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Everyone with a blog, please raise your hand.

Alright, those of you with hands up can leave the classroom and hit the bar early. The rest of you, stay here, because this lesson is important.

Lets start with the quick summary of what a blog is. Short for Weblog, a blog is a website that displays posts by the author in chronological order. Their popularity is immense since most blogging platforms make it insanely simple for anyone to publish their thoughts on the web.

You’re reading one right now.

But why do freelancers need one?

It’s an extension of your portfolio

First and foremost, a blog is yet another place to show off your writing, design, photography or coding skills.

As such, it’s another place for potential clients to find you.

The ideal freelancer’s blog should be another part of his or her portfolio site (you already have one of those, right?)

But a key difference is showing off a little more personality on the blog since I’ve found most online portfolios to be a little on the sterile side (I’m just as guilty on that front.)

Along with a different method of posting from a more traditional portfolio site, most blogging platforms allow readers to leave comments giving you quick feedback on what you’re showing off (once you have readers, more on that later.)

Networking and marketing

One of the biggest advantages to having a blog is being able to build relationships with fellow freelancers who also blog by linking out and leaving comments on each other’s sites.

I’ve met people who’ve expanded their business into other countries thanks to relationships they’ve built up through blogging.

Now start one!

Getting a blog is easy and for the most part, free.

Go to one of the major blogging platforms like Blogger or Wordpress and sign-up for a blog. If you can’t think up a clever domain name, just go with your own name.

Using one of the free providers by default will give you a .blogspot or .wordpress domain but both providers support domain mapping (Blogger does it for free, Wordpress charges $10 per year though for $15 they’ll deal with registering it as well.)

Many people suggest that having a stand-alone domain makes you look more professional, but personally I don’t think it’s that big of a deal — especially since I’ve met company CEOs who have .blogspot.com domains.

Blogging away

So, now you’ve got your own little soap-box on the web that can be updated quickly and easily, what do you do with it now?

Well, an introduction post is usually good. Who are you and what are you doing?

Since we’re looking at this as a marketing tool, after that you should be writing about your field of work. Write with authority and establish yourself as an expert on what you do.

Post sketches and doodles of what you’re working on (or the equivalent in whatever you do) to show off your work.

As an example, I tend to use mine to post material that my current roster of clients aren’t buying but I still feel like writing. These days my bread and butter comes from monthly publications so I’ll also write up topics that will be stale by deadline which kind of brings back the feeling of being a daily newspaper intern (it even includes the glorious feeling of not getting paid!)

I’ve known programmers who’ll post about whatever platform they’re currently coding on along with whatever they love or hate about it along with giving progress reports on various projects. There are lots of possibilities.

Most important of all though, inject your personality into it. This should provide a good opportunity for potential clients to get an idea of the person behind the work.

While blogging isn’t a form of passive marketing, it also doesn’t need to take up that much time. Generally, it’s best to aim for one post per week at a minimum and try your best not to let it go stale.

Promotion

Finally, having a blog is pretty useless if the only one reading it is your mother, so let’s talk about promoting it.

Now, we’re not trying to build the next big web publication here, so there’s no need to go into all-out spam mode. Adding the link to your e-mail signature, your business card and leaving it when you comment on other blogs (most of them have a separate field to do this in the comments) should suffice to build a moderate readership.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com

The first year of keeping a blog is always the hardest. You’re just getting into the game and you haven’t quite learned all the ins and outs of playing just yet. While that’s understandable, if you’re making too many mistakes with your blog, you’ll never have a chance to get it off the ground. Here are eight common blogging mistakes, and steps you can take to avoid them.

1) Ignoring reader comments

You don’t have to respond to every single comment (especially if there are several), but if somebody makes an interesting point or asks a question, answer it. Commenting back encourages readers to start a dialogue and lets them know that you’re listening to what they have to say. Ignoring them sends off the statement that you don’t care about your readers’ thoughts on what you’ve written, and they’ll stop reading.

2) Straying off topic

It’s easier than you’d think to start a blog post with one idea in mind, only to drift away from that to a completely different idea by the end. However, while that rambling might work under some conditions, it’s not good for a blog. People aren’t going to want to read a blog post that wanders around eight different topics like a lazy river. Keep your posts simple and to the point, and you’ll keep more readers.

3) No countermeasure for spam

Spam has infested emails, MySpace, Facebook, forums and blog comments, and nothing will bring your blog down faster than looking in the comments to see that they’re all from somebody in Nigeria who needs to move $1.5 million to the U.S. A spam countermeasure is as simple as a verification box, where people enter a series of letters before they post. Or, you could ask a simple question, like “Is fire hot or cold?” Just do something to ensure that the person posting is actually a person.

4) Looking just like everybody else

You’ve got your blog on your site, right? So why does it look exactly like every single blog found on Blogger, Blogspot or Livejournal?

Using the exact same templates that come with every blog is boring. You don’t look special; you look like everybody else. A unique blog design that matches your website will keep brand consistency for your users. Plus, it will showcase your personality and taste, not the taste of the template designers. For a good example, take a look at this blog: http://www.sleepingtiger.org/blog/

For more ideas on how to spice up your blog, check out this excellent article at David Meerman Scott’s blog: http://www.webinknow.com/2006/09/pimp_out_your_b.html

5) Poor grammar and punctuation

You probably don’t worry too much about grammar, spelling and punctuation when you’re chatting online, but those mistakes in a blog can be a death sentence. Blogs with lousy grammar and punctuation and frequent misspellings come across as unprofessional, and that’s not the image that you want for your business. Edit your blogs and check them for grammtical errors before you ever post.

6) Stale or grandiose writing

Blogs are supposed to provide personal, human insight into your company. They shouldn’t read like bland corporate gibberish, nor should you use so many five-dollar words that your readers would have to hit a dictionary just to understand your post. The former makes your stuff boring; the latter makes it condescending, and either way, people won’t want to read it. Keep your writing simple and lively.

7) Personal attacks

Controversial ideas or topics are good for blogs, as they can spark discussion and attract a lot of attention. However, while controversy is good, stooping to personal attacks is not. You’re writing a professional blog, not picking a grade school fight. Personal attacks will reflect badly on both you and your company, so refrain from it.

Long absences

It’s all right if you can’t post every day. However, letting 10 days, two weeks, or even a month pass without updating is a big blogging no-no. A lack of updates indicates that your blog is on its way out, and readers will quit checking back. Even if you just link to an article or a video that you thought was worth sharing, make an effort to post frequently.

By avoiding these common blogging mistakes, you can keep your blog helpful, interesting, insightful and professional. Take steps to correct your mistakes now and you can make sure that your blog and readers will be around for a long time to come.

President and founder of Xeal Inc., Tony D. Baker is Oklahoma’s leading Internet marketing expert with more than 10 years of Internet marketing experience. You can catch Tony on the Xeal Radio Show on Sunday nights on 1170 KFAQ Tulsa. Sign up for a free 25-point website evaluation and pick up crucial tips at Xeal’s free Thursday webinar at http://www.xeal.com/webinar.

Original post by FreelanceSwitch.com