For writers, good SEO is all about writing content that readers value. Here are some universal tips to help you pull that off.

SEO can be a bit of a loaded term for freelance writers.

Your clients seem to expect you to know a lot about it. They’ll usually have a strong conviction that it’s important to get on the front page of Google, but a vague idea about how.

That’s where you come in. You’re the writer, so you know SEO, right?

Not so fast.

You might know a thing or two. But it’s also possible that some of the things you know are already out of date.

It’s kind of an unfortunate (and unfair) reality that writers often face unrealistic expectations from clients when it comes to SEO. Sure, there is no SEO without content, but that doesn’t mean that writers should carry water for technical, user experience, or reputational issues that might be dragging a site down.

SEO is not magic. One SEO-optimized article isn’t going to save a business.

If there are technical SEO issues (e.g., your client’s site load speed is in the gutter), then it doesn’t matter how good the content you’re writing is.

If your client is suffering from reputational damage, there’s not much your work can do to save them.

I also often hear from a lot of writers that there are ambiguities with clients about who’s responsible for content strategy, like keyword research and figuring out what to write about. You can read our post on that question here, but TL;DR, it’s not you (unless you’re being paid for it).

What are we getting at here?

When it comes to what writers need to know about SEO, the answer is this: you only need to know what you need to know to do a good job with the writing.

For writers, good SEO is about creating copy that readers find valuable.

Good SEO is just good writing that readers love.

Seems deceptively simple, right? How exactly do you create good content that readers love?

By looking at the kind of content that Google rewards.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”#SEOtip Google likes what its users like. That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader. #writertip” quote=”Google likes what its users like. That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.”]

Google’s business model depends on putting the best content they can find in front of their users. If you want to be valuable to your clients and offer them that kind of content, which stands the best possible chance to rank in Google Search, you need to know what kind of content Google likes.

To bring this full circle, Google likes what its users like.

That’s why we always say don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.

Now how do you do that?

These 6 tips will get you off to a good start.

6 quick SEO tips that will help your copy

No. 1: Improve your copy’s readability

After you write your first draft, put your editor cap on and look at your copy with these things in mind:

Are my sentences short?
Do I effectively transition between ideas?
Are my paragraphs “scannable”?
Have I used headings well to break up the copy?
Is my copy error-free?

You can also as yourself questions about tone. Are you writing for a general audience? You should, even if you’re writing more technical copy.

Are you using big vocabulary words or excessive industry jargon? This might make you feel impressive to your client, but it drags down the reader.

Try scoring your work against the Flesch Kincaid model. If you have a WordPress account, you can download the SEO Yoast plugin which will help immensely.

No. 2: Put a lot of thought into the title

A keyword-stuffed title won’t help you rank in Google these days. You have to spend extra time crafting a title with a reader in mind.

If your content is the best match for their specific question or has information you think they need, how will you get their attention? How will your title tell them “Hey! Over here! This is it!”?

Consider the following:

The title should be highly specific to the topic at hand.
It should use words that provoke emotion (but be balanced and strategic here, it’s easy to overdo it)
Headlines should be about 55-60 characters long, or roughly 6-8 words.
It should use the focus keyword in the first 3 words if possible
It should have a sentiment of some kind, or a “tone”

You can use tools like CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer to help guide your efforts. Shoot for a score of 70 or above.

No. 3: Use keywords strategically

Keyword use is probably the most misunderstood aspect of SEO for writers.

Long gone are the days when cramming a bunch of keywords into copy tricks Google into ranking content highly in search. (Don’t try it. You might get your client hurt.)

Some SEO experts have pointed to this as evidence that keywords don’t matter anymore. And since Google is opaque about how Search actually works, that theory seems as good as any.

Keywords are certainly less important if by “less important” you mean that it’s impossible to spam Google with blackhat SEO.

But obviously keywords play an important role. A keyword like “how to fix sink” isn’t a magic incantation, it’s something a user is actually looking for and needs an answer to.

Google wants to match quality content to users, and keywords are still an important part of that.

So, use your keyword in the title as we mentioned, in the introduction of your copy, and a few times in the body.

You can and should also use related keywords if they’re relevant to the topic.

Do not try aiming for an arbitrary keyword density score, or cramming unrelated keywords into your copy. That will dilute your copy’s ability to rank for the topic you’re writing about.

And don’t sacrifice readability for an exact keyword match. “Good cupcakes Atlanta GA” isn’t going to read well if you just jam it into your copy.

Google is smart enough to recognize it semantically if you write it into a sentence naturally (e.g., “If you’re looking for good cupcakes in Atlanta, look no further!”).

No. 4: Use high-quality links

Linking plays a huge role in what Google values. So much so that there are a multitude of ethically-dubious business models built around trying to “sell” links (“If more sites link to your content, Google will think your site is important!”).

We won’t get too deeply into that mess. But links do play an important role for writers, particularly when it comes to research.

You’ll most likely want to link out to supporting facts, figures, data, and commentary for anything you write. Linking is a good SEO practice.

But what you link to matters. If you’re linking to spammy, low-quality sites with bad information, Google notices, and will penalize your client’s site for promoting shifty content.

This means writers need to perform high-quality research and only link to high-quality sites. This can get complicated since many sites at the top of Google search for your topic may be competitors of your client. It goes without saying that you don’t want to link to them.

But links to published, authoritative studies, or non-competitive sites are valuable, so be judicious in your research and include links where you can.

No. 5: Write a good intro hook

One big signal to Google that content is valuable to readers? They stick around to read it.

Using your first 100-200 words to “hook” a reader is critical to getting them to stick around. Good writers use a variety of tools to keep a reader engaged, including:

Framing the article using a real-world anecdote
An attention-grabbing opening sentence (a bold claim, something shocking or humorous).
A surprising or shocking statistic or data point
An intriguing question that your content answers

If a reader clicks on your title, reads the first few sentences, and exits out of the page, that tells Google that the content wasn’t valuable to them, or that they didn’t find what they were looking for.

Some of that is inevitably going to happen. But if the introduction falls flat, is boring, or doesn’t pull in a reader, and most readers bounce off the page, it will hurt ranking.

No. 6: Add stuff your competitors missed

Google wants content that is unique, compelling, authoritative, relevant, and high-quality.

In layman’s terms, this means that your content has to do better than your client’s competitors.

Take a look at the top-ranking posts for a keyword or topic your client wants content written for. Ask yourself, or your client:

Do we have unique insights that our competitors don’t have?
Do we have data or statistics that are more recent or relevant?
Is there supplementary content we can add to give more value to the reader?

Of course, sometimes you will luck out and find results that don’t match the search query very well. In this case, the door is wide open to write a great piece of relevant content that has a strong chance of taking the top spot.

Takeaways

Many writers do eventually come to specialize in more strategic SEO and offer those services to their clients. But when you’re starting out, we think it’s important to laser-focus on the parts of SEO you need to know to do the writing part well.

For writers, that means writing well.

It means don’t worry about Google, just worry about the reader.

If you do want to learn more about SEO, we have a much longer article on this topic here.

If you have any feedback for me, I welcome it! Please reach out on LinkedIn.

Writer Tip

3 creative writing techniques you can use for almost anything

by Dusten Carlson

August 23, 2020

Is your writing too dry? Here are some creative writing techniques you can use to add a splash of color to your content.

Working with him was a real headache.

As a writer, he did everything right. His content was organized, meticulously researched, and well-formatted.

Annoying, right? (Kidding. The bad part is still coming.)

I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but something was … off. Even though his assignments met all of the requirements, I still found myself rewriting chunks of his copy before publishing.

This went on for months. I could not, for the life of me, figure it out. What was I supposed to do?

It wouldn’t be fair to let him go, because he was technically doing everything right. But at the same time, rewriting his content before publishing it wasn’t working either.

How could I coach him on how to improve if I couldn’t figure out what was wrong?

Then one day it hit me like a truck.

The content was just boring.

The assignment? Pop culture listicles. It’s cotton candy content. It’s supposed to be fun and engaging, maybe even a little humorous.

But his read like a dry, Wikipedia article. Just one fact after another in a bland, generic tone.

The facts and information were there. The sentences were short. But there was no flavor to the content. Nothing to keep the reader engaged.

And that’s what I found myself adding in constantly. Humor, personality, fun — the creative flavor that was missing.

Let me clarify something

I’m being very tongue-in-cheek in my retelling of this story about how “annoying” this writer was. It wasn’t the writer’s fault at all.

It was mine, as his editor, whose role it is to help him improve.

But there’s a happy ending to this story.

Once I figured out exactly what was going wrong, it was easy to coach him into the light. He became a better writer, and I became a better editor.

But what happened between us was incredibly instructive.

Indeed, “boring” content is something I continued to run into constantly with other writers.

There are a lot of reasons for it:

Writers are unfamiliar with the topics they are given
“Young” writers cut personality out of their writing to appear more “professional”
The writer is simply disinterested in the assignment

Let me be clear: Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers.

It’s a real, marketable skill that not everyone has.

But what are the boundaries?

It’s a fair question. How do you know what will be appropriate for a given assignment? How much is too much and how little is too little.

That’s why when I try to coach writers on either adding more creativity to their content (or easing up a little bit) I tell them to stick to the following 3 techniques.

These obviously aren’t the only creative writing techniques you might use in your content, and there are some assignments that just don’t call for a creative touch (technical writing, anyone?).

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers. #writingcommunity #writelife” quote=”Your ability to creatively express ideas is a major part of why businesses hire writers.”]

But these techniques are ubiquitous in most kinds of content you find on the web, whether we’re talking B2C, B2B, blog posts, sales copy, editorials, or those cotton candy listicles we mentioned earlier.

I hope it helps! But if you have any questions or follow-up, I’ll give you some details on how to reach me at the end of the post.

3 creative writing techniques to use in your work

No. 1: Anecdotes

An anecdote is a short narrative intended to illustrate a point or a theme that will be the focus of an essay, book chapter, or article. It’s a fairly common practice for editorials at publications like The Washington Post and The Atlantic and in non-fiction books.

You should recognize this one because I used it to start this blog post!

This is a useful tool because it hooks a reader’s attention and establishes a human connection by “putting a face on a problem.”

Where this is most effective: direct response sales copy, blog posts of any kind, news stories, and editorials, as well as more advanced career assignments like non-fiction books.

No. 2: Similes

“Then one day it hit me like a truck.”

Hopefully no one who read this literally thinks I was hit by a truck with the answer painted on the side.

This is a simile, or a figure of speech that uses comparison (e.g., “like,” “as”) to describe something in more vivid terms.

It would be fine if I’d said “then it hit me,” but by adding “like a truck,” I’m using a concept you can picture (the truck) to illustrate the actual impact I felt when I discovered the answer to my problem.

This is a great tool and you’ll see this one more than any other. Watch how other writers use this in the content you read as well.

Where this is most effective: Pretty much anywhere, though I’d avoid it in something more professional like a press release.

No. 3: Self-insertion

You can also think of this as “breaking the fourth wall.” It’s a quick aside where you as the author step in to say “what everyone is thinking.”

It can be used for humor or irony, but there’s a version of it deployed in more serious, journalistic content as well. For example, if a political figure is quoted saying something that is not true, the writer may, in the next sentence, insert a detail that contradicts the quote.

You might not often have the opportunity to write in first-person, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t use self-insertion.

I did it in this article when I inserted the parenthetical (technical writing, anyone?) a few paragraphs up. That’s a human insertion that isn’t technically first-person, which just goes to show there are more opportunities to use this than you may think.

Where this is most effective: direct response sales copy, blog posts of any kind, news stories, and editorials. Anything that calls for a “relatable, human” tone.

Final thoughts

Remember not to overdo it with creative writing.

While these techniques are incredibly useful when it comes to framing an idea in human terms, creating a visual to keep a reader engaged, and breaking tension, they can be abused.

You might make a conscious choice to use something like an anecdote to frame an article in the introduction. Doing so will certainly get readers engaged immediately, which every good intro is supposed to do.

Otherwise, I always tell writers to take a second look at their content before they turn it in, and to look for opportunities to add more creative writing techniques when the content starts to look dry or slow down.

Alternatively, look for creative writing you inserted organically in your first draft that doesn’t actually work on a second look, and eliminate it.

If you have any more questions about creative writing, or anything you think I missed, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn.

Writer Tip

How to pitch a guest post: 6 questions for writers

by Dusten Carlson

July 13, 2020

If you’re a freelance writer working on building your portfolio, guest blogging is a smart way to go. But how do you find potential clients, and more importantly, how do you get the job? That, my friend, all comes down to the art of the pitch.

How to pitch a guest post:

There’s no formula for a perfect pitch that lands you a guest post gig every time. Even if there were, the site’s owner has a schedule too, and may never see your email. But there are some things you can do to better your chances, and some definite no-nos to avoid.

First thing’s first — you’re not alone. Crafting a job-winning pitch is something every writer struggles with.

Until you get to a point where you can sell your services on networking or name recognition alone, it’s a slog. So where can you turn for help?

Well, it depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. Do you want to become a columnist at the New York Times? Do you want to craft SEO content that helps small businesses stand out in search? Do you just want to write a fun listicle at Buzzfeed?

Where you’re at in your career, what your ultimate goals are, and who you’re looking to pitch all change the calculus of how to pitch.

There are dozens of articles on this topic all over the web, some better than others. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to focus on the general best practices that should help you no matter what you’re pitching.

To help you get there, we’ll give you 6 questions you should ask yourself before you click “send” on that pitch.

We’ll also cover some red flags that immediately disqualify you no matter who you’re pitching, including the downside to using pitch templates.

Pencils up!

Question #1: Who are you pitching?

We know how it goes. You sit down, you pick 20-30 good targets for a pitch, you find their contact email, you send them a note.

But you have to do a little more than that next time.

Remember that ultimately you’re pitching a person. A human being is going to read your pitch and make a decision about whether or not to hire you. Whatever you can do to make a human connection in that first sentence, you should do.

Try to find the site’s owner, manager, or editor on LinkedIn. At least look at the About page and see if you can glean details you can use when you introduce yourself. Learn about them and use what you learn to make a connection.

I see right through this tactic when I read a pitch that starts on a more personal note. And still, I fall for it every time.

Applicants who have done some looking into me and the company seem like they’re more serious, and I’ll at least check out what they have to say.

It might feel a little creepy. But opening with something like “Hello from a fellow racquetball player!” is not the same as “you have cute kids!” or “your house looks just like mine!” which, yes, would be extremely off-putting. Trying to establish a connection on a shared hobby is perfectly harmless.

This isn’t always easy to do, of course. Some email addresses you’ll find are just “contact@” addresses.

But a person who represents a brand is still reading the applications.

If you can’t figure out who you’re pitching, try to glean something about the values of the company or the owner of the company you’re pitching and talk about how it resonates with you.

Be resourceful. Be genuine. Sending a generic email to every email address you can find only shows that you’re hoping for any job. This approach shows that you actually want this job.

Question #2: What do they publish?

Anyone you’re going to pitch has put out content before.

So what’s it like?

How much of it have you read?

What topics have they already covered?

Make sure you read up on the potential clients you’re pitching as much as possible. Not only do you want to make sure you don’t pitch them something they’ve already covered, getting familiar with what they’ve been putting out so far will give you ideas on how to sell yourself.

What I mean is that if you have a certain background or skillset that isn’t showing up in what they’ve published so far, the pitch would be a good place to talk about it.

There are good ways and bad ways to do this, of course. I wouldn’t advise saying something like:

“I noticed you don’t use keywords. You’re missing out on a lot of business! I’m an SEO writer, hire me and I’ll write good keyword content!”

Be a little savvier; humble-brag about your skills, but let them connect the dots.

For example, take a look at their previous coverage. It might give you an idea for a pitch, as well as an excuse to talk about your competencies.

Instead, your email should sound something like this:

“I’ve noticed you’ve covered this topic back in 2018, but a lot has changed since then. For instance, [points A, B, and C]. I think your readers would benefit from another take on this topic, and I’ve not only written on this topic before, but I use more recent SEO best practices that have helped previous clients climb in the rankings.”

Getting a sense of their brand voice will also help you (if you get the job) to write better content they’ll be happy to publish.

Also, you might want to check out their social media profiles. See how they interact with their audience, or make announcements. If they post memes, that would suggest they’re comfortable with a more casual, humorous approach from time to time.

The point is, there’s a lot you can learn from the content they’ve already put out there, both in terms of what they like and how you can help them improve.

Last tip: Whoever you’re pitching may also have submission guidelines already. Try to find them. (Pro tip: a lot of more popular publications and blogs make these guidelines kind of hard to find to discourage casual pitches, so it may take some digging).

Question #3: Ask yourself, ‘how can I add value?’

There’s only one thing an employer is thinking when they read a pitch:

“How will this add value to my audience?”

Sure, maybe they ask it like “how will this help me drive sales” or “how will this help me go viral” but the core of what they’re asking is all about how a potential reader will benefit.

Because if the reader benefits, this is how your client will feel:

After doing your research on who you’re pitching and what they like to write about, you should have something pretty specific and insightful to open your email with.

But that just gets you a seat at the table.

To close the deal, you need to demonstrate how you can add value.

You don’t need to try and skate around the fact that you want this employer to do something for you. You want their money, or exposure, or both. They know this already. What you have to do is justify why they should give it to you and not everyone else who has sent them a pitch.

Maybe the value you bring is a fresh angle on a topic they’ve covered, or something relevant to their audience that no one else is talking about yet. Maybe you bring a special insight to the topic that will make their content more unique.

The point is, focus on what their readers will find value in, and how you can provide it. An employer is not going to help you if you can’t explain how you can help them.

Question #4: What will make them ‘bite’?

I’m sure this will be a controversial point, but go with me on it for a moment: Whoever you’re pitching, pitch your best idea right away.

I hear the critics already. Some writers might be afraid to share their “best idea” with a potential employer because that employer could always just take the idea and run with it themselves.

Well, here’s the truth about that…

… Yes, that could totally happen.

I know.

BUT. If you’ve worked through questions 1-3 by this point, you should have a pretty bespoke idea for each pitch, right?

If a pitch is so generic that you can send it to 100 different outlets, then it’s probably not exciting enough to appeal to even one of them.

The point is this: Pitch ideas are cheap. Execution is everything.

Pitching a compelling topic is your chance to show off. It’s an audition. You need to give an employer something to picture. Something that they’re excited to share with their audience.

If they like the idea enough, they’ll hire you to write it.

The worst-case scenario is not that they “steal” your idea and assign it to someone else.

The worst-case scenario is that you pitch vague, generic concepts, or promise great ideas for content after they hire you, and they delete your email.

Question #5: Can I deliver flawless copy?

We’ve made this point in other posts, but it bears repeating often: Your client is not your editor.

You are a writer. The reason freelance writing is a career at all is that writers have a skillset their employers don’t have: the ability to write well.

So, it should follow that you actually bring the skillset that you were hired for to the table.

Freelance writing can be difficult. When you’re starting out, you likely take lower-pay jobs, and you need to work as quickly and efficiently as possible. You don’t always have time to give each piece of copy the once-or-twice-over it deserves.

Not only that, some writers rush in with a half-formed idea and write without any sort of outline, hoping they figure it out as they go.

Sometimes that works well enough and saves you time. But more often than not, it results in a choppy piece of content your employer has to fix.

If you turn in copy that your employer has to fix, it almost guarantees you will never work for them again.

What do you think takes up more time? Crawling the web, “cold calling” for opportunities? Or taking the time to knock each piece of content you write completely out of the park?

Pitch the clients you actually want to work for. Then, deliver them flawless content they’d be crazy not to publish. Invest in recurring opportunities with those clients, not the “cold calling” approach.

Question #6: Am I easy to vet?

So, to recap:

You’ve made a connection
You’ve studied their content
You’ve shown how you can add value
You pitched a great idea
You can turn in flawless copy

If I’m reading this pitch, I’m feeling pretty good about who you are and your ability to create great content. There’s just one nagging thought left in my head.

“How do I know I’m not going to be catfished again?”

I’m going to let you in on a little secret.

This happens a lot.

A lot.

Everyone who has ever hired a writer has a horror story (or 12) about a well-written pitch, good writing samples, and customer reviews that sound great, only to hire the writer and receive a first draft of copy that looks like the result of a keyboard being thrown down a flight of stairs.

I have to be honest and say I don’t know what accounts for this. Some of it might be the grind on freelance writers earlier in their careers. They feel pressured to turn in copy quickly, collect their check, and move on to the next opportunity.

Maybe there are well-written pitch templates that they just drop a potential title into and that’s enough to convince some employers to hire them.

I have also encountered writers who run their own mini-agencies, paying less-experienced writers 1 cent per word or less to do most of the heavy lifting. That writer then punches it up a little and puts their name on it.

The freelance/employer dynamic is a little broken. There are plenty of employers who can’t explain what they want, skip on pay, and berate and abuse writers. But keep in mind that there are good employers who also get burned in this dynamic.

The solution? Make it easy for an employer to verify that you are who you say you are.

It’s something we’ve written about before, and indeed, it’s a grounding assumption of ProWriter’s own business model:

Employers need the confidence that you are who you say you are and can do what you say you can do.

One thing that those potential catfish applicants have in common is that for all intents and purposes, they don’t exist online. No social profiles, no website, nothing.

An active digital footprint is an asset, and that trend is only going to increase in the coming years.

My advice? Put a picture, your name, your website, and your social channels in the signature of your email pitch. Be easy to find and verify.

You don’t need every profile on the planet, just a couple. Or, you can just use a ProWriter profile, which pulls together all of your links and includes third-party identity verification.

TL;DR: Be a real human!

Pitch templates: a HUGE red flag for me

At this point, you might be thinking something like “okay, this advice makes sense, but you’re asking for a huge time commitment boost to my pitching game and that’s just not realistic.”

I get it. Like I said above, I understand the grind of the freelance writer’s first couple of years.

But let me tell you something about the competition, i.e., the people you’re competing with for the jobs you want so badly.

They’re not really a threat.

As a former editor, it wasn’t uncommon for me to receive 500 or more pitches when I posted an ad on Upwork, Problogger, or other boards.

Even if I wasn’t actively looking, it wasn’t uncommon to receive 15-20 a day.

Almost all of them wound up in the trash.

Why?

Because most of them look like this:

Where to even begin with how wrong this is?

It makes a generic attempt at connection, but doesn’t even name our business
It promises “exclusive” value, but doesn’t explain what that value is
It’s a “cold call,” skipping any interest in who we are and just asking us if we’re hiring
It gives me the homework of coming up with angles they can write for me
It’s not well-written
I have no idea who wrote it and no way to vet them.

This is obviously just a copy/pasted template blasted to everyone on an email list in a desperate attempt to get a gig.

If anyone who saw this pitch hired this writer, I will buy them a steak dinner and get their story.

My guess is the same as yours: that no one bothered, and I will eat alone.

Here’s the point

If you feel like this post is asking you to put too much into your pitches — that you don’t have time, and that this is too much effort for anything other than a sure hire — know this.

Yes, pitching is a slog.

Most pitches go unanswered, or get a “no.”

But you would be stunned how low quality most pitches are.

A Point Visible survey found that a lot of pitches editors get are so bad, they don’t even bother to read them, and that nearly half of submitted content is terrible quality.

If you take nothing else away from this article, chew on this:

Whenever the competition is this bad, it means there’s an opportunity for good writers like you.

More resources for writers

If you want some more technical advice on this topic, especially with regard to finding opportunities using search, this post from Neil Patel ain’t bad.

If it’s not obvious by now, I would advise skepticism toward blog posts offering “pitch templates” for the reasons outlined above. Using a template you found online is like using another writer’s toothbrush.

It just isn’t right.

You can use a pitch template to get an idea of how to pitch, but ultimately, you need to figure out what works for you and custom-pitch each outlet.

If you want to learn some SEO skills to humble-brag about in your pitches, you can check out this free guide ProWriter put together specifically for writers. “SEO” can come off as kind of a buzzword when you talk to clients, so don’t oversell it.

The smart position is to look like you know enough about it to be a good writer for digital. Don’t try to push yourself as some kind of guru. There are a lot of people that do, and it usually engenders suspicion, not confidence, in employers.

We post bonus SEO tips on our social channels, so find and follow us @prowriterhq.

If you’re new to writing and/or need a professional online writing portfolio, ProWriter has a free one you can create here.

Lastly, we have a newsletter that aggregates job posts from all over the web every Monday. We also offer other free resources for writers in each issue. You can sign up here.

Writer Tip

Build Readability With These Three Tips

by Dave Polykoff

January 27, 2020

Bloggers, writers and other content marketers know that engaging content is the name of the game. If their content is boring or turns people off, it is game over.

Readers that aren’t interested in a story aren’t going to finish. They’ll leave the page mid-read, which not only means that they won’t learn as much about your organization, it can kill your site’s search engine rankings.

How do you get readers hooked? It is a skill that content marketers can learn and then master with practice.

Short and simple well-written content build readability

Quick, punchy and easy to understand sentences are the building blocks to readability. Luckily, you don’t have to guess at exactly how short something should be. Break up your text every 80 to 100 words and you should be fine.

In addition to being shorter, the content should be well written. If the content contains endless, wandering sentences that don’t seem to have a point, why should readers continue to the end of the page?

Leave the reader with something they didn’t have before

In addition to a shorter structure for your content, be sure that the content itself provides the reader with something new. Something they need that can’t be found on every other site.

Original, compelling content will keep people reading through until the last paragraph. As long as they’re getting information that they find is valuable, they’ll stick around.

Use graphic elements to break up text blocks

In addition to short paragraphs and interesting information, use graphic elements between areas of text to keep readers moving through your page. Place them every 200 words or so.

What kinds of graphic elements? Photos, pull quotes and subheadings work well. These elements also help people scan through the article and understand the news, advice, and information you’re trying to tell them.

As you use them, you’ll see that graphic elements act like bread crumbs, leading readers to the destination you’d like them to reach — the full end of your story and any calls to action you have.

Writer Tip

Starting Strong: Writing A Great Intro For Your Blog Post

by Deborah Cameron

January 14, 2020

If you’re going to do one thing right on your blog, make sure you start strong. When you nail your blog post intro, you hook your readers. High traffic and engagement numbers follow.

But how does it happen? Can you do it well? With a little common sense and creativity, it’s easier than you think. If you can remember just two steps, you can get it done.

Start With An Invitation. Make It Memorable.

Just as with any other party, start your blog post with an invitation. Make it compelling and personal. Use it to address the reader directly and tell them what to expect.

Ultimately, this your invitation should be a more developed follow up to your headline. It leads the reader down a path to the rest of your content.

As you set your invitation, get creative and make readers curious about the details. Don’t show them everything right away so that they’ll want to stick with you to learn more.

Add Humor, Personality, Or Both

Nothing reflects better on your company than a well-told joke. Once you know what you want to say in your invitation, consider adding humor. It can give a more down-to-earth impression of your brand or business culture, and seem more welcoming.

Along these same lines, don’t be afraid to let some of your personality shine through. What does this look like? Think about the kinds of things your company represents.

Are you casual? Sometimes shocking? Playful? Does a certain kind of music embody your mission? Show that and more.

Two Steps Keep Readers Around

Revealing who you are from the earliest parts of your blog is one of the best ways to keep your readership and engagement numbers high. It helps people want to get to know you for the long term. Sure, it may take a little longer to get it right. It’s worth it.

Writer Tip

How to Find Images for Freelance Writing Work

by Dave Polykoff

November 4, 2019

As a freelance writer, there are many challenges that you face in your pursuit to provide a powerful product for your clients, especially if you’re trying to keep your costs low.

One such challenge is finding the right images that will add context and value to your content without breaking your bank.

The following is a quick and dirty overview of how you can find images for your clients:

#1 – Use Royalty-Free Images

Royalty-Free images are stock photos that are a part of a service like Shutterstock, Getty Images, and iStock. You pay license one time and then can use it as much as you’d like. Searching for the perfect image is easy, as there are numerous photos on most any topic and featuring all sorts of people, animals, products, places, and more. If your budget is limited, this option may be a bit pricey — if so, reach out to a sales rep and see if they can give you a deal. Sometimes they are willing to work with small companies and freelancers.

#2 – Public Domain

There are some images that have copyrights that expired or never existed. You are free to use these photos for both personal and commercial use. Just make sure you understand that public domain laws are different for every country.

In the United States, public domain images are free to be used throughout the world. When using an image, make sure you read their disclaimers. Visit Flickr Commons, USA.gov, 1 Million Free Pictures, Free Stock Photos, and My Public Domain Pictures to find tons of great images.

#3 – Creative Commons

Creative Commons refers to image licenses that are free to use but have restrictions based on type. Types include Attribution 3.0 and Zero.

Attribution 3.o images can be found on:

Zero images can be found on sites like:

As you navigate through the realm of finding images, try to think out of the box. Have fun with the process, and you’ll be amazed at how thankful your clients will be!

Career Help, Writer Tip

Common Writing Mistakes Every Writer Should Watch For

by Dave Polykoff

October 31, 2019

Writing mistakes can quickly ruin even the best-researched and well-written pieces. New writers may feel intimidated by all the grammatical, story flow and other rules whether written or unwritten.

To forge ahead, understand that a handful of key tips can help avoid writing mistakes consistently. Don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over; and in the process strengthen your writing work potential.

Know Contractions

First, know how contractions operate. They just combine two words, as in “you” and “are” into “you’re.” When in doubt about it’s vs. its, or your or you’re, try this. Insert the option with the apostrophe, then say it aloud as the two words it’s supposed to represent. For instance, if you wrote “It’s you’re game,” say it without the contraction. “It’s you are game” indicates to use “your” instead.

You vs. you’re, its vs. it’s, and they’re-their are among the most common grammatical problems with writing. Often the option without the apostrophe, such as their, your and whose, describe possession of something: like your game in the example above. But saying it aloud is an easy trick.

Straightforward Grammatical Rules

Simple grammatical mistakes can convince readers that an article is sloppy or untrustworthy. Get comfortable that when choosing between “who” and “that,” go with who if it refers to a person. Joe is a driver who rarely speeds. Picking “then” or “that”? Remember than helps compare things. You’re better than that.

Some little writing rules are straightforward. Never use “alot” – a lot refers to a huge number of something, and allot means to assign or share. “Alot” is nothing.

Beyond Spelling and Grammar

Beyond grammatical and spelling errors in writing, important things to avoid are sentences that are too long or have too many commas. Good, easy-to-read text is best in bite-sized pieces. Keep sentences short. If you run across a long sentence divided by a comma, consider making it two sentences.

Same with too many commas in a sentence; it can break a reader’s train of thought and possibly confuse. Again, consider breaking the sentence into separate thoughts, or use a semicolon instead. To delete a comma, try “but,” “and,” “if,” “since” or “although” instead.

Eliminate Clutter and Plan Ahead

A writing mistake to avoid is clutter. If something seems to interfere with the flow of text or a reader’s ability to digest content, eliminate or replace it. Examples can include too many quotation marks around words; the above-mentioned overuse of commas; and too many pronouns.

Finally, a big writing mistake to avoid is disorganization. Either start from an outline or rough sketch of points you want to make and in what order, or in the end broadly review a draft from the perspective of organization. Does A lead to B which leads to C? Think of paragraphs as acts in a play.

Help guide the audience along with transitional words or sentences between acts, or with formatting options like subheadings or bullet points.

Writer Tip

Writing Short Sentences And Paragraphs The Right Way – And Why It Matters

by Dave Polykoff

October 28, 2019

Why do writers and bloggers struggle to write short sentences and paragraphs? It’s vital today to acknowledge demands on readers’ time – and make it brief accordingly. Writing short sentences and paragraphs the right way means better readability and more powerful statements. Consider these tips and see what happens to your content:

Write It, Then Quickly Revisit It

Write out ideas as they surface, so during a first draft let it flow regardless of brevity. However – and this is where it’s important – go right back and try to shorten each sentence. The “delete” key can be your ally. Go back and consider eliminating:

Unnecessary words. Delete a word and read it again. If the sentence still makes sense, you were right to delete it. Try deleting the word “that” whenever possible and see if it changes anything. Do you “write down,” or “write”?
Overload of phrases. Poor writing contains too many phrases. “In today’s world,” for instance, can be simply “Today.” Or consider this: you’re not cutting it out, you cut it. Fewer words, and even shorter words, get readers to the point faster.
Adverb clutter. Few things bog down content more than adverbs. Do you totally or actually agree, or agree? Delete words like “actually,” “totally,” “usually” and “fairly” and your content will be shorter and clearer.
The needless modifier. Words like “good,” “just,” “almost,” “hardly” and “simply” just modify nouns and are often superfluous.

Split Long Sentences And Paragraphs

Find sentences of 30 words or more and try to break them in two. You can be amazed at how easy this is; using a semicolon can be helpful. Same goes for paragraphs exceeding 100 words. Shorter paragraphs are easier to digest.

Why It Matters To Write Short Sentences And Paragraphs

Consider two things: competition and short attention spans. Readers have evolved accordingly. One summary says during Elizabethan times the average sentence was 45 words. They shrank to 23 words by early last century, and down to as little as 14 words today.

Studies show today’s average human attention span is eight seconds – down from just 12 seconds at the start of this century. This at a time when technology brings information to our eyes at alarming speeds. Readers have little time for the unnecessary. So many things vie for attention that short sentences and paragraphs are critical toward maintaining interest.

Keep messages clear, short and sweet, or readers won’t stick around.

Career Help, Writer Tip

Simple Tips to Keep Freelance Clients Happy

by Dave Polykoff

October 24, 2019

No two freelance clients are alike. Any freelance writing veteran can tell you keeping clients happy can depend on a number of factors, including a company’s size, the industry, or personalities involved. Still, there are a few tips for keeping freelance clients at peace that seem to apply to most of them.

Deliver on Time

Always meet given deadlines seems simple. Make it a habit by properly planning ahead, and this super-simple tip pays dividends on a broad scale. Remember, time is money in business, so lost time equals lost money.

Know Their Wants

It can seem easy to get a topic and keywords and go off to the races to deliver. Not so fast: first you should truly ascertain what the business does, and what it wants. Knowing the end goal should help in producing the content, whether its more leads, more sales or just more attention. Acquaint yourself with all the client information you can to truly know the audience and purpose of the content.

Provide Quality

It seems a no-brainer, but learn to be consistent in weaving in search engine optimization best practices into colorful and engaging content, and you limit opportunities for complaints. Think how your client’s audience might type phrases into search engines, and lace that into paragraphs.

Compete Well

Along the lines of No. 3, go the extra mile to ensure your content uses top-quality, credible sources, and information from high-traffic websites to solidly back up your writing. Properly research topics, validate your work and compare well with the many other freelance writers out there.

Communicate

Never hesitate to ask clients questions if you have them, and try early on to establish an easy and comfortable line of communication. It doesn’t have to be lengthy conversations, either. Send one-line progress reports, ask a question well before deadline, or just post-submission feedback to keep communication lines robust.

Finally, try to go above and beyond what is asked. Spend extra time to consider what clients may need or want next. Simply suggesting new topics can do wonders toward making freelance clients happy. And nurturing satisfied clients keeps jobs coming and helps bring even more work.

Writer Tip

How Grammarly Can Make You A Better Writer

by Dusten Carlson

October 17, 2019

All professional writers would love to be complete masters of grammar. However, creating flawless first drafts isn’t a natural skill. Producing nothing but error-free work is nearly impossible. Even those who are well-practiced at proper grammar can still make handfuls of mistakes in their work.

Although applications like Microsoft Word can catch grammatical inconsistencies with a fair amount of accuracy, they don’t necessarily help improve your relationship with proper grammar across the course of time.

One superb program, Grammarly, could be your long-term solution to not only correcting your grammar upfront but learning how to avoid mistakes and write more effectively in the future.

How does Grammarly work—and how can it make you a more adept writer?

No first draft is perfect.

However, writers often struggle to look at their own work with a critical eye. That’s what makes Grammarly such an essential tool for writers—it helps you recognize your mistakes and turn any first draft into a grammatically-polished gem. From exposing misused punctuation to pointing out misspellings to identifying errors in sentence structure, Grammarly ensures that your final drafts are free of any errors that turn audiences off of your writing.

It’s extremely easy to use.

Signing up for Grammarly is completely free (unless you want to upgrade). One phenomenal feature of Grammarly that competitors haven’t matched is that you can plug the application into your Google Chrome browser. Grammarly will then help you with your grammar, vocabulary, and general writing across all online platforms, from your work emails to your Google Docs files.

How does it work? Grammarly jumps into action while you write. The platform catches grammatical errors in real-time and suggests a number of thoughtful solutions to improve skewed sentences, misused vocabulary words, and incorrect usage of punctuation.

A major plus of the program is that Grammarly is both highly useful for improving individual pieces of work and for helping you achieve artistic success in the future. In addition, the application can help you develop essential skills for constructing well-written pieces on a deadline.

How does the solution-based application help you become a more skilled writer over the course of time?

Grammarly helps make your writing both error-free and effective.

The application doesn’t merely seek out issues with the simple grammar of your work. A unique feature of Grammarly that sets it apart from other grammar-checking software is that it also helps you find ways to improve the pre-existing, grammatically-correct writing on the page.

For example, if Grammarly notices a string of words that could be more concisely summarized in one word, it will suggest that you replace them in order to make your work more succinct (i.e. suggesting that you replace “a great number” with “several”).

Features such as these (i.e. recognizing a need for conciseness) can help you produce writing that communicates more effectively and is consistently engaging. In addition, as Grammarly reinforces practicing effective sentence structure, word choice, and punctuation, it’s training your brain to recognize how to make more effective writing choices on your own in the future.

Grammarly Premium offers even more ways to improve.

If you choose to upgrade to Grammarly Premium, you’ll be treated to a plethora of useful features that can vastly improve the quality and content of your writing. Grammarly Premium has all of the same tools as the free version, yet includes features that can take your text from great to outstanding.

These include suggesting thoughtful and unique vocabulary words to replace bland ones, scanning your writing for genre-based stylistic choices, detecting plagiarism, examining your document for readability, and much more.

The upgraded version also provides logistical insight about your writing process (number of unique vocabulary words, your average sentence length, etc.) and facilitates access between yourself and a human proofreader ($.02 per word). The prices for Grammarly Premium currently sit at $29.95 per month for a monthly subscription, $19.98 per month for a quarterly subscription, and $11.66 for an annual subscription. While you may feel that this application is a bit pricey, it’s difficult to place value on an application that is a virtual editor, a grammar checker, and a writing coach, all in one.

Final thoughts

Grammarly can help you improve both your finished pieces/works-in-progress and expanding your writing abilities, making it one of the best grammar-checking applications available on the market.

Not only does Grammarly help you improve your writing in real-time; the application also enriches your writing skill-set over time.

Whether you go for the free or paid version of the program, Grammarly’s reinforcement of proper and thoughtful grammar, sentence structure, word choice and more is certain to help you become a more effective, succinct writer in no time.