WritingThoughts

Do “prospects” ask you to write for free or way below market rate? If you’re a freelance writer, chances are good that you’ve been approached by a so-called “prospect” with an offer you must refuse. You must refuse the offer if you want to stay in business, that is. After all, you can’t spend all […]

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Recently, I’ve noticed a new trend in content creation. With an increasing frequency, clients are asking me to do just a single task in the content creation process. For example, a client will ask me if I can come up with headlines for a topic. Or, they’ll ask if I can just do the research […]

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One of the questions clients often ask me is how often they should post to their blogs. In the past, I’ve tried to answer this question according to the client’s goals. That’s the right way to answer the question, but unfortunately clients don’t hear my whole answer. All they hear is a number. So I’m […]

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When it comes to writing for the web, you have to grab your reader’s attention quickly. In many cases, you have just seconds before they click away. That’s why shorter is better. Shorter paragraphs. Shorter sentences. Shorter words. A newbie mistake when it comes to online content is to write like you’re trying to impress […]

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For as long as I’ve been writing, the people around me have mistakenly thought that writing was easy–an afterthought. Non-writing colleagues always seem to believe that good writing is something that can be slapped together at the last minute. When I was a technical writer, software development teams often left manual writing or online help […]

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We’re only a month into 2014, and already there have been some hot debates about the future of online content. Most significantly, two posts about content rocked and, if the responses are any indication, angered the online writing community. First, we read Mark W. Schaeffer’s Content Shock: Why content marketing is not a sustainable strategy […]

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Can you use words to sell your product or services? The quick answer is “yes.” Words do sell. That’s what copywriting, content marketing, and many other writing-related marketing endeavors are all about. But not all words will sell your products or services equally well. One of the most popular older posts on this blog is […]

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The WritingThoughts blog quietly turned seven years old last week. There was no cake. No balloons. No fanfare. Yet for me, this blog started a significant phase of my freelance writing career. For years I had written for businesses in a variety of capacities, but I had not yet blogged for pay. Since starting WritingThoughts, […]

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Why bother to publish content online? Chances are you might be asking yourself this very question. After all, you already have a website and you do get some customer inquiries through it. What’s the big deal about content, anyway? Adding online content, such as blog posts and articles, is a bigger deal than you might […]

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Are you counting on your web copy for leads and conversions? If you are, you’ll want to pay close attention to this post. Not every business that publishes copy online gets it right. You won’t attract customers unless you really understand content marketing. In this post I’ll list ten common content mistakes.

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