The Article Writer

I am seeing a common trend on some blogs these days — a post is added that highlights or recaps some of the articles for the past month. I like this idea because there are times when weeks will go by before I return to that blog — why not help your readers find your “best of” articles by putting them all in one place?

7 Articles You May Have Missed

Thanks to Google Analytics, I can tell which articles have received the most traffic and which ones could use a boost. Instead of highlighting the Top 7, I’ll share with you some personal favorites of mine:

Grammar Gremlins — There is nothing more scary than reading a final copy of an article posted for all of the world to see and finding grammar mistakes that should have been caught prior to publishing. A pet peeve of mine is loose v. lose.� Aaack!

PageRank Penalty — Yuck, not another article about PageRank! Actually, I wrote three of them this month, but I’m only highlighting my warning article. Unfortunately, I believe that Google already had the penalties in place so if you took action back when I posted this article on October 9th it probably did you no good for their most recent update.

About.Com — Several readers were intrigued by what I shared regarding About.Com and their writing guide positions. I still haven’t heard back from them and have since learned that this is a long, drawn out process.

Work Smarter — I like to offer words of encouragement without sounding too instructive. I hope that this article helped somebody to begin working smarter.

Thankless Blogging? — Blogging can be tremendously rewarding or absolutely thankless. I think most bloggers have experienced both sentiments over the course of time.

The Blog Police — This one was just for laughs, but I know some people took my words seriously. Then again, do you flout conventional blog rules? Hmmm?

Your Blog: R.I.P. — All right, I confess — this post was written on September 28th, but it got a lot of traffic well into October. Since it is Halloween, it could offer the inspiration you need to boost your blog or at least find a really cool outfit for trick or treating!

The Best of the Rest

There are a handful of other articles I would have mentioned, but time and space is working against me. Feel free to visit my October 2007 section to find the best of the rest!

I’ve been deriving the lion’s share of my income over the past two years from the writing I do for various clients. Currently, I have paid positions as a blogger, a web content provider/article writer and as a magazine columnist. In addition, there are the occasional press releases, resumes, and other writing projects that come up from time to time.

Most of My Income Comes From Writing Projects

I still derive income from ads and certain non-writing sources, but freelance writing is at least 85% of my monthly income. This pales in comparison to three years ago when managing web sites, forums, and relying heavily on ad income held my business up. I’m glad that I’m writing more than ever before because this is what I prefer to do with my time.

I’m saying all of this as I just visited Anne Wayman’s blog where she posted the question, “What’s Your Writing Routine?” and I responded with my answer which you can read over there.

Personal Writing Followed By Client Work

Although I do have a writing routine, it isn’t set in stone. There are times when I have my blog posts prepared in advance and have them set up to appear shortly after 3 a.m. local time and there are other times when I either skip blogging or add something later in the day.

As far as work for clients goes, I start my client work a few hours into my day. The reason? Because that is when I am the sharpest — my creative juices are flowing and I’m ready to rock ‘n roll!

Hitting My Writing Stride

Yes, I can write at odd times of the day (odd for me, that is) but I know that my best work takes place between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. The house is quiet, the kids are in school, and I’ve put behind me the day’s personal marketing and blogging tasks.

Oh, there are days when I do not write for clients at all. I don’t normally work those days into my schedule, rather I know that my work is better saved for yet another day.

There are some advantages to working as a freelance writer — flexibility of schedule is one of them.

This past Friday (October 26th) Google’s datacenters began the process of changing the PageRank for sites across the internet. This followed the two-prong paid link penalty phase pre-update which occurred earlier. Specifically, in late summer Google went after the directories and earlier this week Google penalized a number of sites who sell links or engage in some sort of activity that impacts PageRank.

Looking Forward, Not Back

I won’t rehash all that has taken place the past few months simply because it is common knowledge and I am not interested in looking at what has been. Even as I write this article my focus is partially on the most recent update, with the bulk of my attention given to planning for the future.

PageRank Is Dispensed To Various Articles And Blog Entries

As far as this web address is concerned, the home page and this blog managed to hold steady at PR4 while The Auto Writer, my second blog, fell one notch to PR3. Importantly, specific blog posts and articles I wrote picked up PageRank, with some of the heavier trafficked URLs notching a PR3. Oddly, PageRank seems to have been dished out for blog posts made in August and September while various heavily trafficked articles written in May, June and July show no changes (the previous PageRank export took place on April 27th).

SERPS Trumps PageRank

One thing that has held consistent throughout 2007 is PageRank as The Article Writer has held steady at PR4. Traffic, however, has increased four-fold since January resulting in new business opportunities for me. I rank very well for certain keywords and keyword phrases which has opened up several windows of opportunities for me. Clearly, PageRank isn’t all that important to me as the site’s performance with the search engine results pages (SERPs) is what triggers the work that pays my bills.

Planning Ahead With A New Strategy

Although I don’t want to kill the golden goose, some of my new strategy will change the way that I blog. Specifically:

• I eventually will be blogging an average of three days per week here and two days per week on The Auto Writer. I cannot maintain my current pace if I am to provide material that is interesting and compelling.

• The work I am providing for customers is on the increase. I blog regularly on SayEducate, I’m providing content for a jewelry site, and I recently started a monthly automotive column for a Midwest US magazine (more about that in December). I have a few other irons in the fire I am ready to pull out too.

Finally, I plan on activating at least three new sites over the next two months. I own several domains (dropped, forwarded or dormant) that I plan on developing into full sites. Two sites I plan on keeping while the third I will likely flip. The strategy I have employed with CabinManagers (niche site targeting a specific audience) is paying off and I will employ that strategy in the development of the new sites.

PageRank, Just A Google Tool

PageRank is nothing but a Google tool to measure a site, blog or web page. You can’t do anything about PageRank, but you can bring customers to your site through superior SERPs positioning. By developing web pages which cause visitors to take an important action (click on an ad, fill out a form, buy a product) money can be made, whereas with PageRank you have no control over the process. Besides, it appears Google has devalued this product, perhaps because it has been “gamed” to death.

Now, can we put the PageRank cares behind us once and for all?