Draft Beyond

Freelance Writing is one of the best jobs in the world. It allows you to use your creativity and knowledge to write something that could be truly useful to someone. However, freelancing isn’t for everyone and if you want to be a freelance writer, you first need to think about whether this is the right line of work for you. If you decide in favor of this line of work then you have a long road to success ahead of you.

But with a bit of determination and these tips, you can do it in no time:

The basics

First off, you’ll need some basic tools. A laptop or a writing device of some sort is a given whether you prefer a desktop or mobile devices for your writing. Next, you are going to need an access to the Internet, a good keyboard and space where you can work. These simple things are essential. You should also build a website or start an account on one of the freelancing platforms.

Set goals

Every successful project needs good goals. Without them, you don’t know where you are going and you definitely can’t measure your success. Write these goals down and keep them in mind. You should have short-term and long-term goals. Let’s say your long-term goals are to make six figures a year, start small and set short-term goals for smaller amounts.

Determine your pricing

Setting your prices is one of the most important parts of setting up your freelance career. Check with other freelancers and general pricing guides online to get a good idea on what your prices should be. Don’t be afraid to value your work. With good samples on your website and great communication, the client should have no fears in working with you.

Have a compelling proposal

If you offer a good package – research, content, SEO, formatting, and visuals, for example, you will have a much easier time getting clients. All of these things are connected and work together. If you can offer this as a package – or create a package of services of your own – you’ll have a good, compelling proposal.

Meet your deadlines

If you really want to get good reviews and get more clients, you should always meet your deadlines. Some pieces of writing take longer to write but that is still not a reason to miss the deadline. Those clients rely on you and you should respect their trust. If you can’t meet the deadline, let them know accordingly, giving them enough time to prepare.

Offer more value

Offering more value could mean a lot of different things. It could mean delivering before the deadline or being available for edits or anything else that you could offer to your client that helps them and adds value for your overall service. It shows your client that you care and that you are willing to share your time with them. They will respect you and value you more for it.

Being a freelance writer is not an easy job but it’s rewarding. You get to learn many new things, meet some great people, set your own schedule and help your readers in the process.

Copywriting is the art of persuasion. It requires vast knowledge from various areas like marketing, psychology and so on. The purpose of copywriting is to judge the readers into the direction of buying a product or a service. Over the years, experts have found that some techniques work better for this purpose than the others.

Here are some of the best techniques for good copywriting.

Tell a good story

People often don’t care all that much about you selling a product. However, they do care about good stories. If your copy tells a story with all the right elements, you have a chance at grabbing your reader’s attention and retaining it. Remember, the purpose of each sentence is to get the reader to read the next sentence.

Use facts

While telling a good story is really important, what’s even more important is using facts or you could lose your credibility and your reader’s trust. Be honest and transparent, share accurate and detailed information that the reader could find useful.

Be concise and simple

Copywriting is definitely not the best place to use flowery language and write long paragraphs of literary prose. No one is going to read that. However, they might read it if you are concise, direct and simple. Jargon or technical words are not your friends so you should stay away from them as well.

Share the benefits

People want to know about the features of the product but only in terms of how those features could benefit them. So, instead of repeating the long list from the product specifications document, take a few features and show readers how they transform into benefits. For example, a person doesn’t really care about smartphone features but rather what those features give them – large size makes smartphones easier to use, a good processor makes them snappier, a lot of pixels in a camera makes the pictures clear and beautiful and so on.

Adjust your writing to your audience

When writing copy, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that you have to fit your audience. For instance, if you are creating copy for a doll company, a serious, formal language would be a wrong choice. What would work, though, is the informal, friendly language that your audience could relate to. Use the words and sentence structures that can help you build a good relationship with your readers.

Be conversational

This is one of the most commonly heard tips related to copywriting. However, this approach has many pitfalls. For one, you could risk sounding overly intrusive and annoying. But if you stay informal yet respectful, you can’t fail. A real conversational tone is engaging and inviting, not over the top.

Ask questions

Another great tip that carries a lot of pitfalls with it. The right way to go is to ask open questions. What this really means is not to ask question s that could exclude a large part of your audience but rather to ask questions which inspire interest. For instance “Nice is the best Mediterranean destination, right?” is a bad, closed question that could exclude people that like other destinations better. So, “Which of these Mediterranean destinations do you like best?” is a much better question which invites people in.

Copywriting doesn’t have to be hard if you are willing to put in some work. Hopefully, these tips will help you improve writing.

Headlines are often the first thing people see when they encounter your content. They are your chance to invite readers in and give them an idea of the message that you want to share with them.

However, headlines are also very hard to write – well, at least good ones are. Short in length, they are deceptively simple yet they can take days to come into their final form.

Here are some tips on writing better headlines:

Everyone loves lists

List articles are extremely popular online. They give the reader a clear hint about the structure and what to expect. Listicles can also be very useful and helpful to the readers so they are often quite successful.

Use numbers in your title in order to attract some attention but make sure to only do it if your article is really a listicle.

Keep your promises

One of the worst things you could possibly do is create a clickbait title that either has nothing to do with your content or it tries to play on sensationalism. If you want some credibility and respect from your readers, you should definitely avoid them. While they might drive a lot of traffic, all of that won’t matter as much if your readers stop clicking on your titles.

So, if your article is about business books, make the title all about business books.

Who is the content dedicated to

When creating a title, you need to think about your audience. There are many articles with a similar premise but different uses in terms of who will benefit from them. For example, there could be many articles about best business books. However, you want to attract your target audience and not just the general audience who will not benefit from it or act upon it. If you are aiming at female entrepreneurs you should make your title targeted at them.

So, for example, the title could be “Ten Business Books To Help You Become A Strong She-EO” or something similar.

What makes your content different

Next thing you should think about are the features that make your article different from any other article. These could efficiently transform your plain title into something that jumps from the page and grabs attention. So, for instance, your title could now be “Ten Business Books By Powerful Women for Future She-EOs”

Optimize for SEO

Of course, your title won’t be of much use if your users can’t find it. Research keywords and decide which one you are going to rank for. Optimize your title so the keyword is near the beginning. This is one of the main factors in your article’s findability.

Use trigger words

Just like numbers instantly attract readers, so do many words and phrases. For instance, you can use the famous “How To…”,” Why”, “Introduction to”, “Beginners guide to” or “A complete guide to” at the beginning of your article. You can also use popular phrases like “DIY” or “in 5 minutes” within your title.

Creating headlines may be difficult but if you do it properly, you can reap many benefits from it. Consider these rules when creating a headline and dedicate some time to creating a few versions that can work for your content.