Search Results for: get clients

The Freelance Blogger’s Ultimate Guide to Using Jargon [Or Not…]

“Hey Brad, what’s the CTR on that omnichannel growth hacking infographic?”

“Gee, Sally, I don’t know. Is that part of the remarketing campaign we designed the storyscape for last week?”

Tell you a secret…

I fucking strongly dislike jargon.

Mainly because I can never remember it all. At meetings, I sometimes need to Google to remind myself what it means, so I’m sat there looking up business-speak on my phone instead of joining the conversation. (“What’s a vertical? I forgot…”)

Makes me feel like the only kid in the gang who has to check Urban Dictionary to find out what “Netflix and chill” really means. 😉

But I’m gonna set aside my personal issues with jargon for now, and focus on giving you exactly what the title of this post promises: your ultimate guide to when and how to use jargon in freelance blogging, and when to avoid it entirely.

Just in case we’re not on the same page yet, jargon is specialist language used by a specific group or type of person, often in a business or academic setting.

And part of what defines it as jargon is the fact that it only makes sense to the specialists who already know and use it.

In other words, most people on the planet *don’t* use it and have no idea what it means.

So, first of all, the golden rule is simple:

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By Lucy Damasceno

5 Steps to Make Hourly Rates Profitable as a Freelance Blogger

As a freelance blogger, you might have heard that you should get paid per project. Or per article, at least. That this way you won’t be penalised for working more efficiently after spending time and money improving your skills and knowledge. Better you get, faster you deliver, right? But we all know that some clients insist on paying per hour.

One of the reasons behind it is that the financial aspects of freelancing can be very confusing, and not only for the clients. And if it isn’t one of those cases where you would rather lose the deal than accept an hourly rate, your only option is to make the arrangement work for you. So here is how you do it, step by step.

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By Nicole Hallberg

Why You Don’t Have to Choose Between Doing the Right Thing and the Profitable Thing

In the movies, the heroes decide whether to do the right thing, or take the money and run. Our decisions in freelancing can often look similar: Do I take the lucrative blogging gig, even though the client makes me queasy? Or do I starve with integrity? If you’re going to have a successful career as a freelance blogger, you should know right now that this is a false dichotomy.

Reaching your maximum earning potential and maintaining your professional integrity is NOT an either/or proposition. In fact, acting with integrity is actually the best way to earn the most money. It’s true—the top earners in this industry are the ones who stick by their values, whether they’re rolling in clients at the moment or not.

The fact is, acting with integrity is the best way to ensure that you are working with the right kind of clients, and earn the kind of reputation that keeps them coming in droves. Let’s take a look at how we ended up buying into this lie that you can either have your integrity, or financial success.

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By Katherine Swarts

Secrets of Being 100% Honest and Dependable as a Blogger (While Still Loving Yourself and Your Work)

Do you want to be known as a freelance blogger with integrity?

Are you committed to all that “integrity” implies? It’s not just about never telling a lie, or being straightforward with your clients, or even finishing everything by deadline.

What “Integrity” Really Means

Word-wise, “integrity” comes from the Latin integritatem or integritas, which meant “soundness,” “wholeness,” “completeness,” “purity,” “correctness,” and/or “blamelessness.” So maintaining integrity as a blogger means being thorough in your writing and editing—and that doesn’t just mean “thoroughly” getting rid of typos. The online world is full of blog posts that are perfectly spelled, grammatically flawless—and achingly dull or incomprehensibly confusing.

Integrity of thoroughness—making a post complete and whole—includes:

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By Elizabeth Spencer

How to Outsource Your Freelance Blogging Work with Integrity

At the beginning of your freelance blogging career, you worried about getting enough work. Now you have a better problem, but a problem nonetheless: you have more assignments than you can comfortably handle on your own.

This article will show you how to outsource some of your work to other writers while maintaining professional integrity with your client and subcontractor(s). Now, I know some of you are thinking “but I’m not at that point in my career yet. How do I get there?” While there are different ways to land more decent-paying freelance blogging gigs, the good news is it doesn’t necessarily take as long as you might assume.

Like many freelance bloggers, I started out writing for a content mill. After nearly a year of writing content in the evenings after my toddler was in bed, I was unhappy with the low pay and demanding deadlines. I knew there must be something better out there, but I wasn’t sure how to find it. Around that time, Sophie offered a new intensive mentoring program and I decided to enroll. Some people are good at putting themselves out there and forging their own path to freelance blogging success, but I’ve always benefited from personal mentoring and external accountability.

After two months of working with Sophie, I landed my first steady gigs as a freelance blogger. The first one came with a byline and the responsibility of writing a few articles a month for a personal finance website. I discovered it through a job ad and used Sophie’s pitch templates to send a winning application. The second gig involved ghostwriting blog posts and other content for a private client who filled out the contact form on my website. With Sophie’s help, I’d recently given my site a makeover to add a portfolio and focus on my freelance blogging services.

Both of these gigs expanded after a few months. My editor liked my work, so she assigned more articles. My client was starting a new marketing firm and as his customer base grew, so did my workload. After a year of freelance blogging on the side while working my “day job” as an adjunct English professor, I realized something had to give. I was overwhelmed and falling behind. If this continued, I would likely lose a writing client or receive bad evaluations from my students.

First, I scaled back my teaching load from three or four classes a semester to just one. Then I decided to share some of my blogging work with a few writer friends.

Here’s how I maintained my professional integrity in the outsourcing process so I could catch up, stay on track, and keep my clients happy.

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