Category Archives: Work at Home

Learn from my experience working at home as freelance writer. Tips and useful information for those who want to work from home.

How to Write Accurate Product Reviews for Affiliate Marketing

If done right, affiliate marketing could be your get-rich-quick scheme. Amid the boom in eCommerce and manufacturers selling directly on numerous platforms, affiliate marketing is thriving.

The race is on. In such cutthroat competition, brands want more traffic. And they don’t mind even if they pay a few bucks — as a commission — for it on every sale.

If you’re a marketer, you can leverage product reviews to earn a few bucks through affiliate marketing.

According to Mediakix, more than 80% of brands have affiliate programs.

A survey by BloggingX revealed around 40% of marketers worldwide consider affiliate marketing a crucial skill.

And there are hundreds of statistics and case studies available on revenue generated by affiliate sites.

Affiliate marketing will test your skills. And, of course, expand them; you’ll gain some terrific insight regarding customer psychology.

But your biggest challenge will be writing product reviews. How are you going to write reviews on hundreds of products when you’ve hardly tested only 5-10 of them?

This article will teach you how you can write unbiased and helpful product reviews to help people buy the right product for their needs.

1.      Choose Your Niche

You will never be a jack of all trades. One of the mistakes affiliate marketers and affiliate writers make is they pick niches based on saturation, not interest. How are you going to write about women’s fashion when you have no interest in it?

Or how will you promote hockey accessories when you don’t even know how many players each team has in a hockey game?

Leave the niche if it doesn’t intrigue you. You will never be able to make money out of it because you lack original ideas. You will never be able to create unique angles when reviewing a product.

The same is true if you hire writers to write those reviews. They will rephrase and steal ideas from your competitors. And worst, their writing will lack clarity.

2.      Do Lots of Research

One thing buyers hate about online reviews is fluff. And fluff occurs when the writer is either trying to reach a certain word count or hasn’t done any research.

Make sure every single review you write is based on research. This could be from forums or the same marketplace you’re associated with as an affiliate marketer.

Quora and Reddit are the best public forums to gather reviews. Those reviews might not be specifically about your product but a product similar to what you’re promoting.

For example, you’re writing a review on best cue sticks. Upon researching, you learn cue sticks are available in three different materials, including wood.

Now your job is to learn what material people prefer in cue sticks and what are the pros and cons of choosing it in wood material. The deeper you go, the more precise and valuable your product review will be for the user.

Another place to dig out some useful insights about the product is the customer reviews. For example, you’re promoting Amazon products. In the Customer Review section, you can see what all buyers liked about the product and the most common gripe, as well.

3.      Be Honest

 Be honest with your readers. Treat your affiliate site as a shop. The more honest you will be, and the more useful your information will be for people, the more likely they are going to come back in the future.

Conversely, exaggeration or wrong information will turn them off. They will never come back again. After all, they are doing you a favor if they buy from your link.

Keep these things in mind while writing a review, so you don’t step over the line.

  • Never make false claims — This pillow will end all your sleep problems. ( Are you sure it’s because of the pillow or something else, probably a health issue?)
  • Make sure you write all the specifications accurately. Nothing pisses off buyers more than getting a different color or size than the one they actually ordered.
  • Mention the cons with every product to keep the review balanced and honest.
  • If you’ve never used the product yourself, write from a third person’s perspective.

4.      Compare With Other Products

Comparison helps a lot when the reader is confused between two or more products. Even Google’s last update about Product Reviews emphasized comparing products.

You can compare products in terms of material, lifespan, specs, and pros and cons.

If you want to grab the reader’s attention and remove ambiguities from his/her mind, talk about circumstances in which a certain product might be better than the other one.

Once again, to go this deep, you must have prior knowledge and lots of research done to talk about the use cases of a certain product.

5.      Write as if You’re Having a Discussion

As it goes without saying, you’re not writing a Ph.D. thesis or a school essay. You are reviewing a product, and you can be a little casual and witty. Don’t just get lost in specifications; talk about the benefits — create real-life scenarios where the product and its features will be useful.

Add a bit of personality to your reviews, so people can know you’re really passionate about golf sticks/cricket bats/ perfumes, or whatever you’re reviewing.

Don’t create analogies that your readers can’t understand. Every niche has a different audience. Football enthusiasts won’t understand the jargon used by cricket lovers.

Remember, 90% of the people reading your listicle are really passionate about whatever you’re reviewing. Otherwise, they would have solely relied on customer reviews on the platform.

So they need an external view, a bit of additional information, and a sense of kinship!

Final Words

Writing product reviews is a huge responsibility — if you take moral values seriously. Misguiding someone would earn you a few bucks, but you will never grow as an affiliate marketer. Just keep in mind when writing reviews, you’re supposed to solve their problems. So pick your products wisely. And writing a useful and honest review would be a lot easier.

How AI Can Impact the Future of SEO Writing

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is almost everywhere now. And the time isn’t far that AI will greatly impact every field in the future. What you and I see today is just a glimpse; a lot will unfold in the future. Some people even fear that AI will steal their jobs.

It has been believed that the art of writing can’t be replaced by AI. We’re creative people, and creativity can’t be replaced. But a lot has changed, things we couldn’t even imagine have happened. Did you ever think AI would write a novel someday?

In September 2020, a robot wrote an article for humans, ensuring them that the rise of AI won’t end the human race on earth — May be it will never happen. But if you’re an SEO writer and watching AI interfering in writing work, you are forced to think about what could be the impact of AI on SEO writing in the coming years?

The Positive Impact of AI on SEO Writing

Not just in the future, even now, we can see many benefits of AI for SEO writing.

1.      AI Can Give You Fresh Ideas

You know, sometimes we dread AI might take everything from us, including the value of our skill. But have you ever given it a thought that AI can boost your productivity and simplify your writing work?

Recently, I came across a tool called “Copy.AI”. This tool can generate an ad copy for any purpose. But again, AI can’t hit the emotions or pain points of your customers. So don’t worry, it’s not going to end copywriting jobs.

Instead, as a copywriter, you can use this tool to generate ideas. Writer’s block is a real thing, and every writer has to go through this phase. So when your morning coffee fails to give new ideas and your mind feels numb, tools like this can give you fresh ideas to start with.

In the future, AI writing tools will help writers to produce quality content in quantity. Writers have limits and once your daily quota of ideas is finished, you find it hard to write more. AI can boost the productivity of writers, and good writers would be able to take more projects than today.

2.      More Research in Less Time

Whether you are doing creative writing work or writing for a client’s website copy, research is the most important part. Good writers research before writing anything. That’s why their writing makes sense and is easy to understand. 

With AI, gathering facts and statistics has become easier. Writers can do more research in less time. They don’t have to visit libraries to write detailed and well-researched articles.

Today, we have Google Scholar and Statista.com. In the future, we might have tools much more advanced than these. And on a single click, a writer will get access to hundreds of relevant studies and numbers.

3.      Good Writers Will Get Credit

Though even today, Google algorithms are good enough to distinguish between original and spun work, writers and SEO experts still deceive Google with black hat techniques. With advanced AI algorithms, Google will become more efficient in judging the quality of content.

There’ll be no space for spun or stolen content in SERP rankings. And writers will get more credit for work. Also, the difference between an average and a quality writer will be evident.

With no option left, blog owners and businesses will have to hire good SEO writers and pay them accordingly for producing unique and quality content.

Negative Impact of AI on SEO Writing

Certainly, AI will have some negative impact too on SEO writing. But if you’re a writer who has original ideas and unique content to share, you don’t need to worry at all.

1.      Prolific but Mediocre Content

Content marketing requires resources. And one of the most important resources in this field is having a good writer. Writing is all about creative ideas and creating angles to explain the same thing.

Even today, some people use AI-based text generators to write articles. These text generators can generate text in the continuation of any idea or spin the given content in the same writing style, but this content’s quality is mediocre.

Here’s an example of a GPT-2 text generator.

Human written paragraph:

Google’s AI, RankBrain, is an artificial intelligence change that attempts to understand the context of content on websites. As Google gets better at analyzing search intent, it’s more important than ever to get our keyword research right and then tie those keywords back into our content. Content has to do a better job than ever at serving searcher intent. So rather than older factors like keyword density, things like content relevance, context, and value are now more important ranking factors.

Then AI continued as follows:

The key point here is that we’re seeing the biggest changes in keywords for Google. A lot of them are the same for every online search engine. These changes are affecting both the SEO rankings for Google as well as the content. It’s very interesting to me to see the impact that new things have made on the algorithm at Google. It’s not just what the site is doing, but more importantly, what the user is doing about it. While the user doesn’t have to manually opt-out, they will be able to make multiple different changes to improve it in the future with the user.

As you can see, the text written by humans is much easier to read and makes sense. On the other hand, text written by AI is hard to read and, in some parts, doesn’t even make any sense.

Though Google is intelligent enough to rank only unique and worth-reading content, what if a certain niche has very little content available? Likewise, in some niches, text content doesn’t matter. For instance, songs and movie downloading sites. With AI-based writing tools, spamming Google with fluffy and spun content in such niches will be ridiculously easy.

2.      Less Work for Writers

Unfortunately, AI might replace SEO writing work in the future. Not for writers who are excellent in their craft, but for those who might be in the starting phase. Or for those who lack originality in their work.

Who would hire writers — even at a low rate — when AI can do the same work at a lower price or for free?

But that doesn’t mean AI will replace SEO writing completely. Remember, robots can’t connect with humans. They neither understand human psychology nor can they discuss a particular topic from different perspectives.

If you have authority in specific niches, you don’t need to worry about finding work. You’ll remain ahead of these AI tools in the future, no matter how advanced they get.

Conclusion

Indeed, AI is going to interfere in the SEO writing world. With rephrasing and auto-text generating tools producing content in quantity will be more comfortable than before. But at the same time, Google will become more advanced with growing AI. And thus, only good writing will prevail.

Let’s see who wins the battle between AI and SEO writers.

5 Tips for Accurate English Copywriting Targeting Hispanic Audience

Are you trying to write a sales copy for a Hispanic audience? You’ve come to the right place.

You must have read many times that you must be a great researcher to become a successful copywriter. However, copywriting is not just about good research. You are not supposed to gather statistics, facts, and information and just fill your copy with them.

The purpose of this research is different: your research serves as food for your mind, and it begins to understand your buyer’s psychology. That’s why it’s essential to know who you are selling to.

A single copy can’t sell to everyone. It would be best if you were specific. And for that, you must have your dream prospect in your mind while you’re writing.

In this article, I’ll be talking about selling to Hispanic consumers — a massive population of over 90 million in the U.S from different countries, including Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Puerto Rico, etc.

They have their own culture, dialects, and way of life. Don’t think that you can sell to them without being specific to them.

And there’s no way you can ignore this audience. The Hispanic market is the largest ethnic market in the U.S, controlling a total of $1.5 trillion in buying power.

What’s more, this buying power is only going to grow from here. The Hispanic population in the U.S is expected to increase by 163% (between 2010-2050). 

So if you want to sell Spanish audience and make some cash, note down the following tips:

1.      Understand The Diversity

Let’s face it — You are proud of who you are, the region you belong to, the language you speak, and your ethnic background. So when it comes to the Hispanic audience, they speak different dialects, have different origins, and like you, they are proud of their identity.

Most U.S. Hispanics like to use their country of origin to describe their identity, according to a survey published by Pew Research Center in 2013.

For excellent copywriting directed towards Hispanic people, your job is to do as much research as possible. The language your target audience speaks, their culture and traditional values, their origins, and so forth.

Another important thing is to note how frequently they buy online. Or whether they buy from a phone or laptop. Your ad copy and visuals/design must complement each other.

Suppose online forums prove insufficient for gathering this data. In that case, you can go out in the areas where your target audience lives, visit their markets, make friends, ask them questions, and you’ll have enough data to start preparing your copy.

In short, the Hispanic audience is more diverse than you think. And a single ad copy can’t connect with all. As a copywriter, this is a key thing to note down.

2.      Use Simple English

I know you have read this tip hundreds of times before. But the thing is, when writing for the Hispanic audience, it becomes even more critical.

Until 2015, 33.2 million Hispanics in the U.S. could speak English proficiently. Indeed, this figure would be even greater today.

But still, English is their second language. Hence, if you use fancy words in your copy, they are less likely to pay any attention.

Most of the people — even in native countries — don’t like reading fancy words. Though they understand them, such words fail to persuade the prospect. Your job is to sell them, not to showcase your rich vocabulary.

Use short, simple, and most common English words.

3.      Speak Their Language

No, I’m not implying that you should write your copy in Spanish. Instead, to connect with them and develop a bond, you can use Spanish phrases here and there in your copy, wherever it makes sense.

If you want to learn the language they use to communicate with each other, visit their Facebook groups, Reddit communities, etc.

They are the most active ethnic group on social media networking sites (72% of Hispanic adults use social media networking sites)

After spending a few hours, you’ll come across some interesting phrases. And you’ll be able to write in the tone they speak to each other.

Imagine someone from the Hispanic community reading your copy, feeling a kinship. Won’t your copy have higher chances of conversion as compared to a general ad copy?

4.      Use Slangs & Idioms

Writing an advertising copy is different from writing an academic essay. And when writing for a Hispanic audience, don’t hesitate to use slang and idioms.

If your copy is peppered with Spanish slang, your audience will be able to relate to it. Especially if your product is for adults, Spanish slang will sound familiar, comfortable, and nostalgic to them.

However, make sure your slangs and idioms make sense with the copy. Because if they don’t, your idea will backfire. Your consumer will think either you didn’t even do the research before writing a copy or you are intentionally disrespecting the community.

A great way to develop this sense of Hispanic culture and the things they find amusing is to watch Hispanic TV shows. You can also listen to Hispanic radio programs and imitate the voice of speakers when trying to add a bit of fun to your copy.

5.      Timing of Your Copy Matters

The timing of your copy would matter in some instances. As a copywriter, it’s your job to identify the events and festivals important to your audience.

Maybe your copy will be published during a specific festival. Imagine, if it contains some flavor of that particular festival, won’t it connect with your prospect better?

Or let’s put it another way, the promotional emails we receive and the Facebook ads we see during the Christmas and non-Christmas season are different from each other.

The ad copy written in the Christmas season gives you Christmas vibes.

This tip can be a game-changer for you if your product is relevant to a certain event or festival.

Here are some of the popular Hispanic events and their timings:

  • Nuestra Señora de Dolores, Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows – Friday before Good Friday
  • Semana Santa, Holy Week – Easter week
  • La Virgen de Guadalupe, Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe – December 12
  • Charro Days Fiesta; jointson, Arizona — End of August (Celebrates the founding of Tucson—Presidio de San Agustín del Tucsón—as well as honoring the saint.)
  • La Fiesta de Los Vaqueros; Tucson, Arizona — last weekend in February
  • The Fiesta in Santa Barbara, California
  • Fiesta Mexicana in Topeka, Kansas, July, a 5-day festival
  • Fiesta San Antonio; San Antonio, Texas — mid-April “Fiesta Week”
  • Frontier Fiesta; Houston, Texas

Summing It Up…

Develop empathy and respect for people; it’ll help you go a long way as a copywriter and become a good human being. The same is true for writing for Hispanic audiences. They have their own identity, dialects, and way of life. If you want to sell them, you must respect them and understand what triggers them to buy!

Do you want to talk to them in their native language? Look my Spanish writing service!

Is Copywriting a Good Side Hustle?

Whether you’re a college student focused on your educational career or a full-time employee, a side hustle paying extra money seems tempting always.

There are several ways to earn through side jobs; copywriting is one of them. Should you be pursuing copywriting as your side hustle?

As a full-time employee or a student, your working hours are occupied, and it’s hard to take out time for any freelance writing gigs. But it’s still a doable job when you learn the right skills that get you quick and easy money.

As a copywriter, you will face variable tasks and workload. There is definitely room for you to fit in, but you should be careful when selecting the job type since your working hours are limited.

Let’s talk about the skills you should go for when selecting a copywriting career as a side hustle.

How to Choose Copywriting Skills as a Side Hustle?

Being a copywriter, you’ll be offered numerous jobs to work on. You should assess whether to work on them or not based on some general criteria:

Easily Learnable

If the job requires no or less learning, you will save your time by doing the job quickly. For example, if you are an engineering student, and get a freelance gig writing engineering blog, you will probably require less time to research and write the content.

It will be hard to fit in an online course or training in your busy schedule that requires hours of your time. Even if the freelance writing job pays well, your full-time work will suffer in the long run.

In-Demand

How would you get paid for a skill that isn’t in demand? Freelance gigs are just like any other job that should have a market segment dedicated to their abilities.

Companies that need similar services to what you offer are your best prospects for employment.

Sometimes, freelance writers niche down their skills to specific subjects in order to become an authority in that field. It’s completely okay unless the market segment becomes too small that there isn’t much work to fill your plate.

Not Requiring Many Revisions

It’s okay to revise writing pieces for reasonable concerns. But to revise the whole word count from A to Z shouldn’t even be a choice. Many freelance writers get stuck in providing revisions to their clients. This occupies extra time while giving no extra money.

Avoid such clients who require a high number of revisions and find the ones who respect your hard work and time. Otherwise, you will remain busy handling your past projects without earning a dime.

In order to do this, you need to be sure that you are providing high quality text from the first delivery.

Large Projects

Avoid running after small writing gigs just because they consume less time. If you really want to get to 4 digit earnings, you will have to focus on bigger projects.

Juggling between too many writing gigs is itself a time-consuming process and dealing with multiple clients, communicating with them, delivering work, getting instructions, and writing content can significantly take up a whole lot of your time.

Make sure that your projects pay you well even if you’re working on them as a part-time job.

Long-Term Gigs

Long term writing projects save your time in such a way that you don’t have to keep finding new jobs. As a freelance writer, your primary focus should be on writing for freelance projects, not on ‘finding’ freelance projects.

Shorter gigs might pay well, but consistently finding new projects will be a headache ultimately.

What Copywriting Projects Are Perfect as a Side Hustle?

You would be excited to know what jobs you can potentially work on. I will talk about a few jobs that are very much in-demand, require less time to complete, and pay well. Here are some questions you should ask yourself before finding a writing gig:

  • How much time would it require to complete?
  • How much can you earn by doing them?
  • What will be the hourly rate?
  • What’s the future scope of that copywriting skill?

Based on these questions, find a suitable niche for yourself from the options mentioned below:

1.      Email Writing

Freelance writers are always the first choice for email writing projects as the gigs are short, require less time to complete and are often considered as a long-term opportunity.

Be it a monthly newsletter, Christmas sale offer, or a clearance sale notice; freelance writers are always in action for these gigs.

Crafting an email with a perfect sales pitch and structuring the headline and bylines barely takes up half an hour. The employee can hire you on a monthly, weekly or daily contract depending on the nature of the job. And you can make more than $1000 working part-time as an email writer.

2.      Blog Writing

Blog writing is another way to show your skills for making money online. Writing a medium-sized blog post requires an hour or two.

The pay rate mostly depends on the word count so you can charge a decent amount of money depending on the client’s budget and your writing capabilities. In this sense, Spanish texts are cheaper than English ones, so if you work in Spanish it is more difficult to reach that level.

However, some private bloggers don’t have an excessive budget to put much into it, so don’t expect the same earnings as you would get for writing a landing page or an email.

3.      Website Content Writing

Although copywriting isn’t limited to website content, most people think of it as the only type of copywriting. It’s the best job in terms of workload and pay rate. However, you might face some revisions if the client isn’t satisfied with your initial work.

Website content writing is difficult — Let’s face it.

You will need a handful of experience to offer your skills in the digital marketing world. Clients always look for top-notch website copywriting services. Make sure you are offering them the best quality out of your work.

Conclusion

My verdict for ‘copywriting as a side hustle’ is a big YES.

Do you know the best part of copywriting? It can be done in any language. Many clients are waiting to hire your services, whether you’re a Spanish copywriter or a native German.

10 Most Common Website Mistakes

Developing and designing a website for a brand or company can seem like a daunting job. And although it is not an easy process, it is also not an impossible task! 

Many small business owners or freelancer, like you or me, create their own websites in the hopes of saving money. But, unfortunately, sometimes we don’t know the basic principles of web design, copy, and development — leading to a site that’s less than ideal!

Thus, to save you valuable time, I have come up with a list of 10 common website mistakes to avoid or website “don’ts” to ease the process. 

1. Improvising/under-planning 

Having an online presence is critical if you want your business to succeed in the modern world. Over the last decade, websites have become an intrinsic and essential part of businesses — allowing them to grow and build relationships with consumers from every corner of the globe. 

Thus, developing a site for your company is not something to be taken lightly. From its very design to its target market, launch, promotion, and content management, every step you take should be part of a carefully developed strategy that will help you meet your end goal. 

Do not improvise! Don’t wait until your website is “live” to add new sections or change your message. Remember, your site is the face of your brand in the digital world. 

2. Focusing solely on products/services 

The goal of most websites is to generate leads and promote sales. Thus, it is easy to get carried away and focus solely on the products or services your company has to offer. Nonetheless, this is a huge mistake! 

Websites that simply offer products/services fall through the cracks and are hard to position and differentiate from the competition. As you know, the Internet is a red ocean, and you are always competing for users’ attention. 

Thus, focus on creating a consistent corporate identity by developing a personality for your company. Maintain your branding across everything you do (e.g., internal pages, ads, blog, social media.) Having a consistent website with a clear value proposition and “voice” helps build trust, credibility, and a sense of professionalism.

3. Ignoring your audience 

As a business owner, I am sure you already know the importance of catering to your audience’s needs and wants. Hence, your website should be designed explicitly with a Buyer Persona (or ideal customer) in mind. 

Avoid making the terrible mistake of ignoring your audience to go about your plan or push a sale. Keep in mind that the average user spends roughly 2 minutes navigating a site. Thus, if you wish to connect with potential customers, you need to make an instant connection.

Consider your audience’s demographics (e.g., gender, age, income, location) and psychographics (e.g., lifestyle, interests, values, personality.) If you know your audience, it will be much easier for you to craft a site and develop a message that will resonate with them. 

4. Not optimizing your content 

If you fail to optimize your content for the web, your page will load slowly. And if your website loads slowly, you will most certainly lose visitors. According to Google, 53% of mobile site visitors exit a page that takes more than three seconds to load. 

Thus, having a fast load time should be one of your top priorities when developing your website! 

Avoid using long videos, no matter how exciting or relevant you think they might be. Also, try compressing the resolution of your images for faster loading. And only use essential plugins, remember the more plugins on your website, the longer it will take to load; more so, old plugins will drastically slow down your website’s performance.

5. Misusing images

Yes, images are indeed essential to captivate your audience and get their attention. Nonetheless, you should know when and how to use them!

Many businesses inexplicably include irrelevant images or low-quality images on their sites. And by irrelevant images, I mean photos, graphics, or icons that do not go hand-in-hand with your message. Likewise, low-quality images will turn off visitors by suggesting your product, services, or company is unprofessional or mediocre. 

Lastly, try not to overuse stock or royalty-free images. People can tell when your photos are not genuine. Plus, you wouldn’t want to see the same picture on every site you visit! After all, royalty-free means anyone can use it. 

6. Not having clear CTAs

Missing or inadequate Call To Actions (CTAs) is plausibly one of the biggest website mistakes. If you want web conversions, you need a clear and straightforward call to action. 

CTAs will guide your visitor on their customer journey. And so, depending on your objectives, you might want to use a general CTA such as “Buy now” or something more specific such as “Get a free quote today.” 

7. Failing to make your website responsive 

It may seem like a no-brainer, but many companies fail to make their websites responsive. In consequence, they lose thousands of visitors and possible sales. 

According to recent statistics, mobile accounts for approximately half of the web traffic worldwide. Hence, your website needs to read and look perfect on every device (e.g., laptop, desktop, mobile phone, tablet.)

If you do not know how to make your site responsive, I recommend hiring a professional who can help you optimize your site for different devices. It might be costly, but it will be a good investment. 

8. Forgetting SEO

While you may think that poorly designed websites can be a real turnoff for visitors, your content is what makes or breaks website traffic and lead generation. 

Thus, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can help your website have a better ranking. As a result, more people will see your site, and you will generate more traffic that can ultimately lead to higher sales. 

SEO is essential because it ensures users that they don’t have to spend countless hours to find the information or products they want. People trust search engines, and so your website needs to take advantage of this tool if you want your business to grow. 

9. Using poor or inaccurate translations 

Contrary to popular belief, translating text is not a mechanical or monotonous task. It requires specific skills and expertise. So, knowing all the “rules” and using the right words is not enough. 

Thus, when translating your website, make sure your content translations are accurate, grammatically correct, free of spelling mistakes, and stay true to meaning. 

If you want to learn more about what makes a good translation, click here

10. Omitting analytics 

Finally, you cannot know how well (or bad) your website is doing if you do not have the tools to measure its performance. Website analytics give you the ability to test, track, and adjust your site to meet your goals and reach your audience. 

If you are starting, I suggest you try Google Analytics. It is the most widely used metric tool for websites. 

Is Creative Writing a Nature-Gifted Art?

How do you make yourself good in creative writing? Is it a nature-gifted talent, or can it be learnt? How do you assess yourself as a creative writer?

A creative writer is either naturally talented or learnt by some coaching or training methods. In both ways, it’s not an overnight process and takes time for the skill to be polished. In other words, a learnt creative writer has more promising skills than a nature-gifted creative thinker.

Although there is no alternative to good learning, it has been an old debate about why a creative writer should be mentally originative by thinking outside the box. This article will discuss which feature is more prominent and helps to become a result-oriented creative writer.

Let’s learn what creative writing means.

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a little bit unprofessional tone of writing through which the writer tries to stimulate learner’s mind by using various characters, plots, dialogues, narrations, etc.

There are many types of creative writing, such as:

  1. Scriptwriting
  2. Poetry
  3. Ad copies
  4. Storytelling
  5. Songs
  6. Essays
  7. Blogs

Creative writers push themselves to become professional in one of the above types so that their writing is recognized and found credible.

Why is Creative Writing Hard to Teach?

Writing is a ‘hard skill’ and requires consistent practice sessions to become the master of the field. But creative writing is considered a ‘soft skill’ because of the imagination and artistry involved.

One cannot learn creative writing without awakening their creative part of the mind. Creative writers are self-driven, and they do not need frequent feedback to generate new ideas.

Online courses and training sessions often go in vain because most trainers often ignore the need to support learners’ thoughts.

Why is Creative Writing Important?

After the advent of the internet, social media and modern website building, creative writing is crucial for every industry’s marketing campaign.

Here are some areas where creative writing is a big helping hand:

  • Scripts and Stories: A world without stories is unimaginable. They are the stories, characters and moral lessons that keep motivating us to drive forward in life. Whether stories are shared as motivational lessons or to get some social attention, creative writing is an integral part.
  • Marketing Campaigns: Nowadays, online business competition has become so much cut-throat that mediocre marketing campaigns fade away in an overwhelming number of businesses trying to promote their services online. Email writing, web copies, and social media posts are written to get a human eye’s instant attention by writing the text creatively. The writer tries to imagine the situation of the reader and tries to think like him.
  • Product Descriptions: E-commerce is a booming industry of the world. Without creative writing, products listed on an e-commerce store are difficult to sell. Amazon, eBay, and Etsy sellers often ignore creative writing in their products’ description due to which their number of sales remain low.
  • Brand Voice: You wouldn’t want your business to be ‘just another business’ in the market. It has to be unique and sell something differently. But is it possible without a distinctive brand voice? Brand voices are delivered by a unique choice of words by the writers. They have to get themselves aligned with the business’s goal and vision.

Why Creative Writers Do?

Creative writers give words to their emotions and imagination. Since creative writers constantly think new ideas and possible outcomes of their words, it keeps their mind sharp, and they become result-oriented.

Although creative writing is an interesting profession, some people may avoid it due to various reasons.

First of all, a creative writer should have the resources available for writing. You may think about what resources a writer needs. Here is a list of them:

  1. A peaceful environment
  2. Consistent writing periods
  3. Plethora of words

Let’s talk about each of them briefly.

Writers cannot execute good writing pieces without working in a quiet and peaceful environment. Even if your mobile phone rings slightly, your focus will be divided, and the writing rhythm will be lost. Therefore, a writer should find a place where he or she can write without any disturbance.

Secondly, if you’re a part-time writer, you should consider writing continuously to keep your focus on writing as a consistent effort. Taking breaks after minutes can seriously affect your writing efficiency and the ideas might get drained out.’

Here is a challenging but important point; a writer should have an ocean of good vocabulary. He must know how to play with words and sentences. Good knowledge of proverbs and idioms are recommended but not necessary.

Don’t worry if you’re good at remembering difficult words; you can use thesaurus or Google to find good synonyms and antonyms. This will increase your working; you’ll eventually learn to remember words.

How to Assess Yourself as a Creative Writer?

Before jumping into the creative writing industry, ask yourself the question ‘Am I ready to dive in as a creative writer?’

Many of you might be writing since teenage, winning writing competitions and getting medals of writing words beautifully. But not everyone is good at it.

First of all, select a niche that you’re passionate about. It might be possible you are already working with one of those niches of creative writing. You might be writing poetry as a teenager. You might be working in a commercial industry or writing children stories in a magazine — Every niche is fine, and you should be able to thrive in your domain.

Final Words

Whether you’re a naturally talented creative writer or someone who has learnt it through hard struggle, you should pursue it if you find passion in writing.

Even if you have a good imagination and fast thought process, you should still get some mentoring and real experience from someone knowledgeable.

Creative writing isn’t for someone who thinks it an obligation. If you want to be a creative writer, make sure you love what you write about. Only then you will cross every hurdle in your way to becoming a successful creative writer.

11 Email Copywriting Tips for Maximum Conversions

Writing is an essential part of optimizing emails for good click-through rates and conversions. With proper tech (automation tools), email campaigns require creative ideas to get more conversions.

There is so much you can learn about email copywriting, and this is why you’re here. So without wasting any more time, let’s get to it.

Email Copywriting to Get More Engagements and Conversions

Here are eleven tips for writing an email that converts and gives the results that you dream of.

1.      Craft a Solid Subject line

To create an excellent email, you need a good subject line to get more open. The email content is a total waste if it doesn’t get open, and that’s what email copywriters guru try to preach at the beginning.

People will only open emails if they find some value in the headline or subject line. Otherwise, if your email subject is boring, unappealing, or spammy, chances are that your email will end up in the trash. It’s way worse because the email platforms will consider your email as spam, and your emails won’t reach your prospects in the future.

2.      Check the Preview Text

Email marketing has changed a lot – Emails are more interactive than ever and now feature a preview so that the decision is easier for the user to open it or not.

Your subject line isn’t the only thing that gives more open rates; the preview text offers the same purpose and gives more insights about the email content.

Keep tone the same as the subject line, and follow the same idea of it. Stuffing too many ideas in the subject line and by-lines will confuse the receiver, dragging the open-rates down.

3.      Personalize the Content

Calling the recipient by his or her name gives you the opportunity for more conversions. Consider an email calling your name and differentiate it from the one calling you “receiver.” Which email would you be more interested in reading?

Similarly, talk about specific problems and their solutions that the recipient is dealing with. He or she has to feel that the email is written only for him or her, and your brand really does care about it.

Since emails aren’t public and land in a person’s inbox, the email’s tone should be friendly and conversational. Using the words ‘I,’ ‘you’ and ‘we’ will make the relation between you and the prospect more powerful, resulting in more engagements.

4.      Focus on Benefits

Email isn’t an essay that people like to read in their free time. It has to be specific and gives a clear message about whatever it is referring to.

Stop fluffing words in the email and be direct to the reader. Talk about your service and product’s benefits, and don’t make the content dull by making it lengthy. People don’t want to know about your company, they want to know how it affects their lives.

Your email readability matters a lot, and it’s one of the things that can bring more click-throughs to the links.

5.      Stick to the Goal

Ask yourself, “what do you want to achieve with this email?” Do you want traffic to landing pages? Do you want more sales? Or Are you looking for more people in your webinar?

Don’t optimize email for all the goals. Instead, focus on one goal and create content around it. Use powerful words where you think the impact should be the most.

You shouldn’t always try to sell in emails. Sometimes all you need to build a relationship with the reader is to offer valuable content that creates trust.

6.      Use Clear CTAs

Don’t expect readers to find call-to-action in your email and click for you. Your job as an email copywriter is to make their life easier, not complicated.

CTAs should be very clear and easy to access multiple times in email. You may add buttons, images, hyperlinks, or videos to get more clicks.

7.      Be Relevant

Whether you’re doing Spanish email copywriting or in any other language, relevancy is the key to successful email campaigns.

Show that your brand is relevant to the target audience and give them relevant offers that are hard to refuse.

In emails, the recipient’s perspective is critical, and your content should be relevant to it.

8.      Take Inspiration from Successful Campaigns

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Sometimes it’s better not to test new things and do what is already known as successful.

There are thousands of successful email templates available online only to give you more ideas. See what’s trending in your industry and Google it with the keywords; I’m sure you’ll find hundreds of templates that perfectly matches the brand voice.

9.      Don’t Use Spamming Voice

What’s a spammy voice in emails?

Any content that is super-excited or written in capitals that gives a perception that someone is shouting immediately triggers the spam alarm in the reader’s mind.

You can do more fun things in emails but know that there is a difference between spam and exciting content – Keep it real.

10.  Give Email Proper Structure

Email copywriting isn’t quite different from web-copy. The structure is, therefore, equally essential to make. Use punctuation, bullets, short sentences, and avoid making long paragraphs that are hard to read.

Many people would skim through email and won’t read it word by word. Make sure to use the right keywords, attracting them to take action.

11.  Get a Little Cute

Your email should sound lovable and cute to the readers – There is no reason to keep your email face boring and dull. Have some fun with the words and make the readers feel that you’re good at what you do.

If you want to build long-relationships with clients, this tip will help you the most because people don’t remember offers, statistics, or email templates. They remember the voice and the stories you share.

The Bottomline

All the email copywriting tips ultimately reach the one point – getting conversions for the business. If your content isn’t doing that, you probably need to change the strategy and try something new.

Improving Your Website’s Domain Authority

Domain Authority, as we mentioned previously, is the ranging from 1-100 in a logarithmic score that shows the ranking of the web page in the engine results. It is very important to consider as the position of your ranking predicts how well your business is going.

High Domain Authority means you can earn more through paid posts. Making a Domain Authority of 10-20 is not a good sign, though you do not have to expect a number of 100 like Facebook or Google. Keeping a steady pace for a better score is what you need to have in mind. There are a few steps to be followed to get a better Domain Authority score.

Backlinks and Content Marketing

Bloggers know well what content marketing is. The more you promote your content the better results you might get in increasing its reach. The number of domains linking is the essential factor to improve your website`s Domain Authority. It means, you may have as many link backs, social sharing and authority as readers.

Therefore, getting more traffic is a valuable asset on the way to boost and create more links back to your site. The rule is: Help your audience to get you more backlinks to your site.

Backlinks Quality

It is not recommended that you get numberless links back to your page. It comes more to the quality than to the quantity of the responses. A wide range of sites going back to your webpage may look impressive but not in the long run. You better look for any scams or low quality sites. Every content writer should know the standardization of search engine optimization practices. Even if you get a lot of links make sure you do regular checkup of your backlinks to see whether they have clean link profile.

Strategic Internal Linking

Links that lead from one page to another on the same domain in the main navigation are called internal links. This suggests interlinking to all your posts in order to have a better search engine optimization.

There are certain things you have to pay attention to during this step. For example, use various types of anchor texts and avoid repetition of texts. Also, do not interlink too many posts. Instead, try to keep a well-balanced use of internal and external links within a page.

You may ask what the ideal number of links is, though it`s up to your reasonable managing to decide. However, keep in mind that Google indexes the links and they allow up to 100 kilobytes of a page.

Impressive and non-repetitive content

No matter how god are you at writing or promoting ideas you need freshness and innovative thought to grab your readers` attention. It is quite difficult to avoid topics that are already exploited but there are techniques to avoid monotony and boredom. Most importantly, you need to create content for a question that readers will not Google around at the same time. Repetition can be avoid by using canonical URLs that point the source of any article.

Keep in mind that while domain authority has the aim to predict Google rankings, it is not related to Google search engine at all. It is perfectly possible to have great rankings without a high domain authority.

What you need to tell your copywriter to get a good service

You all want the best from our copywriters, don’t you? You desire to have compelling copies that convert.

But, guess what? It won’t happen automatically.

You need to give your copywriter certain details for him/her to do a good job.

That is why in today’s guide we are going to look at what you need to tell your copywriter to get a good service.

What Do You Intend To Achieve?

 It is important to tell your copywriter what you want to achieve. Do you want to inform, motivate, or persuade your audience?

Whatever is the purpose of your content, your writer should know. That way, both of you can work together to achieve your goal.

Who Is Your Target Audience?  

Millions of people visit the internet daily, each person with a different need. Your target audience is those who you intend to sell to.

Let your copywriter know your target audience. There is a reason why. The copies targeted at businessmen are likely to be different from copies for stay at home mums.

Acquaint your copywriter with further information about your target audience. This includes their age group, lifestyle, hopes, fears, expectations, hobbies, etc.

What Product Or Service Are You Offering?

If your copywriter will do a good job, he/she has to have in-depth knowledge of your products or service. 

What problems does the product or service solve? How durable is it? Has it been approved by the authorized body? What is your product used for?

These are just some of the questions you need to answer for your copywriter.

A deep understanding of your product will help your copywriter create great copies.

What Is The USP?

The unique selling point (also known as unique selling propositions) is what differentiates your product or service from your competitors.

Your copywriter should know what your unique selling point is so he can articulate it well in the copy.

For instance, let’s say you own a shoe store. Most of your competitors may not accept back any shoe bought from them. Your unique selling point may be that you accept free returns.

This means your customers can return the shoes they buy without penalty.

Since this is your unique selling point, your copywriter should know about this. Stating your USP in a copy can compel more people to buy from her.

What Are The Features And Benefits Of The Product?

Your copywriter needs to know the features and benefits of a product in order to create a good copy. 

A good copy tells the audience about the features of a product and the benefits they stand to gain.

Features and benefits are two different things. A product’s features are characteristics of a product that describe its parts, appearance, and capabilities. The benefits of a product are more like the end results of what a product can do for a customer.

Conclusion

Whenever you hire a copywriter, don’t forget to give him/her all necessary information. It will help in crafting the best ad copies.

Remember, if you need to get the best out of your copywriter don’t be a burden. Encourage and appreciate their work

9 Must-haves for New Freelance Writers

If you are thinking of starting a career as a freelance writer or simply looking to earn some extra money on the side, there are a few things you should know. The freelance world can be challenging to navigate! Hence, from my experience as Spanish freelance writer, and to help you start your quest, I have come up with nine must-haves for new freelance writers that can help save you time, effort, and money:

*This article DOES NOT have any affiliate links. This is my honest and subjective opinion and there is not money involved.

Word Processor Program

First things first, assuming you already have a computer, the next thing you should have is a word-processing program. I recommend Microsoft Word or the free version of LibreOffice.

Usually, these types of programs offer not only word processing features, but also spreadsheets, presentations, database management, graphics editing, and other tools that might come in handy.

Both programs are readily available for PC or Mac and will be your go-to tool when writing article pieces.

You can download Libre Office here.
Or you can research Microsoft Office’s Word by following this link.

Portfolio & Writing Sample

If you have some experience as a freelance writer, you might have already compiled a literary portfolio with some of your best work. If not, do not panic! Simply go through your computer in search of previous personal projects (e.g., poems, short stories, articles) or academic projects (e.g., school work, voluntary work, research papers.)

Without a doubt, you have written some things worth mentioning. It does not matter if you are not entirely sure if they will suffix.

Remember, no one becomes successful overnight— or at least not within freelance writing.

Once you have collected five to six samples of your best work, you can move on to the next step.

Blog/Website

Starting a blog or website is the best way to showcase your work. Plus, it gives prospective clients the sense that you are a professional and thriving writer (even if you are not quite there yet.) Blogs are also a medium for you to show off your personality, writing voice, and previous work.

I recommend starting with something simple to wet your toes, and then move on to more complex sites. WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix are three easy-to-use platforms that can help you build your website without having to learn how to code or investing thousands of dollars.

Terms & Conditions

Now that you have a website running and a portfolio to attract prospective clients, you should start thinking like a business. To do so, you must draft a document, including your terms and conditions. Establishing clear policies is crucial!

I know it can be tempting to cut through the “red tape” of getting a freelance contract signed by your busy client—especially if it is a friend or an acquaintance. But, it is better to be safe than sorry.
As an experienced freelance writer, I have been the victim of a fair share of scams and sketchy clients. All of which could have been avoided by drafting a short contract and have them sign it before getting the work done.

There are many free templates readily available on the web. I suggest you take a look online and try to mix and match to create your own.

Editing Tool

An excellent editing tool will be your best friend when it comes to writing. Keep in mind that clients pay you to develop content, create interesting articles, or promote their brand. Thus, your work needs to be top-notch!

Freelance has little to do with experience and appearances. Freelance writing is all about your work and what you can produce— whether it is a catchy slogan, an intriguing copy, a newsletter, or an in-depth technical paper. As a result, anything and everything you write must be free of spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, well written, and a 100% original.

I suggest you invest a little money on a premium editing tool such as Grammarly. This spellchecking software offers contextual spell checker, vocabulary enhancement, plagiarism checker, corrects writing style/form/tone, and more.
You can check it out by clicking the following link.

VPN

When you are a freelance writer, you do a lot of web surfing and Internet browsing. Thus, having a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can be pretty useful and come with a long list of benefits, including:
• Enhanced security
• Online anonymity
• Access to blocked websites
• Different IP addresses
• Better bandwidth and network efficiency
• Remote control and access to your information

Plus, VPNs also offer a safer means of surfing the web and looking at content online.

If you have no ideas as to what to look for in a VPN, you can use the one I usually used, which is Cyberghost VPN. I use this one because cover the Latam countries that I usually work, but there are others that are good like ExpressVPN (more expensive) or NordVPN.

Antivirus

Another essential tool to have is a trust-worthy antivirus. As I mentioned before, freelancing involves a lot of Internet browsing, and this can sometimes put your computer at risk. So, if you already have an antivirus installed on your computer, make sure it is up to date and working properly.

If you do not have an antivirus already installed, this might be the right time to get one. There are many efficient brands; some of the most well-known antivirus software are Bitdefender, Norton Lifelock, McAfee, and BullGuard.

Electronic Wallet

Most of your clients will request to pay you through a secure platform. Hence, it is always recommendable to have an electronic wallet set up for their safety (and yours.) There are infinite possibilities, and they all have their pros and cons.

I personally like PayPal because it is well-known across the globe and enables you to pay, send money, and accept payments easily. Their fees are reasonable but not low. So if you are working with international clients who do not mind to pay by bank transfer and might want to pay you in a different currency, TransferWise is your best option.

Freelancer Account

Another must-have is setting up a freelancer account in one or more freelancing platforms. These types of websites can help you instantly find clients without having to spend money on advertisements or sponsored posts.

Furthermore, usually, these websites have their terms and conditions and policies that protect you from unwanted clients.

Thus, if you are starting, they are a great and safe way of attracting clients and gaining experience.

However, know that most of these platforms charge between 10% to 20% in “handling fees.’ Meaning, that if you make $20 through the app, you will only receive $16.

My favorite freelancing websites include UpWork and Freelancer. They are easy-to-use platforms that are easily accessible from anywhere in the world.

Do you want more useful tools and websites? Check my page about Resources for writers.