How to Spy on Your Website Visitors for Fun and Profit
Even the best, most-useful product in the world won’t sell from your website if you’re attracting the wrong demographic. Millennials aren’t buying much in the way of arthritis ointment these days, and if you’re inadvertently attracting senior citizens to your site that sells clothing for teens, you’re missing the mark by at least two generations. […]
Writer Rant: Why Coffee is a Freelance Content Writer’s Best Friend
Welcome to Writer Rants–where every Friday a writer just lets loose on whatever the heck is bugging them this week. Enjoy. I never realized that when I spent several years working as a cafe supervisor training staff on the best way to brew coffee that I was actually in training to become a freelance writer. […]
Five Tips to Balance Your Special Needs Child and Your Freelance Writing Career
As a professional who provides website content services for multiple clients every day, I prioritize customer service. I know that one missed deadline threatens future assignments and ongoing income. Those consequences aren’t risks I’m willing to take, yet this past week, I almost missed a dozen deadlines as I cared for my autistic son during […]
When and How to Use Anecdotes to Personalize Content
Animating web content writing by including concise, relevant anecdotes within an article or blog is a great way to stylize your writing and keep readers interested in the rest of the article. Anecdotes are interesting, quirky snippets describing an amusing situation that you or someone else has experienced in the past. Unlike vignettes, which are […]
Improve Your Environment to Improve Your Productivity
Very few of us can agree on what productivity means. Is it writing faster? Creating more copy? Working more efficiently? We may not agree on the definition, but there’s one thing we all agree on: whatever productivity is, we all want more of it. You can download all the apps you want and make every […]
Is Your Agency a Vendor or an Advisor?
In the scramble for business, many agencies forget that their specialty positions them to serve as an experienced advisor. Instead, like a small-time vendor fearing the competition, the agency’s marketing materials may inadvertently reflect the attitude of a common client begging for a contract in a lean market. Its writers may be trying too hard […]
How to Write the World’s Worst Pitch Letter
If you’re a freelance writer for hire, the only way to ensure a regular income is to write a steady stream of pitch letters to potential clients. You may be trying out for website content services or looking for new private clients, but every time you pitch to a potential client, you’re making a first […]
Three Ways to Edit Your Own Work
Having a copyeditor used to be a normal part of writing and publishing that saved writers from embarrassing gaffes. Now that content is increasingly published directly to a website, being an editor is just another hat that writers have to wear. Offering website content services now means offering your self-editing services as well. If you […]
If Content Is King…
When you are developing a website, one thing you will hear repeatedly is that “content is king.” What this means is that the articles, blog posts, photographs and interactive portions of your website is what really matters as far as attracting and retaining visitors. This is some of the best advice you will receive—content is […]
Why Appearances Matter: How to Choose an Attractive Layout
No one’s arguing the Internet is anything less than amazing, with its proverbial tubes overflowing with the sweet, restorative waters of breaking news, social media and sneezing kitten videos. However, as website owners know, keeping an active audience reading through the entirety of a post — when there’s a perpetually distracting sea of tweets, status […]
For Online Success, Put Yourself in the Site Visitor’s Place
Has this ever happened to you? You’ve just done a search (probably on Google) for some information. You click on one of the results, but don’t see what you want. So you spot a promising link and click there. But still you can’t find what you’re after. So you go to the site map, hoping […]
Finding Absolute Top-Tier Writers
When you’re looking for a freelance writer, your choices are nearly limitless. From novice bloggers to world-famous authors, there’s no shortage of people willing to put words onto paper in an organized fashion. Yet how can you find a writer who is truly a masterful wordsmith? Especially if you’re a CEO, famous chef or celebrity […]