Don’t send your readers to sleep with pigeonhole copywriting.

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piI’m going to begin by giving you an illustration of what this post is all about.

Here are two ways in which a company might communicate the availability of its customer service agents.

Example #1: We are available to take your call between 8:00AM and 6:00PM.

Example #2: We’ll leap at the chance to take your call between 8:00AM and 6:00PM.

If I were to give you a brain scan while you read those two lines – and if I knew the first thing about brain scans, which I don’t – I might see zero brain activity while you read the first example, and a sudden spark of activity while you read the second.

How come? Because the language in the first example is so familiar, so expected and so simple, you really don’t need to think at all. Your mind recognizes the vocabulary, and sees that it’s all put together in a way you have seen and comprehended a hundred times before. No cognitive activity is required.

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The biggest threat to quality content is…social media.

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Content marketing crashThere is a huge crash coming.

Racing down the highway, approaching from opposite directions, are content marketing and social media marketing.

Many people think these two vehicles are complementary, one supporting the other, driving in the same direction. And potentially they could be. But that’s not what I see happening.

I think they are about to collide and cause a lot of companies some huge headaches.

Here is what I’m seeing…

With their Panda update Google bankrupted a ton of companies and forced the rest of us to focus more on the quality of the content we published, and less on the quantity.

For the last couple of years we have all been focused on creating quality content. At least, we have if we want Google to be nice to us and list our pages high up in the search results.

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Give your online copy the face-to-face test.

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Read your online copy face to faceWhat do I mean by the face-to-face test? It’s simple.

When you have finished writing a draft of your copy, ask yourself if you would feel comfortable reading it out loud to one of your readers, face to face.

In fact, imagine someone from the audience you are writing to is sitting at your kitchen table, and you are reading your copy to him or her.

I suggest you get as close to this being real as you can. If you can get a family member or friend to sit across the table from you, so much the better. Look them in the eye and then start reading. Or hook up with someone through video on Skype. If there is nobody around to take on the role of your audience, find yourself a mirror and read your copy to yourself.

Completing this face-to-face test can improve your copy in three important ways.

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Freelance Copywriters: You don’t have to say Yes to standard industry rates or fees.

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copywA few days ago I got involved in the comment stream on a post about the fees freelancers earn. The post itself was actually about freelance designers and coders etc. There wasn’t any data on what most freelance copywriters earn.

However…

A copywriter did post a comment in which she noted that “industry rates” for copywriters were pretty dire.

This got me scratching my head a little. Why? Because I can’t imagine a situation where I would allow myself to be confined by an industry “rate”.

To put it another way, working within the spread of an industry rate in voluntary. You will be confined by those rates only if you voluntarily agree to be ruled by them. There is no law that says you have to do that.

Your other choice is to totally ignore those rates and set your own fee levels in accordance with the value you offer your clients.

How can you go about establishing higher fees for your work? Here are three ways to get started.

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When your inner fire starts to burn low, what’s a freelancer to do?

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freelancer flameAs freelancers we work alone.

A lot of the time that’s a good thing. No time wasted on commuting. No time lost in dreary meetings. No ducking behind the cubicle to avoid the most annoying person in the office.

But…working alone can be tough sometimes too.

It can be particularly tough when your inner fire begins to run low.

What you’re inner fire? It’s the source of drive and energy that propels you forward each day. It’s the driver behind all your hopes and ambitions for the future.

It’s that same energy and belief in yourself that probably got you started as a freelancer in the first place.

Once you have launched your business, you still need that fire to burn bright. It’s what keeps you moving forward. It’s what drives you up to higher levels of success.

But…and I think this happens to all of us…there are times when the fire burns low. And because we work alone, there is nobody else close by to help us fan the flames back to life.

So what is a freelancer to do?

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One simple question that can increase all your online writing fees.

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freelance client questionsAs freelancers we often take on a project from a client and then write that web page in isolation.

But that’s not a very smart thing to do.

Whether you are writing a product category page or a blog post – or anything else – your work is part of a broader strategy.

If you write a product category page, that page will be linked to from other places, and it will have outbound links to other pages too. It will take its place at a particular point within a sales funnel.

If you write a blog post, that post will be part of a content publication plan that is aligned with your client’s marketing plan and calendar.

In other words, whatever you write for a client, it fits into a broader picture.

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