For this week’s speedlink, I’m turning to the wonderfully diverse world of freelancing and small business for inspiration and guidance. Let’s see what the blogosphere has to offer.
We start off with a post from Buzz Bishop who says the best way to put together a media kit for your blog is to get a professional to do it. We do live in an increasingly DIY society, but the amount of time it’d take for you to learn the ropes and put something together is better spent elsewhere. I took the same approach to the cover design and formatting for Beyond the Margins, as well as the design for my business card.
What is your time worth to you? It’s a question posed by Morten Rand-Hendriksen as he explores a different way to calculate how to charge what you’re worth. He looks at the disjoint we have between valuing our personal time and valuing the work that we do as freelance designers, developers, writers, photographers and artists. You shouldn’t sell yourself short and you should factor for all your non-billable hours too.
Many people will tell you about the Pareto principle where 80% of your money will come from 20% of your clients, but Conrad Feagin reminds us that one of the keys to earning a steady income as a freelancer is to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket. When you come to rely on just one or two clients, you could be setting yourself up for a lot of disappointment if one of them happens to fall out for whatever reason. It pays to hedge your bets, so to speak.
After three years, Jeremy Lim has decided to resurrect his Espresso Shots project, interviewing “inspiring people” that he meets. The series kicks off again with Steven Ngo, the man behind a non-profit organization called Healing Using Music. They provide free live music performances to schools and care facilities as means to “bring happiness into people’s lives.” Now, I’ve got to wonder when Jeremy will invite me onto the program…
Last but not least, we have Neil Patel responding to the recent decree by Google’s Matt Cuts that guest blogging has become too spammy and “you should probably stop.” The former may be true, but Neil is saying that guest blogging will still work as long as you follow a few guidelines. Most importantly, make sure that you are still providing real value to a relevant audience and avoid using rich anchor text for any of your backlinks. And don’t be afraid to link out to other sites and resources too.
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