The Lady Programmer

I got out of doing web pages as a freelancer to discover what SEO is. Some of you may know that SEO simply stands for search engine optimization. Why did I do this? There is quite a growing demand for these skills in constructing new websites.

As I tried to scour the web to know more about SEO, I realized that it can actually be a separate skill apart from doing web design. In fact, this is a skill that is always practiced, experimented and even contested in many blogs. It is not some skill that is written in stone and taught in schools, unlike learning and mastering new programming languages.

This led me to discover that blogging can also be a fruitful career – there are a lot of ways to make money from it. I also made some mental notes:

• I’ve done a number of paid posts and got spanked by Google a number of times. Being spanked by Google lessens the chances of doing more paid opportunities. Hence, doing paid reviews alone are not a sustainable means of income.
• Affiliate marketing is also a good passive income.
• Social networks can also be a great way to promote a blog and is much easier to gain traffic and loyal readers. Always have time for it.
• Search engine traffic gives stable traffic in the long term, and are most likely to click on ads like Adsense. It is also possible to keep loyal readers, but I think not as loyal as those in social networks.
• Keeping loyal readers motivate me to blog more, not only doing reviews to get paid.
• Paid reviews on every post make a blog less interesting.
• Unlike learning a programming language, SEO is not a skill that is learned and mastered over a few days.
• I never stop at learning new things because there can be opportunities that are waiting to be discovered.

Am I leaving my blogs? No, not that I’ve discovered the prime benefit of blogging to my freelance career – to promote my work. I still hope to learn SEO too and this blog can be a good start to understanding it.

I am glad to extend help in fixing Joop’s Sailor’s Adventures and Opinions blog. For a week I could not the view blog through my feed reader. I can view the blog using the old blogspot domain, but not with their newly purchased “www.sailorsmusings.com” domain.

Joops is one regular visitor of this blog. His wife, Chubkulit, is the one actively seeking help in fixing this problem. She had managed to change the domain of her Rose’s Obstacles and Journey, but something had gone wrong with her hubby’s blog.

I have been visiting Iceah, Pastilan, and Berry’s blogs and I noticed Chubkulit’s distress call. Chubkulit followed Iceah’s post mentioning that Pinay Chicken Heart’s new domain by reaching out to me in this previous post on how to set up custom domains in blogger.

Since Chubkulit seemed to be up all week fixing the domain herself. I just contacted her and went into their domain manager account in Google Apps. I also checked their blogger account to see if the settings are right. Fixing that domain thing took me less than 10 minutes.

You can now view Joop’s blog and see their latest family adventure in Korea: Sailor’s Adventures and Opinions

To Joop’s and Chubskulit, thanks for featuring me in your blogs:
Lady Programmer
Goodies… Good Luck… Great Friends… Great People

Got a similar problem? Please contact me through this address gem [at] theladyprogrammer [dot] com

Marla has a lot of ideas that she often give away for free. She earns from her best ideas. She hadn’t had a job in seven years. Now she wonders why anyone has one.

Check out this great clip that I found today.

Almost everyone could have wished to win the millions from a national lottery. If I were to have this one then I could buy the material things that I want in life. Perhaps travel gets to be a part of the lavish dream expense that I would opt to do.

photo credit: lusi (SXC)

When I was working in an office, I get home feeling tired at the end of the day. Then I would wake up, realizing that I get to do the same routine. I get to the office and meet people. Some people are really pleasant, but the ones with the negative attitude truly sap my daily energy away.

I left my work, and found myself free – again. I’ve had some previous jobs and I’ve often enjoyed the each moment when I left the jobs that did not fit me. In two of my previous jobs I’ve encountered pressure but there’s always a chance for career advancement. On that one job there’s no pressure, but the option for career advancement was not good.

Now I’ve been in freelance for sometime. I have time under my command. My main problem is to make sure I had adequate income to pay the bills. I have to earn through work opportunities around job sites. Luckily, there are even other opportunities seem to sprout out from nowhere.

I wake up each day, thinking that perhaps I’d be getting some notice that I have some work waiting. There are some days where I had to do a lot of work, and there are those dry days where there’s no job to do. Sometimes it is quite frustrating when there is no work for several days – I feel like there will be no more opportunities to come. Then suddenly opportunities show up. There could be so many of these which can be too much to handle.

I’ve spent off my weekends trying to get away from my computer and home. I’d get to town by myself and do the things to relax my mind. I’d call up friends and if I’m lucky enough, I get to have a great time.

I’m free, but sometimes I miss working for a company. I miss the office. I miss the chats with some office buddies. I miss having a boss to deal with. I miss the after-office hours and company outings. I miss doing the dressing up for work and going back home.

Freelance life is still enjoyable and I would still choose this life over that of the office. I just figured I’ll have to find a way to keep up with my social life.

For most days the previous week I’ve taken my sweet time off from posting new entries here. I’ve ventured out from my home to refresh my mind and perhaps learn a bit or two from the world. I ended up learning more than what I can jot down.

A Friendly Visit

Last week, I’ve visited a friend who has been up almost whole the night before preparing a presentation for a group of out-of-school students. I listened to his discussion, which lasted for two hours. It was my first time for me to watch my friend give a lecture.

photo credit: mzacha (SXC)

He started off by a little ice breaker to get the attention of his audience. It was creative and unexpected: something that a few speakers adapt to conquer their audience. He had us laughing over the course of the discussion, but this humor helped him explain his points well. His two-hour long discussion really had us entertained all throughout. We ended up learning the lessons that he wants us, the audience, to remember.

I was amazed that these are young people, all of them out-of-school youths. Despite the difference in generation he was still able to conquer them all. To me, he had conquered the attention of the audience. He ended up his discussion with his audience liking and respecting him that much.

Comparing that Experience to Freelance

I suddenly realized that this tactic applies well to freelance. A freelancer’s profile could have been the presentation and the speaker is the freelancer himself. A good cover letter and a catchy title is all that it takes to keep the client interested in getting him to view the freelancer’s profile.

Even with a captivating cover letter and an interesting title is nothing when a client finds out an empty profile staring right at him. A great profile should have all the necessary elements to convince the client into the hard coded skills of the job. The client is much like the audience who responds to what is written in the profile.

Even with a content-filled profile, consider its presentation. I’ve seen a lot of profiles where it has a lot of content but remains to be disorganized. A speaker’s speech is interesting if there is a little humor that will help his audience grasps the meaning of his discussion. Similarly, a profile should be organized in a manner that is pleasing and easier for the client to skim through.

I am not saying that the profile should end up humorous, because this will piss off the client. Use bullets, numbering, indentations, spaces and other means to help organize the profile.

Keep in mind that the client may have dozens of profiles to look at, so a quick skim should be effective enough to make an impression.

What have you learned about freelance and the world?