Web writers: For every great performance, you need to rehearse.

by

web writing practiceWhen you watch a live performance of your favorite play in a theater, you are looking at a performance that has been preceded by weeks or months of rehearsals.

And those rehearsals take place without costumes, without scenery and without the pressure of an audience watching.

The rehearsals allow the actors to get things right, outside of the public eye. There are fewer constraints. There are no downsides to making mistakes, missing lines, and so on. No pressure.

OK. Now let’s consider how we go about writing interior pages on websites.

As an example, let’s assume we are working on the rewrite of an insurance company website. The company offers home insurance, auto insurance, commercial insurance and farm insurance. Each of these areas has an interior page of its own.

Read the full post…

Monday Spark: You’ll feel a lot better without your head in the sand.

by

head in the sand

This week’s Spark begins with a negative feeling, and then turns it into a something a lot more positive.

The negative feeling goes something like this…

There is an issue you need to address, but you don’t want to face it. You keep putting it off. You stick your head in the sand and hope the problem goes away, although you know it won’t.

A few years ago I had some back-taxes to take care of. But I didn’t take care of it immediately. I didn’t want to. All I had to do was sit down with my accountant and get things in motion. But I kept putting that meeting off.

A coaching client of mine knew she needed to sit down with her business partners and talk to them about some changes she wanted to make. But she was scared the meeting might become confrontational, so she didn’t ask for the meeting.

Read the full post…

To write a great homepage, try the “no-body-copy” test.

by

write homepage

First things first. This test and approach applies to static home pages for sites that sell stuff — products, services and subscriptions etc. It does not apply to publishers, blogs or websites which have a blog on the home page.

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

When working with clients on their home pages I will often suggest the following:

“Let’s take a screenshot of the first screen of your homepage, erase all the body text, and then see how much of your core message survives.”

To put it another way, I want to see how much of the site’s message survives if people read only the headlines, subheads and text links.

What’s the point?

Because that’s how first-time visitors actually behave when they arrive on your homepage for the first time.

Read the full post…

Monday Spark: When estimating for a freelance project, don’t think about your own checking account.

by

writing a checkJust a short tip this week. It’s about your mindset when you sit down to write an estimate for a prospective client.

Often a freelancer will write the estimate, look at the total they want to charge, and begin to feel nervous about it.

$1,500? $3,000? $7,500?

Ouch, sounds like a lot of money. Maybe your client will say no.

OK. Now let’s reframe how you think about estimating.

Any sum of money over about $1,000 is going to feel like a lot of money to charge, but only because you are empathizing with how it would feel to pay that amount from your own family checking account.

But that’s the wrong way to think about it.

Read the full post…

Overcome Imposter Syndrome by sharing a message you love.

by

megaphone messageLast week I wrote about how creating a unique message will differentiate you from other freelancers.

I wrote about how listing your skills simply makes you look the same as other copywriters who list the same skills, but that your message can and should be unique to you.

It’s your message that is the differentiator.

In this post I want to take this further, and look at how finding a message you really love can totally transform how you go about marketing your freelance business.

This is important, because many, if not most freelancers feel awkward when it comes to pitching their services. They have worked hard to build a solid skillset, have built a website that promotes their services, but then lose all confidence when it comes time to talk with a prospective client.

How come?

Read the full post…

Build a better freelance business, and love your message.

by

love your messageBased on my experience as a freelancer over the last 30 years, and as a coach, I believe there are two key elements that separate freelancers who do OK from those who are hugely successful.

For a start, you need to get in the driver’s seat of your freelance business, take control and be assertive about the companies you work with, the work you do, and the fees you charge.

In other words, replace your freelancer mindset with a business-building mindset.

Second, you need to market your freelance business with absolute focus and confidence. This is where so many freelancers fail. They have too little confidence in themselves, and don’t know how to market themselves effectively.

I address both of these issues in what is essentially a combination of two of my programs – Profitable Freelancing and How to Love Marketing Your Freelance Business.

Read the full post…