Now We Are Three...

Friday was my 31st birthday (June 27th, 2014) and that means something special for my career as a freelance writer, too, as July 1st 2014 will be the third anniversary of the day I officially went freelance.

That might sound like the two are not really related, except for being within a few days of each other, but there is an intrinsic connection that will never, ever change.

And that is because the last day in my agency job (June 30th 2011) was also my first day back after taking a break for my birthday.

I arrived back to find that nobody knew what work I was supposed to be doing, and as I'd handed my notice in anyway, there didn't seem much point in giving me anything to do - so I left there and then, nearly a month ahead of schedule.

An early start to my freelance writer career was probably one of the best birthday presents I got, and it's still kinda nice to get my Facebook 'happy birthday' notifications in the same week as my LinkedIn 'business anniversary' notifications.

It also means my birthday is always a time to look ahead to the next year of my business, and assuming Google don't abandon Authorship completely, that's one of my key areas of focus for these coming 12 months.

Very few of my existing clients are making use of Google Authorship - especially using my own name, rather than a pseudonym - but it's a good chance to gain an advantage in Google Search results.

Even if you don't think it affects your ranking (and I'm still not certain either way, although Google insist it has no ranking value...) having a byline alongside your search result gives it legitimacy.

The latest rumours seem to hint at Google streamlining the inclusion of Authorship in the search results - getting rid of the passport-photo-style headshot image and the indication of how many contacts you have on Google+, but retaining the byline, which is the actual valuable part of the whole process.

I've been offering for some time to help clients set up Google Authorship, whether or not they want to use my profile or one of their own in-house team - but I'm hoping this year that the streamlined inclusion of author bylines helps Authorship to mature as a long-term part of the search landscape.

And as an experienced and quite capable writer of online content, I'm hoping more clients take advantage of the option of having my byline placed on their pages when they publish articles they have paid me to write.

No doubt in a year's time the entire search landscape will have changed once again - I certainly can't imagine Google+ going mainstream without a major rethink of its functionality - but in the meantime, it's good to have something to work towards in my fourth year of Phronesis Freelance.