Master the art of writing for web

Writing for web is remarkably different than writing for print, as the attention span of people on the web is pretty short. You need to write using bullet points, headings, subheadings, images, etc.

Master the art of writing headline

A headline is very important in increasing the open rate of your content. You may get the best ranking for all the keywords, but if you do not have an attractive headline, your article will not get read. You should know how to write killer headlines.

Learn a bit about keywords and SEO

A little knowledge of SEO and keywords is required for all online writers, as keywords are the basis on which the entire web is organized. You should educate yourself on these two.

Prepare a portfolio

Writing is an art, and you are an artist. And an artist who does not have anything to show cannot support his claim of producing a fantastic piece of art. You should, therefore, prepare a portfolio keeping everything that I talked above. This will be your asset that you will need to show your clients.

Write a cover letter

A cover letter is like a direct sales letter. It either persuades your prospective clients to see your portfolio, or it can bore them to death. Many a freelancing assignments are made or broken at this level only. So spend good deal of time in creating a killer cover letter that can literally pull your clients with hands and make them read your sample articles.

You should follow the above given suggestions to start a freelance career. You can add some more items to your preparation, but you should not remove any. Each one of them is important. Very important!

We notice only few advertisements because we relate to only a few products somehow, or some of the advertisements are done creatively, or they have some unique placement innovation. Apart from classified advertisements, rest of the display advertisements have started showing less of overwhelming response in comparison to others forms of media of advertising. Mostly they go unnoticed. Have you ever thought despite of being most credible medium, offering benefits like refer back value why this medium is not doing well in terms of advertising?

Too many advertisements in newspaper, that’s advertisement clutter, may be one big hindrance on the way of its success. Too many advertisements make us feel irritated and we don’t bother to see each of them. So the message goes unnoticed.

News paper advertising has also become quite expensive. To save expense nowadays people advertise within a small space and compromise with the creativity, making mandatory things like logo, brand name, package shot prominent within the small space. So dearth of creative advertisements has made it quite obvious for the people to ignore them.

In a busy day an average person spends around 20 minutes in scanning the newspaper. In that short time grabbing attention of the person towards the desired message is really challenging act. And also daily news papers stay with us just for a day. Relative short life span of the medium is disadvantageous for the advertisers. So multiple insertions are required to get noticed.

Newspapers generally do not use high end quality of paper, which limit’s the production quality. Poor production kills the creativity.

News paper is not a target market customized medium, rather it’s a mass medium, it talks to all. Several times it may reach all unwanted people, who may never buy your product or service and you may miss out your target market. It always has the risk of reaching out the wrong people.

With growing popularity of internet lot of people have switched over to e-paper from newspaper in hand. Online version of publication may not carry all pages bearing advertisements. And in this case print ad turns into online ad, which is mostly ignored and not remembered.

Hopefully some innovation will change the fortune of news paper advertisements.

“I am the king” Attitude

Attitude problem is one of the biggest reasons why people get laid off. There is no dearth of people who think they are invincible and a company cannot survive without them, thus they deserve a royal treatment. And thus they start neglecting or humiliating people. These are the kinds who always are found fighting with his boss or subordinates on even issues of no real importance. Avoid being such person, or the exit door will be nearer than you are imaging.

Coming late and leaving early

Your office is not your garden, so better do not treat it as such. It is unwise to reach office late, regularly, and it is doubly fatal to return from office before time, everyday. When I say before time, I do not mean you return before the designated time, what I mean is returning home without finishing day job. Do not fool yourself in believing that a 9-to-5 job means strictly 9-to-5. The work-hour does starts at 9, but thinking of its ending at 5 is crazy.

Going by the job description

If you assume you have to do only what is written in your job description then let me take the blinkers off, and show you what all you need to do to survive in the job you have. I am not talking about occasional drifts from the job description you got while joining, I am talking about doing those things that was never ever mentioned. One has to do things beyond the written (or oral for that matter) job description to survive today.