The Article Writer

“I’ve decided to shelve my site for awhile because the new job is taking up all of my time. I’m even considering deleting most of my pages and I may not renew my domain.”

When I learned that a friend was planning to shutter his website, I wasn’t too surprised. He launched his first site in 2004 and soon after we exchanged links, shared tips, and I even sold one of my domains to him. Later, when his “real job” took off, he sold everything that he had except for his original, flagship site.

“Good for him,” I thought when I read his note, but then it quickly occurred to me that this move would actually be bad for him. The “bad” wasn’t the new job which was paying him quite well and providing what his family needed, rather removing the last vestige of his online presence was a move that I didn’t agree with. I quickly wrote back and encouraged him to rethink his strategy.

To make a case for keeping his site, I shared the following bit of advice with him. These tips are something I routinely mull over whenever I consider selling a site or closing down a slow performer:

How old are you? Your domain name, that is. My friend Brian’s site was established in Spring 2004, making it four years old. In that time, he has accumulated a lot of backlinks including some from a handful of .gov and .edu sites. Though his site currently has less than 60 pages to it, many of these pages have been around for three or more years and nearly all have received PageRank. Clearly, the search engines recognize that there is some value to his site as the inner pages are ranked and have inbound links.

How deep is your love? Relating to the backlink issue, Brian’s site is linked out to several authority sites and a few of those link back to his site. His links appear naturally and they are the types of links readers would find valuable, complementing his pages and making for good “further reading” material.

Should you sell instead? In almost all cases I would instruct the person who no longer wants to manage a site to simply sell it. Although Brian’s site was never much of an income producer, all of the material on his site is original and written by him. Many buyers will look at monthly income and simply offer 6-18 times the average monthly ad income amount for a site, but the age of the domain, number of pages, and the quality of the backlinks demonstrates that this is a poor way to calculate its worth. Definitely, his site has an intrinsic value that the average buyer would not recognize. I suggested that he consider offering it to one of his business partners if he absolutely had to dispose of it.

After considering my points, there were a couple of other things which Brian hadn’t thought of which eventually convinced him that shuttering or selling his site wasn’t in his best interest:

Careers change, a site is a valuable marketing tool. Like so many people these days, I rarely send out a resume. Why? Because, this site is the best example of what I can do for a customer. Brian realized that although he loved his job, having an online presence would allow him to maintain his visibility, a good idea whether his career takes an unexpected turn or not. With companies merging, downsizing, going out of business, or otherwise changing, his passion for his work could eventually cool. An attractive and informative website can be the best personal marketing and networking tool for anyone.

Good hosting is cheap these days. The cost for keeping his site running is negligible as he uses shared hosting. Domain registration and annual hosting fees cost him about $60 annually, not much money to make this an issue. To manage his site in his spare time, he’ll be deleting several outdated pages and redirecting the search engines to other pages on his site. I encouraged him to set aside a few hours monthly to regularly tweak his remaining pages which should keep his site fresh going forward.

Just about every site has value based on its age, content, links, authority, income, and more. The hidden value is often what we don’t immediately recognize, the personal marketing angle that would take months, perhaps years to replace if a treasured site is sold or shut down.

I try to answer most of my emails quickly and directly, but that isn’t always the case. There are times when I’m under a deadline or an emergency pops up and I’m just not able to tackle an inquiry immediately.

Sometimes, I’ll simply tweak the person’s question and post it to this blog as part of my mailbag series, leaving off the person’s name as most people would prefer anonymity. Then, I send a note thanking the person for their inquiry and supply the link to where they can find their answer.

The most frequently asked question lately seems to center on starting a freelance business, particularly as a writer. Many of our fellow bloggers hold down full time jobs and are exploring whether pursuing freelance work is right for them. Granted, I cannot give anyone a specific yes/no answer; instead, I try to impart my knowledge and leave the exploring up to them.

It seems that I am not alone when it comes to freelance inquiries as I have found a spate of posts from other freelancers who are also fielding similar inquiries. For a sampler, why not visit the following blogs to see what these freelancers have to say:

All Freelance Writing — Jennifer Mattern suggests that writers should choose a specialty when seeking a freelance career. The reasons? You’ll be much more knowledgeable about a subject and be able to command more money.

The Writer’s Manifesto — Monika Mundell shares her thoughts about freelance writing rates, discussing the disparity between article mill jobs and offline assignments. Yes, there are jobs out there that pay more per word than what some people pay for an entire article.

A Writer’s Words, An Editor’s Eye — Lillie Ammann is at it again, offering a new article series, this one discussing how to become a freelance writer. Lillie always thoroughly covers a subject so check out her blog to follow this series as it unfolds.

I always encourage people to follow their passions when it comes to choosing any career and that is the same bit of advice I offer to prospective freelancers when pursuing a writing career. If you know that this is something you must do, then follow it with all of your heart. If not, then don’t.

Freelancing can be difficult, especially for the person whose sole bit of income is garnered from their clients. Up and down times will come and not everyone has the intestinal fortitude to stick with it.

My freelance career started in November 2002, but it wasn’t until Spring 2005 that I made the decision to stick with writing and jettison the web design part of my business. The transition was tough, but I’m now getting good paying jobs and have the luxury to cherry pick assignments.

There was a time when I said I wouldn’t work for someone full time again, but I’m not sure that’ll always be the case. Yet, where I am at this point in my career is fine with me with still loftier goals within site.

Related Story: Should you follow your passion?

Q. I am wondering if it would benefit me to join a writers association. Specifically, I think that connecting with other writers would advance my career and raise my visibility. What are your thoughts?

A. I haven’t joined a writers guild or association, but I’m not opposed to them. Therefore, I cannot share my personal experience with them and exactly what sort of benefit they could have for you.

I am familiar with the IABC — an association of business communicators whose members somewhat parallel the services that I provide. The International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) is a worldwide organization, that seeks to provide a professional network for business communicators. The IABC throws a very wide membership net to include graphic artists, HR folks, and video producers along with all types of people who provide corporate writing.

I can see how a writers group can be beneficial especially if connecting at conferences, taking workshops and attending classes appeals to you. In some cases a writers association offers other tangible benefits, namely group health insurance coverage and other perks. You might also find that members share job or project opportunities not posted elsewhere, therefore by having your face and name “on the roster” could help you cross paths with people who can help you out.

At the very least, make sure that you have both a LinkedIn and Facebook account. I’m much more active with LinkedIn, but lots of business people are on Facebook, making it the preferred business networking site online.