Tim and I are back from our respective holidays and so excited to see how many new people have signed up for Writer’s Residence.

For those of you who are new to websites and online writing portfolios, Laurie at Quips and Tips for Freelance Writers has posted a great set of 6 Website and Blog Building Tips. This is a great list for Writer’s Residence users, and anyone who has a website.

My favorite tip is explain yourself. In other words, give you and your website a little personality by describing who you are and why your website exists. For even more personal touch, use an image. Laurie quotes website consultant, Scott Ellis:

It’s extra work to find a suitable image, resize it, upload it… but images draw attention and can pull the reader’s eye toward a particular paragraph or phrase… Images can also bring a reader’s attention quickly to the top left where they will start reading. Give your images meaningful and accurate names, too. This is also good for Search Engine Optimization as images are commonly sought on the web and no one is looking for IMG0022388.JPG.

Other tips include keep your website clean, easy to read, and easy to open, know your competition, and get involved in social media.

For more, read on…

6 Website and Blog Building Tips

One of the biggest challenges in starting out as a freelance writer is getting your first article published. But to get published, you need show editors what you can do. How do you do that when you’ve never been published before?

To find out, check out my guest post at The Freshman Writer, a blog for new freelance writers. My article, Getting Published Without Writing Clips, features a few tips for dealing with clips in the early stages of your career.

If you’ve already created a writing portfolio website for your clips and writing samples, then congratulations: you’ve just taken the first step in getting your work seen by others. But how do you get people to actually visit your site?

The key to gaining traffic is to get as many websites linking back to your writing portfolio as possible. Here are a few simple ways to do that without look like a spam-bot:

Signatures

Add a link to your writing portfolio in your online signature. This not only goes for email – add it to posts on forums and blog comments, as well.

Participate in Writing Forums

Related to your signature, forums are a great way to interact with fellow writers and build a name for yourself in the field. Add a link your writing portfolio in your profile and your signature. Not sure where to start? I’m a big fan of Absolute Write, but there are loads of similar forums out there for every type of writer.

Social Networks

Join social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Virb, LinkedIn and Flickr and make sure your profile links back to your writing portfolio.

Get Blogging

Blogging is a great way to gain exposure and establish yourself as a professional in your market of choice. You can start your own blog or guest post on others. As always, remember to link back to your writing portfolio wherever you go.

Business Cards

Business cards may seem old school, but they’re still a great way to market your writing when you’re interacting with people in the real world. Put your portfolio website address on your business cards and give them out whenever you can – at conferences, in meetings, or at the pub. Always keep a few extra in your wallet; you never know when they’ll come in handy.

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest Google results based on a “search term”. For example, I have a Google Alert set up for “Writer’s Residence” and get an email whenever a blog or website mentions that phrase.

Writer’s can also use Google Alerts as a handy way to see when their articles are published on websites. Susan Johnston at Urban Muse has this tip:

Here’s how to do it: Go to Google.com/alerts and create an alert for “Your name” Site:website.com. For instance, I could set up an alert for Experience.com by typing “Susan Johnston” site:Experience.com. Then, once I find a new article I’ve written, I bookmark it in Delicious for future reference.

Tip for Tracking Your Writing Online