Pinar Tarhan, Author at Addicted to Writing

Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers by John Soares -UPDATED

Posted on June 8, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

UPDATE: When this post was published, the book was being sold through John Soares’ website. Unfortunately, he has taken it off the market. However he told me that he’ll be back with an even better productivity resource for writers. In the meantime, you can continue getting your dose of productivity tips from his website, Productive Writers.

It took me a whole week to go through the whole book, and I am not yet finished studying. John Soares’ e-book Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers consists of very informative 179 pages, and while the language is flowing enough to finish reading at one sitting, I certainly recommend against rushing through the pages.

Because, like all good e-books, this one needs to printed out. and passages need to be highlighted. You should also return to the chapters that are most relevant and helpful to your life. Without knowing the content, it might be very easy to dismiss this one as “another e-book on productivity”. Don’t make that mistake.

Not only the book is full of wonderfully applicable advice for all aspects of your freelance writing life, it also involves some great insights & tips on writing better (such as how to conduct an interview or when, why and how to work with co-authors) and making the most of your marketing as well. However, please keep in mind that this book is essentially a productivity book, so even the tips on interviewing (people) well or marketing your work are primarily focused on productivity and efficiency.

Content Breakdown- Below are some of the subjects featured on the book:

* Conventional and out-of-the box tips for storing data on multiple locations (as well as the reasons and how-to information for these methods),

* Many valid and relevant examples from the writer’s own writing habits and career,

* Ergonomics (that also includes the time you might feel like going into the woods by yourself!),

* Organizing (your files, your notes, your office),

* Effective and efficient research (online & offline),

* Online & offline networking

* When to hire others to work with/for you (and how to calculate the costs, and what to pay attention to during hiring (actually you can also benefit from this part if you are considering to work for/with other freelance writers as well),

* Goal-setting, and sticking to these goals,

* Managing the non-writing aspects of your life,

* Tips for a better memory

* Faster reading

* Healthy living

* Healthy mind

and more…. Oh, and the book is just $17.

Intelligent Productivity for Freelance Writers is the ultimate productivity book for freelance writers. It includes everything you need to do to become healthier, happier and richer. It is also feels interactive as each chapter features questions to be answered by you. You simply need to have it if you are interested in leading a better life in general.

Please note that I bought this book after reading Anne Wayman’s review, using her affiliate link. I used my affiliate links for this review.

5 Authoritative & Popular (Writing / Blogging) Sites That Accept Guest Posts

Posted on June 4, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

This post isn’t about the benefits of guest-posting. Chances are, you are here because you decided that you want to guest post (or you are already doing it). If the topics you want to write about concern writing (and/or blogging) better, marketing your writing, getting noticed and more, be sure to check out the guidelines (and content) of these sites. Of course there is no guarantee your queries will be accepted, but you don’t stand a chance without trying.

Freelance Writing Jobs: Also one of my favorite resources for job-searching and writing related information, this site offers guest posting opportunities. Try this link for the guest-posting guidelines.

Copyblogger: Copyblogger has tremendous authority when it comes to blogging, copywriting for the web and running businesses on the web. It also accepts guest posts on a frequent basis. If you have a compelling idea, it is one of the best places to pitch to. The publicity alone…You get the idea. This is the contact page.

Problogger: Darren Rowse is one of the most popular (and I am guessing one of the richest) bloggers out there. He is considered to one of the ultimate blogging gurus. While I couldn’t find a page for guest blogging guidelines, he often accepts (great) guest posts. This is his contact page.

Men With Pens: Their expertise is awesome web copy (and web design). Currently, the website has a page rank of 5. Guest post guidelines are here.

Carol Tice’s Make a Living Writing: I saved the best for last. Not only she provides comprehensive and valuable information on writing, she also accepts and PAYS for guest posts. Yep, you read it correctly. She recently started paying guest bloggers $50 for their posts. You can read the guidelines here. Oh, and this post also includes her reason for paying the writers for guest posts.

4 Reasons Why Every Writer and Blogger Should Use Twitter

Posted on June 3, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

Twitter is important for your business. It is not about regular Joe’s or Jane’s online popularity although it might be a indication of it. But it is mainly about how you make use of social media, how strong a personality you are online, and how well your business is making use of the web. Sure, twitter isn’t the only micro-blogging platform out there but it is still one of the most popular and influential. Books are written and e-books are published every single day about this medium. This article is about the reasons why writers can’t afford not being in tune with it either.

1) Promotion. You have a blog and/or a website. Or maybe you have a website with a blog, or maybe you are running several blogs. Whatever your situation is, if you are writing, you need to have a Twitter account.

You also should personalize that Twitter account by providing a relevant & attractive background image, a full profile and relevant Tweets. If you don’t want to deal with tweets every time you post an article, there are tools for automating the process. However, you can’t neglect to reflect your persona, and your expertise on your Twitter profile. Like-minded people will follow you, retweet stuff that they enjoy, send you messages…In short, Twitter is a great medium to share your business, opinions, posts and passions with others. The traffic (and the relationships) you acquire through Twitter are great perks.

2) (Brand) Image. It is of course much more essential and practical to have relevant people (and/or companies in your list). But to the untrained eye, 2000 followers look better than 200. On a similar note, 20.000 followers look even better. Are there bloggers you like? Follow them. How about writers? Entertainers? If you are in advertising, following advertising blogs and companies is a good idea. Because more often than not, people follow you back. Not only you look more popular and important, but you also have a whole new medium to catch up with the events and industries you are in. Instead of skimming a whole website of news and ads, you will read tweets. You are not allowed to write more than 140 characters so you can choose to be informed about the most interesting stuff.

3) Improving the ability to write better. As mentioned above, you have 140 characters you can use, including a link if you need to use one. Since you have such short space and an impatient audience, you are forced to write better in shorter forms. What better exercise is there?

4) Making connections without much effort. I told you needed to work to promote yourself, but the beauty of Twitter is that others are trying to socialize or get their names/brands out there as well. So people will start following you too. It is your call whether to follow them back or not, but it feels good that your list might end up growing even when you are not actively working on it.

Yes, a lot of people are using Twitter for unnecessarily insignificant updates about their lives. So? Don’t follow them. But don’t let your prejudice about twitter block your success.

I tweet @zoeyclark. What’s your Twitter handle? Share away in the comments.

3 SEO-Related Activities To Do for Your Readers (and Not for Google!)

Posted on May 31, 2011 Written by Pinar Tarhan

New to SEO? Read from here.

Blogging is a lot of fun, but in order to be able to blog successfully, you need to be able to do more than just write. You need to learn the basics of SEO (search engine optimization), for instance. And SEO is a very tricky concept.

Simply put, we use SEO so that search engines can find our blogs and websites more easily. We also know that people aren’t inclined to go through tens of result pages when they are looking for information. They go through the first page, and maybe the second. After that, your chances of meeting that reader become pretty slim. But it is not always easy to end up on the first couple of pages, especially for keywords that thousands, or millions of people are competing for.

So SEO experts advise you to go after long-tail keywords (phrases that consist of 3 or more words). They recommend targeting keywords that have some competition (so that you know people actually want that information), but not so much that you will get buried under too many other sites).

For instance, what are my chances of ranking very high if I am writing an article on the actor Gerard Butler, called Gerard Butler? Just today, 1,554 people have searched for him (a result I got by using free keyword research tools). So, I have an audience. But how many results does his name generate on a search engine? Guess what: 10.100.000 results! Crazy, right?

Practicing SEO already? Try reading from here.

But I am not going to not include Gerard Butler in my keywords, just because there is so much competition. And I am not going to give up on a topic I like because the search engines say so. Instead, I will write the article for me and for my readers. Here’s how and why:

Keywords Selection and Tagging

The most popular keyword can also be the most relevant one. For instance, when I am writing about an actor (I have an entertainment website, so I cover actors and movies a lot), I get over a thousand daily searches, if not more. It is very difficult, if not virtually impossible for me to rank all that high with this main keyword. But I always include it. It is for me and my readers: Most websites (my blog included) have their own search engines. So when you arrive at my blog and type this name, you get all the posts about that actor.

You may have found me through other keywords. Maybe, you didn’t find me through search engines at all. But now that you are on my page, you will find a lot of relevant information. This is to satisfy readers. But also it makes my job easier, because I can track how many different bodies of work I have written on a given topic.

Search engines are your friends, but they are not your only friends. You get your audience from other sources as well, such as Twitter, Facebook, Stumble Upon, blog links on other blogs, blog communities, forums…etc.

– The Headlines:

We have been writers for a long time but we have been readers for even longer. So we have always known the importance of headlines and titles. Readers like the headlines to be exciting and clever. But they also need to give the readers a good idea on what the writing is going to be about.

So I try to include SEO keywords in the title. But sometimes I have an idea for a writing series and just don’t want to give up on creativity completely. One of the headlines I chose for an article series I was writing was more topic-related than SEO rich. Still, it managed to be one of my popular posts. You don’t always have to please Google. And sometimes pleasing yourself also ends up pleasing your readers, which will make Google love you even more in the end.

– The Number of Keywords

There isn’t a certain limit to this but of course the search engines aren’t going to take you seriously if you tag each post with 100 keywords. However, some sites come with limitations or limitation suggestions on how many keywords a post should ideally be tagged with.

Now, in generally, sticking to about 10-15 keywords might be ideal. But imagine writing a list post including 10 names. You will need to tag these names separately, and a lot more.

And exactly because of the reasons stated above (for your keywords and SEO actions), you will also need to add more specific, SEO-friendly and low-competition keywords. I try not to use more than 20 keywords for any given post, but I don’t mind going overboard on my own blogs.

So while it is great to stick to some basic guidelines, ignoring them when necessary might end up pleasing you and your readers. It is just a perk that happy readers will end up making you even more popular everywhere, including Google (and other search engines).