Hey all you Freelancers !!

The word Freelancer sounds very interesting to most of us. We visualize freedom, space, enterprise, fame and sure the big motivator...money & loads of it !!! ;)
But really, is freelancing and the life of a freelancer so much attractive? Is it really so catchy?
People have many reasons and ways to favor the career of a freelancer. Job of interest, steady income, own timings, no boss over you and you could create what ever you ever wanted...
Well, this is true (rather could be made absolutely true) if one follows some basic guidelines soon [and for always] when they started on their own:
1] Work as if you were still an employee: This makes sure you don't get carried away in the freedom breeze to do what you liked and then getting back to your desk. This could prove to be a major time killing factor.Your output could get affected.
2] Dress just like you did for your office: It feels so cool to come in shorts and slippers and start working for the day.Sit easy on the sofa and chatting with a friend or tweeting and working,enjoying etc. but remember, the more comfort level you get into the more you get prone to miss out on your productive wits ! This is very true, believe me.
3] Set time lines: Give yourself limited time to complete your job. Do I need to elaborate more on this? I don't think so.. :)
4] Work Schedules: Just like point 3 above, set your "office" timings. Sure, easy working hours sound sooo comfy but you could soon find yourself working throughout the night and sleeping throughout the day and then feeling down when you woke up. This could lead to a vicious stress cycle !
5] Prioritize: Set your "to-do" list and follow it. This ensures that you got on your work schedule well on time and are heading towards productivity.
6] Keep watch on yourself !! You need to "treat" yourself as your own employee. Appreciate productivity,accomplishments and point out your shortfalls. Beware, you are more exposed when you go alone...
7] Keep yourself occupied, happy and focused: This makes sure you remain your boss :D
No matter how much we dislike our boss but they are a necessary factor making us walk on line (I am talking only about productivity right now).

Follow up and assess your performance,growth and future going solo...This is an important factor helping you stay,both: motivated and a successful Freelancer !!!

Google Foodle !

Yesterday I was with my friends on an outing and while having a really nice time on a long drive we just started getting hungry. One of my friends is a MacDonalds maniac while I prefer Pizza Hut,no wonder another friend preferred going only to Dominos.
We didn't knew the location so well and spotting MacD on the highway we stopped and got our stuff.
While having our munch someone gave the idea of having those "food outlets" maps of the places when we went out. To my surprise (and interest) another friend started telling us about the latest feature which would come really soon where your mobile phone would act as your shopping assistant !!
According to my friend, the businesses which get listed with Google come up on google searches. Now the new thing that is about to come is that the business (or your favorite retail,grocery store,food outlets) once listed would come on something like a shared platform (between Google and your mobile service company) where you could put your shopping (or anything) requirements as a reminder and your phone would not only remind you when you wanted but would also give you an entire list of the stores having the items you needed and that too those ones only which fall near your physical location (or option driven) at the time .
Now if you are on your way to the office in the morning and your wife tells you to get grocery in the evening (quite difficult to remember these things !!!),your mobile could turn out to be your savior. All you have to do is to first select your route back from office and then run (something like a search) for "grocery" and you would have all the grocery stores listed with Google with their addresses,locations,item details etc. which fall on the route you take back from office !!!.
Cool, isn't it? and I know this is in fact not a far thing. We do have google work for us when we need locations,find stores or businesses which we have to visit.

Just imagine what a simple google listing could do for your business.

Legality of your Blog.

My last writeup was on the basics on which one could frame their articles for effective results.
This time I would focus on the Google laws & the adherence or the lack of it could lead to an entire blog being banned by your favorite Search Engine.
A blog should echo your originality,freshness and your "physical" impact. This means that one should not copy material from other sites. I have come across some people who do this and they say that Google is too busy on the PR thing that they won't ever find out. I am sure that you guys too are aware of Copyscape :)
Also, in the race for revenue people end up getting so many advertisements on their blogs that it appears like an advertisement site ! Sure this makes the visitors form opinions about the content and loose interest (or in other words "when visitors loose their interest in a blog,the blog's relevance looses all its interest")
There are some blogs which place their hidden text (mainly keywords) in the same color as the blog background in small font sizes (to hide from human detection) for getting themselves as much "Keyword" satisfied as possible.
This is not a safe thing to do,Google has means and ways of getting such sites out from the crowd and then they might never include the blog in their listing. i.e. disqualification of the blog.
Keywords are good and effective on a blog but overdoing them works the opposite way.

Following the guardrails on the internet highway is an essential game or else instead of a blog inviting people,it could fast become it's creator's surprise !!!.

Articles, how important?

Articles are a very sure and easy way to help increase traffic to a site yet this part is often ignored due to the misunderstanding among many that it is a complex jargon to play with.
People forget simple SEO things and miss out completely on the "keyword" basics which if they include in their articles would surely work half way for them (if not for the entire thing).
Practice (in fact the daring to do this) makes one capable enough to write concentrated and focused articles. There is no replacement to the human touch which is completely lacking in automated article churning software doing rounds among many article writers these days.
The many jargons of SEO and Google can be easily solved by simple Google tools like Keyword tools etc.
I have come across people worrying about SERP, site hits, keyword density and then going the "machine" way by using article writing software and what not.
Definitely nothing beats a simple article better than a simpler written article !!
One must focus on not:
1) Spinning Articles
2) Generate Garbage Articles
3) Just rephrasing Articles
These practices have long become the subject of archeology and believe me no one has the time to spend reading what they know about already.