I know what you’re thinking.

“Hah, the best time to be a freelance writer is never. Well, unless you want to live in poverty. Gosh, what a joke. Another fluff piece by some stupid kid. Get a real job.”

Look, I’m not going to pretend to be a cheerleader for the freelance writing community.

But I’m not one of those pie-in-the-sky writers trying to sell you some dream, either.

You know what I’m talking about. The “anyone can be a six-figure freelancer overnight” narrative is both boring and potentially dangerous for newbie writers looking to get their start.

That being said, I do think that we’ve truly entered the era of the freelance writer. I’m stoked about it, too.

It’s 2018. We have the touch. We have the power. Insert your favorite cliche here.

But why now?

[Read more…]

 

Deadlines. Deadlines everywhere.

But I’m running out of time.

It’s 11:59 PM.

I’m tired of writing.

And I’m hungry.

Crap.

Why do I keep doing this to myself?

End scene.

Whether you’re a full-time freelance writer or someone simply trying to grind out some content for your business, this story is probably a familiar one.

Listen: we’re all guilty of letting ourselves get bogged down by our writing workload. It happens.

However, failing to meet deadlines is no joke for writers looking to keep their clients happy and their reputations squeaky clean. While you shouldn’t let quality fall to the wayside for the sake of speed, you should try to work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Fortunately, there are tools out there to help you avoid yet another terrible time trap.

Best of all? They’re free.

[Read more…]

Like many freelance writers, I sort of stumbled onto this career path. I’d be lying like a madman if I said there weren’t some bumps in the road before I finally figured out how to make it work.

Literally.

While there were certainly some good resources for freelance writers out there when I was just starting out, it was a far cry from what’s available at your fingertips today.

Flashback to 2011.  Communities such as Facebook, YouTube and Reddit were somewhat in their infant stages for professionals. The writing community at large was dominated by content mills and bidding sites paying a pittance for articles. Competition was fierce and freelance writing resources specifically tailored for newbies were often scarce and vague.

Fast forward to present day, where it’s perhaps the best time to be a freelance writer.

Honestly, the amount of information out there for newbie freelancers is rather overwhelming.

That’s why I made this list.

[Read more…]

Is there such a thing as a “perfect” piece of SEO content?

Well, it depends on who you ask.

You might think that strict optimization would be unnecessary in an era where 91% of pages receive no traffic from Google, right?

The problem is that search engine competition is absolutely fierce at the top. That is, approximately two-thirds of traffic goes to the top five Google results.

This leads to the phenomenon of marketers following rigid SEO guidelines that they consider to be non-negotiable.

And likewise, this results in a ton of unreadable, over-optimized content

[Read more…]

Since entering the weird, wild world of writing for SEO in 2010, I’ve seen plenty of trends come and go when it comes to writing the “ideal” article with organic search in mind.

I’ve also seen a lot of bizarre and dubious strategies that writers try to pull off in order to somehow “trick” Google.

Keyword-stuffing. Cloaking. Excessive bolding. Private blog networks. Scrapers that spin articles.

Spoiler alert: none of it works.

Oh, and news flash: nobody wants to read keyword-stuffed, self-promoting garbage. Nobody. [Read more…]

Hey, here’s a quick story.

When I was wide-eyed and fresh out of college, settling into my first in-house writing position, I attempted to be a proactive “professional” by picking up some books on marketing recommended by industry “gurus” I had stumbled upon.

I thought I was being a go-getter.

Turns out I was just wasting my time. [Read more…]