Toronto SEO Web Content

Craigslist is a great tool for freelancers. It’s an excellent way to find new freelance jobs and also great for posting about your services.

However, if you’ve spent any time looking for jobs (or anything else for that matter) on Craigslist, you’ve probably discovered that a key to using the site is noticing things quickly. There are so many users on Craigslist that almost all posts are responded to right away. If you’re not one of the first few people to respond to an ad, you’re probably going to miss out.

The solution to this is RSS feeds. To find the RSS feed address for any Craigslist category, head right to the bottom of the page and look in the bottom right corner. You can then subscribe to the feed for that category and be able to respond to listings sooner.

Recently I’ve started using Feed My Inbox to get Craigslist postings emailed to me each day. It saves me having to go to the website every day and I receive all the posts for a chosen category sent right to my email so it’s faster to respond to them.

It definitely saves time and makes using Craigslist much more efficient.

I spend a lot of my time reading web copying and freelance blogs. They’re great for learning new tips, networking and discovering what other writers are working on. Reading a lot is also a great way to become a better writer.

Here are five web copywriting blog posts I’ve read recently that I really enjoyed:

• Web Writing: Who Sets the Standards? [Freelance Switch]
  Before I read this post I had never really thought about who sets the standards for online copywriting. I always just assumed that we wrote in a style that pleased both customers and search engines, but never sat back and wondered “why?” I also had no idea that Yahoo! is going to release its own style guide. I love when blog posts make me think and teach me something I didn’t already know.
• 5 Grammar rules it’s OK to break [Copywriting.com]
  Spelling and grammar are very important. However once you know the rules, you also know how to break them. Nothing is written in stone.
• How to Write an Article That Draws Thousands of New Readers [Copy Blogger]
  Every website owner dreams of receiving huge traffic. Every blogger loves to see one of his or her posts forwarded around the net and watch the hit counter go up and up and up. This post gives some tips on how to create great posts that will be shared around and turn into “link bait.”
• Knowing Your Customers [Freelance Copywriters Blog]
  This isn’t so much about writing as it is about handling customers. Freelancers are usually expected tow ear many hats. Not only do we need to be good at what we do (such as website copywriting) but we also need to manage customers, schedule meetings, handle invoicing and much more. This post helps with the customer side of things.
• The Care and Keeping of Long-Term Clients [Freelance Folder]
  Another post on client management. This one covers retaining long-term clients and building true business relationships. This is one of the most important things a freelancer can do.

Happy reading!

When you work freelance you have to wear many hats. You’re not just a writer or a designer or an SEO person, you’re also in charge of your entire business. That means you need to manage your time, promote your business, keep track of your expenses and much, much more.

Today I’m going to list a few tools that will help you with these tasks. These aren’t just great tools for freelance copywriters. They’re useful for any freelance workers.

Unless otherwise mentioned, all the tools listed below are free:

• TweetDeck
• Twitter is an excellent way to promote yourself, network with others in your industry and stay on top of trends. Using a Twitter client like TweetDeck makes it that much easier.
• Klok
• An excellent way to keep track of your time and manage projects. It’s very easy to use and definitely helps track time spent on your projects. It tracks in real time and shows you exactly what you’ve worked on each day. ** The free version is very good (it’s what I use) but there is also a paid version that adds additional features.
• Google Calendar
• Helps you schedule meetings and plan your time. You can set it to alert you when a meeting or a deadline is coming up so that you’ll never miss an important event! You can even share your calendar with others if you’d like.
• Toodledo
• A simple online to-do list. You can set it to email you a daily agenda each morning so that you wake up with a plan of what needs to be taken care of. An excellent way to keep track of upcoming deadlines.
• Freshbooks
• Online invoicing. This service allows you to create and send invoices to your clients quickly and easily. It’s even set up so that your clients can pay online directly through the site. ** The free version only lets you manage three clients at a time. You’ll need to pay a monthly fee in order to use more of the tool’s options.

I use a combination of the above tools on a daily basis. They definitely help me manage my freelance copywriting work and hopefully they help you too!

What kind of tools do you use to manage your work?