Category — Freelance Writing

I’d like to say for all of those writers out there who think they are trapped – changing directions is okay. In my case, I’ve had to make some changes gradually, and I’m still very much in the middle of change. While I love my webmaster clients and the variety of work that comes in under that domain, I need to focus more on what I know so that I can start building the right kind of brand for the future. I specialize in certain kinds of education, so it only makes sense that I start specializing in certain kinds of educational writing as well.

I do like  bit of variety in my life, so I don’t imagine I’d ever turn down a project that fit into my considerable experience or into a niche I thought was fun, but with the amount of certification, background and experience I have, specialization for the majority of my work is simply the future of my writing career.

Some writers specialize very early on, and I did do a bit of specialization in parenting, education and home topics. I still like those topics as well, and I might change directions again. However, for now, I’m going to start working on some serious books and ideas for a website that specializes in education so that I can someday market it separately and even do consulting and presentations to others. Will I be doing those tomorrow? Nope. I still love teaching and writing. Will I be doing them someday? I’m sure of it.

But like those of us who are successful in business know, you have to move forward with steady, certain steps, and that is what I’ve planned. I’ll build the brand and the blog first while also maintaining this one a bit more steadily. Then, I’ll move into more print work and instruction and training. That ought to take me nicely into a semi-retired state close to age 50. Only 20 more years to plug away at it!

The following is a guest post from Philip Rudy  of ContentCustoms.com:

Website visitors don’t want to read content that is packed with unnatural SEO keywords repeated many times over. However, working in keywords properly will naturally help your search engine results and are important for linking your content with interested users. When creating online content, your task is to combine the needs of users and search engines in order to boost the quality and exposure of your content.

Clear Content Message
Confusing content simply doesn’t get through to users. When looking for content online, users are searching for clear messages that are easy to read, easy to understand and are relevant to their needs. To ensure your content meets these requirements, you must always write content with a purpose and get to your points quickly but efficiently. Simplicity is what you should be aiming for, and this is best incorporated into your content by approaching each task as a visiting user. You must always ask yourself, what will the user be looking for when they view my content?

By making your content message as clear as possible and supplementing it with all the necessary details, you will make the user’s task of finding what they need from your content an easier process. However, creating a clear content message also extends to the highly important content titles and descriptive titles. Users won’t be bothered to read through your content if you don’t have clear titles that match your content and your web pages will be ranked lower in search engines because of it.

Thorough and Scannable Information
You’ll likely have plenty of information to cover when creating each individual piece of content. The more thorough your content creation is, the better it can help your users. Users love content where they only need to spend a few seconds to find the information they need. This technique minimizes time wasting, and there is no reason why you should waste your time creating excessive content if it is not necessary.

Improving the quality of your thorough content to boost search engine results and user exposure requires creating content that is easily scannable. Prioritize your content by placing the key details first and structuring the supplemental evidence and information. Users will always love having the ability to find the primary details near the beginning of the content and locating supplemental information further on as necessary. Creating clear subtitles, using lists and pre-planning your paragraph structures are all critical in turning thorough information into scannable content.

Keywords
As you improve your ability to create clear content messages and structure your information into scannable material, you’ll eventually be able to incorporate SEO keywords in a natural manner. Nothing disrupts clear content more than inserting a high percentage of keywords just to appease search engines. Never feel pressured to incorporate search engine keywords to optimize your content. Instead, develop a list of keywords beforehand and practice incorporating them naturally into your creative content ideas, planning and writing. Through practice and analysis, you’ll be able to hit your desired 2 to 3 percent keyword density without forcing it into your content for the sake of search engines and users.

Philip Rudy helps run and maintain www.ContentCustoms.com which is an Internet marketing company that provides article writing services.

After dozens of queries, I finally was able to place some links successfully in a guest blog. The wedding niche was a special challenge for me because there are so few blogs that aren’t personally (and protectively) owned or photo blogs – which wasn’t what I was looking for. The bottom line – The blog was placed successfully and the links are live. You can check out the new post here.

There seem to be a few schools of though in the writing world. There are the writer artiste types who focus on the craft and the artistic nature of the writing. There are the business writers who write as a business – worrying more about maintaining their brand and getting money in the door using their skill than writing the Great American Novel. Then there are the writers who enjoy pulling together pieces as part of their hobby or because they want to pick up a few dollars here or there.

Fortunately these three types of writers don’t have to exist separately, and there is much to learn from all three – especially if you find yourself dissatisfied at times with your own area of the freelance writing business.

Writers as Artists

There is a great deal of glamour in the image of the writer holed up in the cottage by the sea for months on end banging out a novel on an old fashioned typewriter. Hollywood loves these writers for their sheer romantic imagery. The problem with that image, however, is that very few writers are getting paid to sit in rented cottages writing books on spec. Hence, a bit of practicality is in order.

By all means get a cabin by the sea – why not? Freelance writers can live anywhere there’s an internet connection. And pound away on the typewriter until your fingers bleed, although a laptop might be more practical in the long-run. But live the starving artist lifestyle to protect your artistic integrity? Only if you’re into Ramen noodles. Taking the artistry down a notch, at least a few days a week, and you can ease into better business practices and earn a bit more to sustain yourself until that novel is finished.

Writers as Businesspeople

The writer who recognizes a craft and then markets it can turn a fair profit. The better your business skills, the better your writing business will be. There are many writers today who can bring in business and turn out finished products, but it all gets a bit dry sometimes. When you realized you’re forcing yourself to write about dog food and you’d rather stick pin in your eye than write another word, take a step back.

Learn from those that love the craft and turn what you do into an art form as well as a business model. Write prose or poetry. Start a blog just for the sake of writing about things you love and enjoy. You can monetize it later. Or don’t monetize it at all and just enjoy journaling online to get some of the demons out. Write something pretty just because it’s, well, pretty!

Writing as a Hobby

Hobbyist writers are the best of the breed. They don’t have to earn a living and they don’t have to craft a tome worthy of the classics. They can just write about cooking shrimp or local politics to make their hearts feel super happy, to borrow a phrase from a rather annoying show my kids watch on occasion. If we were to all focus on writing more about what makes us feel good, the simple pleasure of the hobby can blend with the artistry or words to make us enough money to satisfy the capitalist in us all. It’s a potent mixture, but one spicy enough to make writing fun every day – or almost every day, which is good enough for me.

This post first appeared on GoingFreelance.com

I’m a writing superstar!

I’ve secretly know it for years, but apparently others are catching on. I’m absolutely amazing! Okay, seriously now, I was mentioned in Allena’s recent post on her About.com blog. It was very nice of her to throw some love this way, and I absolutely appreciate it.

Where is this rock star writing of mine? Don’t worry – it’s not this post. It’s a recent post I made on Jenn’s blog AllFreelanceWriting.com.

Don’t believe me? See for yourself:  Freelance Writing Blogs: Cream of the Crop Posts.

Want to make it as a freelance writer? It’s all about how you start your career. Part-time, hobby, full-time, it doesn’t really matter. If you plan to succeed with an online business, which writing most certainly is, you must treat it like a business. The most common mistake freelancers make is to put the proverbial wagon ahead of the horse trying to find gigs before they ever find their true business skills and offerings.

Write a Business Plan

Simply stated, a business plan is a blueprint of what you’re offering and how you’re going to do it. A true business plan is usually presented to others, but yours can be more casual. The purpose here is to organize your thoughts and present yourself properly when it’s time to launch the business. The business plan is just that – planning. When creating your plan, consider:

- What you’re going to sell.

- How you’re going to sell it.

- How your services will be priced.

- How you’re going to find clients and an audience.

- Where you’re going to get funding to develop any necessary initial marketing.

- The name and brand of your service.

In your plan, you should determine specifics and they should be measurable. If you say, “I want to write for the web and make money,” you’re starting without focus. If your plan is more specific, “I will create PLR article packs and sell them for $20 in the education niche,” you can create and then measure that goal accordingly.

Create Your Brand

You might be writing to raise a few hundred a month for extras around the house, but to be taken seriously you’ll need a true brand online. That means a full internet presence – website, blog, personality, avatar and logo. Blogs are simple to start, and registering a domain and getting WordPress installed is simple enough. Remember to use your best skills and put a professional face on your site. It’s telling others how well you know the marketplace and why they should hire you to write for them.

Build a Community and Network

Being successful online is more than a simple thread on a forum or two. If you’re answering advertisements for penny articles, you’re likely selling yourself short. Take charge of your own career by focusing on your network and community rather than individual articles or gigs. By gaining reputation in your field and in the niches you choose to work in, you’ll be gaining traction for the long-term rather than an endless series of cheap articles written for random clients.

Over time, it is your network and professional reputation that lead to additional assignments and referrals. Every thing you do online and ever post you make it part of your professional image. You’re running a business staked on your personal integrity and reputation, and protecting and advancing that career is very easily a full-time job. But it’s hopefully one that you enjoy and find successful.

This post first appeared on GoingFreelance.com

Every freelancer hits a wall from time to time. In an office job, you have vacation time for mental health days, but for some reason, many freelancers fail to take time off to relax. This happens often because they have not planned ahead for a period free of work. It can also be difficult to schedule around the daily requirements of writing or design work as well as you’re often the only one working in the office. However, leaving an opportunity for a break is critical not only to your health and well-being, but to your productivity as well.

Work’s Not Fun Anymore

There are elements of every job that can drag us down, but freelancing is usually a choice and we opt to freelance because we like it. But when the job isn’t fun anymore and you feel more stressed than productive, it’s time to cut back and take a few days off. Rearrange your schedule, put a vacation auto-reply up and take forty-eight hours (or longer!)  to be with your family, play with the dog, finish projects around the house or get out of town to clear your head. When you sit back down at the computer, you’ll be refreshed, hopefully better rested and ready to go.

Your Work Is Suffering

Being overdrawn and taxed isn’t good for you or your work (or your bank account.) What’s worse is you often don’t realize how poor your quality has become while you’re overdoing it. Pulling an all-nighter to get a project in before the deadline or because you’re “in the zone” can be productive to a degree, but the materials you’re creating are likely not up to your usual standards no matter how wonderful you thought they were at the time. When you start finding typos, wrong information and sloppy work, it’s time to slow down. Most mistakes happen when you’re tired or you’re rushed. If you’re both, you’re looking at trouble. For a freelancer, being sloppy can mean time-intensive revisions or a lost client,

You’re Too Busy

Only you know what’s too busy, but if you’re starting to see clues that you’re pushed past the limits of what’s reasonable, scale back. There is a steeper curve at the beginning of every new business as you get things started up and market your initial services, but once you’re in a groove, you probably don’t need to be working twelve hour days and neglecting your health, hobbies or family. If you’re too busy to do the things you like to do outside of the office, you need a break. At the minimum try a modified schedule to give yourself more work-life balance.

You’re Frustrated with Your Future

There comes a time for many freelancers when they realize they want a change. You might be happy churning out articles or sales letters every day, but we all need variety in our life. If you’re stuck in a rut and frustrated by your lack of available time to try anything new or even think about what sort of new avenues you’d like to pursue, consider taking a day out of the week to build up a new product line or service offering while keeping your current business going. Take a break for a day or an hour a day if that’s all you can spare to investigate where you want to go and what you want to do next. It keeps momentum in your career which is essential for moving forward in any business.

This post first appeared on GoingFreelance.com

As amazing as freelancing can be, there is a certain drawback to the career – it’s fickle. Constant marketing can help keep things rather steady, but trading a salaried 9-5 career or even the full-time trivial job for a career in freelancing is dangerous if you’re not adequately prepared. As ready as you are to be your own boss, step back from the dream world and take a look at reality.

What’s Your Business Plan?

Too often, online freelancers take the leap into full-time work before they fully realize what they are doing. They realize they’ve made enough to live on for a few months and decide they can make even more staying home and writing or designing full-time. So they quit. In a simple world, this plan has merit. But this is not a simple world.

Working online is dynamic and ever changing. You must have a plan for the next few months, the next few years and the next few decades. How are you going to proceed from here and where do you want to end up? What’s your retirement plan? Fill in the blanks in between here and then until you can see where you’re headed and what it will take to get there.

Do You Have the Right Contacts?

What sort of freelance work are you doing? Are you writing haphazard articles for clients as they appear in various webmaster forums? Unfortunately these clients come and go for the most part. If you don’t have a well developed collection of clients in all walks of life, your basis is not covered for future and steady work. Likewise, you need to know others in the industry to network professionally if you plan to make freelancing your new career. Who you know in a freelance sense is almost more important than what you do.

How Much Do You Have in Savings?

The current economy has made it abundantly clear just how dangerous it can be to live from one paycheck to the next. Stashing a bit in savings is fine for the occasional emergency repair while you still have a steady paycheck. However, you should have a minimum of three months income in savings to cover your bills should you lose your salaried job. As a freelancer, you need even more.

The internet marketplace goes up and down dramatically. While this can take a hit on your earnings, the real risk is from life itself. Should you break your hand while an employee the company will be all but required to make accommodations. If you break your hand as a freelancer, you’ll be out the higher insurance costs for medical care and be limited in your productivity if you happen to need that hand to type or design. There are no safety nets in freelancing – you create your own.

Have You Considered Tax Implications?

Many freelance writers don’t initially realize the full tax implications of their new part-time career. The money you make as a freelancer is part of your income and must be declared on your tax return. Unless you’ve been putting 20 percent of those funds aside for the tax man, you’ll wind up with a bit of a surprise come April 15.

As a freelancer, you’ll need to be even more prepared. Learn about the benefits of different tax structures and how to file quarterly and set up withholding on your own freelance income to be sure you can pay your taxes on time. Your freelance earnings will be taxed at a higher rate because you’re self employed and must pay your own social security. Include all of those variables in your current freelance income and you might realize your earnings aren’t as comfortable as you thought they were.

What’s Plan B?

The corporate world isn’t always kind to freelancers seeking to return to the corporate world, especially if you aren’t freelancing in a field that translates directly back to the office job. If freelancing becomes problematic or you simply can’t handle the stress of the variable income, you need to have a Plan B.

Will you beg for your old job back? Look for one in the field you’ve been freelancing? Go back to school so that your resume is a bit fresher? Leaving the corporate world with connections will give you some lifelines should you need them down the road. Be sure to continue cultivating those relationships and develop marketable skills.

This post first appeared on GoingFreelance.com

Those of us who have been in freelancing for awhile have watched other writers come and go. Some last only a few weeks while others come and go repeatedly as they need a bit of spare cash or try to restart a fledgling career. The truth of the matter is, however, when you’re a freelancer, you’re a small business owner.

You might be selling a service instead of widgets, and you might be marketing yourself on a single forum in a single thread instead of billboards and landing pages, but you’re most certainly a business. The current statistics show that a new business has about a 50/50 shot of making it – are you working to stay in the right 50%?

Starting a Business for the Wrong Reason
There are all kinds of freelance businesses and many freelancers take on a very part-time role initially to get a few extra dollars. However, if you don’t love what you’re doing, the initial interest fades and you’re working considerably more time than you ever wanted to in a position you don’t really like, and you might not be able to figure out how to back out of the commitments gracefully.

If you’re working for a few dollars here and there, there is certainly nothing wrong with that, especially in today’s economy. But starting a full-fledged freelance business in a field you don’t like doing things you’d rather not is setting yourself up for failure.

Failure to Plan and Drive the Business Forward
A business must grow and thrive to be successful in the long-term. If you slap your name on a post offering a basic service, you’ll likely find takers. However you might become embroiled in small projects leaving you no time to build up your business or even finish the website or blog you meant to create a few months ago to give yourself more credibility.

Failure to treat your business like a business is the most crucial mistake freelancers make. It doesn’t matter if you’re in school or just working part-time, you should be handling yourself and your future professionally and always thinking of what you want to do next.

The most common mistake that falls under a failure to plan is the large numbers of freelancers that enter the market, take on huge numbers of poorly paid projects, burn out and then disappear – often without being able to complete the projects they promised. This is simply bad business all around – you can always push out deadlines and plan into the future to accommodate new work.

Lack of Marking and Management Knowledge
You can be the best designer or writer in the world, but if you can’t sell yourself to others, nobody will ever know. Selling yourself and managing your business are two of the most critical elements of success. Not only do you need an initial push to find clients, but you’ll need to continue marketing on a regular basis looking for new projects and growing with new exposure.

If you fail to prepare for your own version of the future and continue to seek out new projects and clients, you’ll fail to grow as a business and become stagnant or fail over time.

This article was first released on GoingFreelance.com

It’s funny really how quickly you can move your entire world online. While the rest of the population stresses over logging into online banking for the first time or paying a bill online, I’m living a full life online. If there’s a virtual option, I’m taking it. I think this is due primarily to how much time I spend online writing and working, not so much because I’m used to technology. Working online changes your perspectives on all things internet.

I recently bought a new (old) truck. How did I do it? I found it online, I researched the competition online and I arranged the sale online. I did go and see it in person before cementing the deal, but I don’t trust a car dealer who doesn’t have a good web presence, plus dealing online cuts down on the drama of the pushy sales.

I shop almost exclusively online. There are so many different brands now available through the internet, I can get everything from Zara clothing and H&M clothing to toddler clothing and shoes without having to leave my trusty old (new) computer. Plus, little men don’t have to accompany me to the store and they always seem to have my size.

I buy houses online when I feel the need to work with real estate, which is about once every seven years. When I last when house shopping, if the house didn’t show up well online, I wasn’t interested. I didn’t want to deal with someone who couldn’t at least post good pictures on a real estate website.

I bank online and have for years. I remember when you had to actually pay for online bill pay and when everyone thought it would be the end of us all, or maybe that was Y2K, but regardless, if a company isn’t online, I don’t trust them and I’m not interested in working with them – for me a website equates trust.

While I think online marketers and workers have a serious head start in shopping and living online, it’s only a matter of time before the rest of the world catches up. The beauty of that is there are so many lovely companies who need help getting online and so many lovely potential customers who need help finding their way around the internet we’ll all be just fine so long as we stay on top of the curve business-wise.