Web Content

Help me choose the topic of my next course…

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Survey behind the barn doorI have a question for you… if I may.

And a very short, two-click questionnaire.

I’m trying to figure out a topic for my next course, and would really appreciate your help and input.

As you may know, a couple of months ago I launched a short course on Web Content Optimization.

This is a short-form course, delivered on the Udemy platform, and takes about 3 hours to complete.

Right now I’m working on getting a second course published, also on Udemy.

This second course is about Selling with Stories. (You’ll love this one if you’re an online writer who doesn’t feel terribly comfortable with the direct, hard-selling aspect of copywriting.)

Selling with Stories should be available within 3 or 4 weeks. I’ll let you know when it’s ready.

And that brings me to my question…

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Impress your clients – and earn more – with this simple Content Optimization Framework.

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content marketing framework

There is a huge demand for quality web content.

The trouble is – for us writers – many, or maybe most companies have a nasty habit of low-balling us on price. They want great content, but don’t want to pay much for it.

When we tell them the content we write is worth more than they are offering, they may point us to sites like Freelancer.com, where they can find content writers for peanuts.

How can you break free from that kind of comparison?

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Allow for sudden outbursts of unexpected content.

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Unexpected bicycle on wall

Recently I have written a fair bit about optimizing web content.

My thinking has been, and still is, that too many companies rush to publish new content without first establishing a clear purpose for each page or post they create.

In other words, marketers often feel that the simple act of publishing a new page or post is enough.

It’s not.

For web content to deliver value – to both your audience and your company – it has to be purpose-driven. You have to figure out WHY each piece should be published, and then optimize it accordingly.

For example, one post might be optimized for the search engines, while another is optimized for social media. Another might be optimized to attract inbound links, and so on.

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Earn more as a web content optimization expert.

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content optimizationRecently I published a new course for online content writers and copywriters.

It’s called Web Content Optimization.

It’s a short, video-based course at a very low price point. And that means a lot of people not only got the course, but also completed it within two or three days.

And here’s the best part. People are already using what they learned to reposition themselves as optimization experts and charge higher fees.

Here’s what Steve Maurer had to say…

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3 Steps to making more money as a freelance content writer.

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writing web content

Go to Freelancer.com and you’ll find hundreds of thousands of freelancers competing for millions of projects.

It’s a free-for-all marketplace, and there is a lot of downward pressure on pricing.

Companies know there will be a lot of people wanting to work on the projects they post, so they can sit back and wait for the right writer at the right price.

In many categories this becomes a race to the bottom, because freelancers know the only way they can compete is to keep their prices low.

One of the categories hit hardest by this downward pressure is content writing. And this pressure to write for peanuts isn’t confined just to sites like Freelancer.com. It’s industry-wide.

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As a freelancer using social media, only two audiences matter.

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Social media crowdSocial media can be a wonderful tool for freelancers. But it can also be a time sink.

It’s all too easy to spend hours a week feeding the social media beast, without getting any measurable value in return.

All too often we focus on numbers. We want more friends and followers. We want more clicks and more positive feedback.

Once things start rolling and our numbers start rising at a healthy clip, it’s easy to develop a minor obsession. All of a sudden we are spending more and more time finding ways to increase the size of our social media audience.

If this is happening to you, you should press the pause button, sit back and ask yourself this simple question: “Who are these people?”

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