Working remotely can be a challenge unto itself, requiring an extra level of attention and focus that isn’t always necessary in a traditional office environment. From the draw to take care of that load of laundry to the temptation of turning on the TV for a few minutes, it’s easy to let work fall by the wayside in a residential environment. It’s also easier to feel disconnected from team members. Without a smile and a wave every morning or the ability to swing by and ask a simple question, working remotely can be a little isolating and frustrating.

However, working remotely can be a big perk for many people, and it can be a very effective way to accomplish goals and get ahead in the workplace. These tips can help you master working remotely, increasing focus and productivity along the way.

Interested in working remotely? Check out our freelance content writing jobs!

Create a Dedicated Workspace

Distractions are common in a workspace of any kind, but working from home adds an extra burden. Housekeeping tasks, like making meals and doing laundry, can creep into your mind, while the temptation of the television is always lurking. While this isn’t always a big deal – some days, there will be plenty of time to cook a nice lunch in between conference calls – in many cases, the distractions of home can be a serious detriment. Research indicates that in 82% of cases, tasks that are interrupted by distractions are continued the same day, but on average, it takes over 23 minutes to get back to business. That’s a problem when deadlines are looming.

ALSO – How Missing Content Deadlines Impacts Marketing Agencies in a Big Way (and What You Can Do About It)

To avoid the allure of lounging on the couch, create a dedicated workspace, preferably in a quiet, clean room with a door that closes and a computer setup. If there are potential complications in the house, like children home with a nanny or a spouse who also works from home, invest in noise-canceling headphones or soundproofing to keep your workspace just that: a space for work.

As Chloe Brittain, the owner of Opal Transcription Services suggests, “Be upfront with your family and friends about your working hours and that you’re unavailable to take messages during that time. And if your friends don’t respect that and continue to bombard you with texts, there’s only one solution left: ignore them!”

Set Working Hours

In an office, you’re generally on the clock for a set amount of time, often from 9 AM to 5 PM. At home, however, nothing is tethering you to your desk, save perhaps scheduled meetings. When hours are up to your discretion, it’s far easier to allow distractions to creep in. Starting late to get a workout in, stopping early to make dinner, or leaving mid-day to run errands may be okay every now and then, but it’s best to set hours for your work day so you can prevent these kinds of activities from distracting you.

Further, when you have set work hours, your bosses can confirm you’re doing what you need to be doing. Failing to answer emails in a timely manner or pushing back on early meetings, for example, implies that you’re not working as effectively as you should be. States the co-owner and COO of Slumber Yard, Matthew Ross, “If you’re going to work remotely, I expect you to respond to questions and emails immediately. When I don’t hear back from a remote worker within 20 minutes, I start to think they aren’t actually working.” As such, it’s important to come up with set working hours based on your preferences, work requirements, and best practices to make sure you’re getting done what you need to get done.

For those in an industry not predicated by maintaining hours, setting goals is a good alternative. Adam Hempenstall, the CEO and Founder of Better Proposals, offers this advice: “The way we increased productivity as remote workers was simple. We focused on goals. Each week, everyone would get a set of goals that they needed to achieve. They could work whenever they want and for as long as they want, as long as the goals were met. That way, we got rid of the pressure and we made sure that everyone did their part. So far, it’s working out fairly well.”

Setting a designated work schedule also helps you to manage your time in a good way: when you have a set end time, you can ensure work doesn’t spill into your personal life and disrupt your work life balance.. “Give yourself a stop time, too. When you tell yourself you can work all night, you’ll be less motivated to work efficiently than if you know you have to stop at 6:00,” says Jennifer Johnson, a communications and public relations consultant.

Utilize the Right Tools

Technology is a wonderful thing, making remote work possible. The internet keeps everyone connected, allowing communication and productivity from anywhere, any time. However, sitting at your desk and relying solely on emails means leaving a lot of valuable tools on the table. From video chatting capabilities to project management software that caters to joint workflow, companies now employ significant infrastructure designed to support remote staff.

Many successful remote workers employ significant amounts of technology to stay face to face, even when oceans away. As Haley Anhut, a marketing manager at Clean Origin, suggests, “Get face time in with your team. It’s almost 2020! We have the technology to be present with a remote team. Call someone instead of emailing or video call instead of messaging. It can help to make you feel present.”

Not sure what you need? Try a few out and see what works for you. “Experiment with some digital tools and learn how to make them work for you. I use Asana to plan out my daily, weekly, and long term goals, as well as collaborate with my remote team. Some remote workers might also find value from a time tracking tool, additional collaboration tools like Slack and Zoom, and a system for sharing important documents such as Dropbox, Google Suite, or Box.” And, if you find something that works for you, don’t be afraid to speak up. Getting a whole team on the same system can increase efficiency, so your suggestions can benefit your entire department.

ALSO – Is Multitasking Killing Your Freelance Career?

Keep in Touch

When you work remotely, it’s easy to feel a little alienated from the other people you work with. In many cases, remote workers hone in on themselves and their objectives, working on the things they need to accomplish to meet expectations without speaking with other team members.

In an office, information flows freely: it’s not uncommon for team members to share gossip, stop by one another’s desks to share tidbits, or pick up an idle conversation before and after meetings. As such, working away from the office means it’s harder to stay up to date on details that are important to the course of business. Rather than sitting around waiting for information to come your way, reach out to your peers and managers to make sure you’re always in the loop. Ask for developments on projects, request feedback on projects, and message your coworkers just to chat from time to time. This kind of conversation and info swapping is a big part of normal employment, so the absence of this element when working from home can be a big disadvantage.

Many companies that offer flexible work conditions invite remote employees to pop into the office from time to time if they’re in the same area, or even fly remote workers into head office for regular catch ups. If your company offers this, be sure to take advantage.

Slumber Yard‘s Matthew Ross believes that it’s the onus of the remote worker to make sure information isn’t missing. “As a remote worker, you have to take it upon yourself to talk with co-workers and managers to stay up to date on the latest company initiatives and strategies. Another pet peeve of mine is when remote workers say “well, I didn’t know” or “no one told me”. If you work remotely, part of your responsibility is to stay up to date with what’s being discussed in the office.”

Step Into Your (Home) Office

Working remotely certainly has its advantages, but being productive at home isn’t as easy as it sounds. With these tips for working remotely, it’s possible to create a workspace, productivity plan, and virtual team connections that work for you.

The post Tips For Working Remotely + Powerful Insights From 6 Experts appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

If you’re considering a career as a freelance copywriter, keep reading for a primer on how to make yourself more marketable so you land the best assignments and position yourself for long-term success.

Copywriting Vs. Content Writing

A common misconception is that copywriting and content writing are different words for the same thing. They aren’t. The difference lies in the intent.

Content writing is meant to inform and entertain, engaging visitors so they spend more time interacting with a website and a brand in general. Copywriting, on the other hand, is designed for one reason – to sell – and may encompass a variety of projects.

ALSO – Are You a Content Writer or a Copywriter?

Types of Copywriting Projects include:

• Advertisements
• Website Landing pages
• Marketing emails and other correspondence
• Product descriptions
• Blog Posts
• Social media Posts

ALSO – The Top Freelance Writing Jobs For 2019
ALSO – 7 Expert Tips for Advertising Copywriting

Why Companies Hire Freelance Copywriters

There are many reasons why companies hire freelance copywriters. Sometimes, they simply don’t generate enough work to sustain a full-time position, or high demand may have caused temporary overflow work, and often, in-house employees lack the necessary skills to create copy that can drive sales. Hiring a freelance copywriter can also be a more cost-effective option, and more and more, marketing teams are realizing the value a professional writer can bring to a business.

Professionalism

Websites that are littered with typos, misspellings, and poor grammar radiate unprofessionalism. Worse, are posts or product descriptions filled with jargon and confusing information, which can be a turnoff for a potential customer, and make even a loyal buyer lose trust in a brand. An experienced freelance copywriter brings professionalism to the delivery of a brand’s message.

Clarity

In digital marketing, particularly for web-based brands, clarity is everything. Potential buyers don’t see the product in person. They can’t touch it or try it out. They aren’t talking face-to-face with a representative about a service. These companies rely completely on words and images to convey the value of their product or service. Freelance copywriters are wordsmiths who have the expertise to deliver a clear verbal picture of the brand, product, or service.

Results

Ultimately, companies want results. Senior copywriters have years of experience behind them and can effectively and efficiently create engaging, error-free copy that’s designed to get results.

Making Yourself Marketable as a Freelance Copywriter

While prior copywriting experience is always desirable, there’s no must-have training for freelance copywriters. There are, however, certain things you can do to make yourself more marketable and increase your odds of receiving prime copywriting assignments:

• Hone your writing skills. First and foremost, freelance copywriters should be great writers. You should not only know the basics of spelling, grammar, and word usage, but be able to write high-quality copy that’s engaging, effective, and requires minimal editing.

• Develop the ability to work independently. Freelancers need to be self-starters. To meet the sometimes-strict deadlines required for the job, you’ll have to manage your time with minimal oversight.

• Learn to mimic style. Companies want consistency. A good copywriter can match a brand’s style to create seamless additions to preexisting content. For BJ Enoch, Director of Demand Generation at opendorse, the ability to mimic brand voice is one of three core needs he considers when hiring freelancers. Enoch explains, “I evaluate how well they were able to blend their writing into the overall brand voice and tone of the client.”

• Keep an online portfolio. Companies looking for freelancers like to see writing samples. By setting up a digital portfolio at a site such as Clippings.Me or Journo Portfolio you can give potential clients easy access to your work.

• Do your homework. Copywriting is a marketing tool and you should understand the concepts and terminology of the industry, including conversion, calls to action (CTA), and branding. A course in marketing may be a good investment in your own marketability.

• Know your SEO. Professional copywriters know how to optimize content for SEO, finding the right keywords – or working with keywords provided — and skillfully weaving them into the copy so that they sound natural. LogoMaker, an English-speaking company that hires freelancers to translate copy into 10 languages, only takes on writers with SEO experience. Audrey Strasenburgh, the company’s SEO Strategist, notes, “Our freelancers are all well-versed in search engine optimization, so they know not to translate verbatim. Doing so results in awkward non-English sentences.” After all, awkward is about the last thing companies want in their sales copy.

• Understand the relationship between copy and design. Design is an important part of digital marketing, and as a freelance copywriter, you’ll need to tailor your copy to work effectively with graphics, videos, and other design elements. It’s also important to consider how your content will be used. Copy designed for a company’s landing page, for instance, will look considerably different than copy meant for a blog post or marketing email.

• Know your process. You should be able to articulate your approach to content creation. BJ Enoch of opendorse comments, “I want to know what the writer’s process is for research, creation, approval, and edits. All of the successful engagements I’ve had with copywriters have shared one common theme; they all had a documented process for how they would approach research, initial drafts, rewrites, etc.”

• Be professional. Companies want to do business with professionals. Professionalism includes communicating clearly and often, meeting all deadlines, and always being courteous.

• Demonstrate your ability to get results. One thing Adam Hempenstall, the founder and CEO of Better Proposals, looks for is a writer’s track record. He explains, “We want landing page copy that converts so we are on the lookout for writers with solid track records. If a writer can show us the copy they’ve written and the results it achieved (conversion rates, how it beat someone else’s control), we are ready to hire them.”

The combination of these skills makes a copywriter marketable. Reuben Yonatan, Founder and CEO of GetVOIP, elaborates, “There is more to being a professional copywriter than simply a way with words. You need to deliver on time or ahead of schedule, and the copy should be flawless (at least error-wise).”

Finding Freelance Copywriting Jobs

Many companies, including major brands, hire freelance copywriters directly or through a freelance writing platform, and there are several ways to find jobs.

• Networking Sites. Business networking sites, such as LinkedIn, can be a fantastic resource for writers seeking freelance copywriting jobs. While your searchable profile page lets you include everything you need to demonstrate your experience to companies who may be looking for freelancers, you can also collect recommendations from companies you’ve worked with to build your reputation. You can also join relevant LinkedIn groups, which let you connect with other freelancers to share tips and tricks for finding the best jobs.
• Job Banks. Job listing sites, such as Indeed, include searchable lists of available assignments, including freelance, part time and contract positions, making it easy to find the types of positions you want. They also let you post resumes, to let potential employers find you.
• The Direct Approach. If you’ve done your research and have found clients you think are a potential fit for the services you’re offering, you can reach out to them directly with proposals. This can be particularly effective for small, local businesses that may not even know how they could benefit from hiring a freelance copywriter.
• Crowd Content. Through Crowd Content’s unique platform, writers have access to a variety of copywriting jobs. Unlike many freelance writing platforms, Crowd Content writers may advance to higher-paying assignments as they demonstrate their skills and reliability.

Beginning Your Career

Many freelance writers will tell you that copywriting is a challenging, competitive, and rewarding field. If you’re ready to embark on this exciting career, visit Crowd Content’s freelance writing jobs page to begin.

The post How to Find and Succeed With Freelance Copywriting Jobs appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Those numbers include third-party sellers on Amazon, as well as direct sales from the giant itself. As of 2019, more than 5 million sellers hawked their wares on the Amazon marketplace, with more than a million Amazon sellers joining the ranks in the last year alone. Those sellers are divided across 12 markets globally, but wherever you’re working as a freelance product description writer, Amazon provides an opportunity for branching out into a specialty: writing Amazon product descriptions.

An Amazon product description writer helps clients who sell in the Amazon marketplace ensure their items appear in search results and listing pages and increase conversion rates via well-written marketing copy. Here are seven tips for becoming the best Amazon product description writer you can to keep clients coming back for more.

1. Write to Capture Conversions During Micro Moments

Roughly 90% of people check prices on Amazon even when they’re shopping elsewhere. They also turn to Amazon as a retail search engine, bypassing Google to get quick facts about goods on the retail site. Keep this in mind when writing Amazon listing copy. During a micro moment, the person is thinking about the product and may even consider making a purchase, but you only have a few seconds to capture their interest.

• Keep PDs short whenever possible
• Follow journalistic best practices and lead with the “meat;” in product copy, that means putting the best selling points first
• Organize information in a way that’s logical for browsers; if the item isn’t the right size, they won’t want to waste their time reading more

2. Optimize Descriptions with the Right Keywords

Amazon’s algorithm takes both sales page content and CTS into account when positioning products in its search results. CTS is a reflection of the number of people who click on products and then actually purchase them.

Only 30% of people even click to the second page of Amazon product results, so it’s critical to land as high in the results as possible for your targeted search terms.

As an Amazon product description copywriter, you can help your clients achieve this important goal by incorporating the right keyword phrases into your descriptions. If clients don’t provide keywords, do some quick research to find out how people are searching on Amazon for these types of products. Then, include those phrases in the product title and the first and last sentences of your description whenever possible.

ALSO: Watch This Webinar to Learn the Secret to Creating Product Descriptions

3. Don’t Forget to Write with Google in Mind

Google does index Amazon product listings, so keep search engine optimization in mind when you’re writing. You might include top Google keywords alongside Amazon keywords — these aren’t necessarily the same thing.

Just remember — focus on delivering a good customer experience and don’t sacrifice it trying to include too many keywords.

You should also keep snippets in mind; Google will automatically pull a helpful snippet straight from product descriptions and use it in the meta description position in the search results. Keep that 160-ish character limit in mind when you’re crafting the first sentence or two of your Amazon PD; would it make a good hook when appearing in the search engine results?

ALSO: 3 Ways to Improve Your Product Page SEO

4. Write in Feature/Benefit Format

Use strong marketing copy practices, including writing about features and benefits. Since most Amazon product descriptions appear alongside images of the goods and specification listings, you can concentrate more on the benefits instead of describing exactly what the item looks like.

5. Use Bullets and White Space to Make Content Easy to Scan

When someone is perusing products online, they may be comparing numerous items or taking a quick gander into the eCommerce options while they’re standing in a physical store. The point here is this: no one has time to sift through bulky product descriptions or face down huge paragraphs of text.

Write Amazon PDs that are easy to scan so individuals can look for the specific information they require. Some tips include:

• Using bullet points to list key features with related benefits
• Including line breaks between short paragraphs to increase white space
• Organize your PD with key features and benefits up front and sample use cases or less important considerations toward the bottom
• Format all PDs for a brand the same way for easy scannability and brand recognition

6. Study Amazon’s Rules for Product Description Content

Did you know Amazon has its own style guide? That’s definitely something professional Amazon copywriters need to be aware of.

The Amazon Services Quick Start Style Guide offers concise information on best practices and rules for formatting Amazon product descriptions. For example, product titles can’t be more than 200 characters and Amazon has some preferences for capitalization.

Amazon also publishes rules for descriptions related to specific types of products. It doesn’t allow descriptions that include spoilers related to media products such as movies and books, for example.

Knowing the rules for various listing types helps Amazon product description writers provide viable content for clients. And when clients can upload your content without worrying about a negative impact on their listing status, they’ll remember you for future jobs.

7. Check Out the Product Descriptions of High-Performing Products

Finally, check out what other brands — especially the top performers — are doing when it comes to Amazon product descriptions. By considering the descriptions that already help products rank high, you can understand what types of keywords are working for various types of goods. You can also get ideas about how to format, phrase and build Amazon product descriptions that best serve your target audience and perform well for clients.

ALSO: 3 Examples of Great Product Descriptions that Convert and Rank

Become an Amazon Product Description Writer

Does it take some time and work to become an effective Amazon product description writer? Yes. You have to keep up with Amazon’s style guide and requirements as well as general best practices for SEO and marketing copy. But with the eCommerce giant taking an ever bigger piece of the pie, honing your Amazon PD writing skills can mean a big payoff down the line.

The post What Freelancers Need to Know About Writing Amazon Product Descriptions appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

And while there are definitely benefits to both scenarios, writers that are fast and loose with their content ideas may find that they can attract higher-paying freelance writing jobs. On the flip side, they can also find themselves in non-productive ideation projects that don’t pay enough to justify their time investment.

So, how do you best manage ideation for your clients? Read on to see how top writers on Crowd Content approach this potentially rewarding type of work.

Also – if you’d like tips on ideation, be sure to check out our recent article for some great ideas.

Why You Must Know How to Come Up With Article Ideas

If you’re a writer who hates coming up with ideas and prefers the client take the lead, you might wonder if you can just keep getting paid to write an article and be done with it. In the crowdsourcing world, that’s a viable option, and we have plenty of work for freelancers who simply want to kick out high-quality content without becoming too involved with client communication and branding.

But if you’re looking to build client relationships to fuel your work queue long-term, then going the extra mile can come in handy. After all, ideas flow and they ebb, even for clients, so even brands with a good handle on ideation often appreciate some new blood in the brainstorming process.

Some benefits of learning how to come up with article ideas for clients include:

• The ability to differentiate yourself from other freelance writers
• Developing an ongoing work relationship with the client
• Providing ideas that turn into paid article assignments for you
• Driving content in a better direction for SEO, audience engagement and other purposes if a client is struggling with these concepts

New to freelance writing?

10 Freelance Writing Tips to Know Before You Start Writing

Business Practices: Should You Charge for Ideation?

If you’re going to put in the extra work, should you charge for it?

The answer to this depends on numerous factors, including your relationship with the client, how much the client is paying for the articles and your personal preferences.

On the one hand, if the client has not ordered content or guaranteed orders, then any ideation you do for them may be of a speculative nature. This is known as a pitch, which is common in the freelance world. Some writers are talented at crafting article ideas into pitches that wow clients and land high-paying jobs, but you definitely have to weigh your time and effort with the ultimate return.

If you’re already working with the client to provide content, how you incorporate ideation depends on you and the expectations you set. If you don’t say otherwise, the client may just assume you’ll come up with topics. You might agree to come up with topics and do all the research for a higher per-word payment, though, or you might offer to do ideation for a per-article or hourly fee.

What Goes Into A Pitch?

We’ve covered why you’d want to know how to pitch article ideas and how to get compensated for that work, but what actually goes into each individual pitch?

Here’s what you need to include:

1. Title – come up with something that draws attention, and make sure that it’s an appropriate length. You might run it through CoSchedule’s headline analyzer to make sure it’s good. Sometimes you can include title variations to give the client more flexibility
2. Summary – provide some background research that you’ve done about the topic, as well as the angle your article would take
3. Estimated word count – ballpark how long you think the piece would need to be to cover the topic properly. This lets clients understand both cost and the amount of time that will go into the project
4. Audience – often clients will tell you which audience you need to speak to, but if not, you’ll want to clearly identify who you’re talking to. This helps clients identify if your pitch will accomplish what they need, or give them the chance to give you feedback upfront so you write for the audience they intended.

These are the basics of what you’d include, but some clients might request additional info.

What Do You Do If The Client Doesn’t Bite?

Even in long-standing client-writer relationships, not every idea pitched is going to be picked up by the client.

It happens, but it doesn’t mean your effort was wasted. If the client paid you to come up with the article ideas you shared, then you’ve really already been paid for the work so no harm done (hopefully you’re paid a rate that justifies your time).

If you weren’t paid, and your pitches were speculative, then chances are you own the rights to that article idea (make sure your agreement or contract with the client supports this). And, that means that you’ll want to find ways to make the most of the ideas you came up with.

These ideas still hold a lot of value, and there are a few ways that you can use them.

1. Pitch Other Clients

Chances are you work with a large number of clients, many in similar industries. Content teams are always looking for great new ideas for their content calendars, so would usually welcome having you contact them and suggest a topic that you’ve been researching. If they bite, chances are you’ll be able to work out a deal to write the article for them, and you might even be able to negotiate a higher rate for the piece than the original client was offering.

While not as easy, you could also pitch clients that you haven’t worked with. If you know your topics could benefit other companies in the space, it doesn’t hurt to contact their content teams and see if they’re interested in the topic. From their perspective, being contacted out of the blue with great suggestions for articles could be pretty compelling. It shows them you understand their space, and makes giving you a try an easier decision.

2. Keep a Topic Backlog

Odds are that many clients are going to ask you for ideation during your career, so having a selection of topics ready to go could be a real asset.

We recommend that you keep all your topic ideas organized in a spreadsheet, organized by industry, so that when a client asks for some topics, you can reuse topics that other clients passed on.

Many writers who have clients that frequently ask for pitches will keep their topic backlogs updated with new ideas they come up with as they write, not just ideas other clients passed on.

One thing to note is that this works best with evergreen content ideas. If your topics are time sensitive, or go out of date, you’ll want to remove them from your backlog.

3. Publish Them Yourself

There’s a lot to be said for building your reputation in a specific industry.

What’s a client’s favorite question when interviewing new writers?

“Can you send me some samples?”

If you can write and publish some of your article ideas on web properties that you control such as your own website, your Medium account, your LinkedIn profile, etc, it’s a great way for you to share samples with clients.

Plus, this helps build your authority in the industry and can often help attract new clients itself. Put a link in your bio on the article that invites people to contact you to discuss contracting, and you might just pick up some new clients.

Wrapping it Up

Ideation is an important part of freelance writing, but making sure that you’re doing it right, are being compensated for your work (through your per article price or per topic idea), and know what to do with your article ideas when they’re not picked up is critical.

By following the advice above, you should be able to maximize the value you receive for your time spent ideating.

Have any other tips for handling ideation? Let us know in the comments.

The post Ideation 102: How Should Writers Approach Doing Ideation for Clients appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Recent data shows that there are 4 million blog posts published every day, making it difficult to stand out online. If you’re having trouble coming up with unique ideas for your content, you’re not alone — ideation is a challenge for most content marketers.  

With so much competition, your articles and blog posts should offer something new and memorable. But with so much content already out there, it can often feel like everything you can write about has already been covered. Effective content creation relies heavily on great ideas, so it’s critical that your ideation helps you flesh out those topics before you start writing.

There are some strategies, though, that can help you cut through that feeling and generate new, value-added ideas that resonate with your audience. Here are 17 ideation tips to get you started.

Time-Tested Techniques

1. The Skyscraper Technique

The skyscraper technique has been around for a few years, and it still works when executed correctly. Technically, there are two parts to using this technique — developing the article theme and then building backlinks — but let’s focus on the former.

The idea is to find a few high-performing pages in your niche or ones that are ranking for your keywords, and then figure out how you can do the content better to land your page higher in the search results. The easiest way to do this is to look at what’s in those ranking pages and then write a new article that’s longer and more thorough — as if you’re taking a building and adding 40 stories to make it a skyscraper. If the pages you find that rank are out-of-date, then simply update them. It sometimes really is just that easy.

2. Asking the 5 Questions

The 5 Whys is a brainstorming tactic used for root cause analysis and determining what the customer wants, but you can employ a different form of this tool in ideation. When using the 5 Whys, you ask a Why question, and then you keep asking related Why questions until you get to a specific answer — usually you get there by the 5th Why.

When you ideate, you don’t have to limit yourself to Why, but can employ all types of questions.

Here’s an example of the brainstorming method used to come up with topics to write for a client that sells audio equipment.

• Who are we writing content for? Audiophiles
• What do audiophiles care about? Music quality and experience
• How does the client serve that need? By providing the best quality equipment they can and offering custom system designs
• What is a custom system design? A system designed for the sonic preferences of the customer and his or her space

From just these few questions, you have ideas for articles such as:

• Why is music quality important?
• What is a custom system design?
• How does your room impact your audio experience?
• The best speakers for small spaces
• X speakers that deliver great sound in big rooms

You can see how continuing to ask questions can drive even more content ideas.

3. Semantically Speaking

Creating clusters of semantically related content is a great way to boost your SEO, but it’s also a great way to identify good topics to write about. If you use a tool like LSIGraph, and enter one of your targeted keywords, it’ll give you a list of related keywords that you should touch on in whatever piece of content you’re writing for that targeted keyword. Doing this can increase the quality of your content and make it semantically complete.

But again, chances are you’re not going super in-depth on each individual semantically related keyword you find in the pillar article. So why not go super in-depth on a new post that links back to the pillar?

4. Take a Cue from the Unicorns

If you’ve been blogging for a while, chances are you have some unicorn posts that generate a lot of traffic and engagement. Chances are also that you touch on subtopics in those articles that you can branch out from to create new articles.

Identifying those subtopics and creating new articles focused just on them can be a great source of new topics, and you can also leverage the success of the original post to boost the new one. Go into the original post and update it to link to the new one. Email your subscribes to let them know you’ve expanded on the topic.

This helps you corner the market for these related topics, and also helps support a topic cluster approach to SEO.

5. Is and Is Not Matrix

An is/is not matrix is simply a list of all the things something is and is not. It’s a great tool when you’re trying to understand what a brand is, but it can also help you define exactly what type of articles a client wants.

For example, if a client is a lifestyle brand, humorous, coming out with an Easter line of clothing and not averse to listicles but it is not religious, political or heavy on self-promotion, putting these definitions down on paper makes it easier to steer ideation.

With those parameters in mind, you might quickly come up with non-sales titles such as “X Ways to Bring Easter Egg Design Feels to Your Holiday Wardrobe” or “X Adorably Funny Easter Decor and Fashion Concepts.”

Online Tools

6. Use Google’s Suggestions

Google’s auto-complete feature can spark some great ideas fast. You have to turn on trending searches for this function to work, but if it’s on, Google will complete your search as you type with other potentially popular searches. The ideas provided by Google are mined from information about what you’re typing into the search bar, what things you’ve searched for before and the types of things other people are searching for.

You can see in the examples below how you might use this search engine feature to gather ideas for either a DIY blog or a knife brand.

7. Find Questions Consumers Are Asking

Another great tool that can help with ideation is Answer the Public.

This service lets you enter a targeted keyword or topic and then generates a list of questions that actual consumers are asking. You can typically find some good questions from these results, run the Skyscraper method on them and then create a piece of content that delivers exceptional value to consumers with a real need.

8. Use Topic Generators

There are a number of tools available that will help you come up with topics to cover just based on a seed keyword or topic.

Portent’s Content Idea Generator is a great tool for doing this. Just enter your subject, and it will give you a suggested title.

Note that many of these won’t quite make sense or catch your attention, but keep refreshing and chances are you’ll find something you can work with.

Hubspot offers a similar tool as well.

There really are a lot of these tools out there. Don’t make them the lynchpin of your ideation, but they do make great supporting tools.

Curation

9. Repurposing the News

You have to be careful how you repurpose news stories, especially if they’re political in nature at all. You must consider the brand’s voice and style and approach news stories with the right spirit for each client.

It’s also important to remember that “news” encompasses a lot more than what shows up on nightly television, and turning to local events and culture or industry news is often a better tactic for ideation.

First, consider what is going on in your industry. Has anyone made a big announcement or issued a report about trends? While you may not want to leverage announcements from direct competition, you can often use these events to your benefit. For example, if you’re an office supply retailer and someone comes out with a new productivity software, you might write an article titled “XYZ Productivity Software and Other Tools to Help You Get Stuff Done.”

You can do the same thing with local news. If you’re a local cupcakery and there’s a big festival coming up, you might write about how cupcakes can be incorporated into the fun.

10. Content Curation/Best Of Posts

If you do keyword research for something like “SEO WordPress plugin,” you’re likely to see a related term similar to “best SEO WordPress plugins.” With so much information out there, many searchers want someone to give them a review of what’s out there and tell them what’s worthwhile. That could be products, services or even information.

Spend some time to evaluate the market, collect the top options, and write a recap for each where you add your expert opinion. Readers will appreciate this, you might rank for some valuable search traffic and it can position you as an authority in the space.

Feel like all the good content has already been written?
How to Write Unique Articles

Look Externally

11. Evaluate How Others Are Doing Something

You’ll often find that many blog posts focus on giving fairly generic advice without a lot of data, examples or actionable information. A great way to counter this trend is to write posts that let you show off your understanding of a topic by applying it to real word examples and writing up your analysis.

For example, let’s say you’re an SEO expert. What if you looked at 5 sites in the real estate industry and analyzed their tactics, explained what was good and bad and then showed how they’re currently ranking?

This is a great way for you to show your knowledge in a way that’s really valuable for your readers, and might prompt them to contact you to get more of your expert advice.

12. Interview an Industry Expert

Everyone can write an article on “how to train a dog” by researching the exact same sources available to all on the web. That’s part of what results in creating generic content.

But, what if you were able to go directly to an expert source and get new information?

While it can take a bit of hustle to connect with and convince an expert to participate in your interview, if you can do it, these types of posts can really generate a ton of buzz.

You might even take the approach of asking them to be on your podcast or webinar, and then transcribe the video to create your article.

13. Pay Attention On Social

If you know where your audience hangs out and discusses things, you should be hanging out there too. Places like Twitter, Reddit, forums and even industry-focused Slack groups are a great place to chat with experts in your industry.

Picking up on things they’re chatting about, questions they’re asking or things they’re complaining about can be a great starting off point for your next article.

Look Internally

14. Share How You Did Something Well

People love reading about success (and failure) stories backed up by real data. And in a content landscape lacking in concrete data, if you can share how you succeeded in doing something along with some performance data, it can really resonate with your audience.

For example, did you just create a sweet explainer video? We did that a while ago, and our CEO, Clayton, shared the process he used step by step. This continues to be one of our most popular blog posts because it’s actionable and shows real results.

15. Make a Prediction

We’re not asking you to be the next Nostradamus (but there’s good money in it if you can), but you know your industry better than most, and you probably have a good idea where it’s headed.

That’s knowledge that a lot of your competitors might not have, and if you share a bit, it can go a long way toward establishing your authority in the space. And with authority comes an increased chance that people will turn to you when they need help, resulting in more leads.

16. Evaluate New Tools and Services

You’re probably trying out a lot of new tools and services all the time. Hubspot found that marketers average using 12 tools when doing their jobs, with many using way more.

If you’re doing this, why not share your experiences? Your readers will appreciate your expert opinions, the tool you’re using would probably appreciate it and it can keep your blog fresh.

17. Answering Your Customer’s Questions

You don’t even have to ask your own questions. Spend a little time on your social media, forums or blog to see what consumers are asking and turn those queries into articles.

Chatting with your sales and customer service teams to find out what questions they get asked most often is also a great source of topics. A side benefit to this is that by answering these questions with blog posts, you can create sales enablement content that your reps can share with their clients. This helps your reps and your customers.

ALSO – How To Write Blog Posts That Drive Results

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas

This list features some of our favorite methods for ideation, but it’s honestly not complete. There are many great ways to come up with article ideas that will resonate with your audience, but what’s important is that you find the ones that work for you and your business.

Any other ideation tactics you think we should include? Let us know in the comments!

The post Ideation 101: How to Develop Strong Article Themes that Work appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

I want to share a secret for getting to that balance, maintaining a steady income and enjoying your freelance lifestyle more: Online product description writing jobs.

What Are Product Description Writer Jobs?

Writing product descriptions involves describing products and services in a way that encourages someone’s interest in buying it. It’s a form of marketing writing, and typically requires you to understand the basics of feature/benefit writing.

Some brands have a staff writer or team that creates product descriptions for all their products. Smaller companies often find it more economical to outsource their PDs to freelance writers, though. And larger brands may have such a huge catalog that it’s simply not feasible for a small team to complete unique PDs for every product — these companies often outsource product descriptions online with companies like Crowd Content.

Online Product Description Writing Jobs: The Little Secret to a Big Payday

Product description writing jobs usually range from around 50 to 200 words. For the freelance writer who knows how to turn a smart marketing phrase, a 50 or 100 word PD can take literally minutes to write. And since PDs don’t generally require a ton of research (especially if you’re writing about products you’re familiar with), you don’t have to commit a huge amount of time to complete a few of these jobs.

The short length makes PDs a stellar content writing job for freelancers with busy lifestyles or lots of at-home obligations. PDs are also a great “filler” between larger jobs. You can commit to completing a good number of PDs each week, even if you plan on slotting them in between article tasks or housekeeping duty.

And once you learn the ropes of marketing writing, you may find that PDs take less brain power than thought-leadership posts, so you can work on them once you start to hit the 3:00 wall (whatever time that may be for you).

The overall result of working product description writing jobs into your routine is a bigger pay check without a lot of the hassle that comes from committing to longer jobs. Plus, if you can land a spot on PD writing teams, you can access regular work without making those commitments to begin with.

7 Tips for Completing Product Description Writing Jobs Like a Pro

So, how do you land and keep product description clients? The TL;DR is: Do a good job on every task. The seven tips below help you do that.

1. Perfect Feature/Benefit Writing

The freelance writer role with PDs is to make the product sound enticing. A straight up description doesn’t get the job done. Consider these two examples describing a shirt.

• This shirt is blue. It has a white flower and the words “Flower Power” on the front. It is a size medium and is made out of soft cotton.
• Display your love of nature with this Flower Power t-shirt. The soft cotton material feels great all day, and the white flower pops from the bright blue background, ensuring a cheerful look. Pair this size medium shirt with jeans or dress it up with a cute skirt.

The second PD employs feature/benefit writing. It links a benefit to each of the features so the reader can better imagine themselves wearing and using the shirt. It’s also less boring and humdrum than the first description.

You simply can’t succeed with PD writing jobs if you don’t know how to write feature/benefit.

2. Write Unique Content

via GIPHY

Clients are paying for unique content for their PDs, which means you can’t plagiarize (even yourself) and should avoid boilerplating.

Most freelance writers understand how to avoid plagiarism. Don’t copy more than a couple words from any source, including yourself. When you write a lot of PDs about very similar items, that can get more difficult. I recommend choosing different types of things to write about or stepping away and coming back later if you feel yourself struggling for unique words after writing 17 PDs for picture frames that only differ in size or color.

Boilerplating is the little sister of plagiarism. It’s when you present the same information with a lot of the same verbiage in the same order. For example, if you wrote a PD for one of those frames, then simply swapped out the details (such as size, color and material) for the next PD, that would be boilerplating. Don’t do that.

3. Start With Products You Know About

Speed up your writing process by starting with products you know about. It’s easier to describe benefits when you have experience with the goods. Slowly integrate other types of products, doing research to understand them, to expand the products you’re comfortable writing about.

If you take on 50 product descriptions at a time for products you know nothing about, you may find that they take too long to write and your hourly earnings tank.

4. Read and Follow Instructions Diligently

This is freelance 101: Not every client has the same type or preferences. Read and follow instructions to ensure you’re using the right grammar style guide, including the right information and keywords and using calls to action and other tools appropriately.

5. Understand the Target Audience

Part of the tasks instructions should include the target audience, and if you’re not sure, it’s worth getting clarification from the client. The target audience can drastically change how you write a PD.

For example, imagine writing a product description for a computer. The types of features and benefits you highlight should be different when writing for a small business audience versus a gamer audience.

6. Pay Attention to Logical Sentence Structure

Logic problems come up a lot in product description writing for several reasons:

• Writers are often writing multiple PDs about similar items, so they’re struggling to come up with varied ways of saying the same thing
• Marketing writing lends to creativity, and fun turns of phrase can get away from you
• Trying to get a lot of detail into a short PD can lead to common logic issues such as misplaced modifiers

Proof every PD to ensure you haven’t written something that sounds silly, could be confusing or puts the subject in the wrong place.

7. Get the Details Right

Finally, take a little time to ensure you get the details right. Double check that you’re writing about the correct product, that you’re not including any features that aren’t actually available and that you spelled the product and brand names correctly.

Learning how to win at product description writing jobs helps you keep your queues (and coffers) full. If you’re not already writing PDs for teams at Crowd Content, sign up for an account and check out some of the work opportunities in the Apply for Work tab of the writer dashboard.

The post How to Complete Product Description Writing Jobs Like a Pro appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Aside from some excellent writing chops, pro-level customer service skills and a decent connection to the internet, you’re going to need at least a bit of luck and some well-defined hustle muscles. Work goes fast in the freelance world, and the early bird gets a better chance at landing the potential client.

But scooping up freelance writing jobs like you’re the Very Hungry Caterpillar out for a meal and chomping through them with equal haste is a good way to get kicked off content platforms and develop a rep for poor freelance work.

One of the most important freelance writing tips I can share is to slow down and ensure you understand what the client wants before you start writing.

Taking just a few extra minutes during the freelance shuffle can help you get more work from that client and land higher paying clients — both of which help increase your potential hourly rate and make it more likely you’ll transition from a hungry freelance caterpillar to a butterfly writer with a known brand and the ability to be choosier about what work you ingest.

Yes, understanding what your client wants isn’t always easy. Sometimes it seems they aren’t even sure about what they want. Other times, they’re not great at communicating it. But by ensuring you have the best possible answers to the ten questions below, you can wow more clients with on-point content.

ALSO – It’s a Small World: Why Freelance Writers Should Build, Not Burn, Bridges

Always read client instructions and briefs looking for these answers, and then reach out to the client or project manager for clarification on anything that’s missing.

1. What Is the Target Audience?

The target audience refers to the people the client wants to read the content.

Your client may not have a brand persona named and formalized, but they probably know who they are reaching out to. Look for demographic descriptors such as gender, age range, income level, geographic location, career, education level and interests. You may be able to figure this information out by looking at the client’s website and other content if it’s not in the instructions.

The target audience should inform you about how to write the piece. If you’re writing about a medical device for doctors, the information, terms and voice you use should be different than if you’re writing about a medical device for the patients likely to need it.

ALSO – The Framing Effect: How to Positively Influence Audience Response to Content

2. What Is the Client’s Value Proposition?

If you’re writing marketing copy, especially local or city pages, knowing who you’re talking to is important, but it’s equally important to know how you should position the client’s business, products or services.

Let’s say you’re writing product descriptions for a clothing store. It may position the business in one of many ways:

• Low price
• Extensive inventory
• High quality
• Special sizes (big and tall, petite, etc.)
• All-natural fabrics

Unless the client has chosen “low price” as its value proposition, you certainly wouldn’t try to sell the consumer on how cheap the clothing is.

3. What Is the Client’s Brand Voice?

Brand voice is the overall tone of content and the way the brand speaks to its audience. Voice can be funny, irreverent, serious, professional or conversational, among many other things. But it should not be the same for each brand.

Look for guidance about voice in the client’s instructions and read some content on the client’s website to get a feel for the right tone. If you’re still not sure what voice to use, ask the client to send you some links to content with voice and tone that they like — some clients are better at showing than telling.

CoSchedule does a great job exploring brand voice in their marketing strategy course.

4. Where Does the Piece Fit In the Sales Funnel?

If you’re writing any type of marketing or sales content, you need to know where it falls in the customer journey. Does the client want a blog post that answers questions for people who are just beginning to consider the topic, or are you writing a landing page meant to convert consumers who are ready to make a buying decision? The information you cover and the way you do it should be different depending on the answer to that question.

5. What Is the Objective of the Piece?

You also need to know what the client wants to accomplish with the content. Some reasons clients might publish content include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO), which means they want SEO content specifically for its performance in the SERPs
• Conversion, which means they want to convince consumers to take a specific action
• Positioning themselves as a leader, which means they want thought-leadership and authority content
• Creating a brand culture, which means they want content that encourages sharing and promotes the mission, vision and values of the brand

If you don’t know what the client wants to accomplish, you can’t help them do it.

6. Should You Include Calls to Action?

Whether you’re writing blog posts, product descriptions or landing pages, make sure you know whether the client wants a call to action included. It’s not always a sure bet: clients who are jockeying for authority or brand culture may not want to include anything that looks like a sales tactic in content.

If you’re asking about CTAs, go ahead and clarify these important details before you start writing:

• What is the offer?
• What does the client want consumers to do (buy something, call, click to another page, sign up for something, etc.)?
• Does the client have a specific page to link to in mind?
• Where should the CTA go?

ALSO – 5 Best Practices for Killer CTAs: Hooks, Lines and Keepers

7. What’s the Client’s Preference on Point of View?

This seems like a small matter, but if you get it wrong, the revision is a tedious headache. Make sure you know whether the client wants you to write in first person (I/we), second person (you) or third person (them/they).

It’s also a good idea to ensure you know how the client refers to itself, especially if there are several ways to write the company name.

8. What Searcher Intent Does the Client Want to Satisfy Most?

When people turn to the internet, they typically do so with a specific intent. Common intents include:

• Want to go. Searchers want to go somewhere and are looking for directions or ideas online. Example: “Mexican restaurants near me“
• Want to do. Searchers want to know how or where they can do something. Example: “Where can I get a massage?” or “How can I make a chocolate cake?“
• Want to know. Searchers are looking for specific information. Example: “What is diabetes?“
• Want to buy. Searchers are shopping online or preparing to shop online. Example: “Honda Civics,” “Best instant pot deals” or “Nike shoes near me“

Content that answers the right intent can boost a site in the search engines and increase conversion rates — all of which are good for your client.

ALSO – How to Use Search Intent for Your Business

9. Does the Client Have Style Preferences?

Take a moment to look at the details. Does the client prefer AP style? If the client doesn’t care a great deal about style, make sure you clarify some of the bigger points such as:

• Use of headers and bulleted lists
• Serial comma or no serial comma
• Spelling (American, British, Canadian, Australian English?)

You might also ask about the inclusion of links. Is the client okay with linking out to authority pages? Do they want internal links?

Outside of client guidance, go with best practices, which are:

• Pick a style and stick with it
• Do break up longer pieces with subheadings and bulleted lists
• Link to authority sources if you use a statistic or specific fact
• Internally link if it’s relevant

10. What Is the Scope and Timeline?

Finally, be professional and make sure you understand (and adhere to) client needs. Look for notes about deadlines to ensure you get pieces to clients on time. And if the piece is part of a bigger project that you’ll be working on, ensure you complete tasks in the right order if the client has specified a preference.

When working freelance writing jobs on Crowd Content’s marketplace, you can communicate with clients in each task. Similarly, if working on managed content projects, you can get in touch directly with the in-house project manager.

As with all writing project, be professional and courteous, but don’t be afraid to reach out for clarification. Doing so helps you provide the client exactly what they want, which can result in more work in the future.

The post Freelance Writing Tips: 10 Things to Know Before You Start Writing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

If you want to get ahead with your freelance writing business in 2019, it pays to keep up with trends. Here’s a look at six types of freelance writing jobs that are in high demand this year. Read up on them, and ensure you can prep your portfolios to support pitches to potential clients in 2019.

1. City Pages

City pages or local pages are landing pages that integrate marketing copy about goods or services with information and terms relevant to local users. They can be written with an entire city in mind, but as local marketing becomes more important, many brands are choosing to publish pages at a neighborhood level.

This type of content continues to be important because local search is a driving force for all types of businesses. According to Google, around a third of all searches have local intent, and Wordstream notes that 72 percent of local searches visit a business within five miles of their location.

Local businesses can’t afford to ignore this content marketing need, and freelance writers can’t afford to avoid learning to write local content.

Examples of city or local pages:

2. eCommerce Content

Product descriptions, category pages and buying guides — any copy meant to educate buyers who are well into the sales funnel and might be looking to make a purchase — are examples of eCommerce content. It usually employs strong marketing copy that entices the reader by pairing features of the products with benefits to the user in ways that help the person imagine owning the items or using the services themselves.

eCommerce content isn’t a new star in 2019, but as consumers repeatedly turn to the search engines to start their buying journey, it remains a critical component of any website. That’s true whether a brand makes sales online, in physical stores or both.

And since marketing copy has to be constantly refreshed to be competitive, freelancers who know how to write it can keep themselves in work all year.

Examples of eCommerce Content

3. Long-Form Content

Long-form content can be divided into two basic camps.

First, the long blog post or article — typically a few thousand words or so — that delves deeply into a topic or gives a comprehensive high-level overview. Sometimes these are called pillar posts, and brands create offshoot posts on more specific topics and link from the pillar post to these shorter articles.

Another type of long-form content is often used for lead generation purposes — ebooks, white papers and case studies are all examples. Businesses tend to gate these informative pieces of content and trade them for an email address or newsletter signup to build their marketing lists.

Again, these aren’t new formats for 2019, but online content does continue to get longer. One reason is that Google is placing increasing emphasis on expertise and quality; it wants to serve up links to companies that can and will help the user most, and long-form content is a good way to capture Google’s attention. Plus, if the content is engaging, it causes users to spend more time on the page. That can drive up a site’s RankBrain score, which in turn can help the page’s search rankings.

Freelance writers interested in the long-form content game should start in industries where they have hands-on expertise or long-term writing experience. Often, companies want high-level or thought-leadership content for these pieces.

Examples of long-form content:

• Neptune Society’s guide for veteran burial and cremation
• Crowd Content’s post on SEO content

4. SEO Content

Freelance writers may notice that increasing numbers of clients are more concerned with quality and less concerned with playing whack-a-mole with keywords. But that doesn’t mean SEO is down for the count. In fact, to be a successful freelance content creator in 2019, you have to know more about SEO than ever.

You need to know:

• The differences between primary, secondary and semantic keywords and how to incorporate them into content in natural ways (by using common sense and stop words, for example)
• How to write meta descriptions and title tags to go with any content you deliver
• How to write SEO-optimized content for all search types, including searches from desktops, mobile devices and voice
• How to create feature snippets, which are short answers to specific questions that are friendly for display on Google or being read by a voice assistant

Want to prepare to please SEO clients in 2019? Check out all the SEO tips and tricks on the Crowd Content blog.

5. Social updates

Short and sassy. Short and sweet. Short and any other alliterative adjective a brand wants to throw at you — just know that social updates are not a short-lived form of content. Continuing throughout 2019, social posts will put brands ahead of the competition, and freelance writers who know how to turn a clever phrase while maintaining brand voice can land high-paying work that’s fast and fun.

Social posts include:

• Facebook posts
• Twitter posts
• LinkedIn posts
• Google My Business Posts

Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest are also big players in social marketing, but they tend to create less work for the freelance writer as they’re so image heavy.

Examples of social posts:

• WealthSimple’s Facebook page
• Wendy’s Twitter account

6. Advertorials

An advertorial is a cross between an advertisement and editorial content. Specifically, it’s an ad that parades as native content on a blog or even the site of a publisher such as the New York Times.

Successful advertorials look and feel like real content, though. They say something valuable the reader will engage in. The benefits of advertorials in 2019 is that they let brands get in front of new users or target users who read specific websites or publications.

Companies that can form lasting partnerships with publishers so they can present regular advertorials do well with this type of content. Freelancers who can write the kind of pieces that publishers want and slip some advertising in on the side will become favorites of these brands.

Examples of advertorials:

• The Captain Morgan content on Buzzfeed

Interested in writing any of this type of content for clients in 2019? Make sure you’re signed up as a freelance writer with Crowd Content. Our growing client list needs all these types of content to succeed in 2019.

The post The Top Freelance Writing Jobs For 2019 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

You can dot every ‘i’ and double check your blog for dangling modifiers, but if you aren’t on top of industry changes, you’re not at the top of your game.

Here’s what every great content writer needs to know heading into 2019.

1. SEO is Evolving

Keywords can be odd. SEO is even weirder. Search engine optimization is a specialty that runs the gamut from simple keyword insertion to mastering a complex algorithm that requires tweaking an entire website.

As a content writer, you’re likely on the lighter side of SEO; your client gives you keywords, you insert them organically in the proper place and presto! High-ranking content. Or at least that’s how it used to be.

Google is constantly updating its search algorithm (whether it wants to share the details with the public or not), and it’s not enough to just write to the keywords anymore. Now it’s about understanding intent—why people are searching for certain terms instead of just what terms they’re searching for. By wrapping your head around how people search, you can better address their needs, and that’s the very heart of content marketing.

2. Multi-niche Experience is Essential

Niche work versus generalization. It’s an ongoing debate in the content marketing world, and if you ask a dozen writers which approach is better, you’ll likely get a dozen answers. It’s still okay to claim one content format or channel as your main specialty, but the best content writers know a little bit about a lot. Being able to help a client with content for their social network as well as local content such as Google posts creates a more cohesive campaign.

Content writers are like mini branding experts; you may not be leading a business’s launch, but you’re ensuring that brand’s core message is conveyed the right way to the right people.

Diversifying also helps you look out for your own career. The more skills you offer a client, the more valuable you become. After all, most clients would much rather deal with one or two multi-talented content writers than try to juggle an entire team of one-trick ponies.

3. Voice Search is the New Mobile

Once upon a time, the digital marketing world was all aflutter about the move to mobile. According to Statista, mobile now accounts for more than half of global web activity, marking a substantial shift from desktop-based surfing. When that evolution began, it changed how we approach marketing. Voice search technology is now driving another major industry leap.

By 2020, an estimated 50% off all searches will be voice searches. That’s huge. Content writers have a responsibility to anticipate progress by learning how to capitalize on voice search.

A few quick tips:

• Incorporate lots of questions into your content, such as “How do I….?” or “Where can I find…,” to mimic the way consumers use their voice-activated digital assistants.
• Use long-tail keywords, again to mimic the speech pattern of typical voice searchers.
• When you’re writing, think like a user rather than a marketer. You want to answer questions and provide solutions, not go in for the hard sell. Information is your strongest sales asset.

4. Few Things Are More Powerful Than the Buyer Journey

Speaking of thinking like the consumer… what is it that your reader wants? The most effective, compelling and important thing you can do is to empathize with the buyer’s journey and use that that information to fuel your content writing.

What are your buyers’ challenges? Where do they go for product/industry education? How are they making decisions? What are their alternatives? Are there common misconceptions that must be addressed? Do buyers have expectations as to what they’ll get out of the purchasing process? Include all of the above in your ideation process so you’re not creating a blog post or white paper in a vacuum. In other words, think like a buyer but write like an expert.

Whether you’re marketing yourself as a press release expert or showcasing your capacity for literary genius with high-quality content across a plethora of niches, there are ways to get better. Study up on the key qualities of a good content writer and then put your expertise to use with freelance writing jobs that give you a chance to shine.

What’s your content writing super power? Share your top qualities in the comments!

The post 4 Qualities a Good Content Writer Needs Heading Into 2019 appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Placing a direct order with a writer is simple.

• On the standard order form, accessible from your account on crowdcontent.com, scroll down to the blue Pricing and Word Count header.
• Click the Direct Order button. A box will appear next to the button. Within, you can search the database of writers available at the star level selected.

More About Star Levels

Four-star writers are classified as “Expert” level. They have extensive professional experience and proven track records with Crowd Content clients. Three-star writers typically have diversified expertise in particular subject areas and write with personality and persuasiveness. Writers are bumped from three- to four-star level through a manual process conducted by an administrator, and they must have proven themselves to be successful content creators with Crowd Content clients.

Direct Order – From a Writer’s Perspective

When you place a direct order with a writer, they receive an email notification and are prompted to login to their writer account at crowdcontent.com. Included with the email is an encouraging message that reads: “It’s a pretty big deal to get Direct Orders from a client. This means that these orders are available only to you. Way to go!”

This is the primary benefit of a direct order — the order placed is available to only that writer, ensuring no one else without the knowledge of your requirements will pick it up.

Why Hasn’t My Writer Picked Up My Order?

The network of writers at Crowd Content is comprised of full-time and part-time freelancers. Many writers produce content for clients as a second job, and those who write full-time work with a large number of clients to ensure a stable income. Sometimes, freelancers aren’t available or don’t have room in their schedule to complete your order by deadline. Other times, they might be willing to complete the order, but only at a higher rate. If that’s the case, they may decline the direct order, giving you an opportunity to either raise the star rating (if applicable) or find a different writer who is available. Your customer success manager can also assist with finding a suitable writer.

Something to keep in mind when watching your direct orders: Writers have a maximum amount of orders they’re allowed to have in their queue at one time. Depending on the writer’s account, their claim limit may be set at 1, 3, 4 or 5 orders. If a writer’s queue is full, they’re not able to pick up an order right away, but they may pick it up after clearing existing work.

Writers also work on a schedule, just like any other service provider. If the deadline for the order is set for four or five days in advance, they may not have picked it up yet because they’ve planned to do it within the next day or two. For instance, if a direct order is placed on a Sunday and the due date is listed as Thursday, the writer may not pick it up until Wednesday. If you’re ever in doubt as to a writer’s availability, you can message the writer or reach out to a customer success manager for assistance.

What Can I Do If My Writer Hasn’t Picked Up My Order?

A few options are available if time is running out and you need content sooner rather than later.

• Message the Writer: Oftentimes, the writer is aware of the direct order, but isn’t able to get to it right away. By messaging them, you can get an idea of a time frame and when you can expect the order to be completed. If you’re a regular client, many writers will rearrange schedules if possible to get content to you when needed.
• Customer Success Manager: Reaching out to your CSM is always a great option. They can help you get in touch with the writer to find out their availability or suggest other potential writers who have similar skills, experience and pricing levels.

The moral of the story is: if your writer hasn’t picked up a direct order yet, don’t panic. Any number of reasons can exist for why they haven’t picked it up. Perhaps their queue is currently full or they’re busy with other projects at the moment but plan to get to it soon. Don’t hesitate to message your writer to get an idea of a time frame, and definitely contact your customer success manager for help getting in touch with your writer to find out their availability.

The post Why Hasn’t My Writer Picked Up My Direct Order? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The platform provides a simple interface for placing individual orders with writers. It asks simple, essential questions about your content requirements to ensure writers have all the information they need to complete it. It lets you select the type of content you want and add tags for relevant qualifications to help you attract the right writers. A large instruction box is provided for inputting specific details or providing outlines. The Crowd Content order form lets you provide as much supplemental information as possible to assist the writer with content creation.

But what if the order’s in progress and you forgot to include an essential piece of information? What happens if the content you receive doesn’t quite meet your expectations, and you want the writer to make revisions? At Crowd Content, we understand how important it is for you to be able to communicate with writers to ensure quality content.

Client-Writer Communication Options

• The In-task messaging chat lets you send messages to the writer directly — they’ll receive an email when you send your message. If they’re currently working on the writer platform, a pop-up notification appears on their homepage.
• Use revision requests to send the content back to the writer for polishing and fixing. You can include a specific message for what you’d like altered. This ensures the content they create is engaging your target audience, increasing search traffic and matching your content creation needs.

Guide to Messaging a Writer

Follow these steps for messaging a writer directly about an order:

1. While logged into your account on crowdcontent.com, click the Content tab at the top of the page. Detailed information is provided in the given table for each order, including which writer is working on creating your content, the quality level, its total cost, current status and the date of last update.
2. To communicate with a writer on an order, click on that order. The information for that order will load, and in the bottom right corner of the page is a small clickable tab that opens the in-task messaging box for that order.
3. Click on the in-task messaging tab to open the box. This is where you can send a quick message to the writer directly, and they can respond back, much like a chat interface.
4. Type your message and press enter. Your message will appear in the box, and the writer will receive an email and/or popup notification on their account.

Guide to Making a Revision Request

Suppose the content you receive doesn’t quite match your expectations — or maybe it does, but a few details are missing. Whether it’s minor revisions or something more extensive, revision requests are an excellent tool to ensure the content you receive is tailored and polished.

To make a revision request:

1. Find the individual order you need revised on your content page.
2. Click on it, then click the Request a Revision tab. A text box is provided where you can explain to the writer what changes need to be made. A current copy of the content is provided on this page as well for easy reference.
3. Once you’ve stated exactly what needs to be fixed, click the orange Request Revision button.
4. The writer will receive an email notifying them of your revision request, and they will have a certain allotted time (usually 24 hours) to make the revision and send it back to you for approval.

Getting in touch with your writer, whether through in-task messaging or requesting a revision, is a great way to ensure he or she understands exactly what you’re looking for, which can help them with future orders you place. Our community of writers aim to exceed client expectations so your content needs are met. You can also contact your customer success manager with any questions.

The post How Can I Get in Touch with My Writer? appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

How It Works – The Workflow

When you place your first order, and any subsequent orders after that, it reaches a large pool of writers who can view and access orders at your preferred star level and higher. For instance, if you place an open order for 4-star content, it reaches all available 4-star writers in the system. Placing an order at the 3-star level makes it available to all 3- and 4-star writers. Similarly, 2-star orders are available to all writers with 2, 3 or 4 stars.

Writers receive an email notification when your orders have been placed, so they can log in and decide whether or not to write the order depending on their time constraints, interests or skills. After your order is placed, a qualified writer will pick it up to work on and complete it according to the deadline you set and the minimum time allowed by the platform — 24 hours per 500 words. To set a custom deadline, scroll to the bottom of the order screen, select Advanced Options and use the Processing Time dropdown.

If you place an order that requires 500 words or less, you can set the deadline for 1 to 10 days. A 1,000-word order requires a minimum deadline of 2 days and a 1,500-word order needs a minimum of 3 days. If you need content faster than that, you can call us directly and we’ll put you in touch with a qualified writer who may be available to complete it for you right away.

After the writer produces the content according to your instructions and guidelines, they’ll submit the content for you to review. At this stage, you have two choices: Choose to accept the content as-is or send it back to the writer to make revisions. If you request revisions, you’ll have an opportunity to provide specific guidance for the writer to let them know exactly what you want changed. The writer has 24 hours to complete revisions, and then the content is sent back to you for further review. If everything looks great, then you can accept the content, and the writer is paid. Once the content is accepted, you can use it as you need for your business.

How Many Orders Can I Place at Once?

You’re not limited to how many orders you place in the same day. If you have a large batch of orders to complete, such as hundreds of product descriptions, you may be better suited for our Enterprise services — you can contact your customer success manager for more information on this.

Different Order Types

At Crowd Content, we offer several content types that can be sorted into four main categories.

Custom Content

Custom content is our specialty: Entertaining articles, blog posts, web content and press releases belong here. You can provide a specific title, instructions and exactly what topics you would like covered in the written post. Our writers are skilled at being able to help you meet your business goals through developing and implementing successful content strategies.

Product Descriptions

This is a specialized category and applies to written descriptions of individual products on an e-commerce website. Depending on your product types and preferences, product descriptions can be short, long, or somewhere in the middle, and they should include strong keywords to help drive eager buyers to your site.

Facebook Posts

Need help promoting your latest blog posts? Want to keep your fan base engaged? You can do that effectively with a batch of custom Facebook posts. Customers must order a minimum of 10 posts to use this service.

Twitter

This is an excellent platform for promoting your brand and getting the word out to the masses about how great your business and services are. Our Twitter-savvy writers will create a minimum of 15 tweets for you when you choose this content option.

Going Through the Order Form, Step by Step

Once you’ve signed up for an account on crowdcontent.com and communicated with your customer success manager, you’re ready to place an order. Our simple, one-page interface asks essential questions related to content creation and ensures writers will have everything they need to create great content.

Campaign

The default value for this is “Campaign 1”, but if you’ve worked directly with a customer success manager, they may have created a custom campaign for you with specific pricing and services. This is selectable here.

Folders

Customized folders let you keep content in an easily accessible place. They can be organized by topic, date, or content type — the labels are totally up to you. Folders make it easy to group individual orders together. During each stage of the content creation process, that order remains in the folder you selected for easy retrieval later.

To create a new folder, go to your content queue and click the + to the right of label Folders on the left sidebar.  

Content Types and Categories

The next drop-down let you choose the type of content you need, whether it be Facebook posts, tweets, an ebook, a blog article, product descriptions or a press release. The box directly under content type lets you select a category for the content. Categories are important because writers add tags to their profiles to match category types, so someone who is extremely knowledgeable about photography equipment or animals is more likely to write your order if it falls into their area of expertise.

Instructions

The rest of the order form changes based on the content type, but in general, it lets you provide specific directions and guidelines for the writer. For instance, if you’re placing orders for tweets to be posted on Twitter, there is a field for you to include your business’s Twitter handle so the writer can view your current Twitter page. An instruction box lets you provide details about your order, links to Google docs or links to example content.

Order Type, Pricing and Word Count

Next, you must select an order type. On Crowd Content, we have three basic types of orders:

• Open Order: The most common type, these orders are available to writers at the star level you select. We recommend 3 or 4-star content for most orders, because these writers have proven skills in the industry and often have specialized areas of expertise.
• Direct Order: This type of order is placed with one writer that you choose yourself. The individual writer selected is the only one to have access to a direct order.
• Team Orders: This restricts order access to writers placed on a team that you create. Gather as many writers as you’d like and place them on individual teams; this way, you know your order will be picked up by someone you hand-selected.

Pricing is based on word count, star level, and services selected (such as whether you’re just using writing services or writing and editing). When you fill in the word count fields for each individual order, the sidebar on the right updates to reflect accurate pricing based on the word count provided and the star level selected for both writing and editing.

Editing & Proofreading

Editing and proofreading services are also available for each order you place at an additional 3 cents per word. Just as with a writing order, you can choose to place editing open, direct to a specific editor, or to a team of editors.

Advanced Options

Advanced options let you upload a relevant document, spreadsheet or PDF for the writer to use as a reference. There are also several other order options included here:

• Keywords: The writer will include keywords you select when you indicate them in this box. You can include a total of up to three keywords. The system lets the writer know when they submit the order if they’ve met your keyword requirements. Keywords are extremely important for SEO.
• Target Audience: You’ll receive better copy in the end if you let the writer know upfront who the intended audience is. You may have formal buyer personas in place that you can summarize, or you can say something as simple as “golf enthusiasts.”
• Suggested Outbound Link: If you have a URL you would like the writer to link to within the order, insert it here.
• Identifier: This option lets you tag the article with an identifying number. For product descriptions, for example, this may be the model, item or UPC number.

• Metadata: Choose this option if you would like the writer to create a meta title and meta description to go along with your order.
• Layout: If you need multiple fields available to the writer, you can use this option to create a layout that contains the fields you need. If you don’t select this, the writer will have access to a title field and a single text field.
• Language: Use this option to indicate the language you’d like the writer to use. The default is English (US).
• Processing Time: Choose a time frame when you’d like the order returned to you. Most clients choose 1 or 2 days as an appropriate time frame, but options are offered up to 10 days if needed. You must give the writer at least one day for each 500 words in the order.
• Point of View: Indicates from what perspective the writer should create content from. Options include:
  • 1st person – Using pronouns such as I, me, we, us
  • 2nd person – Using pronouns such as you, your
  • 3rd person – A company, the business, and pronouns such as it or they
  • Let the writer decide: Often skilled writers know what perspective to write from based on the content you need. You can check this box if you’re not sure, and the writer can choose whatever seems appropriate for the content type.

• Things to Emphasize/Things to Avoid: Text boxes are provided for both of these fields for you to indicate exactly what points you want the writer to emphasize and things you definitely want avoided.

In general, the more information you provide to the writer about what you want, the better chance you’ll have at receiving quality written content that suits the needs of your business. Anything you want to see in the created content should be communicated when you place the order — this way, the writer has everything they need to create quality content. If you placed an order but missed an important detail, find out how to get in touch with your writer and message them while it’s in progress.

The post How to Place an Order: Tips and Tricks for Your First Order appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

And since blogs should be updated daily, or close to daily, in order to maintain engagement, blog block can be a serious problem.

How do you get past blog block? There is no perfect solution, but the following advice will help.

Vary Your Topics

Sensibly, blogs tend to have a narrow focus, especially when you are trying be respected as an expert in your field. This becomes a problem, though, when that narrow focus makes your blog begin to feel stale.

The best blogs only post directly on topic about 75% of the time. Roughly 20% of the time your blog post should be related to the general topic of your blog, but not directly address it.

For example, if you write a blog for a flower shop, a good blog entry might discuss fun spring date activities. You will obviously mention buying flowers at some point during the entry, but the main focus of the entry has little to do with flowers.

Finally, the last roughly 5% of your blog entries should have nothing to do with your main topic. These are fun, light hearted posts designed to entertain your audience and break up the pace.

While a post discussing your favorite Beatles albums may not seem like it is valuable to your blog about cars, it will foster discussion and be memorable.

By varying your content, it is easier to come up with new topics.

Use Guest Writers

A brilliant way to come up with a blog topic is to let someone else do it for you. Occasional guest writers are a perfect way to deal with blog block.

Maintain a list of people interested in writing occasional blog entries and request assistance when you feel you could use a little time off from creating new topics.

If you don’t know any other writers in your field, you can also hire professional writers online, who will come up with the topic and write it for you all at the same time.

Use Freewriting Techniques

Brainstorming techniques like freewriting have been an effective solution to writer’s block for centuries and are equally effective for blog block. Instead of trying to come up with a great blog topic, just sit down and come up with as many topics as you can think of in 20 minutes or half an hour.

Will a lot of them be awful? Yes.

That doesn’t matter, though.

You can separate the chaff from the wheat later. Commit to doing this every day and you should never run out of topics.

Talk to Your Readers

Finally, always remember that you aren’t just writing for your edification. You are writing for others.

The people reading your blog are the perfect people to ask for ideas on what to write about next.

In fact, if you want to kill two birds with one stone, make a blog post asking people what they want you to write about.

Even if asking your readers publicly doesn’t appeal to you, you can use polls, read the comment sections, or discreetly contact some of your most avid readers and ask for suggestions.

It is never a bad idea to take into account the wants of your readers when coming up with blog topics.

How do you deal with blog block? Let me know if the comments section below.

The post How to Deal with Blog Block appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

While most blog posts have a highlighted top comment at the top of the discussion area, there’s another way to find additional comments that qualify as Top Comments.

Click the comment count at the top of the thread.

Here, you will find Top Comments on the post, who posted that comment, and when the comment was posted.

From this view you will also be able to determine who is involved in the discussion. Everyone who has left a comment can be found in [7] Commenters tab.

This feature is handy if you have established a good discussion relationship with certain community members. You can use this as a quick view to see if your Community friends are involved in this particular discussion.

Plus, you also get a snapshot view of commenter’s user profile.

For example, I can see when the user was last active, how many comments they have written, and how many people they are following and how many people are following them.

Do you use this feature? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

The post [Community Talk] How to See Top Comments in a Thread appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This article examines how you can find articles on the topic freelance writing and how you can be a featured author on the Crowd Content blog.

What is Writers Hub?

Writer Hub is an area of the Crowd Content blog where you’ll find articles related to freelance writing, writing best practices, and how to craft content in certain styles such as press releases and search engine optimized product descriptions.

Some of the current trending topics in Writers Hub include:

• How to Use Social Media as a Research Tool for Your Writing
• 5 Ways Freelance Writers Can Capture a Fair Share of the Market
• My Top 3 Freelancing Goals for 2016

I think of the Writers Hub as a writer hangout because there’s almost always an active discussion among writers in this area of the blog.

How do I get to Writers Hub?

The Crowd Content blog is divided into topic categories.

At the top of the blog, you’ll see a category selection. Click Writers Hub.

You’re now in the Writers Hub.

Here, you can join the discussion with hundreds of contributors in the comments section of blog posts and earn coins and status in the Community.

How do I become a featured author on the Crowd Content blog?

We’re actively recruiting contributors. If you have a unique and interesting topic that has not been covered on the Crowd Content blog, please pitch your idea.

Note: your pitch can be for any topic related to content marketing, social media, freelance writing, SEO, community, or marketing and branding.

Check out the Community FAQ for more information about the Community and how you can get involved.

The post [Community Talk] How to Get Featured and Find Articles Relevant to You appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

You’re reading an article or a Facebook post only to get to the comments section and find it spammed with offensive or inappropriate comments taking over the thread.

I don’t like that and I like to think that the majority of readers are with me.

That’s why we’ve enabled you to report comments in the Crowd Content Community.

Here’s how.

If you’re reading through the comments and you see something that raises a red flag in your mind, go to the drop arrow on the top right of the comment. Click Report.

You’ll then be asked to provide a bit more detail about why you are reporting the comment.

Flags are a way to bring a comment to the attention of the moderators.

You also have the option of downvoting a comment to notify the moderator.

 Hide from Me means that you can simply hide the comment from showing on just your screen. You’re not reporting the author, but rather disappearing a comment from your sight.

Once you’ve provided some context, click Flag Comment.

Hint: make sure you’re signed into your Community account when you’re reporting a comment.

Why?

Soon we’ll be rewarding you for moderation activity (reporting inappropriate comments). All the activity you do now will count towards future rewards… as long as you’re signed in.

Be careful not to report comments just to earn coins. If your flag is dismissed by the moderator, it will count against you in the long run.

As Community continues to grow, so will your opportunity for advancement within Community.

We’ll be introducing moderation roles that you could be eligible for if you’ve been involved in previous moderation activity. Soon you could be the moderator, responsible for reviewing flagged comments and getting rewarded for it.

Let me know what you think about this feature in the comments section below.

The post [Community Talk] How to Report a Comment appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This post explains how you can customize your email preferences.

1. As with most community features, the first step is to login.

2. Once logged in, click on My Preferences in the drop down menu to the right of your display picture.

3. I’m now in My Preferences. If you prefer only one or two of these options, feel free to uncheck the notification(s) you no longer wish to receive.

You’ll notice that the default setting is for you to receive all three email notifications: immediate, daily, and weekly.

Immediate emails keep me informed about things I might want to act on right away, like this reply from Myra Michaels

Daily emails help me keep track of where I am at with my milestones, and who’s been voting on my comments.

Note: if I choose to disable the immediate notifications, those will show up in my daily update instead.

Feel free to drop a comment or question in the comments section below.

Stay tuned for more updates coming soon!

The post [Community Talk] How to Set Your Email Preferences appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This post gives you an overview of what’s in store the next time you login.

1. Manage multiple chats from anywhere in your account

Whether you’re checking an order status on your dashboard or reviewing a specific piece of content, you can keep the conversation going.

You’ll see in the image above that I am chatting with three different writers about three different orders, all while checking on my Ready orders.

Same applies for writer accounts. Whether you’re in your job center or checking in on an order you submitted, you can keep the conversations going with your clients.

2. Easily access all your conversations in the messaging menu

Utilize the messaging menu to quickly open one or more of your chats in one place.

3. Quickly jump to order that you’re discussing

This is handy if you’re actively discussing an order with your client or writer. For example, if I’m discussing edits with one of my writers and need to reference something in the order, I can simply use the Go-to order function to get there fast.

That little arrow circled in the picture above will take me to this order so I can review the revision we’re discussing.

4. Is the person you’re talking to online?

It’s no longer a guessing game. If your client or writer is actively logged into their account, you’ll know. How?

If you’re a client, you’ll see the pen to the left of the writer’s name light up green.

If you’re a writer, you’ll see a green head icon to the left of the client’s name.

5. Chat tabs help you prioritize your conversations

We don’t want to crowd your screen with too many chats. That’s why we developed a chat priority tab.

If you’re engaged in so many conversations that your screen isn’t big enough to handle all of it, this tab will show up in the bottom left hand corner of your account. You can quickly and easily toggle between conversations here.

6. Find everything in one place with the Message Center

If you prefer to get a bird’s-eye view of every conversation you have on the go, the Message Center is the going to be your new best friend.

To get there, click the Message Center button at the bottom of your message menu, shown below.

The Message Center will show you a list of all of your conversations and corresponding orders.

If you’re like me and have lots of orders on the go at any given time, the message center is a lifesaver. I’m all about productivity and I find this is the best place to kick start my daily content management.

7. Express yourself with Emojis

I saved the best for last. Working at Crowd Content, I am able to see conversations between clients and writers across the platform. I can’t count the amount of smileys I see being sent back and forth on a daily basis.

That’s why we introduced basic Emojis to our message system.

Note: we’re adding more Emoji options in the near future.

That’s all you need to know about the new, more productive instant messaging in your Crowd Content account right now.

Stay tuned for more IM updates coming soon!

The post [Feature Update] New Productive Instant Messaging appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

• How to Login and Edit Your Profile
• How to Check Your Notifications
• How to Discover Your Coin Earnings
  

Today we’re going to dive into rankings. Where to find them, what they mean, and how to check your current rankings.

Here’s step by step instructions to get you on the right track.

1. Login

2. Once I’m logged in, I click on My Profile.

3. Once I get to my profile, I click the little trophy in the top right corner.

4. Instead of clicking the coin icon like last time, I’m going to click the crown icon.

Hint: Right off the bat I can tell that I’m at rank two and am about to move up. How?

You see the 2 with the crown in a rectangle the picture above? If you hover over this area in your account, you will see a short brief indicating how far you are from ranking up to your next level.

5.  You’re now in your points screen. Just like in all games, the more points you get, the more you rank up.

Like coin history, you can see the history of earning rank in the Community. Rank is a measure of your efforts and achievements.

While not every milestone reached will earn you coins, every milestone* will earn you some points towards your next rank.

6. The percentages you see to the left of the crowns indicate you’ve earned X percent towards your next rank. Each time you reach 100%, you rank up.

7. Similar to coin history, if you click the ‘i’ information button, you’re given more information about your rank.

As the performance grows, and new features are added, you can expect your rank to become even more valuable… but we’ll tell you more about that another time.

Now you’re familiar with where to find you points and how to understand your ranking.

Stay tuned for more weekly Community updates.

As always, I look forward to chatting with you in the comments section below.

The post [Community Talk] How to Check Your Points and Ranking appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

That is fine if you own a business that somehow only needs the services of a freelance writer once ever, but that is rarely true.

The average business will need the services of a freelance writer a few times a year, a few times a month, or evenly on a weekly basis.

For that type of business, it is much better for the relationship between business and writer to be more similar to a couple that is going steady. And much like a true relationship, the secret to keeping your relationship with a writer strong is proper communication.

Be Available

The biggest complaint I here from our 2,200+ freelance writer network is that clients aren’t available to answer questions about instructions.

The first and foremost rule to communicating well with a freelance writer is to be available to the writer. If the writer has questions about your instructions or goals, and you aren’t available to answer those questions, the writer simply has to guess what you want.

Often this results in unnecessary revisions or content that doesn’t meet your expectations. The best writers will not only ask questions, but will also give you suggestions on how to make the content better meet your goals.

Hint: if you’re using Crowd Content to connect with freelance writers, utilize the instant chat.

Make Instructions Easy to Read

Note the line breaks and sub headers in this article. They exist to make it easier for you to read the article and process the meaning of it.

Your instructions to freelance writers should be similarly formatted.

When instructions arrive as a huge block of text that is written in a stream of consciousness format, your writer will find them difficult to follow.

Most likely either you’ll be forced to reiterate most of the instructions in conversation or the writer will unintentionally ignore parts of the instructions.

If You Don’t Know Want You Want, Your Writer Won’t Either

All too often, clients provide instructions for freelance writers like this:

“Write something that will interest car lovers.”

That is ridiculously vague. Many car lovers will probably love an article about a new synthetic oil that only needs to be changed every three years.

However, if that oil only works in cars made after 2010 and your business sells cars made before 1980, that article didn’t really help your business

Try to be specific when making requests, or, if you’re like me and want to give the writer more leeway, at least explain the value of the content to your business so the writer has a better sense of the goal of the content.

Remember, writers are hired to write. Not to read your mind.

Offer Feedback

After you receive content from a freelance writer, provide meaningful feedback. Saying “Thanks” or “Great work” isn’t the most useful feedback.

Detailing what the writer did particularly well helps ensure the writer continues to provide excellent writing in the future.

Similarly, if you aren’t fully satisfied with the writing, explain why.

Good freelance writers will accept your criticism professionally and make adjustments next time.

A little feedback can help prevent a potential breakup.

Why it All Matters

When all is said and done, you want freelance writers that make better content. Unfortunately, the best freelance writers are those that are most in demand.

Because they are in demand, they can afford to refuse assignments.

If you aren’t providing clear and helpful instructions, available to answer questions, and providing feedback, those writers will simply refuse to work with you, which means you’ll be forced to use less skilled writers for your projects.

The post How to Communicate and Foster a Relationship with Your Freelance Writer(s) appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This post, I’m going to go over how you can check your coin earning history.

1. Your first step is to login.

2. Once logged in, I’m going to click on My Profile in the drop menu to the right of my profile picture.

3. Once I get to my profile, I click the trophy icon in the top right hand corner.

4. I’m now in my awards screen. Click on the silver coin icon shown below.

5. You will now see your coin earning history. If you’re new you might not see anything yet. If you’ve been active in the Crowd Content Community for a while, all of your coin achievements are displayed here.

Milestones are achieved for various Community activities, including but not limited to:

• First comment
• First reply received
• First follow/follower
• First time someone likes your comment
• You earned medals
• You Starting conversations
• You keep the conversation going
• You’re so engaged in conversations that you level up

The number to the left of the coin represents the value of that coin.

Note: Milestones are subject to change as we measure performance metrics.

To get more information on the Milestone you achieved, simply click the ‘i’ information button.

You’ll notice that I’ve achieved 50 coins for reaching a new level. In a later post, I’ll explain how to reach a new level and Milestones in more detail.

Hint: Once you reach 100 coins, we add $25 to your writer account.

There you have it! You’re now equipped to discover how your Community interactions pay off.

See you in the conversation!

The post [Community Talk] How to Discover Your Coin Earnings appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Now I’m going give you a look at how you can check your notifications once you’ve immersed yourself in the Crowd Content Community.

1. First, I’m going to login.

2. Once logged in, I click the drop down to the right of my profile picture then click Notifications.

3. From there a sidebar will appear that displays all activity associated with my comments.

In my case, I have quite a few interactions.

Let me walk you through some of my recent activity.

3a. I can see that both Earl Dotson and Georgia Potts have upvoted recent comments of mine.

When your comment is upvoted, it takes you one step closer to being rewarded for your activity.

Why? If Community members are upvoting your comment, it means you’re adding value to the discussion.

That’s the whole goal here: to add value to the conversation.

Hint: You’ll notice the title of the article in italics underneath the notification. That’s indicates the thread where my comment was upvoted.

Simply click the Up arrow to the right of the title to be directed to the comment thread.

3b. Other recent activity includes a couple replies to my comments.

I’m anxious to see what he said so I’m going to click the little arrow to the right of the title.

Doing so will take me to the thread itself (shown below) so I can read his reply and continue the conversation.

Hint: When someone replies to your comments, you’re being rewarded points that are taking you even closer to your cash out.

3c. Someone followed me! Personally, it’s the same intrinsic reward feeling I get when someone adds me as a friend on Facebook or follows me on Twitter. As you can see below, Matt Martin followed me one week ago.

I should probably follow him back (he is my coworker after all). I can so by clicking on the profile picture to the right of his name.

This will take me to his profile where I click Follow.

3d. My comment is getting reactions.

What does that mean? 

It means that two or more people have either upvoted or downvoted a single one of my comments in a thread.

I’m curious as to whether this comment was upvoted or downvoted so I’m going to take a look by clicking the Up arrow to the right of the title (shown above).

Phew! As you can see in the image below, it turns out both of these reactions are upvotes.

That’s it! I’ve now checked all of my notifications.

I know that my comments are adding value to the conversation and because of that I’m well on my way to ranking up in the community and accomplishing a pay out for my thought leadership.

As always, I welcome your comments and questions in the comments section below.

The post [Community Talk] How to Check Your Notifications appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

If you haven’t had the opportunity to get involved yet, here’s a quick tutorial to get you started.

1. Go to any article on the Crowd Content blog.
2. Scroll to the bottom where the comments start to appear.
3. Click ‘Login’ on the right-hand side.

Hint: use your regular Crowd Content login information. This way, when you earn enough coins to convert to cash, we can pay you directly in your writer account.

4. Next, you will be prompted to fill in basic profile information. Click Done when you are finished.
Hint: your display name can be changed later on. Your username remains permanent.

5. You’re now ready to be rewarded for your interactions with other community members. The Community is welcoming and I think you’ll find yourself getting pretty comfortable in the existing discussions.

Start a conversation, join an existing conversation, or simply beef up your profile and get acquainted with the Community interface.

Now it’s time to edit your display name and bio

Similar to other social networking platforms, you have the ability to change your profile whenever you want.

Personally, I want to add a little bio about myself and change my display name.

Here’s how I’m going to do it.

1. Once I’m logged in, I click the drop down arrow beside my profile picture and click My Profile.

2. Your screen will give you a glimpse of your current profile and dashboard. I’m not happy with display name and I want to add a bio so I’m going to click Edit to the right of my profile picture.

Note: If you want to change your profile picture, you can do so by emailing support@crowdcontent.com and we will update it for you. As Community graduates out of Beta, we will be adding options for you to use your Facebook, Twitter, or Gravatar profile pictures.

3. As you can see below, I’ve changed my display name from Laura Dohan to Laura Dee. I’ve also added a short bio about myself. Click save.

Anyone in the Crowd Content Community can now see my bio by clicking on my profile.

Now I’m done. I’ve logged in for the first time and updated my profile.

Next post I’m going to show you how to check your notifications (think Facebook notifications but with rewards).

The post [Community Talk] How to Login and Edit Your Profile appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

If you are in any way involved in internet marketing, you have probably heard all of these terms, and you’ve maybe used some of these terms almost interchangeably.

If you are new to internet marketing, that isn’t really a problem, since basic internet marketing generally blends the concepts. However, once you reach a certain point, you need a stronger understanding of the various concepts.

For today, let’s talk about the difference between content marketing and community marketing.

• Content marketing is a marketing strategy that involves the creation and sharing of online media in order to acquire and maintain customers.
• Community marketing is a marketing strategy that involves interacting with your customer community in ways that encourage the community to naturally market your brand.

While both strategies may involve the creation of online media, the purpose of the content marketing is to build customer loyalty, while the purpose of the community marketing is to both reward customer loyalty and reap the rewards of customer loyalty.

It is important to note that both types of marketing differ from more direct advertising in that neither is designed to directly create sales (though indirect sales are usually expected).

Examining the Pros and Cons

The pros and cons of the two styles of marketing primarily come down to one big difference: content marketing focuses primarily on building a costumer base while community marketing focuses primarily on interacting with that base.

Because the user base already exists, a community marketing doesn’t necessarily need to rely on good SEO. Unfortunately, this benefit also has a negative side effect. When a person searches for content and chooses to interact with it, that person has usually been fully engaged.

When content is directed at a person, as per community marketing, engagement is much less likely. Effectively, a brand needs to work harder to maintain brand engagement through community marketing.

Judging engagement is also different for content marketing and community marketing.

For content marketing, there are a number of criteria that can indicate successful engagement, including time spent browsing a web page, number of pages a person visits, whether a person chooses to join the brand community in some way (Facebook page, forums, etc.), or simply if the person makes a purchase.

For community marketing, interaction is the main way to judge engagement, but that can be difficult to judge. A simple post count (for comments or forum posts) doesn’t always paint the full picture and lurkers (people who never or rarely post) are even harder to judge. Judging community marketing success often requires an occasional direct survey.

As for how you can get those inactive readers to actually post something, that is a thought for another day.

Customers Equal Sales

The simple truth is that more customers equals more sales. Both content marketing and community marketing understand this truth, focusing, respectively, on creating customers and interacting with customers.

Both forms of internet marketing are long-term strategies that work best when combined with short term strategies like direct advertising.

The post Defining the Difference Between Content Marketing and Community Marketing appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Today Scott explains how you can order content in multiple languages.

We’ve had a lot of companies come to us recently requesting original content in multiple languages. This video shows how you can get just that.

The post Feature Friday: How to Order Content in Multiple Languages appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It is common for a company to upload style guides and any other relevant information that will help the writer.

As always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact your account manager. 

The post Feature Friday: How to Add Attachments to Your Order appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

We want you to be able to leverage the power of images with your content marketing. That’s why we’ve made it easy for you to download high quality Bigstock images from directly within your Crowd Content account.

This video explains how you can easily retrieve photos that you have previously downloaded.

If, at anytime, you need a high quality photo to compliment your content marketing, you can choose from millions available directly in your account.

The post Feature Friday: How to Get Your Bigstock Images appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

It can be a pain to come up with titles and descriptions that meet the proper character count for meta descriptions and titles.

That’s why we’ve made it easy for you to get metadata for your content. Our writers have you covered!

Having properly formatted meta titles and meta descriptions are essential to looking good on the SERP.

Check out this video for more information on how our writers will take care of your metadata for you.

If you would like more information, do not hesitate to contact us!

The post Feature Friday: How to Order Unique Meta Descriptions and Titles appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

We want to make sure you have all the tools you need to get involved.

Here’s the quick facts about our referral program:

1. We’ve seen clients make over $700 from referring their network to our network of writers.
2. Once your referral spends $30 on content, we put $30 in your account for you to spend on content or high quality, Bigstock images.
3. You can keep track of your referrals progress from within your account.
4. You can use your custom link to post on your social media page(s), embed on your website, or email to your friends.

For more information on how to get the most out of the Crowd Content referral program, please check out the video or contact your account manager.

The post Feature Friday: The Benefits of the Crowd Content Referral Program appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Enter the Crowd Content Resource Center. Here, you can read up on the latest SEO, social media, and content marketing trends.

Questions about how to navigate your Crowd Content account? No problem. You will find a library of explainer videos that will help answer frequently asked questions.

If you would prefer to have a conversation about any of the above topics, feel free to contact your account manager at any time.

The post Feature Friday: How to Navigate the Resource Center appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This feature is really handy if you have lots of content being processed through your account. You can easily see the status of your content the, and when a writer has sent you a message about your content. You can even reply to messages from within your notification center. 

Because I manage a ton of content, this feature is my go-to. I can easily stay in touch and up-to-date with my team of writers.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact your account manager at any time.

Happy Friday!

The post Feature Friday: How to Check Your Notifications appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

These fields are hepling us streamline how we match your order to the most qualified writers.

If you have any questions about this, or any other feature, contact your account manager today!

The post Feature Friday: How to Get the Best Writer for Your Content appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Campaigns is an excellent tool for the savvy online marketer. It allows you to schedule your blog posts, tweets, facebook posts, and really any content, all at once in one place.

Contact your account manager if you would like to have the feature enabled in your Crowd Content account, or check out this detailed guide about how a campaign works.

The post Feature Friday: How to Start Your Content Campaign appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Why does this help you?

Do you have questions about how something works within your Crowd Content account? Our Youtubbe channel is where you will find the answer.

Don’t feel like watching a quick tutorial video? No worries. You can reach out to your account manager at any time via email of phone.

The post Feature Friday: How to Find Crowd Content Tutorials appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Our writers have been busy creating high quality content for you for a while now. Over this time, they have gained some serious knowledge in all sorts of different industries.  

Now, you can easily find a writer who specializes in your business by simply typing in keywords that pertain to your business.

For example, say I’m a marketer and I need a writer who specializes in marketing and SEO. I can simply type in “marketing” and “SEO” then all the writers who can write about marketing and SEO will appear.

From there, you can check out their profiles and decide if they’re a good fit for your content.

Check out the video for more info!

The post Feature Friday: How to Find Yourself the Perfect Writer appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This week’s feature showcases how you can easily delete and rename your content folders. Additionally, Curtis demonstrates how you can drag content from one folder into another. 

This is a great feature for content marketers with high volume of content, and for e-tailers who like to keep their product descriptions organized.

If you have any questions about this feature, do not hesitate to contact your account manager.

The post Feature Friday: How to Manage Your Content Folders appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

Once your writer has completed your content, you have a ton of options for exporting. Today, we’re focusing on full HTML export.

If you have any questions about this feature, do not hesitate to contact your account manager at any time.

The post Feature Friday: How to Export Content in HTML appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

This feature enables you to make an offer for a lower price to your writer. It is typically used when you have worked with a writer in the past and would like to place another, very large, order with them.

Once you make an offer, it is up to your writer to decide if they accept or decline your offer.

Check out the video for more details!

Our writers work hard to provide you with the high quality, unique content.  Log in or sign up and get started with yours today!

The post Feature Friday: How to Make an Offer appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.

The announcement comes just one week after Crowd Content revealed its integration with content discovery leader Outbrain, adding another major pillar of the content marketing process to their platform.

“By partnering with Bigstock, we’re enabling our clients to complete more of the content marketing process in one place,” Crowd Content’s Founder and CEO, Clayton Lainsbury, explains. “Creating great content is still our core focus. Now clients can enhance their content with high quality, royalty free images and drive traffic to that content all without leaving the Crowd Content platform.”

Complete Integration Means Saving Valuable Time

Keeping with their focus of integrating services that add value for content marketers, Crowd Content has integrated Bigstock’s library of over 15 million images into their platform and to the fingertips of their users.

Users can browse, search, and preview images from within the Crowd Content platform, then download and apply the perfect images to the content they’ve sourced from Crowd Content’s writers.

“We understand that a strong visual aspect to every piece of content is critical for success, especially with today’s cluttered Web,” says Lainsbury. “But we also know that finding the right image that properly supports your content is time consuming and even risky. This partnership eliminates both of these problems for Crowd Content users.”

High Quality Images that Users Can Trust

It’s often difficult for content marketers to understand the rights associated with images found on the Web. Images found through Google, for example, are often downloaded and used illegally.

By providing images through Bigstock, Crowd Content eliminates this uncertainty for their users. All images are royalty free with clear terms on how they can be used. Bigstock’s review team vets every image for authenticity and legality, then looks closely at the details of the image to ensure focus, lighting and composition are of a high standard.

The Web as a Visual Place

With platforms like Pinterest and Instagram, and recent changes to Facebook, there’s no doubt that the Web is becoming a more visual place. This doesn’t mean that text is being displaced, but does mean that marketers must start incorporating visuals with every piece of content they publish.

By teaming up with Bigstock, Crowd Content is enabling their users to keep pace with this trend and maximize the return they get from content created and optimized on the Crowd Content platform.

Contact Us to Learn More

If you already have a Crowd Content account and want to learn more, please reach out to your Client Account Manager. If you don’t have an account, please send us an email or give us a call!

Contact: Laura Dohan
Crowd Content Media Inc.
1-888-983-3103
Visit the Crowd Content website
Follow Crowd Content on Twitter or Facebook

About Bigstock

Bigstock is a leading provider of royalty-free stock images. Founded in 2004, Bigstock’s mission is to provide affordable, high-quality photos, vectors and illustrations that meet the dynamic needs of today’s design and small business community. With over 15 million images in its library and counting, Bigstock makes it easy and affordable to bring your idea to life and communicate it effectively. Bigstock is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shutterstock Inc. (NYSE: SSTK), a leading global provider of high-quality stock photography, vectors, illustrations and footage.

The post Crowd Content Brings High Quality Images to their Marketers by Partnering with Bigstock appeared first on Crowd Content - Blog.