Whether you write website copy, e-books, magazine articles or blog posts, there’s plenty of competition out there. Upwork, the world’s largest online marketplace, has 12 million registered freelancers and (at the time of writing) 15,861 writing jobs available. Not all 12 million of those freelancers are writers, but enough of them are to ensure that competition for each writing job is fierce. And that’s just on one single site. [Read more…]
Will Casual Blogging Conversation Be the Death of Formal Article Writing?
A couple of days ago I wondered if it’s OK for freelance writing bloggers to talk like they speak. After all, blogging is a much more casual form of writing than what most of us are used to. While some purists don’t always appreciate a conversational tone when reading the news or learning about vitamin supplements, the truth is, that’s where we’re headed. The Internet has turned writers into bloggers and everything is all so ultra-cas now.
Writing for Short Attention Spans
Look around at your favorite news, medical and even government sites and what do you see? News sites feature more bloggers than journalists. News is no longer a one way show. We can digest and then discuss. We can even counterpoint if we want to – and receive more traffic with our rebuttal than the original post.
We’re told Internet readers have short attention spans and would much rather scan headlines and look for juicy bits than commit to an entire article.
Everyone giving a web writing lesson encourages us to:
- Write short sentences
- Use a conversational tone
- Break up text with sub heads, lists. and bullet points
- Keep it to 500 to 1,000 words
Twenty years ago it wasn’t so easy being a freelance writer. Now? Not so much. Anyone can become published on the web and many of us are even paid for it. The new breed of writers don’t have to have a degree in journalism or mass communications, heck, they don’t have to finish school at all if that’s not how they roll.
I’m not saying all this is a bad thing, but I often pause to consider where we’re headed.
Are we still interested in a formal tone?
I wonder what all this means for writing and writers now and in the future. Is America getting used to casual, short attention span reading? Are we doing the bulk of our reading via smartphone on the morning commute?
Do we trust a conversational tone over a formal tone?
It was announced yesterday that Newsweek is up for sale as newsweeklies lose their influence. We’re now learning what we need to know in 140 characters or less, so who has time for an entire magazine? If our trusted sources can’t be considered influential anymore, what can?
Where are we headed ?
I know there are many of us who still enjoy holding books or newspapers. As loyalists get older and the younger generation finds new methods of reading, paper copies are going to be a thing of the past. Why buy books and magazines when we can listen to them or download them onto electronic readers? Why recycle or dust worn volumes when there’s no need? Even I, the daughter of a librarian, am moving towards more electronic reading and fewer physical copies.
It’s no secret that it’s more difficult to read on a screen, which is why we teach short and sweet web writing now. Does that mean we’re going to be writing more to accommodate laptops, electronic readers and short attention spans? As more “citizen journalists” try their hand at this blogging thing, what will happen to the old school way of writing?
I recently wondered about the future of reading. To be honest, I’m more interested in the future of writing.
What are your thoughts on this? Does our future show a more casual way of reading and writing?
Freelance Writing for the Web: A Change is Gonna Come. Are You Ready?
While many FWJ readers may write primarily for print, I know that many others (like me) have businesses built primarily on writing for online markets. This post targets those of us who make a living online, so to speak.
The Big Question
Why do people pay you to write?
Is it because…
- You’re so damn talented?
- They can’t do it themselves?
- You can make the content creation process more efficient?
- Clients love your website and/or pitches?
- You have a special skill or area of expertise?
No.
Those may be reasons why clients choose you over other writers, but people come to the marketplace in the first place for another reason. They think they can use what you produce to turn a profit. They want to make money.
Sometimes I wonder if too many online writers spend way too much effort thinking about how to get work now and how to compete for gigs while spending far too little effort thinking about that bigger, core question. I wonder if many web-based freelancers may be setting themselves up for future struggles because of it, too.
A Change is Gonna Come
That’s not because I foresee a sudden drop in the demand for online content. On the contrary, I think that a variety of new and even lucrative opportunities is on the horizon. However, I do question the longer-term viability of many markets upon which writers are building businesses. I wonder how many writers will survive and/or react as the Internet and the way we use it changes.
In order to protect yourself and your business, it’s important to delve into the reason why demand for writing exists–the profit potential of the output. That means having both a solid understanding of the strategies clients are employing in pursuit of revenue and the greater trends that will undoubtedly force changes to those strategies and to the marketplace as a whole.
For instance, any writer who isn’t thinking about inevitable changes in the nature of search engines is making a mistake. The search engines don’t stand still. Google and its smaller competitors are constantly refining their approaches and there are a number of reasons to believe that they’ll be forced to make some major adjustments in the relatively near future.
Those changes could have a major impact on what are “bread and butter” for many writers. Traditional article marketing and the mass production “content mill” approach will have a difficult time thriving in an improved search environment.
Last week I posted an interview with SEO Kieran Flanagan here at FWJ. He made a point of discussing both the changing face of link acquisition for SEO and the growing role of social media in his business. The days of using 500-word articles at a pre-ordained keyword density level and fueling them with a series of easy-to-acquire, low-grade links is on its way out. At the very least, the writing is on the wall.
At my blog, I recently posted about the less-than-rosy long-term future of low-quality content mill work due to market forces within the search sector and the increasingly untenable hypocrisy of Google in terms of how they’ve “banned” paid links yet are allowing other intentional methods of subverting their search algorithm to have an impact on SERPs.
You don’t need to agree with my perspective to recognize that there’s a lot boiling under the surface in the way people find and use information online. No matter how you think it all might unfold, you can be certain that, in the words of Sam Cooke, “a change is gonna come.”
Preparing for Change
We often talk about the need to spread risk when developing an overall approach to building a freelance writing business. That need is usually expressed in terms of “not putting all of your eggs in one basket.” That’s rock-solid advice–in the short run. In the longer run, it’s just as important to have a sense of what future eggs may look like and if there may be new ways to store them. Hell, the eggs we gather today may be poisonous before too long and we might all be laughing at the antiquated notion of using baskets.
People pay writers because they want to make money. Writers who aren’t sufficiently prepared to transition their talents and to apply them to new contexts aren’t going to be in the best position to help clients make money. Writers who have over-invested in strategies that seem to have a limited lifespan could be setting themselves up for a more difficult future.
That doesn’t mean anyone should abandon any part of his or her business that’s currently producing a nice stream of revenue. Make hay while the sun is shining. However, one should probably do that with an awareness of the need to move on to new markets and new approaches once the limitations of those activities start to become increasingly visible. Otherwise, you might find yourself well behind the curve while other writers profit from being ahead of it.
The Moral to the Story
Continue to focus on being a badass writer who offers the world’s greatest customer service. Continue to work on distinguishing yourself in the marketplace and do everything you can to become the best choice among those who are looking for a writer.
At the same time, look ahead. Make a point of learning more about why potential clients are looking for a writer in the first place and study the hell out of the marketplace and the kind of changes in advertising, search, social media, and all of the other things that are going to force changes in the way people conduct business and information acquisition on the ‘Net.
If you’re going to focus on online markets, be smart, nimble, well-informed and an expert in larger trends.
Looking in the Mirror: Reading Your Published Articles
I’d been thinking about writing this post for next week, but today I was reading through Deb’s job posting for the day and came across an article she linked to: “Driving Rules for Getting to the Point with Your Lede” and thought, “Hmm, that’s a good topic, interesting headline, I wonder who in the network wrote that one…” I clicked the link and realized it was my work. Oops.
Self-flattery aside, I realize I have fallen into a pattern of writing, editing, publishing and forgetting my work. When you first become a professional writer, once you get past the “Whoo hooo!” of seeing your byline, you read and re-read every article, noting every opportunity for improvement. Once you get the hang of it, you start skimming and finally when you have tons of work coming in and going out you scan for obvious errors.
I’m not saying writing for Freelance Writing Jobs is ordinary – it certainly isn’t unless writing for the number website for freelance writers is normal, I’m confessing to falling into a routine that can leave you high-fiving a piece before recognizing it as your own. When’s the last time you’ve read your own work?
Re-reading a piece after it’s been published is important for your self-reflection as a writer. It’s not just about what you can improve on, it’s also useful to discover what you do well. I’m great at adding humor and personality to a piece, which helps people relate to what I’m writing. Knowing my strengths helps me steer toward particular assignments and also helps me recognize when to turn that off because the piece I’m working on needs less personality and straight journalism.
And what about the times you discover the editing process has rendered your piece unrecognizable or worse, wrong? It happens and has happened to me fairly recently. If you don’t check up on your work who is going to tell the editor something’s up? A reader? Yikes!
After you hit send or publish, go back and check it out. You may discover new things about yourself (like you’re a better writer than you thought) and you may find a problem before someone else does!
Three Tips for Killer Web Headlines
The other day I wrote “Down with Deb Ng! Headline Writing 101” where I touched on misleading headlines and basic, across the medium rules for writing headlines. The responses are still coming in, many people tuned in to see what dirt I had on Deb and others were ready to jump to her defense – not that she needs it because girlfriend can take care of herself! Anywho, the headline was a success and I got a few emails asking how to write a headline the right way. The parameters change depending on the genre, so today, let’s look at web writing.
Brief is the word
Five words or less – what is the article about? That’s your headline. Search engines, busy readers and feed skimmers only need one glance to decide if they are going to click your link. Your headline can be longer, but readers often translate a wordy headline into a wordy article.
Writing great web headlines has gotten a little more complicated since the rise of social media and microblogging. Headlines not only need to be short for readers skimming search engines for interesting titles, you now have to think about the “Retweet factor” and link sharing. A short headline allows for retweeted or forwarded links, title and commentary.
Lists Rock
One sure way to increase your clicks is through lists. I’m not quite sure why people love lists so much, but I know I’m a sucker for those end of the year “Best Rock Songs of…” countdowns and the VH1’s “I Love…” series. Perhaps it’s because lists are direct and can spur debate – what was left out, what should have been ranked higher or lower, etc. They also work well on the web because they are skim-friendly and easily digested. “Three Tips for Killer Web Headlines” is more interesting than “Killer Headlines.” It’s also clear I’m talking about writing a great web headline as opposed to headlines about killers.
Punctuate for Pete’s Sake
I talked about this a little in my last post, but it is worth repeating. In the retweet, Google juice world, using punctuation to make a title brief and clear is one of the best ways to get a reader’s attention. Let’s take a look at a couple of web headlines:
From CNN:
Weir snubbed by ice tour; GLAAD upset
Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jamie Kennedy split
Now insert the missing words and the headlines become long and boring on the eyes: “Weir was snubbed by ice tour and GLAAD upset” or “Jennifer Love Hewitt and Jamie Kennedy have split.” Commas, semi-colons and colons turn long titles into catchy, clickable headlines.
Come across a killer web headline? Post it below!