The Edge
Success Strategies for People Who Work With Words
The EDGE
Success Strategies
for People Who Work With Words
08 July 2009
In This Issue
Director's Spotlight:
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Featured Success Strategy: "Tracking Website and Blog Stats: What it Means to You"
Announcements
Subscription Management (If you need to change your e-mail preferences, here are instructions.)
Director's Spotlight
Welcome once again to the new NAIWE members and e-zine subscribers! We're delighted to have you.
There are a lot of things happening at NAIWE-- a new Partner Program, a growing Board of Experts (with lots of great teleclasses coming up!), and coming this fall, a new Lucky Freelancer(tm) Fast Track coaching program for those of you who need to move farther and faster in your business in 2010. I hope that you'll check out each new development, and join the Association if you're just an e-zine subscriber who has been putting it off.
There's a lot more coming up, but that will do for now-- I need to get out and watch some wildlife. Summer is here, and this week I've seen a pair of foxes stroll across our lawn as though they owned it, and a doe walk right up to the azaleas to see if they were edible. Our little dog let her know they were off limits, but she was a beautiful sight while she was here.
Being able to look up from my computer and see things like this is one of the great joys of working from home as a freelance writer. I hope you are enjoying your version of the freelance life, and that you'll be inspired by today's article to write about it on your blog!
To your growing success,
Janice Campbell
Director, NAIWE
P.S. I had the honor of being a featured guest on the Sheri McConnell Companies Radio Show today, and enjoyed the chance to talk about NAIWE and the new Lucky Freelancer Fast Track Program. You can listen to a replay of the show at Blog Talk Radio.
Featured Success Strategy
Tracking Website and Blog Stats: What it Means to You
by Janice Campbell
“Don't wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect.
There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions.
So what. Get started now.
With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.”
-Mark Victor Hansen
I just checked the website stats for the first week in July, and member Noelle Barrick's blog post, Adventures in Freelance Teaching, or How to Use Cuss Words to Your Advantage is the top post among the linked NAIWE blogs.
The second highest post in traffic is a NAIWE NewsWire announcement of the Poem-a-Day Challenge, and the third highest is my post on "What do you value most about the freedom to work independently?" (I'm still welcoming comments on this post, so please drop by and share your thoughts!) Together, these posts have brought hundreds of eyes to the NAIWE site in the past seven days.
The numbers are interesting all by themselves, but why should you care? You should care because traffic means eyeballs. Noelle's post has attracted 186 sets of eyeballs to her site in the past week. From the blog post, they get an idea of her writing style, and they can click right over to look at her professional profile. Noelle's chances of being contacted to quote on a job increase every time someone visits her site. Every single time.
By taking the time to write an interesting and creative post, Noelle has accomplished far more than she'd ever achieve by a boring and static "brochure about me" post. Her post will be there for as long as she's a member, and it will continue to draw visitors. Those who enjoy it enough to bookmark it and return will help to build her traffic, and when they need a copywriter, who do you think they'll think of?
The best part about traffic-attracting posts like the three mentioned above is that ultimately, they bring visitors to all of us. A reader may first stop at Noelle's post and profile, but from there, they can click on the NAIWE logo to visit the home page and the rest of the site, and perhaps browse through the searchable database to visit your profile and read your blog. The site is designed with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind, so that each and every post is quickly indexed in the search engines, and can begin bringing in traffic within hours (occasionally even minutes).
Is your NAIWE site ready? Are you making the most of your biggest NAIWE benefit? Or will visitors to your site find the original welcome text, designed to help you make your first posts (these are designed to be rep? If you joined NAIWE just to have an association membership to enhance your professional credibility, having an empty site may be fine. However, if you're hoping to build your professional reputation or attract new clients, you need to have something on the site to introduce yourself and your books or services. It doesn't take long-- just log in to the member area today, and get started!*
*If you need help posting, there are brief videos in the member area that will show you how to do it all, and there's an issue of The Edge in the e-zine archive that also covers "Website Basics."
Announcements
If you belong to an eligible writing group or related organization, and you'd like to get a discount on your NAIWE dues, you can do so when the group joins our Partner Program. Just refer them to the Partner Program page on thewebsite, and we'll be very happy to work with them. The program has just started, so we are actively seeking appropriate partners.
Members-Only Q&A call for July is scheduled for 3:30p.m. Wednesday, 22 July 2009. All members will receive an e-mail with the telephone number and call information a few days before the call. If you have any specific questions you'd like addressed, you may e-mail them before the day of the call to janice@naiwe.com, and I'll answer them first.
Copyright 2009 by Everyday Education, LLC.
