Anyone who has spent a week looking at the writing jobs posted on Craigslist knows online job ads are not a great source of top-paying clients.

The best clients, you find doing your own proactive marketing.

However…there are a few creative ways you can use job ads to find good gigs.

The key is to not let online job ads take up too much of your marketing time. You need to scan the ads quickly and move on to more effective marketing methods (namely, just about anything else).

I went through more than a year solid where I was scanning the job ads nearly every day. After a while, I got it down to a system and didn’t spend more than about 15 minutes a day on it.

How did I do it? Here are my seven tips for how to quickly find good leads in the job ads:

1. Look at the ads for full-time jobs. Yes, you’re not really looking for a full-time job. But when a company is advertising for a full-time person, my experience in 12 years of staff-writing jobs says that means the publication or company is now freelancing out that staffer’s workload to avoid overloading the remaining staffers.

Concentrate your attention on the companies that are a perfect fit — you know their industry or read their publication.

Maybe they need someone to fill in until they complete their job search? Maybe they also use freelancers regularly, as well as in-house writers? You won’t know unless you ask.

The full-time job ad simply provides me with a good contact. So if it’s a company or publication that fits my expertise, I go ahead and apply. I say, “Hi there, not looking for full-time, I’m actually a happy freelancer. But I have the skills you need (I usually throw in a few relevant samples here). Do you use freelancers?”

I’ve scored several great new editor connections this way over the years, including two in the past year or so that paid $1 a word. It’s a great way to get your name in front of people that use writers, at a time when they may well need help.

2. Be picky. As I hinted above, you don’t want to apply to a lot of online job ads, as most will be a waste of your time. So skip everything that asks for free samples, or says you can write about any topic you like, or that they have unlimited assignments. These are never good gigs. Be very wary of blind ads, where the company isn’t identified. You’re looking for the ad that seems like it was made for you — it mentions the exact expertise you have, and the company checks out as a real, decent-sized, going concern. That’s the one you want to take the time to apply for.

3. Look at site-specific job ads out of your area. I’m selective here — if it says anything like “meet with us weekly at our Akron offices,” I move on. On the other hand, if the ad title mentions a city, but the ad text doesn’t describe anything that needs to be done in person, and it mentions my expertise, I go ahead and apply if the company seems legit.

Just ask right up top if they’d consider someone working remotely. Play up your expertise both in their field, and your expertise in working remotely.

4. Watch for paid listings. Companies that place paid ads are usually established, legitimate organizations. Specialized job boards and organizations’ job listings are often paid situations. These companies are telling you something when they take out that paid ad — they want to post in more exclusive places as they don’t have time to wade through 300 resumes.

To me, a paid listing qualifies that client right away as a good lead.

5. Use social media. If you’re not looking at the jobs on LinkedIn, I highly recommend it — many of the listings are exclusive to the site. And LinkedIn listings are paid listings, which as we’ve just discussed is highly desirable.

LI is a great place to find full-time job ads you can piggyback on with your freelance request, as per #1. You can also try to use your connections to get a referral attached to your application, which I’m told greatly increases your odds of getting the contact’s attention in the pile of resumes they are likely receiving.

Twitter is also a growing place for freelance gigs. Not only can you tweet about the work you’re looking for, but you can use Twitter’s search feature to troll for jobs. Some of the sites mentioned above are on Twitter tweeting about listings, so you could get a jump on the masses this way.

There are an increasing number of job-focused tweeters, too — I’ve checked out  @WritersDigest, @FSsJobs (that’s Freelance Switch), @tweetajob, and many others.

Even Facebook is getting into the act lately — I’ve been spotting some interesting-looking listings going up from Facebook4Freelancers, which has a lot of writer listings.

6. Look for niche job boards. Get off Craigslist and find more exclusive job boards. These usually focus on one niche area. For instance, as a business-finance writer I’ve had good luck with Gorkana Alerts (they’ve got alerts for healthcare and media, too). You’ll have to do some sleuthing to find where your best ads hang out, but it can be well worth it if you find a good board. I got one of my biggest, long-term blogging gigs through my niche board.

7. Try the Junk-Free Job Board. Inside Freelance Writers Den, we’ve developed a job board that scans dozens of the mass job-ad places, screens out all the junk, and then only presents better offers (thanks to some tech help from Ty). Some weeks there’s hardly anything on it — a testament to how few good jobs can really be found online. But the few listings we have tend to be quality, and all are a cut above the usual $5-$10 article offers. You save a ton of time by not having to wade through the junk, and quite a few Denizens have already gotten good gigs from them. The bonus: I pass on a lot of freelance offers I get these days, and when I do, I often add that lead to the job board, too.

In this market, it pays to get creative when you’re looking for clients. If you’re not able to go out and do in-person networking, a discerning scan of the job ads can help you turn up good clients without leaving home.

How have you found good clients through online ads? Leave a comment and let us know.

Need more marketing help? I’m available to answer your questions in here…

It’s an anxious time for many online writers. Those writing at rock-bottom prices are finding the opportunities are drying up.

Demand Studios writers are up in arms because the number of $15 assignments has shriveled. Parent company Demand Media’s stock has plummeted since its IPO, and investors are skeptical about the company’s future prospects.

I heard from one writer in Freelance Writers Den recently who reports she has to write 350-450 pieces a month for another mill, just to scrape by financially. That’s the kind of virtual-sweatshop slavery story that led me to start this blog in the first place.

Writers used to commiserate about all the ways they could be exploited online by the Internet’s low-pay ‘opportunities.’ Now, some can’t even get that.

Meanwhile, over in other parts of the Internet, writers are earning professional rates. Getting $100 for quickie articles and blog posts, $1 a word for web content, and $2,000 for fully researched features. I know, because those are all rates I’ve earned in the past year.

How can you find the better jobs?

How can you tell if a site is really a scam?

How can you negotiate and get a good rate?

I’ve got a system for doing all that — and I’m going to be teaching it in a 4-week, live Webinar bootcamp in November — How to Make Good Money Writing Online. Here’s my planned outline for the class:

Week one: How to investigate websites, identify good payers, and negotiate a great deal with I.J. Schecter, author of 102 Ways to Earn Money Writing 1,500 Words or Less.

Week two: How to write query letters and letters of introduction for online markets that get you hired, with Renegade Writer Linda Formichelli

Week three: Essential elements of a pro writer website, with Angie Atkinson of WM Freelance Writers Connection

Week four: How to use social media marketing to connect with online editors and marketing managers, with Brandi Kajino, a social media expert with SOHO Solutionist.

Oh yeah — and there’s a bonus, 1-hour Story Idea Lab recording I created with Linda Formichelli that teaches you how to create ideas that get you assignments.

Five hours of instruction — four of them with live Q&A — to answer all your questions about how to move up and find better online writing markets.

Here’s the contest part:

What’s your question about how to find online writing gigs? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll try to offer some answers. Is there something missing from my outline?

Writer job ads: Helpful, or a waste of time?

Since this blog is all about helping writers earn more, it may seem strange to you that I do not provide any writing-job ads. I can tell you that I have no plans to add job listings, either.

I’ve been meaning to do this for quite a while, but let me share with you today the reasons why I don’t have job ads on Make a Living Writing:

1. Most online job ads don’t offer good pay. Yes, there is the occasional real live, great-paying freelance writing job that pops up. I know because back when I was still scanning the online ads, I got a couple of them. But for the most part, the hours you have to spend sifting through the garbage (“Write us a sample for free!” “You’ll get exposure!” “We’ll pay you for traffic!” “We want you to post 10 times a week for $50!”) make trolling online job ads one of the least time-effective ways to find truly lucrative gigs.
2. Writers already waste too much time on online job ads. Practically every writer I’ve ever worked with in my mentoring practice has confessed to me that they can easily blow four hours a day or more obsessing over these easy-to-find online ads, rather than turning to more effective marketing methods such as cold-calling, in-person networking, email marketing, using your social network, or sending well-crafted queries. It is so easy to fritter away the hours mooning over these ads, fantasizing about getting these gigs, and crafting submissions. I don’t want to contribute to this problem by listing more job ads here on the blog.
3. Mass ads are too competitive. When you’re seeing a Craigslist ad, you know that 200 people are going to respond. Your simple odds of getting noticed and hired are tiny. Is this really the battle you want to fight? I try to encourage writers to seek out specialized, niche job boards such as Gorkana’s alerts on financial and healthcare-related writing jobs. I got a major gig off Gorkana this year, so I know this strategy works. Since I can’t possibly hunt up specialized jobs for everyone’s niche, I prefer to stay out of the whole job-board racket and steer people to good resources.
4. Applying to online job ads is passive and often demoralizing. When you’re applying to online job ads, it’s a passive dynamic. You’re letting the universe tell you what’s available. Where with pro-active marketing strategies such as cold-calling, querying, or networking, you are empowering yourself to get the clients you want. This is the mindset I want to encourage writers to have — that you are in control of your freelance-writing career. Many writers have written to me about their feelings of despair at applying to jobs they know hundreds of others are going after. You can easily send 10 or 20 resumes a week and get not one peep. This does not help keep your psyche in a positive head space about being a freelance writer!
5. Other writing sites have writer job ads already. If you still really want to troll the ads, you can head on over to Anne Wayman’s site, About Freelance Writing. She puts up job listings three times a week, and does a good job of compiling them from many sources. In case you’re wondering, I’m not recommending you look at her job ads because I’m putting on Webinars with Anne and like her personally, but because I think it’s useful that her ads are only three times a week and not every day. This performs a certain awesome triage in culling the ads, in that there’s usually a day or two of delay before her ads go up. That means all the really lame, mass ads will have dead links soon after she posts them — and that helps you avoid wasting time. Any professional company that needs something specialized and offers real pay will have their ad up for a week at least, so you miss nothing valuable. And it keeps you out of the cesspit of looking at online ads daily and wasting umpty-leven additional hours. If you commit to only looking three days a week instead of five, you’ve freed up two days for other marketing tasks that might prove more productive.

Do you think I should have online job ads? Leave a comment and let me know your experience finding work through the ads.

How to Break In and Earn Big as a Freelance Writer: Just a note that the presale price for this upcoming Webinar ends tomorrow night. Until then, it’s just $24.99, but goes to $36 after that. Get your questions answered live — for less — and register now.

Photo via Flickr user an1m8or

Last week, I discussed how to identify really great-paying clients. Now that we know the shape of the elephant, let’s discuss how to locate and bag that big game.

Here are some of the techniques I’ve used in the past year to connect with clients that pay $1-$2 a word, $100 an hour, and more:

1. SEO your Web site. If you are not yet aware, let me spell it out: Google is the phone book of the 21st Century. Are you easily findable in it? I got both a Fortune 500 company and a well-funded startup as clients recently through the clients’ Google searches for a writer, simply because I’ve worked hard on my SEO for “Seattle freelance writer” and “Seattle freelance copywriter.” You can find out more about how I got to the top of page-one results for those searches here. I believe SEO for your writer site is only going to get more important from here.

2. Work your LinkedIn profile. If Google is the phone book, LinkedIn is the specialty business-only phone book. Really pay attention to what you’ve got in your profile on LI. Make sure it’s complete and has a nice photo of you.

Is it up to date? Does it link to your writer site? Your blog? Your hottest recent article? Do you belong to relevant groups? Update your status frequently with news of projects you’re working on and sources you need, so it creates a thread of relevant information. Be sure to add new client companies and publications to your status.

Most importantly, look at how you describe yourself, and add every relevant word a prospect might search on to locate you. Play around with your “professional headline” so it includes your keywords. I just updated mine (I just noticed it tends to pick up your most recent freelance gig and make it the headline) to say “freelance writer, blogger, copywriter, and writing mentor.” Those might not be the exact words you want — but think about it and experiment with your descriptors.

I got my second new Fortune 500 client this year from my LinkedIn profile. The editor of their company newsletters went poking around on there, looking for a local pro writer. They needed a couple of executive profiles done in a huge rush. I made a quick $1,200 doing utterly enjoyable articles, and found out they’re looking for a writer to put on contract for 2011. Now I’m in a great position to go after a long-term contract with them. Worth a few minutes of buffing up that LI profile, I think.

3. Network in a better place. When I first started networking, I went to events in my small town. I met many small-business owners there. I got some nibbles and did a little work that way, but found smaller businesses were just as much of a pain as large ones, but paid less.

So I switched to networking at events in downtown Seattle. Presto! Totally different type and size of business trolling over there. I met editors that pay well, from companies both in the Fortune 500 and smaller ones, too. Know the type of client you want, and if you’re not finding them where you’re hanging out now, try some other in-person networking events until you find the pool you want to swim in.

4. Follow the trail. It pays to know who owns a site. Sometimes, a seemingly rinky-dink place can turn out to be the new URL for a major corporation or Web portal that offers really great pay. I just got two $1-a-word article assignments from an insurance Web site that turned out to be owned by one of the biggest finance sites on the Internet. Now, I have several good-paying Web sites that might assign me, all from making this first connection.

5. Read online job ads carefully. It’s weird, but every once in a while, one of these major publications or corporations just puts out a Craislist ad. Which I hate because it means I have to keep scanning job ads now and then…but there you have it.

In the past month, I started with a $1 a word client I connected with by responding to their online ad. They didn’t mention rates in the ad, but it was a fully fleshed-out ad with links to their Web site, and it was in a specialized niche. I have to admit I think of this one as sort of a moonshot…but it does happen.

How do you connect with your most lucrative clients? Feel free to add more strategies in the comments below.

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Photo via Flickr user John-Morgan