Carol Tice - Be a Freelance Blogger

About Carol Tice

Carol Tice founded the Make a Living Writing blog and Freelance Writers Den community. She is also the author of multiple books including The Recession-Proof Freelancer. If you’d like to learn more about SEO for freelance writing, check out her free training video: How to Become an In-Demand SEO Writer. [Links in this bio are affiliate links.]

By Carol Tice 4 Comments

SEO for Bloggers: 5 Keys to Catchy Headlines

Are you sad that no one seems to read your blog posts?

It could be because of the lack of catchy headlines – more specifically, headlines that are both creatively written and contain a useful keyword phrase to help the search engines find you readers.

In short, you need to rank well in search engines for the phrases your audience uses to find your type of content.

You’d think that at this point, everyone understands Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the need to have a strong keyword phrase in the headline of their blog post. But that’s not my experience.

I’ve reviewed hundreds of blog-post headlines in the decade I’ve run my Freelance Writers Den community. And time after time, I see headlines with no keyword phrase at all. Generic headlines that have zero chance of helping you gain readers from online search. Such as:

Watch Out for the Red Flags
Head High or Body High (for a legal cannabis blog)
How a Marathon Can Heal your Soul

What’s wrong with these headlines?

In that first one, we can’t even tell who the post is for, or what we’ll learn if we click and read it.

In all three cases, there is no strong keyword phrase that would help search engines deliver you some readers. At this point in the busy blogosphere, if you don’t take the time to weave a keyphrase into your headline, your post is basically doomed.

So how do you figure out what keyword phrase to use for your blog headline? And more importantly, how do you artfully weave it into your headline so it doesn’t seem spammy?

Let’s walk through five key steps to creating a winning, SEO-focused, catchy headline for your next blog post: [Read more…]

By Carol Tice 2 Comments

Freelance Blogging Work Dried Up? 5 Quick Steps to Get Back in Business

Has your freelance blogging work evaporated since COVID-19 hit and ‘isolation’ became the most-used word of 2020? Blog clients ghosting you, all of a sudden?

If so, don’t sit wringing your hands. Realize that rapid turnover is a hallmark of recession times.

Swing into action to replace your lost blog-writing jobs with these 5 steps. This action plan focuses on the fastest routes to landing clients quickly: [Read more…]

By Carol Tice 9 Comments

5 Simple Ways Freelance Bloggers Can Move Up to Well-Paid Article Writing

Tired of earning small money for paid blogging? If you’re looking to move up, article writing can be a great next step in your freelance career.

After all, you already know how important headlines are online. And you know how to focus an idea into an article-sized slice, organizing it into subheads or a bulleted/numbered list.

All great fundamentals for article writing.

How can you cross over from the world of $50 blog posts to earning $1 a word and more for articles?

Here are five proven paths for moving up to writing articles:

[Read more…]

By Carol Tice 120 Comments

Create Popular Blog Posts With These 7 Insider Interview Tips

Are you blogging your heart out, but not getting a lot of readers?

Do potential clients seem unimpressed by your blogging portfolio?

Well, here’s one way to really grab some eyeballs and get the online traction that brings clients to your door:

Deliver an exclusive, fascinating interview with a prominent person.

Wait, wait, I hear you say — how will I ever get anyone to talk to me? Worse, what if someone does talk to me and I get so nervous I blow it?

You’d be surprised at how easy it is.

As a journalist by training and a former staff reporter, I’ve interviewed hundreds of people. If one person you want to talk to won’t say yes, I can promise you, there’s someone else who will.

And with the 7 tips I’m about to share, your nerves won’t matter.

Why interviews? Having fresh information in your posts is key to driving traffic. Most blog posts just recycle things we’ve all seen 100 times before, so when you have exclusive interviews, you immediately stand out.

In fact, when writers ask me how they can earn more in 2015, I tell them to learn article writing. And the big thing that makes articles more interesting than the typical blog post is the interviews.

Of course, once you get someone to talk to you, you have to be a great interviewer to get some really juicy comments. Here are my tips for how to ace your interview and create an attention-getting blog post: [Read more…]