As Alyssa Ast mentioned in her recent post about SEO optimization, your own personal “author’s website” can immediately increase your exposure to potential clients–and if you want to diversify (and make more money), that’s good for business. If you’re just starting out, however, this may not be financially feasible. In my next post I’ll discuss cheap, affordable options for hosting your author’s website, but today we’ll discuss free hosting options.

SEED.com is arguably one of the best-paying writing websites on the Internet, with payments for articles easily falling into the $25 to $300 range. It’s also one of hardest to write for, according to writers who submitted articles to their site in 2009 and 2010.

Unlike other writing websites, SEED.com’s approval process is, safe to say, mysterious. Although numerous writers (me included!) have had some articles approved there, SEED.com has never explained what writers should specifically do in order to increase their acceptance rate on the site.

But there are ways to get your articles accepted on SEED.com–perfectly honest, very-non-time-consuming ways, I might add.

Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t just limited to smart, keyword-oriented content. Your links, headings and even your images are major players in your search engine ranking, for instance.

Today we’re going to discuss the importance of making your images SEO-friendly: why it’s important, the results it can produce, and how you can do it…in less than 5 minutes a day.

It’s been over a week since International Freelancers Day (IFD10) ended–and now it’s time to put their advice into action. Here are 7 important tips for freelancers, straight from the speakers of IFD10.

For experienced SEO writers, we all know what Halloween means: publish as much Halloween content as you possibly can. According to Google Adwords, there are over 11,000,000 searches done on Halloween-related content every month on average–and this doesn’t take into account the months when Halloween searches spike. But when should you publish Halloween articles? What should you publish? Let’s find out.

Many writers agree: if you want to have a successful business, you need a website. Not only does this increase brand awareness with potential clients, a website–if designed and promoted the right way–can propel you as an expert in your given niche, leading to more writing and money-making opportunities.

But behind every successful “writer’s website” is an equally as successful domain name. Unfortunately, most writers make this their last priority, when it really should be their first.

Having trouble eliminating passive phrases or words from your Demand Studios article? This free online analyzer helps writers identify and eliminate passive phrases and other signs of weak writing from their articles.

If you don’t have the time–or don’t want to make the effort–to create your own ads to attract new clientele, there is another option: taking advantage of the site’s features to find clients already advertising writing work.

For writers, here comes a legitimate concern: how do you differentiate scammers from trusthworthy, real-paying clients?

Granted, Craigslist isn’t a reliable place to find writing clients–there isn’t a guarantee they’ll pay your invoices on time (or at all) or offer a fair price for your web content. But this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s impossible to find writing clients on Craigslist–in fact, one of my highest paying clients found me through Craigslist.

Today, I want to bring you an equally straightforward how-to article about keeping both your writing assignments and writing business income steady. Now, keeping either of those things steady proves a challenge for most freelance writers. In her book ‘Six Figure Freelancer’ Kelly James-Enger talks about mentally dividing your freelance writing assignments into three categories: work that you’ve contracted and have to write, queries for which whether or not you have the assignment is outstanding, and work which you’ve completed but are awaiting payment. Whether you’re primarily a magazine freelancer, like James-Enger, or a web writer that works for content networks, or you work for clients, you can apply this methodology.