by Marty | Mar 29, 2011 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips, Work Tools
Lately, I have had more than one occasion where an aspiring young writer asks me some questions about creating an invoice for their copywriting or SEO work. This page is going to serve as a dump for information about creating an invoice for whatever, and I’ll drop in a link to resource templates too, so you can skip to them if that’s all you need.
Why You Create Invoices
You create an invoice to bill a company for the work you do for them. They receive it, approve it, and put it into their payment cycle. The duration of each one is one of those things that depends on the company you are dealing with, but no matter how they handle it, many companies want an invoice to complete the project. You send this after a project to mutually agree you are finished, and you are now waiting to be paid.
They will use the invoice on their end to complete internal paperwork – assigning the value to a specific department, or sometimes a specific representative.
You will likely use it for record keeping too, but maybe just in an e-format.
Because both parties will use this document for tracking purposes, the information in it must be kept clear, and straight-forward. Offer exactly the information you need – nothing more, nothing less. The following things are going to be pretty standard things in the invoice information:
- Your company name and contact info in the header and footer. The mailing address is important – a lot of people will mail your checks to you. Also, the phone number/email is important, because if there is an error or something they need to be able to reach you quickly to sort it out. Every day the mistake exists is another you are not being paid.
- Their company name and specific contact information e.g., “Attn: Paul Jones.” The specific contact is used to identify your contact in a larger company – it is a good thing to know. They’ll often shuffle it around and get people to sign it – so be on the ball, and know where it needs to go.
- A specific invoice reference number – one that is unique.
- The description of the services/deliverables, potentially itemized. I like to keep this pretty general and simple…so something like “50 pages of original content and research @ $75/page – $3750 total project fee” or something like that works. Put the itemized things in the left, the right column tabulates all the individual items being invoiced.
- Any additional costs/considerations/notes. If there was scope creep, delivery charges, outsourced talent or something off the grid of what you originally determined to be the project, state it if you want to get recognized and paid for it. All of the phone calls in the world don’t hold the same power as a written, signed invoice. Put it in writing.
- A total now due. Make this a very clear number using a font that is big, red, bold, exciting – make it work like a fork jabbed in their eye. There should be NO DOUBT how much they owe, and when. That is the only purpose of this document, so make it work.
- Payment preferences. You can state how quick you want the turn to be – I state net-10, meaning within 10 days of my final approval, they need to pay me. The common deal with bigger companies is closer to net-30 – this is important to know when you are just starting out. Demand all you want – but it doesn’t mean much to stomp your feet. It is truly better to wait it out, painful as that can be. Way back a long time ago, I actually had a client owe me over $10k for a month’s work because they were pushing hard quickly, and I was simply working hard to meet it – but when I balked to get paid in the middle of the second month (yeah-$10k+ is a LOT of dough, and my bills weren’t waiting), they “paused” with me to work it out and hired someone who was evidently more patient. The terms of our agreement stated I was to be paid every two weeks, yet I was 8 weeks in, and still waiting for an installment. They were never waiting for copy though – I met my deadlines, and their client loved my work. I could have simply shut-up and knew I’d get my money eventually – but I made a stand (sticking purely to the terms of our agreement) and essentially got moved aside. I got paid in a few weeks, but this was the last time I worked for them for a while. It meant more to me then – but in retrospect, the additional $10-20k I could’ve earned for another month would’ve been nice. Not to mention the additional work from this connection I likely flushed away with my indignant (however justified) “demand.” I was right according to our agreement, but who cares – I still got all-but-fired, and they didn’t call me again for almost a year (but they did – they always come back!). We made nice, and I eventually had more work on better terms with them, but it was definitely cooled-off for us both for a while. Learn from my mistake…stay on the job, get paid, and don’t leave your fences in a state needing attention. Act like a grown-up. I was mad, so handled this worse than I think I would’ve if I was not angry. It was years ago, but became a lasting lesson.
Creating an Invoice for Freelance Copywriting or SEO Work
Now that we have covered the basics in “why” you do this stuff, it’s time to look at the “how.”
Great news – you need to know nothing, and everything is free. Just grab the right template and Go.
Use this link – the big G has provided: https://docs.google.com/templates?q=invoice&sort=hottest&view=public .
When I make invoices, they are done in Word documents or Excel spreadsheets. I create them as a template (much like the Google ones), edit them with the specifics of the project and save them as a document and then create a pdf to send the client. You want to pdf them, so the client can’t change something on-the-sly before a signature or something creepy like that. It happens – sorry. But also keep it in editable format, as there might be something you need to change later and it helps you to not start over from scratch every time.
So that’s it really – use that link, and find a service-oriented invoice template you like. Save it as a template, and create all your invoices from the same one. If that is in any way confusing, email me directly, and I’ll help you sort it out.
Creating an invoice is a necessary skill to know if you are to be working for yourself at any point. But they are so frighteningly easy, it makes no sense to fear them. And needing to create an invoice is a great thing – it means you’re about to get paid!
Later edit: a Blank, company-less invoice template
Had more than a couple comments and questions about what to do if you have no business, and need an invoice – the short answer, is you do the same thing, just substitute your personal info where the company info would have gone. Just to keep it easy, I made you guys a little blank template you can download and modify: invoice-no-company-blank
by Marty | Feb 17, 2011 | General Pearls of Wisdom
I admit, I have not spent a great deal of time wondering about the Attorney General of Utah, but the Salty Droid sure seems to think that Mark Shurtleff is Corrupt. He is offering a lot of often pointy words to talk about what is happening out there in Utah – and I would imagine people are getting a little upset about it. But the Salty Droid promises this category of posts will help you to better understand the man behind the media, as “it contains so much great information about Mark Shurtleff’s leg and his midlife crisis motorcycle accident”. Fake robots can be hard to argue with, so I would recommend checking it out.
As to why these references to Mark Shurtleff’s corruption are reaching outside of Utah (why should you care out there in Armchair America, right?), think of a roomful of very nice strangers, all of them on telephones meeting dialing quotas. Hammering on, pushing on new ways to erode people’s natural reluctance to pay for something that sounds too good to be true. Sweating and smoking. Dialing, and selling. Utopian dreams, cooed out soothingly, incessantly, looking for better ways to weasel into unsuspecting bank accounts. Now multiply that exponentially, and how long before they are calling your parents – your friends – and promising them Unicorns and Rainbows? Convincing them that for a low monthly rate, they can have their own Internet cash machines? Utah’s boiler rooms are at the root of some very bad businesses staying around longer than they should. And as the Salty Droid is pointing out, it is often through high-level corruption and protection that these systems stay in place.
I appreciate the Salty Droid’s willingness to point out things that often get him into trouble. He is a funny writer, and offers a truly unique style. Whether he’s talking about corrupt Attorney General Mark Shurleff, internet marketing scams, or the wispy sexlessness of Julian Assange, it’s usually a lot of fun over there.
If you’re like me, no matter what brought you, you stay for the pretty giraffes!
by Marty | Feb 4, 2011 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips, Reviews of Stuff
This is just a head’s-up on a series that started this week on Search Engine Land about linking that is gonna be a good ‘un.
http://searchengineland.com/a-link-building-blueprint-the-foundation-62784
Authored by the zenfully talented Debra Mastaler, this promises to be a great primer for anyone who wants to know something about linking. A Link Building Blueprint is a fine idea…coming from Debra, it becomes a must-see.
I know a little bit about linking, but I always pay close attention to everything Debra shares. (Yeah, she’s one of those.) I have never regretted it. I pretty much always agree with her too, which is a plus, if you’re me. She can always defend herself well if challenged, and is not driving by ego – something that appeals to me every time. Really sharp, very measured, and always as nice as anyone you’ve ever met. But she always tucks little value nuggets in her posts and writings out there – yeah, she’s definitely a nugget-tucker too.
As illustrated: Even with this introductory post, she hipped me to using DMOZ better than I am, and supported my current approach to directories is not too bad.
Debra’s been doing this for a long time, and she tells it like it is – no matter what the platform. She is the resident Link Queen moderator in the SEOBook forums where I hang out. In there, she is more candid than she is in her articles for Search Engine Land – but her articles are always just as honest, just as straightforward and just as warm as her most personal posts.
You’ll like it. And it’s good for you, too.
I’d also use this time to remind you to look at the post I did last July covering Rae Hoffman’s seminal linking post – there are a lot of great things in there to make a companion to Debra’s Blueprint.
I am going to update this post with the updates she offers to this series.
[EDIT]
Here’s the second installment: http://searchengineland.com/a-link-building-blueprint-utility-linking-66202
Here’s the third: http://searchengineland.com/proven-ways-to-use-content-to-attract-links-73610
by Marty | Jan 12, 2011 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips, General Pearls of Wisdom
I was reading some favorite old posts today and came across this one, from all the way back in 2006 by Stuntdubl: http://www.stuntdubl.com/2006/11/24/stunttrain/.
Mr. Malicoat offers a lot of good things in here, but the one that made me want to scribble was this:
9. Blackhat is lying to clients, customers, partners, or vendors.
Whitehat is proactively discussing risk tolerance, process, expectations, and contribution to a community instead of just bilking people into teaching you to think.
A lot of things have changed in search since he wrote that almost 5 years ago – but I think this point is more salient today than ever. Thankfully people aren’t talking about this as much as they used to…but some still insist on climbing on a soapbox, and pretending that there are altruistic means behind their sweeping statements and judgements.
Defining what you do by some broad-stroke term is limiting at best. But the argument between whitehat and blackhat SEO techniques has always been that – an ultimately limiting and self-defeating approach.
I should know:
Hi, my name is Marty. I am a recovering whitehat.
In my own case, my couple years of chest-thumping whitehattedness were eventually replaced by data, and logic. But while it had me, I really drank that kool-aid, hard.
Here are some of the many misconceptions it created:
- Buying links is bad, and will result in penalties. The truth is, buying links is commonplace and often results in success. Discretion.
- Automating is bad. Impersonal approaches to web development scared me I think, because I was building sites, and didn’t want to see it all go away. It did anyway – open source changed everything. And it only made me run faster to catch-up once I finally decided to get in the game.
- Google is going to reward the best content.{Bwa-ha-haaaaaa-ha-ha-ha}
- Link spam gets punished. Truth is, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve seen link spam work well, I’ve seen it (apparently) sink sites. Truth is, good sites get punished too.
- Good content is required to top the SERPs. Sigh. As much as I would love for this to be the case, no such luck.
Now, believing in whitehat came from a good place. I wanted to only do what my clients wanted – things I could be proud of later. But I was not taking Stuntdubl’s approach, and simply understanding risk tolerance better. I couldn’t communicate it to my clients, because I was too busy shunning things, because they seemed “shady.”
Flash forward a few years, and I don’t wear hats anymore – I now prefer scarves. Hardly gets cold enough in Atlanta for me to indulge, but I digress.
It may have taken me close to 5 years since I first read this post from Stuntdubl, but his last point is the one that now makes my bald head shine:
10. It’s all about the results
Yes it is…as long as those results are accompanied by the immaculately clear conscience that you are not screwing people over to get them. It is not by any means necessary – but it is by any reasonable means.
Bottom Line:
If you insist on actively defining yourself as either a blackhat or a whitehat SEO, chances are you are simply an asshat. Just do what is best to get the ranking you are after for you or your clients – and make it less about you. Remember what Stuntdubl said: It’s all about the results.
Late add: found another one, worth adding here. In the historical review of how this separation in the SEO industry devolves, I found another winner here: http://www.paydayloanaffiliate.com/blog/LateralVsTraditionalSEO.aspx and here: http://www.johnon.com/220/white-hat-sissies.html
by Marty | Dec 26, 2010 | General Pearls of Wisdom
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by creating splogs filled with spun content, wrapped shamelessly with AdSense until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty- seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch, surf the web and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life’s organic searches are made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second (and clicking thru her favorite ads), take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.
In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”
The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week from the strength of his organic reach. Now, when 2010 updates have all been tallied and the income was shrunk to $20, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.
Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only earned $1.87 from her direct match domains with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Google AdWords expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy hour she had spent letting Eric Schmidt tell her what is best in planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and sterling (no doubt, from an affiliate link) –something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned by Jim.
There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.
Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly she opened up her spread sheet of most valuable keywords and let it fall to its full length.
Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s exact match domain that had been his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s keyword list. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her keyword list be read aloud by local ruffians just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have mentioned his exact match domain and niche potential every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.
So now Della’s beautiful keyword list was printed, and stacked in front of her. It reached above her knees. And then she gathered them up again nervously and quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.
On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs to the street.
Where she stopped the sign read: “Mne. Sofronie. Keywords of All Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”
“Will you buy my keywords?” asked Della.
“I buy keywords,” said Madame. “Take yer spread sheets and let’s have a sight at the looks of ‘em.”
Down rippled the spread sheets’ bounty.
“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practised hand.
“Give it to me quick,” said Della.
Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.
She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a Content Management System (CMS) simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation–as all good things should do. It was even worthy of The Exact Match. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value–the description applied to both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that CMS on his domain Jim might be properly anxious about the opportunity in any niche. Grand as the exact match was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the FrontPage holding page that he used in place of a proper site.
When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason. She got out her long tail keyphrases and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends–a mammoth task.
Within forty minutes her AdWords account was covered with tiny longtail keyphrases that made it look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy had thrown it together. She looked at her ad copy in the ad groups, carefully, and critically.
“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at these long tail keyphrases, he’ll say I bid like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do–oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty- seven cents?”
At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.
Jim was never late. Della opened up the user interface on her laptop and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit for saying little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still shrewd enough to increase our potential earnings using inexpensive content development.”
The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two–and to be burdened with a family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.
Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della’s new longtail keyphrases, and there was an expression in them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar expression on his face.
Della wriggled off the table and went for him.
“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my keyword list cannibalized and sold because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. I’ll grow it out again–you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My keyword research grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice– what a beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”
“You’ve purged your keyword lists?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.
“Cannibalized and sold them,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me without my keyword research, ain’t I?”
Jim looked about the room curiously.
“You say your keyword list is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.
“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you–sold and gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the keywords proved profitable in my niche were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”
Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a year–what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.
Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.
“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a manual penalty or a stuffed alt attribute or a spammy title tag that could make me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”
White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.
For there lay The Premium Content–the set of files, side and back, that Della had worshipped long on a Freelancer’s website. Beautiful content, pure link bait, with optimized meta data–just the way to benefit a researched list of keywords. They were expensive content pieces, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the keywords that should have benefitted from the coveted content were gone.
But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My keyword research grows so fast, Jim!”
And them Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”
Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held out her laptop to him eagerly upon her open palm. The CMS’s functionality seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.
“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the niche potential a hundred times a day now. Give me your DNS for the exact match. I want to see how it looks on it.”
Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.
“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the exact match to get the money to buy your premium content. And now suppose you put the chops on.”
The magi, as you know, were Page and Brin–wonderfully wise men–who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving non-Evil Christmas presents. Being wise and willing to sort the cesspool, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their online portfolios. But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive profitable SERP positions, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.
