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 To Stay Motivated As A Freelance Writer

by Dusten Carlson
October 7, 2019

Ask a professional how to stay motivated as a freelance writer and a variety of suggestions will surface.
Often repeated will be the importance of setting goals, staying focused and, believe it or not, getting away from writing (at least for short periods).

Setting Goals

It’s imperative as a freelance writer to remember that unlike a regular job, no one is watching that tasks get done. Since freelance writing puts that burden on you, it is helpful to start each day (and week) with goals to shoot for.

Keep a list of deadlines for each day, and the days following, and use it to plug away at assignments.

Goals, by the way, can include setting a certain number of new-business pitches each day or week – a different kind of writing that can break the monotony from assignments like writing blogs.

Tips For Staying Focused

Working off a checklist helps establish a routine and a focus on what needs to get done.

When your focus feels like it may be blurring, set reminders about why you’re freelance writing in the first place. Place inspirational quotes or slogans around the workspace; set up alerts to be emailed or texted to yourself. Whatever it takes to establish and maintain that drive that is needed to succeed on your own.

Engaging with other writers can be quite helpful, too, to pick up motivation tips and just for general support.

Self-Care

Supporting your mental and physical health as a freelance writer is a third common denominator to surface when asking someone for freelance writing motivation tips.

Once again consider a routine, such as turning off the mobile phone or other electronic gadgets while you write.

Health-wise, be sure to get enough exercise as doing so forces you to get away from the keyboard and let your mind “recover” from an overflow of word production that freelance writing can cause.

Force yourself to take breaks from writing, such as attending social events are just scheduling a 30-minute walk each day, to get fresh air, rejuvenate your mind, find inspiration for writing topics or to simply break from thinking about writing all the time.