1. Update your photo and bio.

   If your bio ends with your current status ten or five years or even six months ago, bring it up to the present. While you are updating, get a photo that looks professional: a closer, well-focused head shot with a neutral, non-busy background will look more professional than that half of your face from the 1999 family Christmas picture. You can use a photo you already have and do a little editing. Blur out the background; maybe convert the picture to black and white. You might also check into prices on getting a professional head shot.

2. Add screen shots of the sites for which you write on your own website.

   . This saves visitors the trouble of having to click to all your links, and it also saves you the risk of getting them so interested in a different site that they forget to come back to yours. If you’re not sure what a screen shot even is, go read this explanation from Wikipedia. Basically, you are taking a picture of what is on the screen, saving it as an image file, and then putting it on your website as a picture. You could put it into a writing sample of what you’ve done on that particular website, so visitors can read your work and see where it’s published all without leaving your site.

3. Provide a downloadable .pdf of your portfolio, resume, and/or writing samples.

   You have a potential client who is browsing your website while waiting for a flight. It’s just time to board when they start reading your writing samples. They notice that little “Download as PDF” button, click it, and now they have a copy they can read in flight. Providing options makes it easier for your clients to remember you and hire you.
   Most office programs provide a way to convert a document to a .pdf file, or there are several online options you can look into. Make sure the option is easy to see for your website visitors.

4. Document your areas of expertise with specific samples or clips.

   First, of course, you’ll have to list your areas of expertise. As you build up samples and clips in each area, provide links right next to the listed topic on which you are (becoming) an expert. This makes it easy for clients who want writing on a particular subject to go straight to your relevant writing samples, rather than browsing through your entire portfolio.

5. Have a professional header and logo made.

   If you got some graphic designing skill, make it yourself. Think simple and streamlined. Do a little internet searching if, like me, your graphic design skills are at a negative level. I have found several very affordable options and have been very pleased with the results. Having a uniform header and logo for your website makes you look professional, and it also makes it easy for others to link to your site in an aesthetically pleasing way.

6. Make your design/theme simple with muted or neutral colors.

   I give this advice with a big caveat: some very professional themes and designs incorporate brighter colors and more complex color schemes. But if you’re not sure what you are doing, of if your aesthetic sense is somewhat, uh, underdeveloped, err on the side of caution. A classic black and white theme promotes your writing skill, whereas a complicated, multi-color scheme might just prove distracting to potential clients. Obviously personal taste is involved, and the kind of clients you are pursuing matter, so take this advice with a big grain of salt. Sea salt. White sea salt.

7. Provide a table or spreadsheet with your rates.

   Make this downloadable as well, so clients can have it as a reference. It doesn’t have to be a complicated table, just a simple spread of the services you offered lined up with what you charge. If you have pricing options (by project, by hour, by page), then lay those out clearly as well.

8. Use your sidebar for shameless self-promotion, but in a classy way.

   If you have a sidebar, that is… Gather a collection of quotes from your satisfied clients, positive reviews, and a few of the best lines you have written. Convert part of your CV and areas of expertise into little factoids, then load up all those goodies into a rotating quote collection or other display format. It’s like a little snack bar of how talented you are.

9. Record an audio or video introduction of yourself and what you do.

   A caveat with this one as well: only do this if you can do it well. If you are a work at home freelancer and can’t find a quiet time or place to record, skip it. If, however, you have a friend who is handy with YouTube videos or podcasts and you can come up with a brief, smart script and a good place to record, do it. This could be the first thing visitors see when they come to your website, and a little click on the play button will let them “meet” you. It might be the extra effort that makes you stand out from the other freelance writers out there.

10. Offer a contact form, not just a mailto: command.

    This is a pet peeve of mine. I’m not always on the same computer, and when I want to contact someone who offers only a mailto: option, I have to copy the email address from the command line, open up my own mail server, and send the email. Offer a contact form option so that visitors only have to take one step to get in touch with you. If they are using a public computer or don’t have a default mail server set up on their own, clicking a mailto: command is far more annoying than it is useful.

I originally wrote this post for Writers Unbound, several months ago. Editing it to post on this website has added a few significant items to my list of updates for my portfolio website. Time to get to tweaking…

Or you can go straight to my articles there. Thank you, Denise.

If you are a WAHM, this site is a great resource. The articles cover everything from Affiliate Marketing to Homeschooling to Love and Romance, Press Releases, and Time Management. If you are a writer specializing in WAHM topics, this is a database worth being part of. It reaches a targeted audience; if that’s the same target you’re after, half the work is already done.

You can read the submission guidelines, or start reading articles.

Out of one little case of eye shadow, you have just pulled marketing material for several different groups. Now you need to move from selling your item to selling your real product: the look better, feel better, take care of yourself, be different, treat yourself, be eco-smart package of ideas.

You can focus on a single idea, or you can craft a statement or tagline that incorporates more than one. When you talk to customers, you need to discern which idea is the one appealing to them. Sometimes you’ll be able to pick the right idea right away. Sometimes the only way you can know is by knowing your customers, by having real conversations in which you listen to what they say.

Marketing from your idea changes the way you build your website, design your flyers, and introduce your product. You’re selling the same item, but you know now how to sell the real product.

Image Credits:
EmmiP , archived at MorgueFile.com. Jeltovski, archived at MorgueFile.com.

Market unto others as you would have them market unto you.

What does that mean? Seth Godin, author of New York Times Best Seller “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable” (among others), put it this way in an interview with Anthony Tedesco for the 2008 edition of Writer’s Market: “Give help, don’t ask [for help].”

Don’t Be a Marketing Moocher

Have you ever been in a relationship with a co-dependent person? How about a serial moocher? Or someone extremely clingy, needy, jealous, or constantly out of cash? You don’t like being taken advantage of, do you? It eats at you, even if the person is asking for something you really don’t need, or care about, or even value. It’s the fact that you’re being worked over, played for what you can give, expected to provide even if the other person contributes nothing.

Marketing is a relationship between you and the client. If you promise and don’t deliver, you break a trust. If you build expectations and then don’t perform, you break a trust. If you hype a product that really isn’t worth hyping, you break a trust. If you flash a pretty sign, make a pretty speech, wave around a pretty brochure, and expect money, money, money for that meager show, your marketing relationships will fail. Clients don’t like being worked over, played for what they can give, and expected to buy even if the seller contributes little or nothing.

You Gotta Give a Little

We, the sellers, the marketers, must start being the givers in these relationships. Instead of pushing our product, we need to look for ways we can provide to our clients. What skills, resources, talents, know-how do you have that can help someone else get a step up? What can you give away? What can you offer besides a product for sale?

Your Cheatin’ Heart

People remember how it feels to get cheated. I bought a $20 labeler at Wal-Mart last week. It doesn’t work, fresh out of the package. I didn’t expect much, but I expected it to work. Now I have to go stand in a line with my two little children, talk to a crabby customer service representative, and hope that they’ll either give me a refund or exchange it for a working model. Is it Wal-Mart’s fault that the product doesn’t work? No, not directly. They don’t manufacture or package it; they just distribute it. But it matters. I don’t deal with the manufacturer; I deal with Wal-Mart. And I will remember this experience. I will think twice next time. I will wait a little longer, do a little research, and I will go buy what I need somewhere else.

Good Vibrations

People also remember how it feels to get more than you pay for. I love going to St. Louis Bread Company, because I can buy my $2 bottomless cup of coffee and my $1 cinnamon raisin bagel (bread sliced with butter, please) and get a lot more than what I’ve paid for. I get a large, distraction-free space that I don’t have to clean up. I get free wireless. I get quiet, anonymity, and a paper to read if I need a break from writing. I get someone to come by and whisk away my tray when I finish my bagel. I get coffee that’s hot, cream that’s cold, a clean bathroom, and just enough people around to provide conversation snippets and spur on the next paragraph.

Does this stuff cost them? A little bit, sure. But what do they gain? My loyalty. My good feelings. My happy associations. A guarantee that I will come back, over and over, and that they can burn my bagel, run out of cream, or throw out the newspaper and I will overlook it all. Once a good association is established, it takes a lot to undo it. Same goes for a negative association.

Be Like Santa Claus

How does this concept translate to your business? First, stop looking for more ways to sell and start looking for more ways to give. Stop promoting a product and start offering a service. For free. If people are impressed with your service, they’ll be impressed with your product. Be a resource center. Learn all you can about areas that relate to your product and provide that information at no cost to clients, potential clients, anyone. Don’t ask for anything in return.
Give.

It takes some faith. What if the principle of reciprocity stops working just as you start trying it? It might. I doubt it, though. That ‘do unto others’ concept has been around for a long time now.