Freelance MD: 7,000 Unique Readers In Month 2

Freelance MD has passed 7,000 unique monthly readers in just two months.

I thought we may have a slower month in January after our first 30 days of astonishing growth, but I was wrong. Here's a screenshot showing how quickly Freelance MD is growing traffic, from 4,100 readers in December 2010 to 7,100+ in January 2011. That 70% month over month is a staggering jump.

At some point I'll be expecting this growth curve to flatten out since we're a pretty small niche -  physicians interested in getting more control of their careers and lifestyle -

• We've added a physician jobs area that we're looking to grow. We'll be adding non-clinical jobs in the very near future.
• We continue to be sticky. This indicator—even more than the growth curve—is something to get excited about since it denotes that readers are heavily engaged.
• We continue to add new members across our network. From our LinkedIn Group to our physician members on this site. (You can join Freelance MD for free and get access to our members only areas and downloads.)
• We've got a number of new Select Partner applicatants that would like to be part of our community. With partners like Health 2.0, ExpedMed, and the Medical Fusion Conference, we're tapping in to a number of other communities and events that we can add value to.
• We're in the process of adding a number of new reports and downloads for our members and the should be up shortly.
• We've added a number of new physician authors over the last month and there are others who should be up and running in the next few weeks.

There'a more than a little going on behind the scenes as we continue to build this community as a trusted resource for docs. Please let us know how we're doing, give us suggestions, or just vent if there's information that you want but can't find. Leave us a comment.

Update on Feb 1, 9:46 AM by Jeff, Freelance MD

The final number for January was 7,260 unique visitors. ; )

New Year's Resolution: Make Time to Write

One of the most common questions I am asked is, "How do you find the time to write?" 

To me, this is a lot like asking how one finds the time to brush and floss or exercise or do any one of the many things that we map out as habitual priorities. Over the years, I've thought a lot about this question and what it means to different people. Out of this contemplation, I have arrived at a few tips that may just help you find the time you need to write in 2011 and beyond.

Finding the Time to Write

Insert writing into your life regularly. If you are the type of person that likes to keep a strict schedule, you might find that reserving a specific block of time works best. You might also consider parameters such as writing 500-1000 words at every sitting. Or, 2-3 pages. There are many ways to build a framework around the task. Personally, my schedule is different nearly every day, so I don't stick to a strict schedule. But, I write several times a week and always make sure that I have some time set aside to meet deadlines.

Write whether you are in the mood or not. Don't worry if you are not in the mood to write. Do it anyway.  It's almost impossible to only be creative when your muse is at its best. Sometimes writing is fun, but a lot of times it's just work. Professional writers have spent many hours writing useless material.  Ironically, your best writing may come forth when you least want to do it. 

Set some deadlines. Even if you haven't sold an article or a book, it's good to have some deadlines that you adhere to. Many writers become very frustrated and spend years working on the same material over and over. For a lucky few, that's the ticket to success. However, for the vast majority of writers, it's time spent on a project that likely won't ever be published. So, consider what you want to write and set some realistic deadlines. If you don't meet them, consider how you might want to change course. This doesn't necessarily mean giving up the project—maybe all you need is to work with a book coach or a freelance editor. 

Just write. Really, it all boils down to just doing it. Yup, Nike has the right motto when it comes to writing—just do it!

Freelance MD: 30 Days In

Freelance MD was launched one month ago today. There have been a few changes.

Greg and I launched Freelance MD after meeting at the Medical Fusion Conference in Las Vegas at the beginning of November. We'd already had a number of discussions about the need but I wanted to talk to physicians outside of my usual cosmetic medicine contacts and listen to what they wanted, and gauge their reaction to what we were thinking about. Well, whatever doubts I had about the need for this type of community were quickly assuaged. I could see that the opportunity to provide a very broad, horizontal platform that focused on providing physicians information, products and services was growing and we were in a unique position to address it.

The conference ended on the 7th and on the 17th we launched Freelance MD in it's current iteration. Now, one month later, we've been astounded by it's growth and it's resonance with physicians. I've been involved with a number of online communities but the speed with which Freelance is growing is more than unusual, it's astounding. Here are a couple of notable milestones from our first thirty days;

• We've grow to almost twenty authors that include experts on topics as wide ranging as physician entrepreneurs, non-clinical careers, wealth planning, investing, and writing. We've passed 100 posts from our own authors, had our first guest post. It's actually been difficult for Greg to get back to everyone as fast as we'd like—but we're trying.
• We're growing fast. Take a look at the growth curves below. For a community site that's just one month old and hasn't launched with an existing network this is phenomenal. As a point of reference, when I started Medical Spa MD it took me more than a year (maybe two) to reach this number of unique monthly visitors. Fast growth often comes with volatility but this trajectory is better than we could have hoped for.
     
  

  Freelance MD traffic From November 17th — December 17th, 2010

  
  10,319 page views an more than 2,000 unique visitors in the last 30 days and 1,500+ unique visitors so far this month! ; )
• We're sticky. Take another look at the image above and you'll see a wide gap  between unique visitors and page views. This shows that the average visitor views slightly more than 4 pages each time they visit. For anyone who knows something about user behavior online, this is a key indication of how 'sticky' a site is and how interested visitors are in the content. The fact that we're seeing 5 page views per visitor literally blows the doors off of most sites, especially since there are 20 blog posts that are visible on the first page. This indicator—even more than the growth curve—is something to get excited about since it denotes that readers are heavily engaged.
• Readers are recommending us with 500 Facebook likes, more than 1,000 stumbles, and an unknown number of tweets. (You can do us a solid by helping out here and posting a recommendation to our favorite social networks.) If you look up in the right corner of the site you can see the number of times that we've been referred through popular social networks. (The Twitter number will change because it relates to the specific page you're on, not an aggregated total. That's why you'll see changing numbers under different posts.) We've also just added the new LinkedIn 'share' button. To be honest, I'm not sure exactly what to think about what's going on there since I've never seen numbers like that appear so fast before.
• We've partners with some fantastic organizations. You'll notice that our Select Partners list is growing and we're also excited about that. With partners like Health 2.0, ExpedMed, and the Medical Fusion Conference, we're tapping in to a number of other communities and events that we can add value to.
• We've expanded our community to include Freelance MD groups on LinkedIn, Facebook pages, Twitter feeds... You can connect with the community through any or all of these. (You'll get bonus karma for connecting with them all.)
• We're building out promotions for some of our partner organizations. If you haven't visited the ExpedMed CME Polar Bear Adventure to investigate your adventurous side or thought about attending the Health 2.0 Spring Fling in San Diego, you should take a look.

The numbers above are pretty impressive, but we're not going to be resting on our laurels any time soon. There's too much to do. We'll undoubtedly have some issues as we grow, but we're committed to pushing through these obstacles and making Freelance MD the single best community for action-oriented physicians on the web.

In the very near future we'll be adding memberships, downloads, a non-clinical physicians jobs board and even more authors to the mix.

If you're appreciative of our efforts here on Freelance MD, please give us a Facebook 'like', share us on LinkedIn. You can also ask a question in our forums. Better yet, help us out and write a guest post or leave a comment to let us know what you think.

How To Become An Author On Freelance MD

Freelance MD’s primary goal is to deliver quality information to physicians who want to gain freedom and control of their careers and lifestyle.

Of course, this information comes form our contributing authors who are willing to share their time and effort to provide access to the best information and experitise around lifestye, income and career for physicians.

Writing takes time. Closely examining the latest developments takes its time as well. If you're a thought leader with information to share and want to make it available to our readers as one of our writers, we welcome your participation and help!

Of course, you don't need to become a "Contributing Writer" for Freelance MD. You can interact with the community—Including our writers—by leaving comments or using our community forums. You can also write and submit a guest post and have it appear in the main blog and all of our RSS feeds.

But this post is for those who may consider becoming part of the team. Here's a pretty simple FAQ that walks throught some of the common questions about our contributing team. Let's get on with it.

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