Hello everyone,

I am going to talk to all you freelancers reading about a little special deal I have been running in the past couple of months. Starting from December 07′ I started a little - private - deal and wanted to see how it would go along. For some selected individuals who purchased from me since December, I would give them a ‘coupon’ if you like for 10% off the next purchase that they take from me.

Well i’d like to say that its been such a success. I was lucky enough to speak with a really nice guy who loved my work (thanks Darren) and he was the first guy who I let into knowing about the 10% off deal. After designing his first project, he was back 2 weeks or so later with another project in hand. Now into around about 2 months speaking occasionally with Darren he know has a third project lined up for me.

This blog post is aimed at freelancers who aren’t really getting any business at the moment. I’d like to give you a few tips on how to increase your chances of doing so.

Firstly start of by going through your prices and doing a little research into whats selling best at the moment.
Then re-think your prices that you are charging (but don’t underprice, you don’t want to be selling yourself short).
Last but not least, advertise your services and see if you get any luck with clients. TIP - Don’t just advertise on one place, advertise on as many places as possible, you’ll be guaranteed at least one client!

If your not into the whole advertising scheme, then try what I did and give your best clients some personal deals, although remember to impress on the first project, so that the client WILL come back. Also when I say ‘best’ clients I mean the clients who have always came to your services for work and have trusted you no matter the project. I have some really loyal clients that I am grateful for because if it wasn’t for them, i’d probably be broke. Thanks again guys!

This is just a quick one just letting you know that a small deal can bring in more clients at once. I have been currently under the wind with projects at the moment, but I love the challenge at getting them done on time and satisfying my clients. If you have any stories to tell which you have encountered recently, please let me know by commenting on this post - I’d love to hear em’!

Regards

Every month I will be having a day were I post the ‘Top 10′ of something. Last month we had the Top 10 E-Commerce Website Designs. Basically these designs or whatever I choose are basically from my own opinion on them.

Okay, so todays ‘Top 10′ is the Top 10 Hosting Designs on the internet today.

• Media Template Web Hosting Solutions

• 1&1 Web Hosting

• Web Fusion Hosting

• Pixel Internet Web Hosting

• United Hosting

• FastHosts

• HostedFX

• Heart Internet Web Hosting

• Network Solutions

• RackSpace Web Solutions

I’ve chosen Media Temple as my most favourite design because it has a really simple yet effective design. This design was also chosen first due to its very simplistic usability and functionality. The graphics used in the design aswell really give the design that bit of flair and excitement.

That’s it for now folks, enjoy!

Kindest regards,
James

I will be starting a new thing on EatFruitPlease and that will be movie reviews of any recent ‘new’ films that i’ve seen. I’ll give a brief introduction of what the film is about and then just give you my verdict on it and how I thought it was.

Cloverfield - 01/02/2008

“Cloverfield is a film which is told by five young New Yorkers who document a terrifying experience of a monster who descends upon the city.”

As soon as I saw the trailer I knew it was ‘my type of film’ to go and see. To be honest, my first impressions were that it was some sort of terrorism type film or a kind of war film, but when I seen the poster and illustration for the film I then realized that it was some sort of monster related film. Not long back from actually seeing the film I was impressed. I love how the story is told through the hand held camera and you can’t tell whats going to happen next. I also love the irony that some of the scenes show, for example at the very end of the film the camera somehow rewinds to were two of the main characters are filming on some sort of transport and the camera is lying so that it is looking into the water and you see the actual monster crash landing into the water - but the two people do not realize or know anything about it.

Overall, I really enjoyed the film. If you have seen it yourself and would like to comment on it or let me know which parts of the film you liked//disliked please participate and comment in the comments section.

Kindest regards,

James 

Guest blogging is beginning to pick up in the blogosphere and is something which is really useful for your blog. If you are a blogger and your writing lets say a post a day. Why don’t you take a break yourself and let someone else have a pop at writing some decent content for your blog?

Guest blogging is also a great way to get your readers involved which is something that I am looking into doing in the foreseeable future. Another reason how guest blogging can be effective is, maybe you have a busy week ahead and your most likely not going to get some posts online - with guest blogging you can ask nicely if someone who has participated before or maybe one of your readers to write a few posts while your working away.

Whats in it for the guest blogger themeselves?

Exposure For Their Blog - If you have a blog yourself then it is most likely the owner of the blog of which you are guest blogging on will allow you to plug your blog/website near the bottom of the actual post. This is a good way of getting traffic to your blog.

Link Back To Your Blog - If your lucky and you get to guest blog on a particularly well known, high income traffic blog then this is good for having a link bank to your site and will most definitely increase your pagerank and SEO.

Getting Your Name Out Into The Blogosphere - If your relatively new to the blogosphere and haven’t written much and you want to build up your reputation online and impress with your writing skills then guest blogging for ‘free’ and if your lucky ‘get paid’ to blog on other peoples blogs then it is a good way to get your name out there and build a starting structure for your blogging hobbie/career.

EatFruitPlease - Introducing Guest Blogging

Over the course of the next few months I will be extremely busy working and will also have a lot of coursework to juggle about with university started back. So. I am on the look out for extremely talented writers. I am not looking for much. If you think you can do the majority of the following then please apply:

• Write For Free (I am not really looking to pay-out loads for writing at the moment)

• Write For Fun

• Write At Least 500-700 words on one of the following topics - ‘Web Design’, ‘Web Development’, ‘Marketing’, ‘Blogging Tips’ and ‘SEO’.

• Show examples of at least two of your writing work.

I am willing to let you have a link to your blog (preferably down the bottom) as long as it is appropriate (no porn) and the occasional blurb (1 or 2 sentences) about your blog.

How Will It Work?

Simple. Just basically open your word processing program (Microsoft Word, Notepad) start writing about each of the topics I have listed above. You can then send it over to me and I will verify it and stuff to see if its suitable to go online and then I will publish it as a post. Viola.

Remember to include your link to your blog.
Thats all for now. Thanks for reading EatFruitPlease, will have some more blog updates soon.

Regards.