt tags.

Reasons Why I’m Liking Netscape Over Digg

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Digg is getting on my nerves. I submitted an article from my wedding blog at digg and it got banned. They said I was spamming them. It was only my second submission from that blog. I didn’t know two submissions could be spam.

However, Netscape has been growing on me. Ryan pointed me to Netscape on his college startup blog. Here’s a couple reasons why I like Netscape over Digg.

1) Netscape has more categories for submissions. This is great for webmasters that have non-tech blogs. Digg has non-tech categories but not as many as Netscape. For example, the best place for me to submit a wedding post in Digg is the offbeat news category. However, at Netscape, I can submit to shopping, women, or even travel (destination weddings).

2) Netscape is friendlier. More people have added me as a friend at Netscape than Digg even though I’ve been more active at Digg.

3) I get more votes from Netscape. I think this is similar to reason 2. Netscape users seem more likely to vote for other submissions even without a reciprocal vote. It seems that Diggers won’t vote for you unless you vote for them.

4) I submitted and voted on more things at Digg yet my Digg profile page is only a Page Rank 2. My Netscape profile page is a Page Rank 4.

I think what it boils down to is Netscape has a much more varied user base whereas Digg is mostly 22-35 year old males. It could be that Digg users don’t want to talk about anything except sex, Apple computers, George Bush’s mistakes, and the latest funny picture. :-O

So, if you haven’t had much success at Digg, check out Netscape.