April 13, 2021

The Crucial Content Writing Step You May Be Skipping

U.S. culture (and many others) valorize hard work. We grow up steeped in the messaging that success is correlated to how hard you’re willing to work, and that developing a skill requires relentless hours of practice. And while that isn’t exactly inaccurate, it’s not the full picture.

For writers—and knowledge workers in general—the quality of your ideas and output depends on finding the right balance between work and rest. Contrary to our cultural narratives, working too hard can hurt your results. And at the same time, it can diminish your quality of life and do serious harm to your health.

This isn’t a personal opinion—it’s backed by research. Taking time for rest doesn’t make you lazy or a bad worker. It’s one of the most commonly overlooked ways to become a better writer.

5 Ways Rest Will Improve Your Content Writing

In an ideal world, knowing that rest is important for your physical and mental health would be a good enough reason to make it a priority. In the world we’re all stuck in though, rest is too often associated with personal guilt and/or accusations of laziness.

In many workplaces, managers will punish employees that take time off, and reward those who put in longer hours. But even for freelancers and business owners that work for ourselves, it’s hard to shake the idea that you’re doing something wrong when you take breaks or give yourself days off.

So, for those of you that need to hear it: rest doesn’t make you lazy. Instead, scheduling rest—being intentional about it—is a strategic move you can make to improve your business performance. And here’s why.

1. When you work too hard, your work suffers.

Conventional wisdom suggests that the more hours you work, the more you’ll get done. Actual research has proven that’s not true. Human brains and bodies have their limits. When you try to push yours past those limits, your work suffers. Not only will you produce less, but as your exhaustion increases, the work you do produce will be of lower quality.

The feelings of guilt many of us face when we take time off are illogical. Avoiding overwork isn’t the selfish, indulgent thing to do. It’s the best choice for anyone who cares about producing quality work.

2. Rest gives creativity room to grow.

If you know many creatives, then you’ve heard anecdotes about the “a ha!” moments that hit when in the shower or on a long walk. That happens for a reason. When you allow the brain periods of rest in between those of intense focus, the brain doesn’t turn off. Instead, a different part of the brain goes to work—a part that excels in creativity*.

When you’re trying so hard to make progress on a piece—staring at a blank page and just getting nowhere—sometimes the most productive move you can make is to step away and do something entirely different. A walk, exercise, a shower, cooking, playing with your pets—anything that explicitly shifts your mind away from the work.

It may feel counterintuitive, but letting your mind wander can help you accomplish more than trying to whip it into gear when you’re nearing a breaking point.

3. Rushed work gets sloppy.

When you overload your calendar, you’ll end up cramming work in when you don’t have the proper time and energy to give to it. Rushed work will be more prone to errors—from minor ones, like embarrassing typos, to bigger issues, such as pieces that lack research and get information wrong (yikes!).

If you don’t give yourself room to breath with the amount of work you schedule, the mistakes that make it into your pieces will hurt your reputation. And just as bad, they could lead your readers astray in their search for accurate, useful information.

4. Rest is required to avoid burnout.

Short periods of stress and overwork can take their toll. But once they become your norm, you face the bigger issue of burnout. And once you hit the point of burnout, not only will your health suffer, but you’ll struggle to get anything done. Work goes from feeling challenging to impossible. You go from being worn out at the end of the day, to tired all the time. And motivation will feel entirely out of reach.

In short, burnout is serious and best avoided. To keep from reaching that point and facing all the personal and career consequences that come with it, you need to start prioritizing rest before the days and weeks of overwork pile up to the point where it’s too late.

5. All work and no play makes you dull.

Unless you’re staying at a secluded, haunted hotel throughout the winter, working too hard probably won’t make you a murderer. But it does risk making you less relatable, which matters when it comes to writing. Interacting with friends and family members can produce insights you won’t get while sitting at your computer. Spending time reading books, watching movies, and following current events will keep you learning.

And the experiences you have while living life (away from work) will often come back in surprising ways that make your writing better. Maybe something that happens while walking your dog becomes the perfect anecdote to start a piece with, or a friend’s comment at a party sparks a great topic to tackle on your blog.

When all you ever do and think about is work, you lose insight into a lot of the things your audience cares about. Keeping in touch with the culture outside of your job helps you keep your writing interesting and authentic.

How to Intentionally Incorporate Rest into Your Work

Now that you have strong arguments for abolishing any guilt or hesitation you may have felt about adding more rest into your life, you need to develop specific strategies to make sure it happens.

1. Schedule in breaks.

When you’re busy (which most of us are most of the time), the idea of including a break in your day may feel impossible. But that’s why it’s important to intentionally schedule it. Treat it like a task that’s as important as any other item on your to-do list (because it is). The breaks you include in your day will make the time you spend focusing on work more productive.

And by being more intentional about the breaks you take, you’ll likely find you spend less time on unintentional breaks <cough> Twitter/Facebook/Instagram <cough>. And that means you can spend your breaks doing something you actually like. Doesn’t a walk in your neighborhood sound nicer than another twenty minutes of doomscrolling?

2. Enforce a strict line between the workday and your personal life.

Make a rule for yourself right now: when you’re done with work for the day, you’re done. No checking email on your phone while you watch TV, or taking business calls that come in while you’re trying to have dinner with family. To truly get the benefits of rest, you need time where you’re psychologically detached from your work. And a voice in the back of your head urging you to check your work email just in case will keep you from that.

You’re a writer, not an OB-GYN with clients that could go into labor at any moment (or at least, if a client does go into labor, that’s very much not your responsibility!). This isn’t a job where time-sensitive emergencies are the norm. You don’t need to be on call to do your job well. And in fact, you’ll do your job better if you let yourself be all the way off when you’re not working.

3. Take weekends (or something comparable).

For freelancers and agency owners, the line between the workweek and weekend can get blurry. But it’s important to have full days off regularly.

If you find that you prefer to take Mondays and Thursdays off to Saturdays and Sundays, that’s fine! The particulars matter less than the idea. But don’t try to work seven days a week. Make sure you leave yourself weekends to rest, spend time with loved ones, and pursue any hobbies you’re into.

4. Commit to regular vacations.

If you’re employed, use your vacation time! Don’t feel bad using the benefit you’ve earned. And don’t feel like you need to keep an eye on your email while you’re gone.

Note: I recognize that If you have an employer that requires this, you may not have much of a choice. But to the degree possible, leave work behind completely. And if you don’t have that option now, seriously consider looking for an employer who respects the value of rest.

If you work for yourself, make scheduling vacations a priority. Something a lot of people don’t realize about freelancing until they’re in it is that somehow it becomes harder to take time off when you control your own schedule. Many freelancers fall into the trap of forgetting to take vacation, or feeling like they can’t for the first few years (hi, it me). That’s a surefire path to burnout.

Communicate with your clients in advance and schedule all your deadlines to make sure they won’t interfere with the time you’ve allotted for your vacation. It really is OK to put an out-of-office message up and leave work behind for a week or two. The alternative is the real danger to your career.

5. Get comfortable saying “no” (and “not now”).

For everything else on this list to be possible without burning bridges and disappointing people, you need to avoid overcommitting. That means getting really good at using a small and simple word that is surprisingly difficult to say: no.

Don’t feel like you have to agree to everything a boss asks you to do. Don’t think you have to take on every project a client offers. Getting comfortable with saying “I don’t have the space in my calendar for that right now” takes work, but it’s important. And saying “no” doesn’t make you unprofessional. A lot of people will respect you more for showing that you know how to schedule effectively, set realistic expectations, and communicate boundaries.

Sometimes saying “no” outright is important. Other times saying “I can’t fit that in now, but could slot it in X weeks from now” will do the trick. Get in the habit of figuring out how much you can manage without going overboard, and protecting your schedule from going beyond that.

Conclusion

The internet is packed with articles about productivity hacks. But a lot of them miss this crucial part of the equation. If you’re not taking enough breaks, getting enough sleep, and keeping portions of your life entirely work-free, your productivity will dip. Your work will suffer. And you’ll hit a wall where you just can’t keep it up any more.

For the good of your personal life, your health, and your writing—take a break.

*If you want to know all the sciency stuff behind this, you can find it in the chapter on “The Problem of Rest” in the book Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. It also has sections that cover a lot of the research referenced elsewhere throughout the post. [jump back up]

December 14, 2020

SEO Writing 101: Don’t Skip SERP Research

A good 90% of SEO writing is about creating content that’s valuable to the humans you hope will read it. But then there’s that other 10%—the part about understanding search engines and making sure your writing speaks to what the algorithms respond to.

And a key step in getting that 10% right (and helping with the 90% while you’re at it) is performing SERP research.

What is SERP Research?

SERP stands for search engine results page. Anytime you do a Google search, the page your search produces is the SERP for that keyword.

SERP research is performing an analysis of the SERP for a keyword you want to rank for.

Digging into the SERP for a keyword yields useful insights about how people use the keyword, what Google deems good content on the topic, and what you need to do to effectively compete in the rankings.

How to Perform a SERP Analysis

The idea of SERP research may seem straightforward enough: perform a search, see what shows up. But to do an effective SERP analysis, you want to include a few key steps in your process.

1. Google your primary keyword.

Do a search for the primary keyword you have in mind. If you have a list of a few keywords you’re targeting, or are still trying to decide between a few, go ahead and do this for all of them so you can see how the SERPs compare.

Because Google sometimes provides personalized results based on past search history, this step is best performed in an incognito or private search window.

2. Analyze the layout of the SERP.

The great aim of Google’s algorithm is to discern what the person searching wants to find, and deliver up the best possible results for their query. And because the company has massive quantities of data on people’s search habits and what they click on for each search, they do a pretty good job at understanding the intentions behind a keyword.

For marketers, analyzing the layout of a SERP can reveal valuable information on what your target audience is thinking. You want the piece you write to address what they’re looking for, and the SERP helps you better understand what that is.

Sometimes the results you get will reveal people are searching for something entirely different than you thought. For example, if you do a search for “SERP research” the first result is for an organization called The Strategic Education Research Partnership Institute.

That is…not how I’m using the term in this post. But because the rest of the results on the page have to do with SEO, that suggests that, other than the people searching for that specific organization, most of the people searching for that term are using it the way I’m talking about it.

Beyond confirming the main meaning people have in mind for a keyword, a SERP analysis can help you better understand what type of results they’re looking for. For example, let’s look at the SERPs for two related keywords: ”how to improve energy” and “supplements for energy.”

The first has three main things on it:

An answer box with information pulled from an article on the subject in a list format
A People Also Ask section with related questions
Organic results dominated by articles that list tips

All three of these point to informational search intent. Google is convinced people performing this search want articles that provide actionable tips they can put to use, in list form.

The latter search term looks different. Some of the organic results are informational articles like those on our first SERP, suggesting that’s what some people are looking for. But above that, we get shopping results.

Lower on the page, we get a local map of nearby stores that sell supplements. And several of the organic results are eCommerce brands. That all points to Google understanding this search term to have purchasing intent, at least some of the time. Some people doing this search want information, but many are ready to buy a product that meets their needs.

3. Identify any SERP features.

SERP features are all those extra features that show up on the SERP alongside the organic results. Some common examples include paid ads, the People Also Ask section, the Google local map, answer boxes, and knowledge graphs.

A Backlinko analysis found that 97.6% of searches produce results with at least one SERP feature. Understanding the SERP features for your keyword is important for a few reasons:

They help you understand search intent (as with our supplements example above).
If a featured snippet tops the page, it’s something you’ll want to target with your content
They allow you to gauge how valuable an organic result really is

To that last point, SERP features play a key role in how people will react to a SERP, and can impact how likely they are to click on organic results. For example, if you do a search for a movie, the knowledge graph that shows up on the right side of the page packs a lot of information.

You get images, the year the movie was made, its running time, where you can watch it, critics’ ratings, quotes from reviews, and a list of the top actors in the movie. In short, a decent number of the questions a person might have about the movie are answered right there on the SERP.

Even if you rank on page one for a keyword with a thorough knowledge graph like this—your content requires an extra click, and Google’s doesn’t. That might not make the keyword useless to target, but it means it shouldn’t be as high of a priority as a comparable term without a knowledge graph.

On the other hand, if the page is topped with an answer box, you’ll want to create content optimized for claiming that featured snippet. An Ahrefs study found that less than a third of featured snippets came from the top organic result. That means you don’t have to earn the top spot in Google’s organic results to be featured at the top of the page.

Pay attention to what kind of featured snippet it is. If it’s a list, structure your content in a list format. If it’s a paragraph answer box, include your keyword followed by a brief answer in the content itself, ideally near the top of the page. And of course, aim to make it better than the content currently claiming that spot.

4. Review your top competitors.

This step is the most straightforward, but also the most time consuming. In order to write content that has a chance of ranking, you want to understand what’s ranking now. Click on the top few results, and spend some time reading what’s on the page.

This accomplishes a few things at once:

It shows you what you need to beat. Unless your website has already built up a lot of authority (e.g. you’re writing for a big player like The New York Times or their equivalent in your space), your content needs to be better than the top results to have any chance of competing with them. You need to understand what you’re up against in order to create something that rivals it.
It shows you what Google considers a good answer for the keyword. The content that ranks now can teach you a lot about what Google sees as the best way to cover the topic you’re writing about. Pay attention to what different sections the ranking content includes, what questions they answer, and what language they use. And also note the length. Has Google determined this a topic that requires a longform piece to cover it adequately?
It helps you learn more about the topic. If you’re already an expert, maybe you won’t learn much you didn’t already know. But if you’re a freelance SEO writer who covers a lot of topics, this is an important step for making sure you understand the topic thoroughly before you start writing.
It gives you the chance to look for what’s missing. As you look over these pages, is there a piece of information you feel is important that none of them address? That’s your angle for creating something different and better. You have to know what’s there to find what’s missing.

This step takes time, but by the end of it you’ll not only be better prepared to create content that can rank, but you’ll find that creating your outline and doing the writing itself becomes much easier.

SERP Research Enables Better SEO Writing

If professional writers have one secret for making writing easier, it’s to hold off on trying to write until you’ve done your research. When you understand your topic thoroughly, know what you want to say, and understand how to approach it to meet your goals—the writing itself comes much more fluidly.

For SEO writing, spending time on SERP research gets you to that point. And specifically, it helps you to check off a number of goals at once. You will:

Make sure you understand search intent for your keyword.
Confirm how valuable your keyword is, and whether ranking is realistic.
Determine how to structure your content to optimize for relevant SERP features.
Understand what Google considers “good” content for the keyword.
Make sure you’re answering the top questions your competition is, and then some.
Know what you need to do to write a piece that’s better than what’s ranking now.

All of that alone won’t promise rankings. Google cares too much about things like backlinks and website authority for good SEO writing to ensure rankings alone (as nice as that would be). But it ensures you’re doing all you can to increase your chances of claiming those top spots.

September 21, 2020

How to Use Statistics in Your Content Marketing Writing

For all the wonders of words to help us communicate, think more deeply, and convey truth, they have a dark side. I can just as easily write up a statement that’s a bald-faced lie as one that’s true. Or I can convey an idea that that’s inaccurate—maybe one I fully believe—in a way that makes it sound legitimate.

Stating something is easy. Backing up what you say with convincing evidence is harder. That’s why content marketing writing frequently includes statistics from research.

When to Use Statistics in Content Marketing

Statistics have an important role to play in good content writing. Any time you’re trying to make a point about something, backing it up with a statistic is one of the best ways to convince your reader of the accuracy of what you’re saying. Instead of stating “lots of people shop on their mobile devices”—which many readers will intuitively feel to be true—it’s more meaningful to say that “in 2020 mobile shopping makes up over 70% of ecommerce sales, according to Statista.”

Statistics aren’t the only way to back up a point with evidence, quotes from expert sources or anecdotes from case studies are also options, but they’re a strong tool content writers can use for making a compelling case.

How Not to Use Statistics in Content Marketing Writing

While statistics can be used to make a piece of content marketing writing more effective, they are often deployed lazily. Bad use of statistics is all over content marketing.

Some of the most common issues you’ll see are:

Statistics that don’t include a link to the source.

If you don’t link back to a source, how is a reader supposed to know if the statistic is even real? I could say that 95% of businesses that hire freelance writers are happy with the results. That’s a statistic that would serve me, a freelance writer, pretty well. But I just made it up.

Anyone can make up a statistic that conveniently says what they want. In order for any reader with critical thinking skills to believe it, they need a way to check the claim themselves.

Statistics that do link to a source, but not the original one.

Many content marketers will find a statistic that backs up the claim they’re making, and link back to where they found it. But if the article they found it in isn’t the original source, they’re still forcing work onto any reader that wants to check the stat.

Content marketers often end up in a game of virtual telephone, with different businesses linking to each other as the source of a particular statistic, making it difficult to find your way back to where the statistic came from to start. If a curious reader wants to verify the information and understand methodology and context, they’ll be disappointed if your link doesn’t take them to the original source.

Source links that are broken.

This issue’s more understandable. Sometimes the originator of a piece of research will change the webpage it’s on, or remove it entirely after a few years. When that happens, everyone that cited that source ends up with broken links. I don’t assume sloppiness on the part of a brand when I encounter this, but it’s a good reminder to periodically update your content to keep it current.

Statistics that are super old.

This is particularly an issue in topic areas where things change fast. A statistic about social media use from 2011 is basically worthless in 2020. Some of the most dominant social media platforms today didn’t even exist yet then, or were in their infancy. For any technological field, a statistic that’s more than a couple years old won’t adequately represent today’s reality. And even in other fields, statistics that are a few years old risk being inaccurate.

Statistics provided without context (or that get the context wrong).

Sometimes in trying to make a statistic fit a particular point, writers leave out some of the context. That could mean saying 82% of people think something, when the research study the statistic came from was specific to marketers in the United States. U.S. marketers are people, to be sure, but it’s misleading to talk about a statistic that applies to a specific subset of the population as though it applies to everyone. Someone that doesn’t go back to check the original source in that case may believe something inaccurate based on how the information is presented. That does them a disservice.

How to Responsibly Use Statistics in Your Content Marketing

When you see so many other businesses perpetuating these errors, you may be tempted to do the same. If it’s the industry standard, why not take the easy route? But the world of content marketing is competitive, and your aim should be to do work that’s better than the norm, especially if it makes your writing more valuable to readers.

When using statistics, follow a few key rules to get it right.

1. Trace the statistic back to the original source.

Sometimes this is hard. You’ll find 20 articles all linking to each other, or back to an article that doesn’t explain where the number came from. In that case, don’t use the stat. You don’t know how old it is, so can’t be confident it’s not outdated. You can’t confirm the original source was reputable, or even that it wasn’t made up.

If you can’t can’t prove it’s legitimate, it’s not worth the risk of publishing bad information.

I make one main exception to this rule: if you manage to track a statistic back to a research paper that comes at a very high cost. Some companies charge handsomely for access to their research (think: hundreds or thousands of dollars per report). If you found a reputable source that cites that report, I believe it’s OK to go with that instead of the original.

2. Research the source.

If it’s not a brand or organization you’re already familiar with, do some research to find out what their reputation is. Misinformation online is far too common, and there are plenty of bad actors that intentionally put out misleading or erroneous information. You don’t want to inadvertently end up citing so-called research from a company or organization that’s out to deceive or manipulate.

3. Check the date.

If you’re in a fast-moving industry, try to find research less than a year old. In general, aim for research less than three years old. In some topic areas, older research may be fine. For example, if you’re writing about psychology, a study from ten years ago may still be worth mentioning. But if you’re writing about web design, a ten-year old statistic is worth little.

4. Check the methodology.

Legitimate research reports will provide some details on how they came to those numbers. If it was a survey, look for a page that explains who they contacted with the survey, how many people responded, and any relevant demographic information about the respondents.

If it was data compiled by software, then look for an explanation of the study’s sample size and how the data was compiled. For example, if a company publishes a research report about common web design elements created by having software scan different websites, they’d say how many websites were included, how they selected them, and any limitations of the process to be aware of.

You don’t have to explain the methodology when citing the statistic, but do take a minute to make sure the explanations are there so you can confirm the research is valid and that the stats are relevant to what you’re saying. If there’s a limitation in the methodology—e.g. the survey had a small group of respondents—do mention that. Start by seeing if you can find a better source. But if not, then make the limitations clear in your writing. For example, you could introduce the statistic with “While the sample size was small, one survey by Acme Corp found that <stat>”

5. Make sure you understand the context.

Sometimes what a statistic really means can get lost in the game of telephone between the original research report and the different articles written about it. The health field is particularly notorious for reporting that ditches any nuance in a research study to tout a statistic that makes for a good headline. But it’s not the only industry it happens in.

This may be tempting—it might get you clicks, or make your point look better supported than it really is—but it makes your writing less authoritative. Before you include a statistic in your writing, take time to make sure you understand it yourself. That’s a necessary step to keep from misrepresenting it.

6. Name the source in your piece.

Naming the source in the text of your piece tells readers right away where it comes from, without making them do more work. And if the webpage you link to moves or gets taken down (something all too common, as mentioned previously), it ensures readers still have some information on where the number came from.

So when saying “76% of all people like to eat chocolate” (a made-up stat), throw an “according to the Food Research Company” (a made-up source) before or after the statistic itself.

7. Link back to the (original) source.

Even though you’re working to make sure you’re presenting the statistic accurately, with the proper context, and with a mention of where it came from in the text, you still want to give your readers the means to check it all for themselves. A simple link back to the source does the trick.

8. Double-check the information before publishing.

Every writer knows how easily small errors can slip into pieces you’ve worked hard on. As part of your proofreading process, go back and double-check all the statistics you included in the piece. Make sure you didn’t mistype one, or get a couple mixed up. You don’t want to work hard to do everything the right way only to lose trust over a small error.

If Used Well, Statistics Can Make Your Writing Better

Using statistics badly is easy. That’s why it’s so common. Getting it right requires more work on a writer’s part. But if you want to create content marketing that’s trustworthy, that extra effort is worth it. And with how competitive content marketing is today, this is one way to make sure yours stands out as more valuable.

August 13, 2020

Imposter Syndrome: What it Is and Tips to Overcome It

You see a job ad that sounds perfect. It’s exactly the kind of job you’ve been wanting. But then you scroll down to the list of required qualifications. It’s long. It’s intimidating. You’re starting to worry it’s not even worth trying to get this job. It’s obviously meant for someone better than you.

Or you see a conversation about rates in your favorite freelance writers’ group and marvel at the numbers other people mention. You can’t imagine ever being good enough to confidently throw out a rate that high.

These feelings come from the same place: imposter syndrome.

It’s a problem that plagues people across industries and in all kinds of roles. And it’s dangerous. It keeps people from taking opportunities they deserve, drawing reasonable boundaries, and charging the professional rates their work is worth.

I was recently a guest on the Deliberate Freelancer podcast with Melanie Padgett Powers to talk about my experiences with imposter syndrome, and tips for how to overcome it.

Listen to the full conversation here.

What is Imposter Syndrome?

Imposter syndrome is the worry that you’re not good enough, without any evidence that’s the case, and often in the face of evidence to the contrary. In professional scenarios, it means doubting your abilities in areas where you actually have an impressive amount of skill and knowledge.

For freelancers, it can take the form of entering into client relationships with a feeling that you’re lucky to be hired—like the client’s doing you a favor. For employees, it can mean a fear of speaking up to voice your opinions, worrying that your contributions aren’t valuable.

Across the board, it leads to professionals failing to ask for what they’re worth financially, and leaves people vulnerable to exploitation and mistreatment by those willing to take advantage of a lack of confidence.

What Causes Imposter Syndrome?

Imposter syndrome can affect anyone, but it does tend to show up more often in those with less privilege in our society. Cultural power dynamics play a role in who feels the most comfortable taking up space and voicing opinions.

For me, being raised in a patriarchal culture as a woman contributed to the imposter syndrome I had in my early years in the professional world. My default is to be people pleasing, which too often translated to feeling guilty about drawing reasonable professional boundaries with clients, or asking for (what I now know to be) standard professional rates.

That doesn’t mean imposter syndrome is specific to any one gender, although I do believe it’s more likely to affect those marginalized in our society in some way. The line “aspire to the confidence of a mediocre white man” is an adage for a reason—those that can expect power and respect from the world around them as a given are less likely to doubt themselves. Whereas those living in a world that constantly demands they prove themselves worthy of basic respect are prone to internalize that messaging.

The root causes of imposter syndrome relate to a lot of much bigger issues in our society—capitalism, racism, patriarchy, and ableism, to name a few examples. But as individuals we can tackle our own feelings of imposter syndrome while continuing to live with the power dynamics that create it. I don’t have to personally topple the patriarchy to beat my own imposter syndrome (although that doesn’t mean I won’t try).

7 Tips for Overcoming Imposter Syndrome

1. Pay more attention to the positive voices in your life than the negative.

One of the dirty tricks our minds play on us is amplifying negative feedback, while downplaying positive. Most of us could have ten people telling us we’re awesome and one saying we suck, and that one person will take up more brain space than the other ten combined. Changing that balance takes intentional work.

Learn to listen to the people that give you positive reinforcement. Trust that they know what they’re talking about.

And when you receive negative feedback, walk away from it for a bit to get some emotional distance. Once you’re past the initial gut punch, come back to it with fresh eyes. Is it constructive feedback that you can take to improve? Is it actually telling you that you suck and you’ll never make it as a respectable professional? (Hint: it’s probably not.) And if it’s not constructive—if it’s mean or patronizing—is it something you should be treating as legitimate measure of your worth? (Hint: probably not).

2. Collect and save testimonials and recommendations.

This helps with the first step. Any time you get an email with positive feedback, save it and pull it back up on the days you’re doubting yourself. When you have clients or employers that like your work, ask them to send over a few lines about it.

LinkedIn allows you to send a request to people you’ve worked with asking for a recommendation. It’s quick and easy for them to do, and gives you a collection of positive words to pull up anytime those negative thoughts creep in.

And for freelancers, testimonials do the double duty of being a confidence booster when you need it and a marketing tool you can add to your website.

3. Take stock of your experience.

Another good exercise to tackle when you’re facing imposter syndrome is to sit down and write out a list of jobs, projects, or clients you’ve managed. Similar to what you do when writing a resume (but it can be messier since it’s just for yourself), list the skills you developed and put to use, and any goals you accomplished in the process. Tally up the years you’ve spent doing a particular type of work.

If you’re new to the professional world or a particular field, the list can be about what you accomplished in school, volunteer roles, or extracurricular activities. Chances are, you’ve still built up some useful skills and knowledge that are worthy of respect. You don’t have to be an expert with decades of experience to bring value to a job or project. If you know you possess solid research skills, a willingness to learn, punctuality—whatever your list of top attributes are—put those down in writing in this step.

4. Dump toxic clients and bosses.

While you can work on giving more space to the positive voices in your life than the negative, if you have a toxic boss or client, their voice will be loud and persistent for as long as they have power over you.

If you’re a freelancer, one of the biggest benefits of working for yourself is the power to be picky about who you work with. If you have a client that’s all negativity, all the time, end things as soon as possible to open up room in your calendar for better clients.

Note: I’ve spoken on this topic before! Get some advice on how to break up with bad clients here.

If you’re in a job with a toxic boss, this is a lot harder. I get it. But make looking for new opportunities a top priority in your off hours. A toxic boss can do serious damage to your self confidence, and there’s a real epidemic of bad managers out there. Do what you can to keep their voice from piercing your self esteem for as long as you have to stick it out, and commit to getting out of there as soon as you can.

5. Build your professional network.

Personally, I know that how other people see me has an influence on how I see myself. When I realize that people I think are impressive professionals see me as smart and experienced—it’s a lot easier to see myself that way. If you’re not yet at a point in your career where you have a professional network around you that views you as an experienced and legitimate professional, get to work building one!

While in-person networking opportunities are out for the foreseeable future, you can still make professional connections with virtual opportunities. Twitter chats, virtual networking meetups, Slack communities, Facebook groups—take advantage of the online communities that exist in your field to start making more connections.

Put in the work to build those relationships and suddenly, one day, you’ll look around and realize people see you as an expert in your field. And once you know that’s what people you respect see when they look at you, it will bolster your own view of yourself.

6. Make a habit out of professional bravery.

Apply for that job with intimidating qualifications. Send over that proposal with rates so high they make you uncomfortable. Apply to be a speaker at that industry conference. Send a pitch to that publication you think is way out of your league.

You may get rejected. In fact, you’ll almost certainly get rejected some of the time. But trust me that even some of the best and most brilliant people in your field get rejections too. The more brave choices you take, the more likely you are to get a “yes” on at least one of them. And when that happens, it will definitely boost your confidence.

7. Invest in improving your skills.

If you’re genuinely concerned that your lack of self-confidence may reflect a lack of skills or knowledge, then fix that. Sign up for a course or hire a consultant in your field. Getting feedback from a proven expert should be enough to convince you that you do actually know what you’re doing and you are good enough.

If you can’t afford that, then dive into all the free resources you can find in your topic area. See if you can find free courses that provide a certification in your industry, or highly-regarded books that provide valuable insights you can learn from.

The best antidote to worrying that you don’t know your stuff is committing to learning as much as you can.

Imposter Syndrome Can Be Beat

While it took me years to get here, I’m confident now in my professional knowledge and abilities. I’m much more comfortable charging professional rates, drawing boundaries, and saying no to clients that aren’t a good fit—all things that require a level of confidence that’s hard to reach with imposter syndrome. If self doubt’s holding you back, start doing the work to overcome it. Trusting in your self worth will improve your career and your personal life.

To hear more on the subject, listen to the Deliberate Freelancer episode here.

August 7, 2020

Freelance Writer Rates: What’s Normal?

Every freelance writer faces the question at some point. And every person that plans to hire a freelance writer wonders the same thing.

What’s a reasonable rate to pay for freelance writing services?

One reason the question is so common is because the answer’s far from straightforward. A bit of research reveals a vast gulf between the low end of rates (jobs on Upwork or Problogger offering $25 for 500 words, for instance) and those on the high end (experienced writers charging $1 a word and up). That’s a 20x difference!

How can you get a sense of normal when the range is so extreme?

What’s a Fair Freelance Writer Rate? The Short Answer

What’s fair depends a lot on context, but just to provide a short and simple range for you to work with:

A fair freelance writer rate by the word: ranges between .20 cents for newbies, and $1 for experienced writers
A fair freelance writer rate by the hour: ranges from $30 for beginners to over $100 an hour for experienced writers.

For project rates, I can’t give you an easy range because it depends so much on the particulars of the project. But recent data compiled by Ashley Cummings can give you an idea at a glimpse.

The Reasons for the Disparity

Even after winnowing out rates so low as to not be reasonable, the range I provided is still vast. Some freelance writers are charging more than five times as much as others. How is that fair and reasonable? How do you decide which end of that range you should be on, whether hiring a writer or working as one?

Based on Ashley’s report combined with my twelve years of anecdotal experience, four main factors play a role here:

1. Experience

This is the biggest reason behind the differences in pricing between freelance writers. But it’s more complicated than more experience = higher rates. A number of different types of experience come into play here:

Business/professional experience

Many new freelancers don’t have a good grasp on what’s normal for freelance writers to charge. And those job ads with low rates I mentioned earlier cause a lot of confusion. On day one of launching a freelance business, a lot of writers vastly undercharge. And that’s especially a risk for those new to the professional world. Someone just starting their career will have a limited knowledge of professional norms in general, including around rates.

That’s where you get the super low rates, but what about the rates on the low end of the fair range? That’s from people still working to grow their skills, gain writing samples that prove their abilities, and build up awareness of their freelance business. The people charging $30 an hour or $.20 a word now will gain the experience they need to—little by little—join the ranks of the writers on the higher end of the range.

Experience in a specific type of work

Many freelance writers specialize in a specific type of work. In my case, I focus on content marketing writing, specifically blog posts and longform content marketing assets like guides and ebooks. Others build up specific experience in email marketing, website copywriting, or landing pages, to name a few examples. When someone spends years on a specific type of writing, they tend to get pretty good at it. And they gain successful examples of that specific type of work, which makes them a more attractive choice for clients needing that type of writing. All of that translates to higher rates.

Industry experience

The same thing goes for industry experience. When a writer dives deep into learning a specific industry and audience, especially one that’s complicated like B2B (business-to-business) technology or health care, they become more valuable to clients in that space. When a business hires a specialist in the field, you don’t have to worry about training them in the basics. And you’re less likely to receive content from them that reveals a misunderstanding of what your business does and who you’re talking to. That’s all worth more money.

Experience getting proven results

When you hear “experience,” you probably think first about time—the years spent doing something. That matters. But writers that charge on the high end of the range can usually also reveal evidence of results they’ve helped clients achieve. Whether that’s landing pages that drove sales, blog posts that reached the top spot on Google, or emails that get impressive open rates. Writers that can prove their work contributes to results will charge accordingly.

2. Attention to Detail

Someone getting paid a small amount per piece has an incentive to get it done fast. For $25 blog posts to add up to a living wage (at least in the U.S.), you have to crank out a lot of them. Trying to rush skilled work leads to sloppy results. It just does.

People trying to build a business off of low rates end up cutting corners. They skip proofreading, or they don’t bother with research and let errors in. Whatever they do to achieve speed leaves clients with writing that can’t stand on its own—at least not if your brand cares about maintaining a reputation for quality. Anecdotally, I’ve heard of businesses trying to save money via cheap writing that receive work they can’t use at all, or that has to be extensively re-written to become usable.

For the kind of attention to detail that produces work you don’t have to spend your valuable time editing and can use as is, choosing a writer that charges enough to give the project the time it deserves matters.

3. Type of Writing

This is part of what makes it so hard to generalize about rates. The time and skills involved in writing an entire website can’t be easily compared to what it takes to write a sales email. And since most freelance writers charge using project rates (another tidbit via Ashley’s report), that makes side-by-side comparisons of what’s normal difficult.

Project types that require a lot of time to complete, like websites and ebooks, cost more; as do projects that require specialized skill sets, like writing landing pages designed to convert.

4. Complexity of Subject

If your business is in a technical or complicated industry, then finding a writer that either already knows it well or will be able to do the research required to learn it is harder. That means the ones that do are worth more. Topics like health care, SaaS (Software-as-a-Service), medical devices, finance, and manufacturing are harder for freelance writers to learn and write about than, say, travel or video games. Businesses in specialized, complex industries should be prepared to pay writers more.

How Much Should You Pay for Freelance Writing?

You know what a fair range looks like, and presumably you already have a project in mind. But you still need to figure out where within the range you want to be.

If your budget is tight and you’re leaning toward the lower end of that range, then expect to hire someone that’s relatively new and inexperienced. That’s not a bad thing, everyone has to start somewhere. Just be prepared to spend a little more time working with them to help them learn. You may have to provide more specific instructions, do more edits, and allow them more time to research and get the work done.

If you don’t want to do that much work, but you’re still not quite sure about the high end of that range, then you’re looking for someone that does have experience, but is somewhere in the middle of their career. Maybe they’ve been working as a freelance writer for a couple of years, so they know the basics, but still have a lot to learn (although don’t we all). Or maybe they’re branching into a new type of writing they have less experience with and are willing to charge less to get their foot in the door and gain a new writing sample.

For the writers on the high end of that range you get:

Someone with a developed process into how they do their work, ensuring they get it done efficiently and meet deadlines.
Writing deliverables that need few to no edits.
An understanding of your specific industry and/or the type of writing you need done.
Someone with name recognition, whose association with your brand could give you a boost.

There are a few scenarios where top freelance writers may consider a reduced rates—but be careful how you ask. Considering ways to make the work easier on them or more valuable to their business is a much better strategy than directly requesting a discount.

Writing is hard work and worth paying a fair rate for, but what “fair” looks like in your case will depend on your particular needs. Figure out where you fall on this spectrum, and price out your budget for a freelance writer accordingly.