by Marty | Sep 22, 2011 | Finding Freelance SEO Copywriting Work
I just was asked by the good folks at Emory University to come speak to some students about freelance writing. I of course said yeah, because I really like talking to new writers, and letting them know that they can do it. The people over there at Emory have always been really nice to me, and I am happy and honored to be part of this.
This will be the third time I am talking over at Emory, but I also make some semi-regular appearances at my own Alma Mater, Kennesaw State University for the same kinds of things. I never plan what I am going to say too much, just kind of go and wing it, based on what people seem to want to know.
Generally, it seems like people want to know how to get started – and I always say the same thing: just get started. Young writers tend to romanticize this lifestyle (although it is pretty cool, I gotta admit) so it seems like it is harder than it is. I actually offer work at many of these things too – but don’t always have people following up on it, which is pretty weird to me. I know when I was a student, I would’ve killed for a chance to write almost anywhere, and my main point to aspiring writers is to keep working, even if you are not getting paid yet. If you stick to it and have talent and drive, you can make a very decent living doing all kinds of writing. I hope to illustrate that to them in a simple way.
So I hope to be entertaining and honest at least and can clearly express my love for this career path. If you are going to be attending this thing (I’ll post some details here when I have them) and want to know something specific from me, feel free to give me a yell, or comment below and I’ll certainly try to answer it for you – otherwise, I am looking forward to meeting some new folks, and get them fired-up about hurling verbs.
More info on this as I get it…
{later add}
It is called “Careers for Writers Networking Night” and will be held in the Winship Ballroom at Emory, from 7:00-8:30 P.M. it is in “the Duc” – Dobbs University Center.
I got one email on it so far, and will tell you – yes, we will be covering the basics of building a portfolio. Briefly – I think I have like 5 of my 15 minutes. Warhol would be proud. 🙂
—–
OK – it’s over now, and I didn’t spit on anyone I think, so I have that going for me. I did spill some juice at one point like a spaz – but no one was too close, so no harm…just embarrassing to spill something for no good reason.
I forgot how they run it, but it was really cool. There were tons of us writers there, covering a wide range of potential career paths. We introduced ourselves and then it was simply a big mixer – folks drifted around, talking about whatever they wanted to know with folks who could offer answers.
I talked a bunch (surprise, surprise) – but the students were great – not a silly question all night. I hope I answered some things for them – it was pretty active, and I tried to stay focused for them. I have no idea how many were there – but they were all on the right path, as far as I could see. Lots of intelligent, well-intentioned folks. Not one of them was at home, watching TV – they were all doing something to increase their experiences and understanding. From that aspect, it was a success for sure. I know I’ll see the work of some of them out there. 🙂
My thanks again to Paul Bredderman over there at Emory – he has always been a very great host, who holds quality events for his students. I hope they know how lucky they are – not every student has those kind of opportunities. But mostly thanks to the writers-to-be I talked to all night – I really appreciate you allowing me to come over, and chat with you. Always feel free to email me – I had a lot less cards when I got done, so feel free to ask me anything you want, any time. And welcome to it – writing for a living is pretty wonderful.
by Marty | Aug 14, 2011 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips
I gotta be honest – I don’t really suffer from writer’s block. Haven’t for years – though I imagine I could again struggle with it someday.
I used to get it more when I was trying to write some fiction, or create something “out of the blue” in some way. As my own work and demands became more tangible through the years, so too did my output, and my own expectations of such it seems.
I am not sure when things got easier in this regard as I have never really thought about it much – but I did notice recently that I never really have writer’s block any more, so I wondered a bit about why.
My conclusion (for now) was that I know I need to be working on something pretty much all the time to keep moving forward. So if one thing is not feeling right (common), I move away until it clears up. It happens in a pretty fluid way, and has for years – so it is kind of invisible to me unless I stare right at it.
Putting Lots of Stuff Out There
I literally should NEVER have a time when a number of projects don’t come to mind when I am thinking about what I need to do. Prioritizing them reasonably is another thing completely (yipes!), but I should always have lots of things with potential, and/or specific projects that need more immediate attention.
I am not that good at always remembering things, so I use a little whiteboard that is just beyond my normal vision – it is on a wall back behind my desk, but in front of me , so I can turn slightly to read it. I update it every Sunday night, so I can look at it and see what I thought I was going to be working on all week. This simple thing helps me – so if project one feels like an anchor or a demon right now, maybe I can spend a little time on projects 3-4 and return back to the first one later when I am better prepared for it.
It is kind of like getting away from work, but you don’t – you just move away from things that are stifling you for the moment, and bring your attention to something with less of an ominous leer. You find something lighthearted to do, and let the ugly thing wait its turn.
It is important to note, you must be aware of your deadlines, and don’t sandbag – not to yourself or (god forbid) a client. That is not the point. The point, is to take a feeling of stress and anxiety – one that will often cause endless circles of inactivity – and channel it toward something easy. Toss yourself a bone, give yourself a break. With something you can accomplish rather quickly, doing it well and first can often be enough to restart your motors for the big nasty thing you are mentally (or overtly) dodging. When you see yourself doing well, it will often allow you to attack something more challenging with a better frame of mind: you are on a roll, remember.
A simple shift of the day’s workload, and many times you can get warmed-up before attacking and pounding down the more challenging lumps.
The Old Tricks Still Work
I have used lots of writer’s tricks in the past – like copying something from a book, stream-of-consciousness babbling to loosen the jets a bit, scanning headlines, using search engines, looking at my competitors, and on and on…they all can work to get you moving across the blank page. I particularly like stream-of-consciousness writing because the things I write from there are pretty entertaining. But only a few gigs actually pay me to do that – and generally speaking, the pay is not too bad for it. But most often, free-writing is more of a way to loosen-up before digging in deeper to something, and I find it works very well for me. Like stretching first if you were a runner considering a marathon.
The idea I am trying to get across here, is stress about doing well on a challenging task can create a mental block. It can for me, anyway. This can make it feel like no good ideas are coming in, or you are stuck with nowhere to go. Hopefully, the schedule is not always piled high with ONLY these kind of challenges, and there are a few things in any day’s work that are easier to achieve, but still very positive things to do. If you are struggling with the challenge, focusing on the mechanical, or smaller tasks can get you warmed-up and ready to attack the worst ones.
For me, it was important to realize that a mental block was there because I get too worried about doing well to keep moving forward. Reducing the worry of my success helped me to beat this, routinely: I finally realized I am very rarely going to be called on to measure my own quality anyway, so learned to let it go. My job is normally to create, not measure quality.
I used to start over-analyzing things when I needed instead, to be continually creating things for others to analyze. When I focused on more work, I ALWAYS overcame these hurdles – always. Now, I need to really think about this to come up with something to say. Too busy for writer’s block. 🙂
In a nutshell: Question: How do you overcome writer’s block? Answer: Get back to work, silly!
by Marty | Jul 21, 2011 | Freelance SEO Copywriting Tips
Many webmasters I know might hire out Textbroker, or some form of writing service to bulk-up their site. SEO copywriters often get their starts now in these houses: they are burning and churning it out like never before.
I often get hired to mop-up the text that others keep spilling over the edges. In doing this tonight, I saw a place I might be able to help someone, specifically when you are looking at fixing some text you get from a mid-to-low level copywriter.
Why Lazy Content Is Risky
The issue with lazy content is, in time, oogleGay is going to get increasingly better at slicing-up what they are serving. Text that is creatively, thoughtfully, and intentionally delivered is one way we can stay ahead of them.
When you buy content in bulk from a low-cost/affordable text writing service, the writer you hire does not typically care at all about what they are writing. They are churning. Writers in these organizations get paid by producing legible bulk – so there is little inspiration to write something better when coherent-enough and faster-than earns you more.
It is all OK if the writer and the recipient reach agreeable terms, I am not trying to rock the boat here…but I am saying that most often, the recipient is left with something that is grammatically correct, but offering little more.
And the real point is, as the search engines improve, grammar on its own merit is not going to make the cut for long, if it works much at all for you the way it used to. You need flow. You need ideas. You need to keep those Pandas scrambling.
So when you are hiring-out your writing to get a good jump on something, know that you’ll eventually want to clean it up. Start looking for the telltale signs of lazy writing.
Finding Lazy Writing
This was a sentence in the page I was editing tonight (domain changed, just in case):
“[B]PigOinkyOinky.com has some mighty fine selections, with some very nice ones under $50[/B].” (Swear to Google, I only changed the domain here.)
The fact that they took the time to type out “mighty fine” rather than something else is almost admirable. Almost.
But to me, a sentence like this shows me that this is a typer, not a writer, and it shows they could not fill this idea with a vocabulary that made it seem effortless. Or fake it. They are stream-of-conciousnessing, but have nothing to say. They don’t care, nor did I reading it. They are getting paid by the keystroke, and it shows.
This type of stuff, when left alone, is going to struggle, if you ask me.
So is it workable?
Sure.
The post it came from had a single idea I could flesh-out – and I could see some lazy patterns in the writing pretty quickly, so just clipped them all out, and the rest wasn’t too bad.
For the sentence up there that made me see what I was dealing with on this page, I ended up with this:
“[B]PigOinkyOinky.com offers an affordable selection, with some very nice options under $50[/B].”
It says EXACTLY the same thing – just less knuckle-dragging. Standing on its own, it actually makes sense. The eyebrows separate. You get into 9th grade English class.
I used “very” as a modifier, because the target audience is a “Target-store” kind of shopper. Normally, I would work this out, for it is what I think of as weak writing…but it works here to flow with the audience expectations, and to keep the vernacular of the targeted group.
How I Identify “Lazy” Writing
As a guy who fixes this kind of stuff, what I look for are words or sentences that don’t make sense, and paragraphs that don’t carry an idea through from A-B logically. I cut out all the filler, and see what is left.
I try not to write more – I try to only cut or work out their mistakes. This is the key – you are typically cutting, not adding stuff during your edits. Many people get confused with that. But just because they gave you a 975-word page does not mean cutting this down to 300 awesomely stated, tight words would not do the same things for you.
Here’s a hint: It will help you more in the long term (and long tail) to edit harshly based on context, rather than trying to reap rewards from the extra padding of misplaced, “added-in” kind of words. The long tail needs an association of context to be effective, so meaning helps as much as the inclusion of keywords in many cases.
But really, to think that this kind of middling, lazy stuff is going to work for you in the search engines for long, when left as-is, seems kind of foolish to me.
I do think using this filler and low-rent forms of writing is a great way to get something moving – getting a site to age. But you have to fix it at some point, or it will likely NEVER go as far as you’d hoped.
I have seen ALL of the engines get increasingly better at identifying synonyms and related words, and trying to decipher meaning that is not tied so directly the empty chatter of repeated consonants and vowels. Use this to your advantage to improve the actual writing and meaning of the content – eliminate the stiff, SEO-keyword driven repetition that seems like it would work, but really doesn’t.
Don’t Stop with Fixing the Spelling Errors
So when you approach, and look to fix some lazy content, make sure you are thinking about it in terms of meaning and flow as well as the obvious sloppiness inherent in the execution. If you clean it up from a conceptual as well as a mechanical perspective, you are going to better position your site’s content to withstand the algorithm changes sure to be coming soon.
by Marty | May 23, 2011 | General Pearls of Wisdom
A while back, I wrote a post about how A Goliath Grouper is Like a Successful Marketing Plan. It ended with a threat about me getting amped on sharks – and look :: here we are.
I just back from a trip to Hilton Head island (on the South Carolina Coast) where a shark fishing morning clearly showed me that shark fishing is exactly like online marketing.
Really.
It has nothing at all to do with me wanting to talk more about shark fishing. 🙂
Gear-up for the Local Conditions
I live in Atlanta, so I don’t fish off the Atlantic coast too often. However, I have been there before, and it helped me know what gear I needed to bring this time.
Last time I went to Hilton Head, I didn’t know what I needed so brought a lot of tackle. Very touristy. I lugged my big tackle box down with me to the beach every day, but never really pulled anything out of it. I was actually only using the same basic set-up all day, and just throwing cut bait.
All the lugging did for me, was compromise all the lures and gear in my tackle box. I got sand in everything and the sun just beat down on it mercilessly every day, for no good reason. A lot of undue stress and wear-and-tear on stuff I wasn’t even using.
On this trip, I learned from my previous mistakes. I went through my tackle ahead of time, and pulled out only the weights, hooks and steel leaders I would need. I took a bait knife, to cut the squid. I took a pliers, to pull hooks from shark jaws. I even took WD40 this time because last year, my pliers got corroded in the salt air and made it tough to open them. I didn’t like the alternative, of using my hands to take the hook out, so keeping the pliers functional was a must. I put in a couple hand towels, because even without reaching into sharks’ mouths like a hero, it always gets really messy. Flashlights, sun block and bug spray and some extra line. I put all this stuff in two ziplock bags, then put the ziplocks in a nylon bag and left my tackle box at home.
I had one salt water rig (pole and reel), so I got new line for it (20 pound test) and oiled it up. Got it working well, with a full spool of new line to get me through the week.
In a word, I was prepared with specific gear for this specific trip. The kitchen sink stayed home.
Based on what I encountered before in Hilton Head, I knew this time around what I needed to increase my chances for success. I cut out the extra, and made sure my stuff-to-be-schlepped was efficiently considered. I hit the beach with only what I needed, all of it well protected from damage in the sun.
Use Experience to Reduce Investments
I knew from the last time I was fishing here that I could throw cut squid into the surf, and likely catch some sharks. I had learned how to cut the squid and get it to stay on the hook from a guide we hired on the last trip. I knew one bag of frozen squid would last us all week unless the fishing was crazy good. On the last trip, I bought way too much squid and had to give away bags of it when we left.
I also got some frozen shrimp this time, because I know from experience in Florida that shrimp are pretty much a go-to bait in any body of saltwater. I had never used them here, but figured they would be a decent bait to try if the squid was not being effective. Figured they might get us smaller fish we could use as cut bait.
I was able to use the money I saved on excess squid to pay for the shrimp, and still paid less overall than I did last year for bait, for fishing a couple more days this year with more people.
My experience allowed me to reduce the investment without affecting the number of casts I could throw. Actually, because they were headless, the shrimp proved to be harder to keep on the hook than the squid (plus, small fish nibbled them down)…so I had even more casts than I anticipated – but spent less to get them.
This year, I also knew a party boat would not give me the fishing experience I wanted. Last year, I hooked into a 6-7 foot shark on a party boat, but the gear on these boats is made for people who don’t fish – I found it frustrating, and pretty dopey. Like using a telephone pole and cables to reel in a car.
I wanted to catch, fight and feel the power of a big fish – that was why I liked catching these things. Spending the extra money to get out a bit (like party boats) certainly increased my chances of catching some different things (and we did) – but I was content to stick to surf casting this year, using gear I knew would offer me a richer experience should it prove effective. The extra money saved from the party boat was spent on a couple dinners in some nice restaurants. And cupcakes – found a place that made only cupcakes: amazingly wonderful. I swear the éclair one they served as a Thursday special was like making-out with Heaven.
Overall, I spent considerably less money to be fishing much more often on this trip than I did on last year’s, with more people. Used the savings to increase more fishing opportunities and also to enjoy other, non-fishing vacation fun…let me repeat: they made ONLY cupcakes.
Be Willing to Adapt
Last year, when we were throwing squid out into the surf we caught little black tip shark pups – lots of them. It was on almost every cast for a while – just lots of little shark action over the whole trip.
This year, we didn’t catch any. Didn’t see that coming at all, and it took us all by surprise. No telling why – but there just weren’t bunches of little shark pups waiting to be caught this time, even though we were prepared. Despite the numbers and data to support otherwise, squid was falling flat.
The shrimp allowed us to catch some Whiting – which are little fish common on the shore – but even these were few and far between. Personally, I didn’t catch one, but my son and his friend Trey did. On the third one they landed, we used my bait knife to throw out pieces of the Whiting as cut bait. One piece I pitched out there got a decent hit, but nothing noteworthy.
As I stood there in the surf not catching anything but a tan, a man came down the beach and asked how I was doing. He said a guy down a ways had caught some huge Cobia over the last couple days. He was also surf casting like me and the boys, but he was taking the Whiting he caught, re-hooking them as bait and throwing them back out, live and whole. He said the Cobia came in an hour or two, every time…they always just grabbed the bait and ran and jumped and thrashed and eventually broke off – but it made me want one, real bad. All that running and jumping and thrashing sounded like exactly what we were after.
We had not been using the Whiting like this, and my cut bait approach was not getting results though it always worked in the past. Neither was the squid, even though last year, I couldn’t miss with pieces of cut squid. Nature: 2; previous experience: 0. The shrimp was working for the boys to catch Whiting though, so the next one Trey caught, he re-hooked like the guy suggested and threw it back out.
And in a little less than a hour, he yelled as the rod doubled over, and a 5-6 foot shark rolled. The shark jumped and thrashed violently, and the line broke. It was really exciting, but short-lived. Luckily, we all saw his fish, too, which made it better.
Let’s review here: none of the things I thought would work, worked. It did not make us stop fishing or anything, but it made us adjust what we were doing to increase the likelihood of success. Trey hooking into that monster was great – it made the day really exciting, and the fishing adrenaline go to full-boil.
But most importantly for me, there was now a method I could see that worked. Unfortunately, it seemed to require Trey or my son catching a Whiting for me since my fat, cupcake-filled butt couldn’t seem to catch anything at all. Even here though, I was willing to adapt.
Patience, Grasshopper…
We were on the island for a week, and fished almost every day there. This did not stop me from never catching anything – but I didn’t mind. I like fishing as much or sometimes even more than catching, so it works out well for me. And there were cupcakes.
But despite the achieved Zen and the delectable butter-creme frosting, on our last day, I secretly hoped I could do better. Little did I know, I would soon do much better than I had hoped.
We packed stuff, and then returned to the beach for one last morning before heading back to Atlanta. We spent a lovely morning there – but nary a nibble for hours on end.
Trey gave me a Whiting he eventually caught as our time wound down – turned out to be the only one of the day. We were running out of opportunities yet he was gracious enough to give me the lone baitfish so I might catch something. I was not too proud to accept it, either.
I put on a slightly longer steel leader (because Trey’s shark had broke-off on a smaller one) and a larger hook for the Whiting. I threw it out in the water, and went back to stand on the shore, hoping for something to end the week with. I thought Cobia, but was fine with anything.
In about 30 minutes, I felt the Whiting wake up, and start to swim frantically. I told the boys to watch, and reeled down the slack, lowering the tip of the rod. I yanked up to set the hook, hard. The rod doubled over, and I felt the weight of a very powerful fish as I tried to turn it around under water.
And it was on.
For the next 45 minutes or so, I wrestled with this big fish (safely from shore, of course).
He broke the surface more than a few times (so we saw it was a shark), but mostly just drove out. I would reel him back in, and he’d do it again, reel screaming-out line, the drag (and me) frantically holding on.
The rod I had made this really fun – as did the fact I had 20 pound test, while trying to land a fish easily over 90 pounds. If I tried too hard, I would lose it. I needed to keep playing it, gently, or the line would snap.
However, I did not count on my reel being grossly outmatched here – it took the brunt of the stress, and ended-up conking-out on me. I think the gears wore down in it – I got to a point at the end, and simply could not use it anymore…but it held.
Unfortunately for me, this was at a point when the shark was still a few hundred yards out in the surf. So I started backing up, pulling him into shore. I had to again move slowly, or I would accidentally break him off. But I had a clear path and it was low tide, so there was a bunch of beach behind me.
I ended up causing a bit of a fuss on the beach with all this commotion, and the Beach Patrol came to watch. I pulled the shark about 3 feet from shore (I was waaay back on the beach). He was exhausted, and I was too. But then I tried to yank him onto the sand, and I snapped the line.
People came up to me saying they were sorry I lost him after such a long fight – but I did not want to land the thing, really – I had no way to deal with a shark. I left all my tackle at home, and even with it, I had nothing to make a monster like that submit. I wasn’t going to eat him or anything, or keep him. I had tried to get him on shore, but had no idea what I would have done once he was there, so it was better this way.
Totally fine with me – he ruined my reel, and I gave him a workout to remember – figured we were even.
Even free from my line, he was dazed and tired for a few minutes, before he flipped tail and went back out to sea. He was OK, and would live to eat more Whiting.
The Beach Patrol came over and told us we couldn’t fish anymore that day, which was fine – we were leaving anyway, now a bit later than we had planned. (They don’t want you to catch sharks, which I respect.
Doesn’t stop them from being there though, and I am not trying to hurt them – just catch them for a little while if the Cobia are less willing to play.)
There was only about 10 yards left on the spent reel, which remain there today. I removed it, so it’s like a trophy for me. The rod held up like a champ so I’ll use it again, but I learned that next time, I need a stronger reel if I am going to go after these bigger fish.
Makes for a great memory anyway, and the trophy serves as proof. The reel was well worth the expense to me…and infinitely less expensive than even one seat on a party boat would have been.
Let’s think of this a little like my metaphor should imply.
- I planned for success, based on something that had worked in the past. My plan did not work, despite being well budgeted and well implemented. Unwilling to bail, I adapted.
- Current situations changed the viable and known tactics, and had I not adapted, I would have left (clutching my data) skunked.
- I listened to what was happening around me, and acted on it.
- I used the help of others when I could not do it all myself.
- I traded the telephone pole and the cable deal for something more specific and meaningful, and ended-up with a fishing tale I will have forever. I pinpointed my approach, waited, and eventually connected in a very meaningful way.
- If you do land a big one, expect the Beach Patrol to come and shut you down (cough *G-word* cough).
I’ll probably get down to Florida soon, so I’ll likely be able to figure out how other fishing is just like something else. Until then, feel free to give me a call and get me out on the water for some business advice…who knows what we’ll catch. Until then, swim carefully – especially if you look anything like a Whiting! 🙂
