If you have been working as a freelance writer for any length of time, you know that life can sometimes get in the way of work deadlines. All freelance writers should have a plan in place for when they need backup and strategies for how to find subcontractors to work with during challenging times.
Archives for May 2015
4 Best Tips to Kill Procrastination
“I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.” – Douglas Adams
Every writer knows this quote and has probably said/written it more than once. In reality, however, that whooshing noise is not so pleasant. It’s the stuff writers’ nightmares are made of. Especially when a client is inflexible when it comes to deadlines.
One observation about writers that I have heard so many times is that we like to procrastinate. It is such a sweeping statement and can be taken the wrong way.
However, I have to admit that with all the distractions surrounding us, there are times when we do procrastinate – perhaps more than we want to. [Read more…]
Having a Personal Crisis? How to Deal and Keep your Freelance Writing Clients
In a perfect world, your personal and business lives would run smoothly and completely independently from each other. One of the benefits of working as a freelance writer is that you get to make your own schedule for the most part. As long as you turn in your assignments on time, your clients don’t really know (or care) whether you do your best work at the crack of dawn or you like to tackle it in the small hours of the night. What happens when a personal crisis crops up? How do you deal with it in a professional manner and keep your freelance writing clients?
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5 Questions Freelance Writers Should Ask Prospective Clients
There’s a time when you are in discussions with a prospective client about a project but haven’t been hired for the gig (yet).Before you can say, “Yes” or “No,” you’ll need to get clear about a few things first. Here are some suggestions about questions freelance writers should ask prospective clients before deciding whether to take on a particular gig. [Read more…]
40 Actionable SEO Tips and Tricks From the Best in the Business
We rarely talk about search engine optimization on FWJ. We have, however, raised the question of whether or not a freelance writer has to know SEO. Here’s a quote from an article we published on the topic a while back:
No freelance writer has to understand SEO. You can be a wonderful writer without the knowledge of SEO, and this is truly the core of any writing career. However, many experts recommend that a freelance writer learn at least the basics of SEO in order to become more marketable. In other words, you will have an easier time becoming a profitable writer if you have SEO skills.
This is especially true if you want to put yourself out there and get clients to discover you online.
We’ve also tackled the topic of the benefits of having an online portfolio, and by knowing some SEO concepts, you increase the chances of your online portfolio getting eyeballs.
While I do believe that the best SEO is still excellent content that people will want to read, there are certain technical concepts and practices that give your site a boost. How do you learn about these practices?
Follow experts in the niche.
I have to admit that I know some “SEO stuff”, although I am far from being an expert, but it’s part of the job. I read and read some more, then test the principles out. Guess what? I do see some results.
So, if you want to improve your online portfolio or blog’s visibility, you might want to learn a thing or two about SEO.
Knowing how hectic a freelance writer’s life can be, I don’t expect you to be able to carve out a lot of hours to study SEO. That’s why I’m sharing this infographic titled “40 Actionable SEO Tips and Tricks From the Experts”.
It’s short and sweet, with experts in the niche giving bite-sized yet practical tips.
I hope you find it useful!
You might also find this useful:
From the Writer’s Perspective: How to Get In on the SEO Scene
Catch Writing Mistakes More Easily With Grammarly
We all make mistakes and typos, but that’s what proofreading is for, right? There’s also Word – or whatever software you use to create documents – which has spell check built in. However, we know quite well how Word misses a lot of mistakes, especially when it comes to more complicated syntax. Also, Word is useless if you’re typing on your browser.
That’s why I was really interested when the guys at Grammarly got in touch to share their new web app, which does what Word does, but more effectively and more efficiently. In fact, Grammarly is supposed to find and correct up to 10 times more mistakes than the conventional word processor. Of course, I had to give the app a try! [Read more…]
22 Websites That Pay Freelance Writers in 2015
There are several ways to find freelance writing gigs. Answering ads posted on job boards is one method, and you probably want to try more than one approach in your search for gigs. Another way to find work (and one that may lead to a steady gig in some cases) is to approach websites that freelance writers for contributions for guest posts.
