What’s going on in the wide world of blogging? Let’s dive in and find out.
We start our eclectic tour by visiting the eclectic life of Shelly Kneupper Tucker. She recently had the opportunity to check out the alpaca ranch at Patrick’s Pastures, which is also the home of the Old Irish Bed and Breakfast. There is something positively enchanting about getting out of the city and into a quaint location in the country. In addition to the alpacas on site, Shelly had a look at the delightful gazebo, the cabins, the historic loom and more. It looks like she needs an overnight stay!
Next, fellow freelance writer Thursday Bram offers an interesting observation on the current state of the web. She’s saying that domain names don’t matter anymore, because we rarely ever type a URL into our address bar anymore; we’re far more likely to click on links or sift through our bookmarks. There is some truth to that, particularly when it comes to a Google search rather than typing a guessed URL in the address bar, but thanks to the auto-complete nature of address bars, I still find myself typing out sites like gmail.com and facebook.com rather than using a bookmark. What about you?
Speaking of websites, they certainly don’t exist in isolation and neither do the people who run them. Buzz Bishop made his way back in town this past weekend to attend WordCamp Vancouver for a day. He took home 17 big lessons, including the importance of optimizing for mobile readers and taking advantage of the many great tips and guides on W3 Schools if you want help with PHP and CSS. Looking for some useful tools? He has some suggestions there too, like Uber Suggest and iMapper.
The power is in the list. That’s what every Internet marketer is going to tell you, but Vance Sova reminds you why you should watch Aweber like a hawk. The billing system is completely automatic, so this could mean that you are paying for “subscribers” who aren’t actually subscribing to your list. They could have supplied a fake e-mail address to get your freebie, only to disappear immediately afterwards. That’s why you need to cull through your list manually from time to time.
It can be difficult to determine your freelance hourly rate, especially when the amount of money that websites pay for content can vary so widely. Susan Johnston has a little tip for figuring out if an online publication pays well. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but if a “website” is asking for “articles,” they probably pay better than if a “blog” is asking for “blog posts.” A “blog post” generally requires less research and needs a faster turnaround, whereas an “article” demands more depth and takes more time. Do you think there is any truth to that?
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