A few people recently have asked me for advice on how to get started on Elance. Here are some tips: Verify your credentials. It only costs like $4 to prove that yes, you did in fact go to college, yes, you did in fact work where you claim to have worked. Pay the money and prove that you’re legitimate. And if you verify 2 or more credentials and do good work, you can qualify for the Elance Premier Provider program. Upload a portfolio. If you’re a writer, share some good writing samples. If you’re a Web designer, share some URLs of sites you’ve developed. Clients want to see your...

Is there any other kind? Doesn’t all rage originate from feelings of powerlessness? Think about the times in your life when you’ve felt really, really angry. Were you angry because someone disrespected you, because you felt helpless, taken advantage of, bullied, deceived? Is there anything more frustrating than being put into an unpleasant situation that you cannot change or control in any way? (I know we’re supposed to learn to “let go” in situations like this, but I still struggle with this – and I think a lot of other people do too.) When we lose our feelings of...

If you’re working toward a goal, maybe you should try doing just one thing each day. It’s great if you’re a disciplined, detail-oriented goal-setter – some people make elaborate to-do lists and spreadsheets and databases to help them reach their targets. But what if you’re not wired that way? Or what if your goal is too amorphous to reasonably be captured on a to-do list? Just do one thing a day. For example, right now, my goal is to bid on one new Elance project every single day. Some days I bid on two projects, or more – but I always make sure to bid on at least...

When I worked at a marketing agency a few years back, we measured the results of our public relations work in column inches. As in: take out a ruler, measure the length of the news columns that our client’s story was featured in, and multiply times 2. Everything is so much more measurable now! You can tell how many hits your Web site is getting. You can tell how many people are clicking on your ad. You can use pay-per-click Google ads so that you only pay for qualified leads who are searching for what you sell. Search is going to keep getting better and better – more precise, more obscure...

Some bloggers that I read are uncomfortable with some of the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) techniques that some people use to draw traffic to their Web sites. Of course, there are lots of disreputable ways to generate traffic by staying one step ahead of Google. “Search engine spam” is a fast-growing business practice. As a result, SEO kind of gets looked as being a “dark art” – just a newer version of telemarketing or e-mail spam. I’m not sure if that attitude is entirely fair. If you’re going to be the first search result on Google, you’d better have...