Isn’t it incredible that your entire family can live off of your freelance writing job? The idea of making money while working from home(or anywhere in the world) is enticing, to say the least. The good news is that it is possible. However, you can often run into pesky problems, which can sometimes even turn into career-threatening blunders. And all that happens just because you failed to take care of a few avoidable situations. Let us discuss some of the common mistakes beginner freelance writers make.
You Copy
We are all used to looking at the phrase “100 % original content” in various online writing gigs that we routinely run into.
Many writers completely copy somebody else’s content. This act is called plagiarism, which is so common that there’s a company call Copyscape, which checks an article in terms of the amount of copied content it carries. Let’s just hope you aren’t one of those copycats.
All of your clients need your original work and Google makes sure that the perpetrators are punished for the same. A common punishment is to push the concerned webpage down to the bottom of the search results.
Hence, if you copy, you must change your ways. It’s a great loss for your client if both the readers and Google algorithm interprets your blogs as ‘less sincere’ and your content isn’t genuine.
You Don’t Understand SEO
The perception of SEO among most beginner writers is that more the number of keywords they stuff in the tags, the more they improve the page rank.
But that is far from truth. Back when the search engine algorithms were not uber sophisticated, this strategy may have worked. But no more can you do that now. Today, more the number of keywords are stuffed in an article, the more character it loses. Lack of character makes an article borin. And that is something you don’t want.
Also, It will be a faked piece. Not only does keyword-shoving make an article boring, it also affects readability. And what is the sole aim of our write-ups? That they’re read.
If you ensure that your keyword density is around 1.5%, you’re all good. Around four iterations of a keyword are enough. Two in the first paragraph and two in the last one can be useful for easy optimization.
You also run into another problem here. Even clients these days expect you to shove a lot of iterations of a keyword. And you’ve got a good deal of convincing to do, to make them understand this doesn’t work.
You Aren’t Professional Enough
This one is quite common among beginner freelance writers, and for all the wrong reasons! When you ‘work’ from your bed at home, it may not quite seem like ‘work’ to you. You might as well think that you could work from a jungle!
But that isn’t quite the way. No matter how many bean bags you see at a workplace, ‘work’ means ‘work’. And every work needs you to follow a decorum and discipline.
Irrespective of where you work from, professionalism is paramount. Another area where you might lack professionalism is language. You must avoid text language with your clients. Writing is your business right now. And it only makes sense that you come across as a businessperson to all your clients. Needless to say, text language is to be avoided. You don’t want to shower your clients with the over enthusiasm of emojis throughout your chats with them!
Mixing Writing Styles
You can write in multiple ways. The two most common styles of writing are professional and conversational. You employ a professional tone mostly in business oriented articles. Whereas a conversational style can be used in almost any genre.
All that it comes down to is the client’s decision. You must, hence, clarify the writing style your client is going for. In case it is professional, you should write just like you have been writing in your college examinations. It has that serious tone to it and conveys that some important information is being shared.
In case of a conversational style, you are supposed to write in an informal way. Write as if you are talking to a friend of yours. Sometimes you can even incorporate some humour to make your write-up an enjoyable read. But remember never to overdo it!
Mostly, a mix of the two styles works wonders to make your write-up both interesting and helpful to the reader.
Your Content Doesn’t Help
If your readers do not derive any substantial value from your content, all your effort goes waste. This is why you must offer original, authentic insights on whichever topic you write. For that, you need to put in much thought to it.
Think for yourself. Which one is more helpful? Writing about the evolution of freelancing, or the benefits it carries? Does informing the viewers about the history of freelancing make it special? If it does, then feel free to share it. But it’s common sense that nobody cares about where freelancing evolved from. What people are interested in is knowing how to go about it, what the involved challenges are and how to develop a network of steady clients.
You Beg for a Writing Gig
It is understandable that your freelancing career is in its infancy right now. You are eager to get some work, especially when it comes to bigger projects, and the ones you’d love to work on.Given the high level of competition in this field, getting gigs can often be difficult. But that doesn’t mean you beg for it.
Doing this is always counterproductive. When you plead to the client to give you work, the client gets to know of your desperation. You may get a chance to deliver free samples to the clients and you, obviously, would agree out of desperation. Clients may use it for themselves without paying you a dime for your efforts. Hence, avoid showing desperation like the plague!
You can also outsource some of your tasks to your friends. You may even think your clients won’t get to know. But that is a bad idea. Clients do understand your writing style. And writing style involves a lot of components which develop the overall feel of an article. If your clients catch your mischief, they may discontinue working with you.
This must make you learn one thing. That being ‘your own boss’ doesn’t involve being casual with your work. It means you have complete independence of the work you do. It is about meeting your clients’ needs in the best way possible.
Making it as a freelance noob is not always a difficult task. There’s much struggle in the initial periods of it. But once you develop a network of clients, work inflow starts to become constant and all seems good.
Let us know if we missed out on any popular mistakes that freelance writing beginners make. All the best for your career in freelance writing!