Get Found on Mediabistro’s Freelance Marketplace
Posted by Maya Smart on Tue, Jan 05, 2010 @ 09:00 AM
A few years ago, I signed up for Mediabistro’s Freelance Marketplace, a directory where freelancers can pay to advertise their media services to editors and others. Just by paying the annual subscription fee (today, just $145/year) and loading a profile with my best writing samples, I attracted thousands of dollars worth of assignments. Within weeks, I started getting e-mails from editors of trade and custom publications I didn’t know existed, such as Auto Finance News, Black MBA, and Small Business Banking News. And they paid much more than the local publications on my client roster at the time.
The service’s nominal fee paid off many times over with repeat assignments from those early contacts. But as the site grew to display—and rank—many more profiles, my post-it-and-forget-it strategy began to prove less effective. As with other web endeavors, staying on top requires fresh content, keyword selection, and page optimization. So freelance writers need a plan for maintaining a strong presence in Mediabistro’s Freelance Marketplace. Part One of that strategy is all about attracting editors’ attention; here’s how:
Know Where You Stand
It’s important to think like an editor and be aware of the ways they’ll come across your online profile. Editors can follow a couple of paths to find writers in Mediabistro’s Freelance Marketplace—selecting predefined criteria from the site’s drop-down menus (e.g. expertise, specialties, and location) and typing custom keywords into the search box both yield results. So your profile improvement efforts must keep both approaches in mind.
The two search methods can yield vastly different results, even when searchers have the same idea in mind. Take the example of an editor who is looking for a writer in Virginia to cover a particular story. If the searcher selected “Virginia” and “editorial” from the Mediabistro menu categories, yours truly appears among the first freelancers on the results page. But until a few days ago, I didn’t show up at all if someone typed “Virginia” into the keyword search box. I had to add the phrase “based in Richmond, Virginia,” to my overview section to rank for “Virginia” searches.
Play around with the site to see where you rank—or don’t rank. This is the baseline of information that you’ll need to improve your standing.
Update Your Profile Regularly
One easy way to rise up the ranks is to breathe new life into your profile with a simple update or two. After months of neglect, I just updated my Freelance Marketplace presence to reflect a new specialty area and a professional membership. Within seconds, my profile rose dramatically in rankings using various search criteria. This revealed two things: Mediabistro’s Freelance Marketplace listings update as soon as you hit “submit” (you have to love instant gratification), and you don’t have to do a major makeover or even upload new clips to improve your standing—simple text tweaks will do.
So mark your calendar or set up a recurring e-mail alert to remind you to change something on your profile every couple of weeks. Revise your overview wording, add new writing samples, update your assignment numbers, and watch your ranking rise.
Use Keywords Strategically
Writing specialties, story types, and publication names are all potentially good areas to optimize around. Seattle-based freelance writer Jane Hodges has made a habit of embedding words or phrases that editors might be searching for into her writing sample descriptions. As a result, the walking Mediabistro success story has won a number of assignments from custom, trade and airline magazines.
“When adding new work, make sure you choose intelligent keywords to associate with your stories, or choose keywords that play into the beat you are covering or want to cover,” she said. “Since hiring folks presumably run searches based on keywords or publications, this is another way to make sure that you’re targeted for projects you might actually want.”
Here’s an example of how I improved an article description based on Hodges’ recommendations.
• Before: A young shoe designer creates a custom strategy.
• After: Some say an entrepreneur zigs when others zag. This profile of a small business owner who bucked the mass production trend and catapulted her retail sales by selling custom handmade shoes is a good example.
The original description came straight from the subhead that ran with the magazine piece, but didn’t reveal much to the search engine--or reader. The rewrite shows some personality and includes keywords such as small business, entrepreneur, retail, and sales. I also added them and some others to the keyword field associated with the story.
Fill Your Tip Jar
Beyond search rankings, freelance writers should also understand Mediabistro’s Tip Jar ranking system, which aims to help hirers quickly identify the most experienced, consistently working freelancers on the list. It awards up to five coins (think: stars for movie reviews) for “currently available to work” status, frequency of work with given clients, and the number of years in a specialty, area of expertise, or industry. While Mediabistro.com explicitly states that the Tip Jar is not meant to “judge the merits of an individual freelancer’s work,” some employers may not see it that way, so it’s best to do what you can to improve your standing in this respect, as well.
This is as easy as 1-2-3:
1. Make sure employers know you’re available for work by selecting the appropriate option (e.g. I freelance full time).
2. List the media clients that you work for regularly and how many assignments you’ve completed for them in the past two years. Since the system values frequency of work, limit your client list to those you’ve worked with most consistently over time, and update the number of projects field often.
3. Each year make a point to update your experience numbers, and if you’ve held any staff jobs, be sure to check that box, too.
Follow this advice and your profile will find editors’ eyes in no time. But getting noticed is just half the battle—the next step is getting editors to actually call once they’ve landed on your profile. To learn proven strategies for sealing the deal, read “Convert Mediabistro Freelance Marketplace Profile Views to Sales.”
Also, be sure to sign up for our free teleseminar: 9 Ways to Find Writing Work Now.