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(4) Top Tips for Freelancers: Be active on online
By Ragini Werner of NEEDSer l Native English Editing Service
In this fourth and final part of my Top Tips series, I’m going to explain why it is so important for freelancers to be active online and show you how to create an online presence. But, don’t just take my word for it. Let’s start off with a look at some sample numbers that prove my first point. Worldwide internet users in 2010: 1.43-1.83 billion
Worldwide projection for internet users in 2012: 2.10 billion
Source: Computer Industry Almanac In terms of internet user growth, the United States has long been the clear leader of all industrialized countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany and Japan. But most industrialized nations are reaching saturation levels in terms of internet user growth. Most future growth will come from densely populated countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China. Estimated number of people who will use the internet in 2010
United States: 223 million users = 73% (pop. 307.21 million)
China: 253 million users = 17% (pop. 1.34 billion)
Source: CIA The World Factbook As you can see, China already has more internet users than the United States. Now see what happens when you compare these two giant countries with a couple of little lands close to my heart (I grew up in New Zealand and have lived and worked in the Netherlands for 30 years). Estimated number of people who will use the internet in 2010
New Zealand: 3.36 million users = 80% (pop. 4.21 million)
Netherlands: 15 million users = 90% (pop. 16.72 million)
Source: CIA The World Factbook Wow! That’s a gigantic 90% of all people in the Netherlands with online access – including my target audience of Dutch academics and students. This statistic just goes to show how seriously important it is for NEEDSer, my Dutch-based business, to be clearly visible online. Which leads me to… Top Tip #4
Establish an online presence, searchable on Google. Be easy to find by potential clients.
• Be active on your own business site. This really is a must-have these days, if only as an online business card. Every month I get a torrent of price inquiries flowing in via NEEDSer.nl and needless to say, I always start off my response by thanking the writer for their interest in NEEDSer (see (2) Top Tips). Maybe not all of these queries convert into real jobs, but a significant number do. Don’t forget to keep your site up to date! Google’s bots love sniffing out fresh material. • Be active on online forums of professional associations. I’m a member of SENSE, the association of English language professionals living and working in the Netherlands. I’m active on the SENSE forum, asking and answering questions, contributing opinions and so on. Be polite, be professional. You’ll get noticed and maybe even asked to do work by new contacts you make on the forum. It happens to me. Regularly. • Be active on professional networking sites. For instance, NEEDSer is signed up on Ecademy, TranslatorsCafe , Franglo and Expatica as well as the Dutch versions of RealMee and MINDZ. And of course, you must definitely be networking on LinkedIn. Being on LinkedIn works extremely well for me. I’ve hooked up with excellent clients who were among my former corporate colleagues – seems like everyone’s a consultant or an entrepreneur these days! Again, take part in discussions, ask and answer questions, and comment on other people’s posts. Get your name (and the link to your website) out there! You never know where these contacts may lead to in future. Just the other day a LinkedIn contact, who hadn’t been in touch for over a year, asked me if I was available for a quick well-paying job. What do you think the answer was? But of course – NEEDSer at your service! • Be active in online advertising for your local/specific market. I pay for NEEDSer to be on the Dutch site Marktplaats and it’s worth it. Owned by eBay, Marktplaats is the biggest advertisement site in the Netherlands, attracting 6.4 million unique visitors a month. Every week I receive a substantial number of inquiries via my Marktplaats ad. Note that my ad stands out in a very crowded field by virtue of the many ‘thumbs up’ posted by NEEDSer’s satisfied clients (see (3) Top Tips). • Be active in Google adwords campaigns. I run a low-budget campaign for the Dutch-speaking market that pays its weight in golden opportunities that often convert into jobs. It’s certainly worth the small monthly expense. • Be active in creating free advertising in the form of business profiles, or writing intel and articles for reputable article/intel directories like Ezine, Qondio, and Squidoo. You won’t have time to be truly active on all of them, sure, but nontheless, each mention of your business name online adds another chance for your business to score higher on Google searches. Bonus tip: Last but not least, don’t forget to mount an online presence on traffic builders like Twitter and Su.pr (StumbleUpon) or social networks like Facebook, Hyves and myspace. And of course, you can always create a business-related blog. I write the not-so Bashful Blagger for NEEDSer. This acts as a fun showcase for my skills and imparts useful advice or entertaining information for people interested in the English language. So there you have it. It all adds up to more hits on Google. Creating an online presence costs virtually nothing but your own time and effort. And, if you happen to be going through one of those dreaded dry spells that every freelancer encounters from time to time (see (1) Top Tips) you’ll have plenty of spare time to spend on getting active. Online. Go for it!
Ragini Werner is an English-language editor and copywriter living in the far north of the Netherlands. She runs the international business NEEDSer (Native-English Editing Service) from the comfort of her home office. As the 'Bashful Blagger' Ragini writes an occasional blog on writing, editing, language and life in the fast lane of freelancing.
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Computer Industry Almanac, Inc.
| The Central Intelligence Agency's World Factbook
Ragini Werner works best when she's wearing the NEEDSer thinking cap.
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Thank you for sharing all of this wonderful advise, Ragini.
Keeping the website fresh and trying to keep an online presence are big jobs that we need to do. This site has improved our online presence and better placements on the search engines.
Best to you.
Frederick
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