Archive for October 2011

This guest post comes from Cal Evans (no relation that we know of), author of Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want.

Image from sxc.hu user ba1969

I’m a lucky man. I get to talk with a lot of developers and web development shops. No matter where in the world I am, one constant refrain I hear is, “Yep, we are done with the site, waiting on the client now to write the content.” OK, so most of my European friends don’t say, “Yep,” but you get the idea. Consistently, content is the last part of the equation in a website and one of the speed bumps many developers hit in deploying a website on time.

Don’t be a speed-bump

No matter what type of website you have, your content should be part of the planning stage. By the time you and your developer finish the planning stage, you will have thought through every page in the initial launch and know what content goes on it.

If you are building an application, your content list may be light. You may need nothing more than “About us” page, “Contact us” page and any other window dressing in a standard website. If you’re building an e-commerce website, you need to know what initial products that will be in the system and what you need for them. Do you need pictures and descriptions from the vendor? Do you need to produce a video showing your products in action? Think through these questions and a hundred more that will come to you during the planning stage.

Your painters wait

Software development is like building a house. When you’re building a house, you don’t wait until the walls are up and the painters arrive before you select the colors to use. You meet with your architect and plan that out long in advance so that when the painting crew arrives, the paint is already there for them.

The same concept applies to your website project. The planning phase of your website is the time to determine what content needs to go on the walls of your website — not after your developers finish.  One of the things you should have when you finish the planning phase is a “content list.” This is a list of the pages on your website that require content.  The “About Us” page is a good example. Your developers will be able to create the page on your website called “About Us,” but you will have to write the content for the page.

Once you have your content list, get started. If you are responsible for the “History of the company” page, or the page containing headshots of all the partners, don’t wait until the week of the milestone to start gathering your materials or hiring a photographer, do it now. Surprise your developers by being ready when they come to you for your content.

Wordsmith is a noble profession

A good friend of mine just joined a mid-sized company with its own web team. She was telling me about all the cool people that she works with on the team.

“… and they even have their own copywriter,” she said.

It struck me that this surprised her. Then, I realized the sad truth. Most people assume that owning a word processor qualifies them for being a copywriter.

If you’re spending a good chunk of money to have your website professionally created, don’t skimp when it comes to the copy. Budget for a copywriter to create all the written content you need. If you need video, find a professional who specializes in video for the web.

You are the expert in your industry. It’s your job to give guidance and make sure everything stays on message. You need to hire an expert in content creation to work with you to make sure your content is as professional as your website.

Let the painters do their job

Professionally produced website and web-based applications don’t come cheap. Given the amount of work it takes to produce them, they shouldn’t be. Your content, however, isn’t the place to cut corners. Work with professionals to produce content that highlights your business.

Deliver the content during the planning stage before it’s needed to ensure your website goes live on time. Don’t let the painters stand around.

About Cal Evans: CalEvans is a professional programmer, writer and speaker. His passion in life is helping people do great things with technology. His latest book, Avoiding a Goat Rodeo: How to get the website you want does just that.

Cal is lucky enough to be married to the lovely and talented Kathy, a fact that both surprises and delights him daily.

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Image from flickr user Hawk Eyes

The Texas Rangers made the playoffs again this year. No smack talk from me. I just watch and hope for the best. “Rootin’ Tootin’ Ranger” was the name of a Rangers mascot from the ’70s. Wow, that game on Monday, October 10, blew me away. Would you believe the game’s walk off grand slam was the first in MLB playoff history?

What a series it has been between the Rangers and Tigers! The third base thing and it happened twice! (I won’t bore you with details, but email me if interested.) Then same guy who hit the walk off grand slam almost did the same thing in game four in the top of the 9th. He hit a three-run homer.

Brain food…

• The Art of Writing Business Processes. I did this for 10 years of my career before leaving the corporate world for freelancing. I enjoyed the work and believe in the importance of business processes and continuous process improvement.
• Being Kind Doesn’t Make Me Stupid. Is there something you can make right today? Things can and do happen sooner than we expect.
• How do you sign an e-book? I wondered this … now here’s a way. Not surprised.
• 5 Great Questions to Ask Yourself After a Failure. We all say we learn from our failures, but how much? These questions will ensure you learn as much as possible.
• How to Avoid Burn Out: 10 Symptoms of Severe Stress. Yes, another from Lifehack. You can love what you do and still burn out. Here’s help for those times.

And for fun because we’re allowed…

• The Best Obnoxious Responses To Misspellings on Facebook. (Some cuss words.)
• Funky Font Flowchart. Won me over just by leaving out Comic Sans.
• The Seven Deadly Keys. I guess I have a bad case of envy.
• The 50 Best Steve Jobs Tributes From All Over The World. I liked so many of them, but a few stood out especially sefanomanca, three apples changed world, Apple cries.

Image from sxc.hu user krissyOoO

How do you get most of your business? For me, it’s referrals. For fellow freelance writer Thursday Bram, it’s her address book. This guest post from Thursday shows how to make connections and make them work for your freelancing business. 

As a freelancer, my business wouldn’t bring me a lot of money if I had to sell it — except for my address book. It’s the main asset I have to work with. I have a computer, some on-going client accounts and not much else that an appraiser would even bother to put a price tag on.

That’s perfectly fine with me. Business is booming, because of that address book. I do minimal marketing and yet I’m turning away work almost constantly. That’s because the right connections really are incredibly valuable.

Connections Are the Most Important Asset You Can Build

As a freelancer, word of mouth has to be one of the best marketing methods available to you. There’s no direct cost that you have to budget for, like advertising and the like. Clients prefer to work with freelancers and contractors that come with a referral, rather than someone they find through an online search or the like. All of that adds up to create a situation in which it simply pays off for you to invest time and effort into building up the right connections to bring you word of mouth business.

Think about how many novice freelancers are encouraged to start out by asking their friends and family for connections to people who might need work. Relying on your connections is not something you only do in the first days that you are looking for freelance work, however. It’s easy to let meeting new people and maintaining your relationships by the wayside when you have a full slate of work. It’s the same issue that goes along with marketing for any freelancer — unless you put out special effort, you only go looking for work when you don’t actually have any.

But if you’re willing to invest time in building up your address book, you can smooth out some of those hills and valleys.

Going Out of Your Way to Build More Connections

For some freelancers, networking is the hardest task we can set ourselves. It’s not uncommon for a freelancer to choose to work for herself so that she wouldn’t have to deal so much with the in-office networking necessary to get ahead as an employee. Unfortunately, the reality is that most of us freelancers wind up talking to people more when we’re running our own businesses than we ever did before.

You have to put yourself in the position to make more connections — and they need to be the right connections. Of course, you can make friends with anyone and there will be a chance that they’ll pass your name along to someone who needs a freelancer. But if you have a good idea of who your perfect client is, you can figure out where you can connect with the people who match that profile. That way, you can focus your energy on connecting with people who are actually likely to hire you.

Pick the conferences and events your prospective clients are going to be at, and make sure that you can attend. Even if it isn’t an event that you’d normally be interested in, the people who will be there are more important than the event itself.

New Connections and Old: You Need Both

While you’re going to have to go out and actually meet some people in order to have any business relationships you can build on, a truly valuable address book is a lot more than just some place to put the business cards you collect at networking events.

I make a point of following up with new connections within a month of meeting them. It helps if you make sure that during your conversation you discuss something that makes the follow up easy — like promising to forward an article you read — but even if you’re only sending out an email to touch base, you’re still doing more than most of the people that were at any given event. It’s my experience that even at an event that was specifically intended to help people network and build their businesses, well under 10 percent of people ever follow up after the event.

Every day, I send out at least three emails to people I already know. I make an effort to meet up with people for coffee or lunch as often as possible, even if the person I’m meeting isn’t going to hire me. I put as much effort into maintaining my relationships (or even making them more valuable) as I do into meeting new people.

That’s what makes my address book more than a list of names: it’s a list of people who like and know me, and know that I’m a good choice for their freelance projects.

Thursday Bram has been freelancing for more than eight years — the last four full-time. She’s the co-founder of EnhancedFreelance.com, a membership site for freelancers ready to up their game.

How do you find most of your clients? What other ways do you find clients?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans

Photo from sxc.hu user bo_1963

So I decided to come up with a wacky title for this week’s links. Nothing to do with dancing, but it rhymed and Monday is Columbus Day. In 5th grade, I drove my social studies teacher crazy by repeating two lines of a Columbus poem. (In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. In 1493, he sailed the deep blue sea.) I’m amazed she didn’t send me to the principal’s office now that I have kids who have done the same to me.

We’ve all done things to drive our teachers, parents and other adults nuts. What about you?

Brain food …

• 3 Tips for Professional E-Book Covers. Yes, we do judge books by the cover — ebooks included.
• How to Read More: A Lover’s Guide. Even book lovers like me fall into a reading slump. You get busy or choose to relax while watching TV. (It’s essentially reading for me because I read captions!)
• 10 Key Points Freelancers Must Know About LinkedIn. Good reminders. LinkedIn has so much going on. This cuts to the chase.
• Mobile Framework Comparison Chart. For my designer buds. Compare all the frameworks and choose the one that best fits your needs. [Link: Deborah Edwards-Onoro]
• Exquisite Tweets. Paste the URL from a single tweet in a conversation to get a one-page thread to share or save. [Link: Dana Chisnell]

And for fun because we’re allowed …

• 10 Coolest Lunch Bags. If you work in office with public fridge, first lunch bag and one other (ick) will stop theft. I like the lunch bag art bags.
• the difference 10 years makes. Cartoon covering TV, mapping, cell phones and more.
• 12 Hilarious Graffitis on Signs. Spoiler alert! Skip the first one if you haven’t seen Marley & Me …
• Size Comparison Of Famous Sci-fi Spaceships. Putting the end to “My ship is bigger” debate.
• Social Media Icons. I rarely follow the egg. Maybe twice out of the 8,000 I follow.

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Welcome to meryl’s notes blog (this here place you’re lookin’ at) in Plano, Texas. We’re honored to be a stop in Kathy Handley‘s WOW! Women On Writing Blog tour. We’re hosting a giveaway of her book Birds of Paradise [affiliate]. Read on to see how you can win.

About the author: Her grandfather entertained his family with stories and dancing, her father quoted Shakespeare and her mother was known as “Mary the Poet” so naturally Kathryn would become a writer … eventually!

Now a published novelist at age 71, Kathy’s short fiction has appeared in many literary magazines. She recently won Word Hustler’s Page-to-Screen Contest (2011) and currently serves as Prose Poetry Judge for the National League of American Pen Women Soul-Making Contest. A collection of her work will soon be released under the title A World of Love and Envy (short fiction, flash-fiction, and poetry).

Prepping Book Questions by Kathy Handley

You, the author had many questions and problems to solve as you progressed through your long story, the novel. At certain stages, you went back in the story to look for consistency in character development, time line, plot, clues as to what would happen next.

And so, for your astute readers, they will be considering the same aspects — perhaps consciously if they are writers and reading to learn more from the great guy and gal authors. Remember questions your writing group, agent, editor, trusted readers and you had about the early drafts of the books and the outcome of the final draft.

With my first novel, Birds of Paradise, I’ve been asked many questions during readings and discussions, as well as in interviews. Along with answering these questions in person, I prepared a “book club” list for my readers. The questions usually bounce around between general and specific. Listed are examples of author and reader questions.

• Why did the author choose the choice of title? What does it mean in terms of the storyline? What would you have named the book?
• Who was your favorite character? Why?
• What did you find predictable about the plot? How would you have changed it?
• What specific details, as in quirky attributes and “things they carried” did you like about the characters?
• Who was your favorite? Why? Would you like to read another book following the same or many of the same characters in a sequel?
• What was the most memorable incident in the book?
• What did you learn about the areas where the story took place? Did the author place you there in a natural way or was it obvious she was trying to use the setting for character reveal or something else?

Personal questions about you, the author

• How long did it take you to write the book?
• What motivated you to choose this setting and characters?
• What projects are next for you?
• How did you research details for this book?

Have fun preparing book questions.

Birds of Paradise tells the story of a lonely, long-haul trucker, Joe-Mack, who picks up a runaway, Freddie, in Las Vegas and drops him in Hollywood, offering to help him if needed. When the call comes, he reaches out to the boy and becomes embroiled in the lives of homeless kids.

Comment and win: For a chance to win a copy of Birds of Paradise [affiliate], please leave a comment. You could share a memorable book club discussion that resulted from the questions posed, questions you’d ask your favorite author (let us know your favorite author) or questions you’d ask about a book you’ve read. You have until 11:59pm on October 11, 2011 to qualify for the drawing. The unbiased and robotic Random.org has the honor of picking the winner.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Meryl Evans