With three months left of 2009, how are you performing against the goals and targets you set for yourself in January? Maybe you've done really well this year and can coast through the last quarter, or perhaps the recession has bitten and you've got to pull out all the stops now to ensure your family gets Christmas presents this year! This month Gareth Pike is focusing on being more productive and working faster, and we're sharing our top 5 little marketing tricks that can help freelancers up their game. And if you really want to drive customers to your own website, Pay-Per-Click advertising could be just the ticket, as Christine explains.
issue 37 ::
September 2009
FEATURED SITE:
Smashing Magazine
Smashing Magazine is hugely popular with not just graphic and web designers, but with anyone working in the creative industries. Packed with tips, tutorials, useful links and more, it's a must-read for freelancers.
Got a resource you'd like to recommend to the Freelancentral community? Send your favourite blog or website links, book titles or software recommendations to info@freelancentral.co.za.
GET THE LATEST SENT TO YOU
Want the latest news, new member listings and placement ads sent to you as they are uploaded to Freelancentral? Simply sign up for our RSS feed - click on the link on our home page. If you don't already use a feed reader, we recommend Google Reader as an easy way of aggregating the latest posts from all the sites you read regularly.
SITE STATS FOR SEPTEMBER
Freelancers registered: 4,124
From Google Analytics:
- 2,741 visits
- 14,437 page views
- 5.27 pages per visit
- 38.45 % bounce rate
- 4:58 mins average time on site
- 48.96 % new visitors
PORTFOLIO CRITIQUE SERVICE
Are you selling yourself effectively in your Lite or Full portfolio? Wouldn't it be great to have someone give you an honest critique of your portfolio, and tips on how to improve it? For just R350 we will review your portfolio and send you a personalised report on how you can make it more appealing to clients. Just call the Freelancentral team on 021 780 1364 or email us.
GET 25% OFF YOUR NEXT FULL PORTFOLIO
Don't forget that if you send us your Freelancentral success stories and we publish them in our newsletter or on the site, you'll get 25% off your next month's Full portfolio. Submit your stories by sending us a mail.
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
newmembers
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Small things that make a big difference
Here at Freelancentral HQ, we get a few calls a month from worried freelancers, asking 'Is it me or is everyone really quiet at the moment?' Yes, the recession has hit, but we know of several freelancers who are busier now than they've ever been. So the work IS out there - you just need to up your game in order to find it.
Ask any freelancer 'What's your marketing budget for the year?' or 'What marketing activities are you doing?' and 99% of the time you'll be met with blank looks. As a freelancer, you're a business owner, and you HAVE to do marketing. Relying on word of mouth won't pay all the bills. Marketing can be a daunting concept to many freelancers but seriously, it needn't be complicated, difficult or expensive.
Click here for Freelancentral's five top ideas for small marketing things you can do to make a big difference to your freelancing business.
PIKE: Time is a terrier snapping at your heels
This month Gareth tries to get to grips with time, and how to make the most of it!
8.34am... Today we're going to deal with time (if you have some?). It's the one thing I can't seem to hold onto lately; it keeps slipping through my fingers like a greased trout, so that I find myself with five unanswered calls, twenty urgent e-mails, a missed deadline and an old lady at the front door, dropping hints that I should take over the place of her local handyman who recently kicked the bucket. When life gets like that - and I don't know, is it just "that time of year"? - I've realised there's only one thing to do: work faster! Working faster is an especially good habit for a freelancer to cultivate, since in this game, time is money. Your time, your money! If you're the type to sit around navel gazing while listening to Enya's greatest hits, then I'm sorry, this game probably isn't for you. Moving swiftly on...
Click here to read the rest of Gareth's column.
CHRISTINE ONLINE: Have your brand where customers can see it
If you need qualified traffic fast, Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is still the easiest and most efficient way to target the right audience. PPC goes hand in hand with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) as the foundation of search engine marketing (SEM).
According to Internetworldstats.com, there are an estimated 1.6-billion people online - just under a quarter of the world's population. And people are pretty passionate about being online too - a study published on Net Imperative in December 2008 showed that UK consumers would be more likely to give up fresh fruit and vegetables than their broadband connection in the recession.
In Africa, the number of people online has risen from about 4.5 million in 2000 to nearly 66 million in 2009. Africa still has the lowest internet penetration worldwide, with only approximately 6.7% of the population having access to the internet.
Click here for the rest of Christine's article.
___________________
Read how Freelancentral is helping South African freelancers
on our new Testimonials page - and do send us your success stories too.
If Freelancentral has connected you successfully,
whether you're a client or freelancer, we'd love to hear from you.
___________________
Our monthly newsletter contains news, tips and advice on freelancing, articles written by freelancers, offers and much more.
Subscribe now!
You are being sent this newsletter as you have either requested it or because we have identified you as potentially being interested in it. To unsubscribe, click here.
Comments, suggestions, compliments? We'd love to hear your feedback about our site and service. Tell us what you think.
