The Busy Bee

Are you are freelancer, independent contractor, or other professional working solo? Here are three plus great freelancer resources for you.

Freelancers Union

Freelancers Union has grown to be a very large voice on Capitol Hill for the rights of Freelancers in the US, and the more members they have, the better they can serve the needs of Freelancers. Freelancers pay more in taxes, have less options when it comes to health insurance, and have less rights as workers, just to name a few.  But Freelancers Union is changing all of that.  And they also offer seminars, discounts on related services, networking opportunities, and other benefits for freelancers.  Visit their website.  Check them out.  Joining is FREE.

Here are the basics. If you want to, for example, conduct transactions online with credit cards, via a form or shopping cart, where customers enter their credit card information, you will want to offer your customers the security that once they hit the submit button, their information is not being viewed by other than you.

How do you do this?

Below I will share some ways you can build your blog by driving traffic to your blog. I will start with one way, and add them over time, (so come back if you just see one).

1. Write material on your blog that answers the common questions people have in your line of work. Then, the next time you run across someone, (in person, on-line, or elsewhere) who is seeking that answer, send them to your blog for the answer. Tell them your website or blog address and how to find the answer. If you are in person with someone, write it down for them.

Are you an artist looking for a way to share your work on-line – but being an artist, you don’t have a lot of money to spend doing so? Here are few options for you.

Free: Upload your work to one of the many on-line artist gallery or artist portfolio websites.

Krop
Krop is a Job Board and career resource website for creative professionals.  You can create a free account and upload a limited number of work samples, along with a description about you and your work, and even a resume. When you are done, your portfolio can be viewed by anyone by simply giving them the URL to your portfolio – which is their website/your Krop username.
For example, you can view mine at the following URL: http://www.krop.com/davidtierney/

How do I have a successful blog?

Your blog, like anything in life, will flourish if you provide the right nourishment. A successful blog is one that reaches and enriches your intended audience. And that is true whether your intended audience is 5 people or 5 billion people.

I will use the analogy of growing a garden in providing the necessary ingredients for your blog’s success.

In summary, your garden needs seeds, water, nutrients, the right environment, and appropriate care and love to flourish. In the same way, your blog needs seeds in the form of rich and focused ideas for material; water in the form of regular and consistent written material; nutrients in the form of media content (images, video, audio as appropriate), and in the form of appropriate search engine optimization; the right environment in the form of an aesthetically pleasing and user friendly website; care in the form of spell checking your copy, weeding out spam comments, and responding to user discussions in a timely fashion; and your blog needs love in whatever way your heart feels it needs.

Sample design

Before I started my own business as a web designer, I had not had to rely on my own creative abilities so much. I had worked with designers before, but now I am the designer. I chose this line of work because I knew I had creative talent and had had this reflected back to me. I wanted to use my creative abilities, to express that side of me. I knew I could figure out the technical, the logical part. I have always had ease with that.

What I discovered was that I would always become anxious when I started a new design for a client. In the past, I could always rely on my knowledge and experience that I could “problem solve” or “figure out” my way through tasks that were put before me. With problem solving, I could rely on logically working my way through a problem, step by step. But I could not do so with creativity. Creativity comes from a different place from inside me. With creativity, there are no steps to figure out.

What is the difference between tags and categories as you use them in your WordPress interface?  Lorelle provides a starting point in helping you figure out how to use them.

My friend Dawud, an avid blogger and small business adviser with a lean towards social marketing actively uses them on his site as an example of use.  Check out his categories and then at the bottom of the page, he has a tag cloud.

Just a starting place to get an idea of how to work with these two tools.

Howdy world.  It’s a fresh start for my blog.

I moved hosting servers and decided to start over with my blog, rather than move it to the new server.

I haven’t had a chance to integrate the design yet, and will likely start adding posts before I do.  The design in this case will come second.  Hope you find help, support and guidance for your small businesses, home businesses, or web design, development and implementation needs.

God bless.

designing away.