Freelance writing lets me travel and gives me the option of a location-independent lifestyle, which I take advantage of for a good part of the year by house-sitting in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere with my partner Stephanie.
Why House-Sitting?
Simple — we get to stay in beautiful homes and explore beautiful parts of the western United States. We own our home near Mount Shasta in rural northern California, but we like to experience a wide variety of climates and cultures, and house-sitting lets us do that. We primarily do it during the colder months (it snows a lot around Mount Shasta), but we can be enticed away just about any time of the year to go to San Francisco, our favorite city, or to an outstanding destination like Hawaii. (I lived on Kaua’i from 1996 to 1999.)
How Do We Get House-Sitting Gigs?
Two ways: word of mouth, and…
Our business card for house-sitting in northern California, with a focus on San Francisco, Santa Cruz, and the greater Bay Area.
…the spiffy little “small website” I put up a year ago.
Setting Up Our House-Sitting Site
No surprise here: I used self-hosted WordPress and the Thesis premium WordPress theme. (And my Hostgator account allows me unlimited websites.) I’m no expert at setting up blogs, but I have enough experience that I was able to do this (in part because I borrowed widget coding and other stuff from ProductiveWriters.com and my other professionally designed blogs).
Getting the Traffic: Six Reasons
First off, I snagged the domain HouseSit.info. It has one of our main keywords, which Google likes.
Second, I wrote a 1200-word sales page selling us. It’s the home page and you can see it here: “Why We Housesit in San Francisco, the Bay Area, Santa Cruz, and Beyond…”
Third, I bowed to the Google god. Note that I used good search-engine optimization techniques in the headers and the keywords/metatags I chose. I also used a few choice photos to help convince owners that we’re quality people that will take good care of their homes and pets.
Fourth, I shared the site on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, and Twitter.
Fifth, I also linked to HouseSit.info from my other sites, either in posts or in the blog roll, and I highlighted it prominently in this ProductiveWriters.com post from last May: House-Sitting and the Location-Independent Freelance Lifestyle.
Sixth, I added an actual blog to the site last month, and we used its launch to help promote our site and service to people we know. We did our first post in October and plan to blog once a month.
The Results So Far…
Stephanie and the two wonderful boxers we took care of during our recent San Francisco Cole Valley house-sit.
Well, we just spent nearly three weeks house-sitting in San Francisco’s Haight/Cole Valley area, all because the home owners found that small website in Google. And we turned down a two-month sit in Santa Cruz earlier this year, along with another three opportunities that conflicted with either other house-sitting we were doing or our other travel plans; all found us through Internet searches.
And here’s how we rank in Google for important search terms:
- San Francisco house-sitter: page 2, #2
- San Francisco Haight house-sitter: page 1, #2
- San Francisco Cole Valley house-sitter: page 1, #1
- Marina district house-sitter: page 1, #1 (Marina is a major district in SF)
- Santa Cruz house-sitter: page 1, #4
- Ashland, Oregon house-sitter: page 1, #8 (We house-sit here frequently; it’s the nearest civilized place to our home.)
Note: I checked these using a browser I almost never use (Internet Explorer) with all cookies and history deleted. And for good measure I did it at a coffee shop rather than at home, just in case Google can actually target results for a specific IP address.
Help Us Find House-Sitting Gigs!
We’re actively seeking house-sitting opportunities from now through March from the San Francisco Bay Area down through Santa Cruz to Santa Barbara and San Diego and all the way into Arizona. You can send people to HouseSit.info for all our details.
And in addition to being highly qualified and very reliable: we usually don’t charge!
In Sum, It Can Work for Freelance Writers and…
A small website that’s well optimized can bring outsized results. This can also work for freelance writers and other business owners who want to draw qualified traffic without a lot of effort.
Your Take
What are your thoughts on using a small website to get good results? Do you agree that self-hosted WordPress is the best way to go? And what do you think of our house-sitting service?
{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Twitter: @shurleyhall
Good tips and action plan, John. Keyword choice is really important. It’s worked to my advantage with the writer mentoring blog, and it’s something I’ll be addressing on the next couple of sites I launch. I like the way you set out the thinking behind your sales page, too. This can be a tricky area for those who don’t write sales copy.
Sharon Hurley Hall recently posted…How Often Do You Tell Your Freelance Writing Clients They’re Wrong?
Thanks Sharon. I always think about keyword choice for anything I write for the web, and I’ll often do a bit of research before choosing them.
The sales page is soft sell, and it’s designed to both sell us as house-sitters and pull search traffic, which is a delicate balance.
John Soares recently posted…Why Writers Must Avoid Perfectionism
Twitter: @shurleyhall
I think the soft sell is what I like about it, John. It works without any of that overt sales-speak.
Sharon Hurley Hall recently posted…How Often Do You Tell Your Freelance Writing Clients They’re Wrong?
It’s important for us to build enough trust that people will take the next step and send me an e-mail with specifics about their situation.
That’s part of the reason I mention that we’re homeowners. I think that helps put people at ease regarding how well we’ll take care of their homes.
John Soares recently posted…How to Minimize Interruptions So You Can Get Your Writing Done
Twitter: @rzive
Interesting John – I’m so pleased it’s working for you. I would love to do the same thing with my speech writing website – http://www.speechwhiz.com. I’ve been very lazy about linking, writing and promoting, but maybe this post of yours will give me that extra push! Please do keep us posted with your house sitting website’s progress! Great inspiration for the rest of us!
Ruth – The Freelance Writing Blog recently posted…The Mahjong Guide to Clever Freelance Writing Strategy
Ruth, you’ve got a great head start at http://www.speechwhiz.com — the site has a page rank of 4.
And sometimes a site starts slow, but then takes off.
I’ll keep you updated on progress at HouseSit.info!
John Soares recently posted…Seven Key Steps for Finding, Evaluating, and Implementing Good Ideas
Twitter: @annewayman
Love it, also love that you dodged Google’s “Personalization.” And great scoring on the domain names. Suspect you could do the same in San Diego… then we’d get to meet f2f.
Anne Wayman recently posted…7 Reasons Freelance Writing Contracts Are About More Than Getting Paid
Anne, we’re very open to a house-sit in San Diego. Tell your friends…
And I’d love to meet face to face.
John Soares recently posted…Top Speed Reading Techniques to Boost Your Productivity
Twitter: @doolin
If I ever leave San Fran, it will be for San Diego!
Dave Doolin recently posted…Time or money, there’s no other blogging currency
I’ve only been in San Diego once: when I flew down to La Jolla to visit the UC San Diego campus after being accepted into their Ph.D. program for chemistry. It was warm and beautiful and I really liked it.
John Soares recently posted…Should You Edit As You Write?
Twitter: @annewayman
John, I have mentioned your service to some folks… who knows what may happen.
Anne Wayman recently posted…How To Price A Writing Project
Thank you Anne! Stephanie and I already have two sits set up, and another in the works, but we still have lots of room in our schedule.
John Soares recently posted…Top Speed Reading Techniques to Boost Your Productivity
Twitter: @texascopywriter
Nice tips, John. I’ve always thought that small sites that are well organized and clearly convey their call to action in a neat, creative way can result in big business for the little guy. I am attracted to the clean, concise look of your pet-sitting graphic and the fact that the page isn’t trying to sell me a hundred other products and services.
Small is beautiful.
Thank you for reminding me.
Samantha
Samantha Gluck recently posted…How to Interview Sources Like a Pro Journalist
Thanks for you kind words Samantha, especially about the clean design. I even debated whether or not to have the main page about our services be single column, but decided it was best to include the side bar and put some pics over there.
John Soares recently posted…Should You Edit As You Write?
Twitter: @DanielleMcGaw
Love this John. The information you applied to this small website can be beneficial for anyone that wants to get local attention.
Have you ever used Scroogle.org to check your standings in the search engines? You can do it from home that way. They don’t use cookies or anything like that and they match up with what Google would show if they weren’t tracking every move you make.
Danielle McGaw recently posted…Create a Friendly Welcome Page for Your Facebook Page
Danielle, thanks for the Scroogle.org recommendation. I just checked and got the same (or slightly better) results as I listed above.
Note to everyone: you have to click on the “select from 28 languages” button to actually use the service.
John Soares recently posted…Why Writers Must Avoid Perfectionism
Twitter: @#techeditz
I have always suggested to my clients that saving money on a big, glitzy, slick website with a bunch of redundent content would give them a greater war chest to market from and if they can’t find you then who cares what you have going on when they get there. I think today’s internet users are looking for answers not a 3d movie that takes to long to load.
I wonder if you have asked the home owners you sat for if they would be willing to link from their Fb or Twitter or.. to your site? (Sorry if you mentioned this earlier). -Ellen