It’s a practice that has seen a resurgence in popularity among artists, designers, and DIY crafters alike. Its allure lies not just in the final product but in the process itself—a meditative activity that allows for personal expression while honing one’s creative skills.

This post aims to explore the art of hand lettering, providing valuable insights, ideas, and examples designed to inspire both novices and seasoned professionals in the realm of creative design.

The Foundation of Hand Lettering

Before we dive into the myriad ways you can experiment with hand lettering, it’s crucial to understand the foundation on which this art form stands. Hand lettering involves drawing letters by hand, as opposed to calligraphy, which is the art of writing with specific strokes. Unlike typography, which involves repeated characters in a specific style, hand lettering gives you the freedom to treat each letter as a separate piece of art.

Materials You’ll Need

To start your hand lettering journey, you will need a few basic supplies:

• Pencils for sketching your designs
• Erasers for correcting any lines
• Ruler for creating straight lines and maintaining proportions
• High-quality pens or markers for the final artwork
• Paper suited to your chosen mediums

Choosing the right pen or marker can significantly affect your work’s quality, so it’s worth experimenting with different types to find what best suits your style.

Creative Hand Lettering Ideas and Styles

1. Brush Pen Lettering

Brush pen lettering is a popular style that mimics traditional brush strokes, offering a dynamic range of thickness in lines. The key to mastering this style lies in controlling the pressure applied during the stroke; light pressure for thin lines and heavy pressure for thick ones.

2. Calligraphy Inspired Lettering

Drawing inspiration from calligraphy, this style focuses on creating elegant, flowing letters with a touch of timelessness. While traditionally done with a dip pen and ink, many artists now utilize modern calligraphy markers to achieve a similar effect.

3. Block Lettering

Block lettering involves creating letters with geometric shapes and lines, resulting in a more structured and uniform look. This style is particularly effective for posters, headlines, or any project where you want the letters to stand out boldly.

4. 3D Lettering

For those looking to add depth and dimension to their work, 3D lettering is an excellent option. By adding shadows and highlights to your letters, you can create the illusion of depth, making your lettering pop off the page.

5. Ornamental Lettering

This style takes hand lettering to an ornate level, incorporating decorative elements like flourishes, filigree, and other elaborate designs. It’s a fantastic way to add complexity and flair to initials or single words.

Application of Hand Lettering in Professional Projects

Hand lettering can significantly enhance various professional projects, from branding and logo design to packaging, advertising, and editorial content. Its personalized touch can help businesses and creatives establish a distinctive voice and aesthetic that sets them apart from the competition.

Tips for Practicing and Perfecting Your Hand Lettering

• Practice Regularly: Like any skill, regular practice is key to improvement. Dedicate time each day to practice different letters, styles, and compositions.
• Experiment with Styles: Don’t be afraid to try out various styles and techniques. This experimentation will help you find your unique voice in hand lettering.
• Study Other Artists: Look at the work of seasoned hand letterers for inspiration. Pay attention to how they use line weight, spacing, and composition to convey different moods and messages.
• Share Your Work: Join online communities or social media platforms where you can share your work, receive feedback, and connect with other artists. It’s a great way to learn and grow in your craft.

Hand lettering is more than just a way to create beautiful artwork—it’s a means of expression, a professional tool, and a continual learning process. Whether you’re an art enthusiast, a creative professional, or a DIY crafter, the world of hand lettering offers endless possibilities for creativity and personal growth. By exploring various styles and applying these techniques to your projects, you can unlock new levels of artistic expression and professional distinction.

You should be able to take some steps to push your content strategy forward, however, in spite of such constraints.

Five Content Tips for the Time-Strapped Entrepreneur

Writing fresh, quality content that resonates with your audience and drives visibility and engagement with your brand is admittedly time-consuming. You probably can’t add any hours to your day, but you can be more strategic about how you use and supplement your time.

Here are five crucial suggestions.

1. Create a Plan

It’s not necessarily the actual writing that consumes so much time. More often, the process of generating ideas, outlining, finding sources, editing, revising, publishing, and sharing is what drains your schedule.

Happily, many of these steps can be streamlined through strategic planning. Take content ideation for example.

Instead of spending a large chunk of time sitting down and brainstorming ideas, you could put systems in place that will allow you to gather topic ideas quickly, as they come to you. (A tool like Evernote makes it easy to organize sudden, bright ideas across multiple devices.)

In terms of outlining, devise a formula that empowers you to plug in information swiftly so you’re already prepared to write when the proper time comes. As the saying goes, a failure to plan is a plan to fail. It’s a cliché, but you’ll find it holds true with regard to content writing.

2. Outsource

Who ways you have to develop all your content in-house? In the first place, this is far too time-consuming. Second, it’s may not be your core skillset.

When you fall into the habit of creating all your content personally, you may be doing your brand a disservice. Fortunately, you can outsource content and still publish it under your name.

Content marketing agencies will produce, edit, and publish content for your brand so you can focus your valuable time and energy on other key business tasks.

3. Build Guest Blogging Relationships

If you’ve not begun to tap into the powerful resource of guest blogging, you’re missing out on an opportunity to increase your reach in a cost-effective manner.

Guest blogging is a two-way street. In addition to writing content and publishing it on other sites, you can accept guest blog posts on your own site.

If you do this, you’ll gain access to free content. As long as you practice discernment about which content to publish, this approach can prove to be highly fruitful with minimal extra time and resource investment.

4. Carve Out Time (and Maximize It)

How many times have you assured yourself that you’ll write a blog post or create a piece of content by some point in the next day or week? We all do it, all the time, right?

Unfortunately, unless it gets cemented into the schedule, it rarely happens. The reason you don’t have time for content writing may be that you don’t make time for content writing.

Carve out a specific and restricted period of time to do your writing. It doesn’t have to be a massive block of time. In fact, shorter is better.

As Parkinson’s Law states, “Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.” If you allot an isolated and limited period of time to do the work, you’re more likely to be productive.

5. Empower Your Team

If you have a team of people — whether it consists of employees, contractors, or co-founders — you must utilize them. Granted, everyone has different writing skills and abilities, but it’s helpful and more efficient if you involve as many people as possible in your content writing activities.

You’ll gain new perspectives, fresh language, and additional time. Try requiring each team member to produce at least one piece of content a month. Even if you have a relatively small team of five people, this may generate as much as 60 pieces of unique content per year.

Don’t Skimp on Content

Whatever you do in the future, don’t ignore content. In order to build a highly visible and successful brand online, you need content: good material and plenty of it.

Content is fuel to the marketing engine and oughtn’t to be avoided or delayed. Discover ways to maximize your time and work around your scheduling limitations. Quality content is never easy, but it’s always productive.

There are lots of benefits on why you should write for other sites and blogs. Arguably the most significant advantage that guest blogging brings to the table is brand exposure. By writing articles for websites, you introduce your writing to a brand new audience. If they enjoyed your article, they would hop on over to read more of your content. If they enjoy your blog content, you can convert them into subscribers and customers!

The process seems simple, but there’s a catch to guest blogging – it’s not as easy as you think.

You can’t write an article, send it to another site, and expect the site owner or editor to publish it at your whim. You need to consider factors before writing articles for websites. For instance, the quality of the site, its potential number of visitors and readers, and your existing relationship with its owner will determine the success of your guest blogging campaign, and whether or not it will be published at all.

In this post, therefore, you will learn the science of writing articles for websites and blogs to ensure that your efforts will yield in getting your content published at high-authority blogs and sites. This way, you can compel readers of other blogs to visit yours and hike up your conversion rate!

Five Ways Of Writing Articles For Websites That Generate Results

1. Find Websites To Write For

You need to find out which sites are accepting guest posts so you can pitch your articles to them.

The easiest way to find blogs that accept guest posts is through Google Search. Just type your niche and the search operator “inurl:write-for-us” (ex. blogging inurl:write-for-us) to filter websites with a Write a Us page. Once you have the result, you need to manually check each page to make sure that they’re accepting posts. There’s a chance that the page is indexed on Google, but they’re not looking for contributors at the moment.

You can also use different search operators to find more guest blogging opportunities. Using “blogging” as your niche, below are other search query examples you can use:

• blogging “submit blog post”
• blogging “contribute to our site”
• blogging “become an author”
• blogging “guest posts wanted”

These search queries should help you find more than enough guest posting to sink your teeth into!

2. Filter The Results Using Different Metrics

Once you have the sites on hand, you need to find out which among them are worth writing for. Therefore, you need to site based on specific parameters, namely SEO and social media. A site with very good scores on both metrics means that more people can see and are aware of the website.

Below are some of the metrics that you need to check to determine a site’s quality:

• Domain Authority – Using Moz’s proprietary parameter will help you see the site’s aggregate score which draws from different SEO factors. Go to Moz’s Link Explorer to find a site’s DA, among other factors such as backlinks, competitors, and more.
• SEO audit score– If you want a more straightforward way to find out a site’s value based on SEO factors, enter the domain name on SEOptimer. The tool will show the site’s different grades on SEO, security, social, and more.
• Alexa Ranking– Alexa Ranking may not be a catch-all score, it’s still a good indicator of a site’s quality. The lower the ranking and the closer it is to 1, the better the site is.
• Social media followers– If the site or blog has lots of followers on Facebook, Twitter, and others, there’s a good chance that those followers will be able to see and read your content if you send your article there.

3. Get To Know About The Owner

To increase your chances of getting your guest post published, it’s best to get to know the owners or the editors much better. You need to browse their articles and check their social media profiles if necessary. The idea is to learn their interests and find an angle for your post that falls in line with their interests.

Also, you can use this opportunity to help introduce to site owners who you are. Leave comments on their social posts and articles that add value to the discussion to show that you are also knowledgeable about the subject. Once they become much more familiar with who you are and what you bring to the table, it will be much easier for them to decide to accept your guest post.

4. Write Killer Posts

The art of writing is not lost in guest blogging. You still need to produce an article that jam-packed  with value and that readers can take action to. Crafting content that resonates with readers requires you to come up with the following:

• Brainstorm for topics– Since you already did your research about the site and its owners, it’ll be much easier for you to come up with potential blog post ideas to write about in your post. It’s best to come up with at least three ideas to pitch to the site owner (more on this later).
• Develop an outline– Outlines are essential in the writing process because it helps flesh out the details of the article even before writing them. Ideally, you want to develop the outlines of the blog post ideas before sending them over to the site owner. You want to cover all the talking points that you need to discuss in your post.
• Optimize for SEO– Observing the best on-page SEO practices help create a post that will have a better chance of ranking on organic search results. This will make it easier for your target audience to find your content using Google or Bing. At the same time, you make it easier for people to find the blog, much to the benefit of the owner.

For more web content writing tips, click here for more ideas from Jane Sheeba.

5. Pitch!

Sending a pitch to site owner should be simple enough. Since you searched for blogs that readily accept guest posts, it’s just a matter of sending them a pitch based on their editorial guidelines and instructions.

However, the problematic part of pitching is following up on the editors and owners. There’s a chance that they weren’t able to read the email yet because they’re busy. If you haven’t received a reply from them, it’s only wise to follow up with another email.

It’s difficult to keep track of emails, which is why you need a CRM tool to help you see the status of each person whom you contacted for a guest post. You can even score each site to see how close you will get to getting your content published on their website or blog.

For more ideas on how to approach your pitch about writing articles for websites, read this post at JustReachOut.

Conclusion

Writing articles for websites may not be an easy as it seems, but it’s far from impossible. It’s just a matter of figuring out the exact process on how to find the best websites to write for to maximize your impact. Hopefully, the tips in this post gave you ideas on how to develop and implement an effective guest blogging strategy.

I think you know very well that a professional blogger should not deal solely with the production of content for his blog.

Having a website (or else, online business) means, in fact, taking time also for its management, optimization and promotion.

So you need to come up with a strategy that lets you write more in less time.

This post wants to help you on the path to becoming a successful blogger, explaining how to create organized and interesting content for your audience, while optimizing your time.

1. Research of Ideas

First of all, you have to find out a series of ideas that you will need to plan your publishing calendar for the coming weeks.

There are many useful free online resources for this purpose, included:

• WordStorm
• BlogAbout
• Portent
• Title Generator
• Blog Title Generator

Those are all excellent tools you can use to come up with great headlines and story ideas for your next blog posts.

2. Write Down Your Ideas

If you want to learn how to write more articles per day, this is a fundamental aspect.

It’s extremely helpful to write down the ideas that inspire you. But how can you achieve it?

Using a piece of paper?

An agenda?

I suggest Trello, a free online management tool that keeps track of everything, from the big picture to the minute details.

You can use it to catalog your projects, or to create your daily routine.

3. Write the Titles

Once you find the ideas, you need to come up with a great headline.

Again, you can use those tools listed under the point #1 of this post.

Remember that the title is the first, and often only, impression you make on the reader to invite him to visit your article.

Without an excellent title that transforms the visitor into an avid reader, the rest of the words will be lost.

4. Use (12+2)*3 Technique

This technique is very simple – write for twelve minutes, take a two-minute break, and repeat it three times.

If you need less or more time for writing an article – you should repeat it less or more times. But remember – for 12 minutes you should write and only write, without exceptions.

After that, you will get a two-minute break, when you can do something else (but I recommend to stay on the computer).

5. Divide the Article Into Subtitles

Now your post is still in the draft form, so it is necessary to add a higher level of organization, to break it down efficiently.

You need to add the “subtitles” of your article. The main advantages of this strategy are the following:

• you will make your article more readable. Most of the web users just look at the post title and sub headlines;
• you keep the reader interested and involved;
• you divide your content into multiple subsections to help people to keep reading;
• good for SEO.

6. Proofreading

Now that you have the rough article, it’s time to correct any grammar or spelling mistakes.

You can read again the post and look for any error.

There are some online tools that can help you for this purpose.

I use Grammarly. The free version takes an overall look at your content and will give you suggestions on how to improve it.

7. Programming Your Posts

Programming is another key factor for writing more articles per day.

When you have created a few headlines by the ideas that you first thoroughly researched and noted, it is necessary to program the articles for the next weeks.

This way you will have very clear what you have to do when you dedicate yourself to the production of content and not waste time searching for ideas and titles at the last minute.

To organize everything, you can use a free plugin called Editorial Calendar, which you can download from the WordPress plugin directory.

With planned articles every day, you’ll know exactly what to do.

8. Focus

It’s important to avoid any distractions while you dedicate your time to writing.

Turn off your mobile phone, close all your browser windows, you can even disable the internet connection on your computer and simply use your favorite word processor.

I find using earplugs really effective for me. Or you can use headphones, if you like music (or listen any other productive or relaxing melody you like). If you are able to find what works for you, you will be able to work anywhere…for example, this post will tell you how to concentrate and write when you’re on a train or a coach.

Final Words

Here I have listed eight strategies on how to write more articles per day, and optimize the editorial calendar of your blog.

The best you can do is keep practicing, so to hone your professional skills and one day finally become a successful blogger.

With time, you’ll refine your skills and you will be able to write 3 posts in a day, or even more!

Are you already using these techniques, or you do have some tricks to add to this list?

Share your experience, leaving a comment in the box below.

This is a 2000 words guide with 15 steps to help you writing articles with real added value for your readers.

1. Plan What You Want to Achieve with an Article

This point is essential.

Planning is very important not only in your daily or business life. Before you start writing you have to know what you want.

So, ask yourself some questions:

• Should it be a promotional article?
• Or maybe you want to share your experience about something?
• Is it a simple story for your readers?
• Do you want to make them cry? Or laugh?
• Or maybe you want to arouse interest about something?
• You should answer these questions before you start writing your article.

Answers to these questions will give you an idea, what is the goal of your article.

And having a goal is a must, even in copywriting.

2. Plan Some Time Free of Distractions

There are a lot of things which may distract you from work.

Especially freelancers (bloggers, online marketers, SEO specialists) who spend most of their work in front of the screen, are in danger.

So it’s very important, before you start writing, to finish all of your other tasks, clean up the desk and switch off your mobile phone.

With a little effort, you are free from incoming emails, social media, and other online temptations.

These are the most common distractions as a blogger or writer:

• Emails
• Cellular phone
• Social Media
• Family and Coworkers
• Noisy environment
• Mess on Your Desk
• Online Games
• Laziness

Must Read: Top 10 Distractions in Online Business – How to Operate With Them

3. Do Some Quick Research On Your Topic

I assume that you know the subject matter of your article.

But even if you are an expert, it’s worth to do some research about it. You should check in your favorite search engine what’s hot, and what’s not.

You can do it also on blogs you are following via RSS.

Below you can find some resources which I use to find hot topics.

• Google
• Google alerts
• Other blogs which I follow
• Amazon Best Sellers
• Social networks
• Newsletters (like Forbes, groups on LinkedIn, Axandra Search Engine Facts)

4. Use PROPER Keywords in Your Article

If you want to write your article not only for readers, but also for search engines, you must think about proper best keywords for your article.

And best keyword for me means that there are a lot of searches for that keyword, and competition with the keyword is not too high.

There is a lot of tools, you can use it. Some of them are free, and some aren’t.

Most famous free tool for researching keywords is Google Keyword Tool.

This tool is ok for me for three reasons – it’s free, it’s simple and you can use this tool on each computer, which has access to Internet.

For some time I have used a paid tool, Market Samurai. It’s not free (it costs 149$) but there are discounts and it can cost you only 97$.

What’s more, you can download your free trial version here.

Must Read: How to Find Best Keywords

5. Great Headline is a Key!

The headline of your article must attract internet users to click it. There are tons of blogs, portals, and article hubs.

What is the most important thing in choosing what to read (except author’s name) is the headline.

It’s similar to first impression – you can like the title or not (if you don’t like the title, you won’t read it).

Title of your article should not only arouse interest to your readers – it should be also SEO friendly.

Your headline may be controversial, with a question, provoking your readers to answer – almost everything is acceptable here.

Below you can find some irresistible examples of titles:

• Devil’s Guide to Online Marketing
• 10 Tips Which Bloggers Didn’t Tell You about Blogging
• Blogger – Naked from Nature
• How to Get 500 Likes on Facebook in 2 Days
• How to Get 100k Visitors in 3 Months

Also, this is a funny and nice working title generator (from SeoPressor):

6. Consider Making Your Article as Point List

People love to read lists.

Even going shopping they prepare a list of goods to buy. So why not make them happy?

Besides, posts written as a list are easier to read.

Even preparing a great headline for a list is very easy.

• How to Write an Article in Less Than One Hour – 10 Useful Tips
• Top 100 Websites For Bloggers
• 12 Action Steps To Build A Profitable Email List From Scratch
• 10 Article Writing Tips, How To Write Killer Articles

So, how you can prepare your list?

Find three to ten important points you want to raise in your article.

If you find more – it’s okay, but your article will be longer and probably will take you a lot of time (but maybe it will be a killer article?).

Write down these points and fill them with content.

7. Use (12+2)*3 Technique

This technique is very simple – write for twelve minutes, take a two-minute break, and repeat it three times.

If you need less or more time for writing an article – you should repeat the process less or more times.

But remember – for 12 minutes you should write and only write, without exceptions.

After that, you will get a two-minute break, when you can do something else (but I recommend you to stay on the computer).

For counting minutes, you can use a timer on your clock or smart phone.

Even a kitchen timer may be good for this technique.

8. Write for Your Readers

You may think – are you joking? Of course, I’m writing for them.

Are you  sure?

Maybe  you are writing for your blog, for Google or for yourself?

After reading this tip, you may be a little bit confused.

In the 4th point of this guide I wrote that you should write not only for readers, but also for Search Engines.

It’s true as long as you remember that writing for your readers is in the first place!

9. Mix Content in Your Blog

I’ll tell you one secret – writing killer articles is not enough today.

It’s especially important these days – we have a lot of bloggers and tons of blogs, which compete with others for the audience.

So, what shall I do? – you may ask me.

You should arouse interest in your readers!

Each blogger must decide how he or she wants to charm their visitors.

If you don’t have any idea – below you can find some tips, how you can attract readers to your posts (you can find more tips at this link).

Of course, you can choose only one or few of them.

• Text
• Videos
• Pictures, photos
• Lists
• Graphs and tables
• Podcasts
• Infographics
• Slideshows
• Interviews
• Mind maps

Must Read: How To Attract Your Blog Posts – 20 Tips For Normal People

10. Don’t Waffle

You should write your articles as good as possible.

I’m telling you this second time: there are so many other sites and blogs on the web, that it’s not enough for your article to be the killer one!

So you should save time of your readers if you are writing about something, but you don’t have time to explain it in details – refer to it by linking to the proper source.

If you don’t know where it is, you should find it and share this knowledge with your readers.

On the other hand – respect the time of your readers.

So be clear about your ideas, construct simple sentences and don’t repeat over and over again. In a few words: Don’t waffle!

11. Place “Call to Action” in Your Article

As I mentioned in the first point of this guide, each article should have a goal.

Placing call to action will give you an opportunity to ask the readers about fulfilling your needs.

Simple “call to action” may help you in:

• Getting more comments below your posts
• Getting “likes” for your Facebook page
• Getting new subscribers on your email list
• Getting sells of your products

Even if you don’t know what you want from your readers, you should familiarize them with a call to action – maybe in the future it will help you in your business?

Some examples of call to action:

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Please share your experience below in the comments

12. Read Carefully and Correct All Your Bug(s) or Misspellings

If you don’t want to lose your readers, subscribers or potential customers you must write without bugs and misspellings.

So  now  it’s  time  to  check  your  post. You should read your article at least once  and  mark all  errors  or misspellings.

Next you should check it in your dictionary (or in Google), and correct all.

If you have some time, you can read it once more.

Tip: I use Grammarly, to double check for writing errors.

Must Read: List of 10 Common Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation Mistakes

13. Make Some break – Get Tea or Coffee

Even a short break is really important for your mind. So, stand up and go to the coffee room or to the kitchen.

If possible, you can even talk with somebody – but remember your goal – you need to write an article.

So set a time limit for your break – five minutes should be enough for it!

14. Publish Your Article

Your article is almost ready to publish.

Now it’s time for improvements and for formatting your post.

Your article should be readable – think about it as a brochure – is it easy to read, understand and find the main points?

There are only some little steps to take before sharing your ideas with your audience.

Below you can find them all:

• Put your article into WordPress (or another publishing platform)
• Add some related images, photos or videos to your article.
• Link up to other articles or resources
• Format your article – make points, paragraphs, etc.
• It’s time for final reading
• Publish or schedule your post for publishing

15. Promote Your Post

OK, your post is published.

But you need a lot of visitors, who will read your content. Unless you are an A-List Blogger, you must promote your blog and articles by yourself.

Below I list most important traffic tips for your blog

• Make comments on other blogs from your niche
• Make social media your friend (Twitter,  Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest)
• Add shares buttons on your blog
• Send info about your post to your subscribers from your email list
• Participate in Social Platforms (Triberr)
• Use Blogging Communities
• Write Guest Posts on other blogs
• Use  SEO tools for analyzing your blog and competition

Must Read:

8 Helpful Tips, How to Promote Your Blog

10 Ways to Increase Traffic to Your Blog

Boost Your Traffic and Increase Your Authority with Viral Content Buzz

Final Words

Now you are ready to create great and engaging content for your blog.

Do you like this post?

If yes, you can share it with your friends or followers.

Also, be sure to say “Hello” on NPI Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/NoPassiveIncome

Thanks to Chris Madej, previous owner of this blog, for this fantastic content.

Some days you just aren’t feeling it. Freelance writers everywhere know this pain, but the nature of our profession dictates that we suck it up and deal with it…but how?

Taking preventative steps to maintain motivation is going to get you farther than being reactive to listlessness. So start now with these 10 actionable tips for staying motivated as a freelance writer.

1. Have a Schedule

Keeping a set schedule will help you stay motivated because you won’t go insane trying to work all hours of the day.

Also, if you can habituate yourself to working during certain times of day, your brain will start to automatically know when it’s time to settle down and work, much like how you get sleepy at the same time every day.

2. Be On or Off

When you are working, be all the way committed to what you’re doing or take a break and completely stop. When you idly half-work all day, you wear yourself out and end up not getting a lot done.

Do yourself a favor and decide whether to fully put your mind to the task or let yourself have a break.

3. Create Your Own Community

Freelance writing can feel isolating at times; you generally work alone at home (or at Starbucks) all day. However, even though the work is solitary, it is beneficial to keep in contact with other professionals.

Build a network of people around you, so you can trade tips, chat, or vent about the life of a freelancer.

4. Write for yourself

There is at least some part of you left that genuinely appreciates writing as a craft, so take some time to write for yourself once in a while.

If you always write for others, it can be hard to develop or maintain your own voice and it can stop being enjoyable. Keep a personal blog or other writing project on a subject that interests you.

5. Take a break and get some exercise

This can seem counterproductive, but not working for a while will let you relax your mind and make it easier to come back to work with a fresh perspective.

Additionally, exercising is great for your brain and will make you feel more relaxed. Working exercise and other breaks into your schedule can have major benefits for your motivation levels.

6. Take on new types of work

It can get really old writing about the current real estate market in each of the 50 states (for example), so try to mix things up by finding other projects. Even if it’s just a couple times per month, writing about a new topic can help you feel rejuvenated.

Another way to refresh your creativity is by reading authors who bring something new to the table. For example, thriller fans might find fresh inspiration from J.D. Barker, an author transforming modern thriller fiction. Diving into the work of writers like him can help you explore different narrative techniques and bring a new perspective to your own projects.

7. Focus on the Long Term

Sometimes you get a topic and you just hate it, but you have to push through it. How do you manage?

Think about the long-term benefits: learning more about a subject that could apply to other work, building a portfolio, or maintaining a strong relationship with a client.

8. Change Environments

Again, mixing things up will keep your brain awake. Go to the coffee shop across town, reserve a study room at the library, or find a table at a public park.

Going to a new place will help you feel like you’re not stuck in a rut.

9. Remind Yourself Why You’re Doing This

Presumably, you started doing freelance writing because you like to write (and probably also to pay the bills). Even when you’re working on a tough project, find something about it to enjoy: work in some new vocabulary words, research something interesting, or think about the paycheck.

10. Treat yourself

Once in a while, give yourself a reward. The stakes don’t have to be high; you might just get some ice cream for making it through the week or only work a half-day because you finished early. Know when to reward yourself so you don’t burn out!

Working as a freelance writer can be a tough job; finding work and keeping long-term clients are hurdles.  These steps will both help you transition to a writer’s life and make the most of the joys of that life.

Writing can be of various types, but when you intend to do it professionally you need to take care of certain facts and play by the rules of the game.

A professional writer is QUITE different than a regular blogger or author or a poet. While all of these professions focus on writing, a professional writer has a huge responsibility on his / her shoulders. They have to adapt themselves to the needs of the clients whom they cater to.

I am a professional writer engaged in freelance writing since the past 5+ years, during which I worked with a plethora of clients on multitude of projects in varied niches.

Here are a handful of tips from my personal experience that will make your article writing look flawless and add finesse to your work.

Title your Content Well

Your content is like a gift that your readers are excitedly waiting to open and read. But what fun is a gift without a great gift wrap?

I am sure every one of us knows how easy it is to transform a dull and boring gift into something quite cool and exciting by a simple act. Just wrap it and dress it up in a funky looking package, right?

I am not saying to fool your readers with a funky title to disguise boring content. A great title will help in fueling the interest of your readers and will make them want to click on it and read more.

Warm Up with Your Introduction

Writing an introduction for your article is a lot like a first date; you should not and will not ask for a kiss before getting comfortable with each other.

Your introduction is meant to do exactly that- get comfortable with your reader and let them get comfortable with you!

What goes into your introduction? It could be anything that is guaranteed to attract your reader’s attention and interest. Try playing around with different things like a shocking statement, a popular quote, a pertinent question and so on.

But remember whatever you do, DO NOT exceed beyond 200 words here.

Plan Your Article Body Systematically

The body of your article is the most important part for your message that you are trying to get across to your readers.

If you have managed to get your reader to stick with you even after they read your title and your introduction, then you should give yourself a pat on your back. Bravo, you sure did a good job until now.

But if you mess up with your article body, you will lose your reader very quickly. So, make sure that you plan your article body and divide it into many different sections with appropriate sub-titles.

Doing this achieves three things: first it makes it easy for your reader to digest the information, secondly it helps them to quickly skim through your article and still get the message and finally it is pleasing and comforting to their eyes.

Polish Your Grammar Please

This one tip itself is worth a million dollars, because no matter how well you package your article in a funky title, use a great introduction to snuggle up to your reader and hook them in with systematic subtitles and sectioned content, they will still see through your BLUFF if your article is ridden with grammar errors.

Please do yourself a favor and on your poor readers too and polish your language and grammar before attempting at professional writing.

Confirm Your Facts

Beware, this is a huge land mine that can blow up your both your hard work and your dreams of becoming a professional writer if not paid the attention due to it.

As a professional writer, you may be hired by clients to write articles on a variety of topics that you necessarily do not know much about.

But that does not mean that you should write only on one topic which you posses a qualification in. You are free to write on any subject matter, provided that you have got your facts 100% correct.

Confirm and re-confirm by using more than a few references when you mention technical, medical, scientific or any sort of facts.

Wrap Up Your Article Smoothly

Just like you made your reader comfortable at the beginning of your article, please make sure that your readers leave with a good feeling in their hearts.

Do not end your article abruptly without warning; it leaves the readers stranded and with a very bad impression of the writer.

Wrap up your article with a summary or synopsis that need not be more than a sentence or two in length.

Synopsis

The tips that I have discussed here, about how to write an article should be implemented each time you attempt at writing one.

As the popular saying goes, “Practice makes man (and woman) perfect”. So, keep practicing and you should be perfect in no time.

Good luck with your professional writing career!

Just think about the quality of communication you produce while you are writing. This post is dedicated to the newbies, but also to the veterans, who might want to check if there are still some points to improve.

Here are some of the most important things you should take care when writing online. Putting into practice the suggestions below will greatly increase the strength and effectiveness of your writing.

These steps will help you receive better results in terms of communication with your audience, but also in terms of better positioning of your content in the search engines.

1. Set Your Communication Goals

Do you perfectly understand needs and problems of the niche audience you are targeting?

Do you know which keywords are the most typed by Google users within your niche?

Answering to these two questions is of paramount importance. Because it will allow you to create quality content for your audience (knowing what are the needs of your readers will allow you to satisfy their demands).

And then because it will allow you to positionate more effectively in Google the content you have created for your users (if you know which are the most typed keywords, you can optimize your own post for these keywords).

2. Establish an Editorial Plan, and Stick to It

Which are the arguments you need to talk about in your blog?

How many posts are you going to write in a week?

When are you going to publish your articles?

Answering to these questions will allow you to create a real editorial plan. After you decided, you must stick with it.

Because it is very annoying for your audience to see you promised one thing, but you will show little willingness to maintain it.

3. Adopt a Personal Style

Your writing style should be as personal as possible. You must not copy other bloggers.

In other words, you need to create a trademark that distinguishes your communication, making your voice recognizable among others. Of course, it is easier said than done … But this principle is true and very important.

Any suggestions?

For example, avoid writing your post with sterile, flat, boring style. Be lively and original. Do not write too long sentences or paragraphs. Avoid any type of jargon, unless you are sure that your readers know it as well as you.

4. Write Keeping an Eye on SEO

Adopting the techniques of search engine optimization will help your post to achieve a better position in the Google SERPs.

Therefore, carefully choose the keywords for which you want to rank your content and respect the SEO rules that will allow you to get a good position in search engines. With this regard, you can take a look to this article :

10 SEO Tips to Optimize Your Content ( Learn SEO basic rules )

5. Put the Key Information at the Beginning

Open your post with the most important information. In other words you should use the journalistic method of the inverted pyramid.

In general, you should begin each paragraph of your content adding the key information. By doing so, your users will immediately find the news or the concepts they seek.

Remember that online readers do not like to waste time or dip into reasoning deductive logic that can be made mainly on the paper.

So give them what they want right away!

6. Write a Suitable Text to Be Read Online

You certainly know it. Reading on the monitor is slower and more difficult than on paper or books. This is because online users does not read word for word, but they scan the text with their eyes, in order to see if on that web page they can find relevant and quality content.

If your readers feel that your article is of value, they continue reading. Otherwise they leave right away.

It is therefore essential for bloggers to write content that comply with the rules of web writing. In principle, this means using bold type to highlight the most important words or concepts and avoiding the effect of a wall text, fragmenting the content into paragraphs spaced. In the same way, use H1, H2, H3, and so on, to list your content according to its importance.

Use internal linking. What does this means? You need to create links that lead to other content which deepen the arguments of the post.

7. Write in Proper Form

Your spelling, grammar and syntax must be perfect. A post which has errors or misprints in fact lose credibility in the eyes of the reader.

This may happen even if the content offered is of great interest and utility. For this reason it is always very important to proofread a post carefully before hitting the publication button.

You might want to check this useful post :

How to Write in English – Mary’s Top 10 List of Common Spelling, Grammar and Punctuation Mistakes

These are some of the main blogging tips that you should follow when you write new content online.

What do you think? Are you a new blogger? Or did you already have experience writing online?

Please let me have your thoughts in the comments below, thanks!

Now if you search online, there is a lot of conflicting advice on the subject – some of it good and some of it bad.

The only tips that you should be following are the ethical SEO tips that actively help your site, without abusing the system.

SEO Has A Bad Name

For some people, SEO has a pretty poor reputation online.  It can be seen as a way to somehow “cheat” the system or gain an unfair advantage over rivals.

This isn’t helped by the fact that there are some people (a small minority) that do try to abuse the system to further their own cause.

This has led to some to even suggest that search engine optimization be called something different.

It Can Actually Be Good, When Used Right

The simple fact is that SEO can actually be used ethically when done right.  Search engine optimization is simply a way of getting your content to the most people possible.

Search engines are the number one method of driving traffic to a site, so it makes sense to make the most of them.

People have given a bad name to SEO by using negative techniques (or Black-Hat SEO) that abuse search engine rules, such as; keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages, etc.

They do this to try to boost their rankings quickly, but the joke is on them as these methods only tend to work for the very short term, if at all!

Thankfully, Google and others are cracking down on websites that abuse these rules, which is great for the rest of us that pride ourselves for following the rules.

You have to remember that search engine optimization is a long term strategy for your site.  There is no “quick” way or “short cut” to success, so you are better off optimizing your site for long term results.

So What Is Ethical SEO

Ethical search engine optimization is a term to describe all the good techniques and tips that you can use that are not in breach of search engine rules (or White-Hat SEO).

There is nothing wrong with optimizing your posts and pages to rank higher, as long as you do it right.

All search engines want to do is provide the best quality content to their users, as this is how they make money.  To do this, they need to look at sites (by crawling them) and establish what a post/page is about.

Optimizing your pages helps search engines to identify what your content is about, therefore enabling them to show it to the right people who are searching for it.

Ethical SEO Tactics

So now we know that ethical SEO is the right way to go, how do you go about optimizing your posts?

One of the key aspects of SEO is keyword placement.

Placing keywords and keyphrases in certain places of your site helps search engines to identify what your post is about. This is called ‘on-page SEO’ and can refer to things like;

• Page Titles
• Meta Descriptions
• Subtitles (H1, H2, H3 Tags)
• URL Address
• Image Alt Tags
• Internal & External Link Anchor Text (and the links themselves)

Whilst these are all good places to include your keywords/keyphrases, it is VITALLY important that you don’t overdo it.  Don’t place too many keywords in these places, as you risk keyword stuffing, which is bad!

A good rule of thumb is that keywords should not exceed about 3% of your overall article.  Think of your keywords as simple sign posts that help tell people what your post is about.

That way, you don’t need to go overboard with using them.

A great WordPress plugin that you can use to help you monitor your keyword density and other on-page SEO is the ‘WordPress SEO by Yoast’ plugin.

Now SEO is not all about keyword placement.  Search engines also look at things like post frequency, social media interaction, and PageRank.

But for the purpose of this post, this is what I will be focusing on.

It’s All About Being Relevant

Another good ethical rule to remember is that things should always be relevant to your content.  Whatever keywords, keyphrases, internal links, external links, videos, images, etc. that you include in your posts, they should be relevant to what you have just written.

For example, if I were to write an article about a certain actor, let’s say Matt Damon, then linking to reviews of movies that he has been in would be totally relevant, therefore justifiable.

If on the other hand I started including links to some car selling site, that wouldn’t be very relevant.

Search engines look at the terms, phrases and links that you use in a post to see if they are all connected in some way.

If they aren’t (as in the example that we just looked as) then they may suspect some dodgy behaviour going on on your site.

If you think about it logically though, you only want to be providing the best quality content to your visitors anyway, so why would you use/link to unrelated things.

Summary

Ethical search engine optimization isn’t too hard to get your head around.  Just remember to follow search engine guidelines and not abuse the system.

It can actually be more beneficial to concentrate solely on writing for your readers, as ultimately it is them that will determine whether your site is a success or not.

Plan out a long-term SEO strategy for your site and work at optimizing your site ethically.  It is much better to work with Google rather than against them!

What other ethical SEO tips do you use that I haven’t mentioned here?  Do you even do SEO on your site and if not, why?

Do you have a positive or negative view of SEO?  Please let us know your views by leaving a comment below!

So what to do if you are run out of inspiration?

In that case you have to act like a craftsman. Instead of INSPIRATION you should use a WRITING TECHNIQUE. A set of useful methods guarantee that you will be successful in completing the writing task.

Choose a Topic and Collect a Background Material

Before starting, you should be absolutely sure what exactly you are going to write about. That seems to be obvious, but finding an interesting topic for the post or article is not easy. If you have a problem like that, search for posts which give you some smart tips how to find ideas for new content.

Whatever you decide to write about, it would be helpful to collect information and data concerning the topic. See what has been told about it up to now. You might discover some unusual facts that make your content fascinating and valuable. It is also recommended to have a look for charts, graphics and photos, which will supplement your text.

Find The Proposition Of Title

Don’t try to think up the perfect title before you are finish your post or article. The text should match perfectly the content you are going to produce – and the content does not exist yet! So it’s more reasonable to come up with a title later, when the whole text is ready.

However you should give to your “project” a provisional title. It will be helpful, because you won’t stray away from the chosen subject.

You may be interested in reading: How to Write an Article in Less Than One Hour – 10 Useful Tips

Plan and Organize

First of all, answer the question: Which ideas do you want to include? Prepare key words or headings concerning each point you want to write about. Than you can decide how many paragraphs you need.

The next step is to plan in what order the paragraphs will follow. They should be organized in logical order. Prepare a detailed draft of your text.

Fill Each Paragraph With Text

The opening paragraph is the most crucial to the whole post or article. The beginning should catch yours readers’ attention. Lively, appealing tone is the best to achieve this goal.

Than go to the next paragraphs according to your plan. Try to deliver good content including a range of vocabulary and structures for interest and variety. To connect the ideas use linking words and phrases. If you are not sure about some details, leave them out. You can fill the gaps later, when you come to the end.

As a reader I prefer moderately long paragraphs. If they contain too much text I become a little discouraged from reading. It can cause eyestrain!

Read Your Text and Make Improvements

When the text is complete, read it. Imagine you are one of your reader and you see the text for the first time! Imagine you have to find weak points of the content – as many as possible. Make a list of them.

The next step is to eliminate the weaknesses from your text according to the list.

Take a Break

At this stage of your work you can feel exhausted and your efficiency is low. The brain needs to have a break. Leave your article and do something else. It depends on you how many time it takes.  I suggest coming back to the article not later than on the next day. So much time is long enough to gain fresh mind.

Decide What The Title Will Be

Let’s discuss again the title issue. Now, when you have got the whole text, it is the right time to think of that. The title should grab reader’s attention and give them a clue what they can expect.  A good, catchy title for your text is half the battle.

You may be interested in reading: 7 Things You Should Avoid in Your Posts and Articles

Correct Errors

There is no doubt. It is necessary to read over the text before you publish it. Some of mistakes like spelling and grammar errors or missing words can be easily avoided if you have a look at what you have written.

And what are your tips?