What is one thing that makes a freelance writer better than others? Some may argue that it is the price a freelancer asks, and in fact most employer that the price as the first criteria to hire. The overall answer is simple and straight—only quality of the work can make a freelancer better than others. A freelance writer may be able to get a quick start by using good marketing tactics and cheaper rate, but without good quality there is no chance of surviving. Hence, highest quality of work is beyond doubts the foremost key in attaining success in the freelance world. In this article I will talk about how one can maintain the highest quality of every single that he/she writes.
1. Understand your audience. Before you get to penning down the article/content or even decide what you want to write about, it is advisable to define your target audience. Next step should be to note what your targeted audience requires. Also, what they’ve already read. Now, how to understand your audience is a task that requires a little effort from your side. As soon as you’ve recognized your probable readers, you must try to understand them either through previous studies or by conducting those at your own. Some of the measures to do so can be via different social platforms by directly asking for their feedback, conducting surveys, or meeting them through conferences or networking events. As soon as you’ve learned enough about your audience it’s time to answer a few questions about them. For example, how you can influence them, what’s their general demographics, what they want to know or what their needs are. Once you’re answered all these questions and more, you’d have a list of several topics that you can write about.
2. Perform a thorough research. There are no shortcuts to brilliance. If you desire to have your content reflect the topmost quality you need to work hard to achieve it. First of all, you need to carefully but thoroughly research all the topics from different perspectives, list down the topics you want to cover and what you do not want to cover. Review everything that has already been talked about pertaining to the topic at hand. Then, you must identify the aspects that haven’t been talked about already. The content needs to be exclusive and useful. At the end of the research you must have a clear idea about what you’re going to write about.
3. Focus on usefulness of the content. While you’re penning down the actual content you must take care to cover as many points as possible which would be useful and informative for your audience, give them something new to learn or something they could do on their own. Like, if are talking about a health issues in your content , it’d be better for you to cover points that would help them identify the issue and some general home-based instructions to deal with the situation rather than talking about the etiology and different theoretical aspects that would be of no importance to the readers. Your content would become more engrossing and popular only when readers can find something of benefit from them.
4. Do not forget the basics of writing. Sometimes while focusing on the bigger picture, writers forget the fundamentals but the vital aspects of writing. Nobody would like to read something which is full of grammatical errors and spelling blunders. It’s true that the writer must play with the language in order to make it as mesmerizing as possible, however, one shouldn’t wander too far from standard grammar and drift from the subject or make it too difficult to comprehend. Your readers may be comfortable with an informal tone, but going overboard may just ruin it entirely.
5. Structuring the content in an organized manner. How would you like to read an article that isn’t divided into appropriate paragraphs? Not only would the un-formatted content be psychologically overwhelming but also difficult to scan. If content is structured in an essay format with extensive blocks of text readers would find the article difficult to understand. In fact, many readers don’t even read the entire content directly, rather scan through the punch lines and only when they love what they read, they may read ahead. The next question is how to build a content which is easy to read. Well, it’s not a difficult task really. All you have to do is keep few of the things in your mind.
- Write your paragraphs precise, to the point and short.
- Content which is listed is easier and quicker to read or scan.
- Using Bold and italics wherever you want to emphasize a word, phrase or sentence. Doing this makes sure that your reader doesn’t miss those points.
- Making suitable subheadings makes it even easier to read. You must break the entire content into smaller pieces, each directed with an appropriate subheading. The subheading prepares the reader for what they are going to read in the subsequent paragraph.
- The content should be focused. Do not wander away from the topic at hand as that would only distract your readers. If you do not have anything useful to add to the topic, conclude the article with a suitable finishing paragraph.
- The vital points of the content must be emphasized. You may do so by either by converting them into subheading, underlining them or making them bold.
- An appropriate use of images, graphics and charts alongside visualized writing style may augment the quality.
