Should Freelancers Make Their Prices Public?

A rundown of the pros and cons — along with some viable hybrid approaches.

Marcus Sheridan believes in bucking a trend. As the owner of a pool-installation company, he’d encountered the same question from customers over and over: “How many arms and legs is this gonna cost?”

His competitors wouldn’t divulge a price without first having a conversation with the prospect. As Marcus recounted to the New York Times: “Pool installers are like mattress or car dealers — we hate talking about how much a pool costs until we have you in person, because there are so many options and accessories we want to sell you. As a result, pool companies never mention price on their websites.”

Marcus thought differently. As an entrepreneur, he knew that if he could provide something his competitors would not, that difference would pique people’s interest. So he wrote a blog post titled “How Much Will My Fiberglass Pool Really Cost?” Soon, the post appeared first when people Googled questions about the price of a pool.

To be sure, Marcus didn’t cite an exact figure. But the fact that he identified figures at all, including figures for the most popular options, saved his company from the brunt of the 2008 recession.

And yet, almost 15 years later, Marcus’s method remains the exception rather than the rule: Most businesses — especially freelancers — remain adamantly opposed to making their prices public. Ask around, and the reasons run the gamut.

What Everyone Should Know About Wikipedia

By Jonathan Rick

Wikipedia has a lot of rules. And if you don’t know them, you’ll have great difficulty adhering to them.

As a Wikipedia consultant, I encounter the following conflict every day: Everyone wants a Wikipedia page for themselves, their C.E.O., or their organization, yet few people know what it takes to create one.

Indeed, half my job consists of counseling clients on what’s possible and what’s not. In that spirit, I’ve written a six-part checklist for those considering a plunge into the wonderful but weird wikiworld.

What Abe Lincoln Can Teach Us About Anger Management in the Digital Age

By Jonathan Rick

Why you should send emails when you’re angry.

“Count to 10.”

“Breathe from your diaphragm.”

“Stick with ‘I’ statements.”

Most advice about anger management comes down to this: Don’t act when you’re angry.

Allow me to offer a contrarian viewpoint: When it comes to email, do act when you’re angry. Received a nastygram? Respond in kind. Hand a mike to that voice inside your head that’s shouting, “What a jerk this guy is!”

Let me explain.

What Your Email Says About Your Brand

By Jonathan Rick

Digital branding starts in your inbox.

It’s something you take for granted, something seemingly trivial, even mundane. When executed thoughtfully, however, it makes a splash. It says, “This guy is sharp — I want to work with him!”

What is this opportunity, obvious but overlooked? It’s the bookends of your emails: your address and signature block — often, the first and last thing your recipients will see. For better or worse, your email bookends are powerful purveyors of your brand. What are yours conveying about you?

Consider just the address. As the Oatmeal has observed, the domain you choose is like a Rorschach test, betraying your sophistication, or lack thereof. A few examples:

How to Make Google Laugh: SEO Your Headlines

By Jonathan Rick

Why do search engines always rank certain websites so highly? Obviously, their content is kingly, but so is their search engine optimization (SEO). Indeed, for many sites, the search-engine spiders that crawl the Web deliver a third or more of their traffic. Perhaps the most famous example comes from the Huffington Post, which in February reeled in readers with the ingenious bait: “What Time Is the Super Bowl?”

In protest, writers for publications such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and Atlantic each have taken turns slugging the SEO punching bag. The headlines describe their complaint: “Gene Weingarten Column Mentions Lady Gaga.” “This Boring Headline Is Written for Google.” “Google Doesn’t Laugh: Saving Witty Headlines in the Age of SEO.”

In other words, algorithms don’t appreciate wit, irony, humor, or style. As reporter Steve Lohr put it, they’re “numbingly literal-minded.” Alas, Oscar Wilde!

These laments ring true in a big way: it is one of the definitive 21st century truisms that in addition to writing for eternity, or for one’s mother, today’s writer must also write for Google. Yet, as always, the devil’s in the metadata. The secret of stellar SEO is that you can have your cake and eat it, too; that is, you can pen pun-based headlines all day long and maintain your journalistic integrity. You just need to draft a second headline that’s straightforward and keywordy.

Why Your Press Release Needs a Blog Post

By Jonathan Rick

Like an old shoe, the press release has been around forever. Every year seems to bring another proclamation that it’s on its last legs. While the rumors are exaggerated, they emerge from a stubborn truth: the press release is being eclipsed by digital alternatives that are more flexible, more interesting, and more relevant.

A milestone was reached in 2010, when Google made a major announcement not by press release but by blog post. Five years earlier, a company of Google’s stature would have issued a boilerplate statement on a newswire. Now, a Google executive was crafting a more thoughtful, even heartfelt narrative that was published on the Official Google Blog.

This shift in medium and message represented a new era in corporate communications. No longer does a traditional press release suffice to make news. News now needs to be conveyed in an empathetic tone and delivered in a user-friendly format.