Extended Guide to Freelance Blogging
It might sound weird that I felt the need to update our Blogroll when it’s only been a week since the launch of our blog. Thing is, I wrote that page in March and since then a lot of new blogs have been created. I’ve also deleted some entries, especially from the Translation & Languages list, as the blogs had been inactive for a very long time.
Have a look at the list and check if your blog is included. If it’s not, please add a comment below or DM me via Twitter to add it (don’t forget to include your RSS feed address and blog name). If your blog is already included, please check the name and link. If any of those needs to be changed, leave a comment so I can update them.
Have you named your blog?
I noticed that many of the blogs don’t have their own names. They are named after their owners or their main website, i.e website name+blog. Others had no name at all, (title unknown) appeared in Google Reader. I unsubscribed from the (title unknown) blogs, if you don’t even bother to give a name to your blog, you’re probably not going to bother ever updating it with blog posts.
Our blog didn’t have an “official” name as well until a few days ago. If you subscribed, you would see Lingua Greca blog as the name. If you haven’t noticed yet, we named it Adventures in Freelance Translation. You can’t see it anywhere in the blog at the moment (only in the browser title), it will be added in the blog header very soon. I also added a few mentions of the new blog name in our website. Many thanks to Marta (@martav88) for suggesting we give our blog a name.
Consider naming your blog
A catchy name will stand out more than your name and surname, plus it’s great for SEO to add an industry-related word, such as translation, translator, language etc. Check your blog settings to determine where you can update the name. If you’re using WordPress, you can find it in Dashboard > Settings > General > Site Title. Then, find ways to make it visible in your blog. The most common way is to add it in your blog header.
When you finish updating the technical details, let everybody know. Use your social media networks and ask people to update your blog name in their blogrolls. Should I also mention that this is a nice opportunity for new readers to discover your blog? 🙂
Let me know what you think about blog naming in the Comments section below. I didn’t do any research on this topic and I’d love to hear your views, the pros and cons. Happy Friday!
P.S. Many thanks to Helena (@helena_pt), Raphaël (@mulleflupp), Rebekka (@wellrebekka) & Simona for pointing out what the image on top of each blog page is called (the header).
Further reading from the blog Fritinancy, suggested by Licia (see Comments below):
Linguistics Blog Names
Nicely Named: Midlife Mixtape
Fritinancy Is the New Away With Words
About the author
Catherine Christaki has been a full-time English-Greek translator since 2001 and co-owner of Lingua Greca Translations since 2012. She specializes in Information Technology, Medical, and Technical texts and loves writing for the Adventures in Technical Translation blog. She regularly shares her experience and insight on social media and blogging for translators, giving interviews and presenting at conferences. Connect with her on Twitter @LinguaGreca.
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Hi Catherine:
I don’t entirely agree with you on the whole naming your blog thing. My blog is called after my business (A-Z Translations – http://www.a-z-translations.blogspot.com), and I did it on purpose, because I want it to be associated with my business and with what I do. Just because it doesn’t have its own name, doesn’t mean I’m not writing regularly – which I am, if you take a look. 😉
So I hope you’ll put me and my (unimaginatively but purposefully named) blog on your blog roll and enjoy what I have to say – every week! 🙂
Have a great weekend!
Anke 🙂
Hi Anke! Thank you very much for your reply. I realise that my writing wasn’t clear enough. My comment “if you don’t even bother to give a name to your blog…” was targeted to the (title unknown) blogs only. I’ve updated the text to make it more clear, thank you for showing me this mistake 🙂 Sorry that I wasn’t clear enough and made you think that your blog was “unimaginatively” named.
As for the blog naming I think there are 2 ways to go: 1. business name or 2. new name. I think both are fine, especially for companies I think it’s best for them to stick with the first solution.
As for freelancers, your choice of naming is great, you have used your business name plus there’s an industry-related word in the name, i.e. great result and SEO-friendly. It wouldn’t be the same if you had used your name & surname, would it? How would someone know what my blog is about if it was called “Catherine Christaki”. I didn’t think our previous name was wrong (Lingua Greca blog), as I want people to start remembering Lingua Greca and associate it with Greek translation. However, with all my social media activity, that name is everywhere now, so another name with the word translation in it didn’t seem like a bad idea 🙂
Thanks again for your reply and for mentioning your blog, I’ve added it to the blogroll. A great weekend to you too!
Catherine,
Thanks so much for including me in your blog roll!
I used my tag line as the name of my blog — a culture of language and thought. I sometimes wonder whether I should rename it Intralingo, the name I do business under. Like Anke said above, perhaps it would be best to identify myself under only one name? It’s something I’ve been pondering…
In any event, it’s quite a blogroll you have and I look forward to taking some time to stroll through the ones that are new to me.
Best,
Lisa 😉
Hi Lisa,
I think Intralingo is great. It’s easy to remember, everybody can pronounce it and it sounds good. Plus, I love the idea of putting an image of your business card (great design & colors!) in your blog. I’ve noticed that when I share your posts in Scoop.it, Facebook, Google+ and Linkedin, that image is included and it looks amazing.
As for your blog name, I think it’s very nice as well. It has 2 extra SEO-friendly words, both associated closely with your business and it’s great as a tagline. Intralingo also appears in the blog address, so everybody knows whom the blog belongs to. I think it would be a shame to discard the blog name, just my 2 cents 🙂
Have a lovely Sunday!
Great to see you started your own blog! A suggestion for your impressive blogroll: Fritinancy (“Names, brands, writing, and the quirks of the English language”) by Nancy Friedman. A few days ago she made some interesting points on blog naming in Nicely Named: Midlife Mixtape, “the story of how a blog name has evolved over time” (in a previous post, she explained why her own blog name evolved from Away with words to Fritinancy); worth reading also Linguistics Blog Names, “about the names linguists give their blogs”.
Thank you so much for these great suggestions Licia! I’ve added both your and Nancy’s blogs in the Blogroll. I enjoyed Nancy’s posts about blog naming, thanks for sharing 🙂 I’ve also added them in the post above, hopefully more people will get a chance to read them and subscribe to her nice blog!
Thank you, Licia, for the links (and the very kind words!). And thank you, Catherine, for including me in your blogroll. I’m neither a linguist nor a translator, but I certainly share with both of you a deep fascination with language in its infinite variety.
You’re welcome Nancy, I’m very glad Licia shared your blog, I’ve been enjoying your posts since I subscribed last week. Have a lovely weekend!