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Creating your Web writing brand: it’s essential

August 29th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

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You’re a Web writer. You’re also a brand.

If you’re a new Web writer, start thinking of yourself as a brand now - the more you think of what special talents you bring to Web writing, and the more you promote your name, the more successful you will be.

Not sure what branding entails? The best advice I can give you is to do a marketing course. The amount of money you will make in your Web writing career is directly related to what you know, and what you can do.

I did a marketing course many years ago; it took a year. However, the benefits of doing the course included learning to brand myself. The benefits of branding included:

* Requests to write business books - I wrote a business book series for Prentice Hall, and some of the books are still in print

* The ability to extend my copywriting career into PR and marketing areas

* Confidence

It’s not enough to be a “writer” or even a Web writer, you gotta be brand YOU

These days, anyone can call themselves a “writer,” no credits or qualifications are necessary. Hundreds of thousands of people are calling themselves writers. So, in order to stand out from the crowd of wannabes, you must brand yourself.

Branding isn’t a one-time event; it’s a process. You put your name to everything you do online, splash your photo onto your Web sites and blogs, just so that people will be aware of your name. Branding makes you a price maker, rather than a price taker. Over the months and years to come, clients will request your services because they’ve seen your name many times, and feel as if they know you. They will trust you, because they feel they know you.

With the hordes of “writers” online now, you must devote yourself to branding.

Branding and self-promotion builds credibility and trust

Branding is a form of self-promotion. If you’re a typical writer, you’re not much into self-promotion. It shouldn’t be necessary. After all, you have skills and talents, and people should just hire you, right?

In the best of all possible worlds, yes. Unfortunately we live in a crowded and noisy world. Self-promotion is essential. Branding is essential too. (Branding and self-promotion are conjoined twins. )

The benefit of all the branding is: TRUST.

Of course, branding means that you must be professional, reliable, competent and ethical in your dealings. That goes without saying.

When people know your name and what you do, they trust you. In a global marketplace, your Web sites and blogs mean that the search engines trust you too. So your name will come up in Web searches when prospective clients search for “Web writer” or “Web content” or whatever.

Branding equals trust, and when your new clients trust you, everything flows more smoothly.

Develop your marketing and branding skills: it’s vital to your success as a Web writer.

My ebook “You CAN Sell Your Writing Now: Marketing Skills For Writers” will help you to develop your branding skills.

Your Web writer’s Web site: grow it and benefit

July 20th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

A Web site is a unique marketing tool: it keeps on working for you 24×7x365, and the results you get from it are CUMULATIVE. The longer your site is online, the more authority it gets. In that sense, your Web site is unlike any other form of advertising.

I’ve just been noodling with my angelabooth.com site; changing the template and cleaning out a few odds and ends. I first put that site online in 2005, and it’s doing very well indeed.

That’s the beauty of a Web site, it’s very forgiving, you can leave a site alone for long periods of time, and the site keeps working anyway. The last “News” I posted on the site was posted in late 2006, but the site hasn’t suffered through my neglect.

Look on your Web writer’s site as a laboratory: you can practice on your site, and then use the skills you learn to benefit your Web writing clients.

Now let’s talk about growing your site(s).

It’s all about TARGETED traffic

Newbie Web publishers focus on traffic. However, traffic is useless unless it’s targeted: that is, the people who visit your site are the people you want to attract. They may be people who can hire you, if you’re selling your writing services on the site, or buyers of products you’re selling.

Your main targeting tool is keywords. Often these keywords are not the keywords you would choose. For example, I’ve always been twitchy about the “freelance” word when applied to independent writers. I don’t like it. Tant pis. “Freelance” is a word that people use, and search on, so I need to use it if I want targeted traffic.

So grow your site by researching the terms that people use to find you, and making sure that those keywords appear in your site’s content.

Grow a site with links

The Web is LINKS. However, as with traffic, your links must be targeted. For your writer’s Web site, all the links pointing to your site should be writing-related. Don’t be conned into joining linking schemes. If you collect a bunch of totally unrelated links, they won’t help your site, and they could even harm it.

As a web writer, you must have a Web site, or sites, so that people know what you do and can hire you. The benefits that Web sites provide for your career are immeasurable, and your sites will do more for you as they age, and gain trust and credibility.

Happy site creation.

My Web writing resources for you

* Writing For The Web

* Writing Success with Blogs, by Angela Booth. How to use your blog to start, develop and power your writing career

* Beat Your Paycheck! Web Writing SECRETS

* New Videos: Create Your Own Web Sites With NVU Free Web Site Creation Software

Copyright © 2007 Fab Web Writer: Join The Instant Publishing Revolution

Credits: Angela Booth's Web writing manual, "Writing For The Web" | Fab Digital Photography Blog - Digital Photography Tips And Inspiration - If you write for the Web, you need to take photos for the Web too.