Word Vomit: Bad SEO

I'm so sick and tired of bad SEO writing. Do you know what I'm talking about? Ok, maybe you don't. Here's an example. Say you're searching for outdoor living furniture. You want to examine your options. You want to read some articles that will help you choose. You want--gasp--information. What a shock.  So, you search.

click. clack. click. click. clack. "Outdoor Living Furniture." (Apparently I'm Googling on a typewriter)

45 billion results found.

click.

"Outdoor living furniture can be a great thing to have. With Outdoor Living Furniture, you can live outdoors. You can find Outdoor living furniture in a variety of places. Usually, Outdoor living furniture is outside. You can live in it. It is furniture. This is why outdoor living furniture is so important."

Now do you know what I'm talking about? Why in the FREAK are those results coming up on top?  I know, I know... you're going to start dropping big words at me. Algorithm. Keyword Frequency. Antidisestablishmentarianism.

All I'm saying is, "What is with all the bad SEO writing?" Isn't there an argument somewhere for high quality content that keeps people coming back? Aren't you more likely to bookmark or remember a site that does more than just vomit some keywords on your shoes?

Blah. This post came from my attempt to research affiliate marketing. I don't know what it is. After reading about four articles, I still don't know what it is. I'm going to clean my shoes now.

Falcor The Luck Dragon and Textbroker

Well, now I feel bad. 

I'm not really a confrontational person. I don't like to ruffle feathers and stir the pot.  Don't get me wrong, I will speak my mind if I feel that it is necessary.  But when I do, I usually feel like I've gone too far.  So, after I got an e-mail from a Textbroker employee regarding my scathing post about Textbroker, I reread the post in question...

... and immediately felt bad.

I may have been too harsh on Textbroker.  I compared the freelance writing community to Elance which may have been unfair.  I might have unnecessarily stomped Textbroker's good name into the mud.  I may have been comparing puppies to luck dragons.

If you came to me and said you really wanted to get a puppy, my review of Textbroker would be like this response:

"Why would you want a puppy?  They can't fly around and carry you around on their backs!  You should really get a luck dragon, not a puppy.  Falcor is the only pet worth getting."

Well, ok, yes.  A luck dragon would be nice.  But what if you really wanted a puppy?  What if you wanted something simple and easy to understand.  Something that required less maintenance.  A puppy would be great.  Textbroker isn't a luck dragon, but it isn't completely worthless either.

If you want a simple way to make extra money each month, Textbroker is fantastic.  If you don't want to go through the hassle of bidding on projects, creating a profile, advertising your services, keeping up with complicated client deadlines, and taking self-examinations, Textbroker is the perfect choice.  Textbroker has a huge collection of available articles that you can write immediately.  They pay their writers regularly.  They are usually fair with their ratings.  The only reason Textbroker didn't work for ME is because I was looking for a way to grow my freelance writing career.  I needed to be recognized so that I could gain loyal clients.  I needed expansion. 

I needed a luck dragon.

Real Simple Blog Contest

A few days ago I submitted an entry to the First Ever Simply Stated Blogger Contest!!  The contest involves writing a 300 word "blog post" style entry on your strangest or most unique friendship.  I am pretty excited about my entry; it was way fun to write. 

The prize for winning is $1000 smackers and a months worth of blogging on Real Simple's website in October.... woot! woot!  If you are at all interested, hit up the link above and check it out.  Anybody know any other fun writing contests going on right now?

Using Elance to Make Money

Yesterday, I talked about Textbroker and why I think it is a complete waste of a freelancer's time.  Today, I'm goingt to talk about Elance...

...because I think that Elance is exactly the opposite of a waste of time.  In fact, I think it's amazing.  Don't get me wrong, I won't be freelancing on Elance for the rest of my life.  For now, though, I'm going to show you how I can make a living using this incredible freelance community.

If you are a writer, a web designer, a marketing specialist, a social media networking specialist, an SEO writer, or a computer programmer... you can find WORK on ELANCE.  I'm talking about high paying, high quality, legit work, not cheap, ridiculous, five dollars an hour work.  You can actually be COMPENSATED for your time.

What Is Elance?
Elance is a community of freelancers.  You have to register to be a member of the Elance community whether you are looking to work or to hire.  Once you are a member (a process I'll explain later), you can bid on projects, complete work, and get paid.  Here are the benefits of freelancing within a community like Elance:

• Payment is always guaranteed with escrowed funds
• Clients are abundant; you don't have to hunt for hours looking for work
• Work is more substantial, projects come in packages of several articles
• Elance takes a cut of your earnings, not a monthly fee, so a dry spell won't cost you
• Your performance, client ratings, and skills are rated and ranked so that you can easily stand out amongst a crowd
• You can self-test to show potential clients what your skills are
• YOU are in complete control of how much money you want to make per job

If you are looking to jumpstart a brand new freelancing career, get yourself through a dip in client jobs, or do something totally new on the side to make a few hundred dollars extra every month you have got to try out Elance.  It's fun.  It costs nothing.  You can make MONEY. 

Boom bada boom.

Anybody else use Elance?  Any hobby writers out there who have considered trying to freelance but didn't know where to start?

Textbroker: Counting Pennies in Hell

I've been putting this post off for far too long.  I really want to discuss the beginning of my personal freelance journey and the important differences I discovered between two of the biggest freelance writing communities: Elance and Textbroker.

When I decided to try my hand at freelance writing, I didn't really know what an important and widespread field I was getting myself into.  A friend of mine told me she had made a few extra hundred dollars a month with a site called Textbroker.  Extra hundred dollars?  Ok, yes I'm trying this out.

Textbroker is a website where clients post their writing needs in different categories and writers can choose to complete these articles for a rate of less than two cents per word.  Categories include jewelry, home, business, computers, family, travel, etc.  Depending on how your writing rates with the Textbroker editors, you have access to different levels of writing jobs that pay different amounts of money.  The highest rating you can get as an "amateur" is a four star rating.  That's where I started. 

Here is the problem with Textbroker.  Er, there's more than one.  First, the jobs are first come, first served which means that there is no bidding process or freedom in deciding how much you are going to make.  If you write a four star article, you get paid 1.7 cents per word.  Every time.  No exceptions.  The second problem is that the a lot of the articles are filled with REALLY COMPLICATED guidelines that you have to complete before the article can be written.  Sometimes, just reading the guidelines for each article would take me fifteen minutes.  Then, the article would only pay about $5-$8.  Not exactly cost effective. 

The last problem I had with Textbroker freelance writing was the process by which they moved you from a four star writer to a five star writer.  Ideally, once you have written ten articles in a row with a four star rating, you can apply to be a five star writer which gives you access to better paying jobs.

Well, I've written about a hundred articles with all four star ratings.  I applied to be a five star writer.  I was rejected.  Why?  Because in ONE of the hundred four star articles, the editor at Textbroker didn't like some of my phrasing.  It wasn't wrong.  It wasn't grammatically incorrecct.  She just didn't like it.

After that, I abandoned Textbroker for Elance.  And I absolutely love Elance.