Empathy is the key when you are writing copy

Sep 30, 2008 Comments

In this Copyblogger post James has written how important it is to empathize with your readers. I think this is the most important aspect of your entire copywriting activity.  Empathizing with your readers means knowing exactly what they are feeling and what they are looking for. If you are busy blowing your own horn you are never going to understand what your readers really want from you.

Although he has pondered over many other points but this is the most important point because everybody wants to hear or read about himself or herself.  If I visit a website or a blog I’m not doing the website owner or the blog a favor; I go there because I want to go there, I need to derive something from there, and if I find something totally contrary and totally unwanted I leave immediately to seek the thing that I want from another source.

That is why whenever I am interacting with a client before starting work on his or her copy I make it clear that we have to talk to the reader in an interactive manner.  We have to understand why the reader is there in the first place. And then immediately attend to his or her requirement or necessity.

Should business pages be published using WordPress?

Sep 29, 2008 Comments

Of late I’ve been using WordPress to publish various non-blog pages on my website. Maintenance becomes easier and I don’t have to connect the FTP whenever I want to add new pages (and I plan to add them quite fast).  It becomes very easy; just use a blog editing tool like the windows live writer to publish the pages and you can even search engine optimize them by using a WordPress SEO plug-in.

But the problem is that now all these pages depend on the MySQL server hosted by the hosting company.  There are generally two types of server problems when the website is down: either the main server, where all the files reside, is down, or the MySQL server is down.  This means whenever the MySQL server is down the websites that have got nothing to do with the database are not affected and they keep on running.  But the websites that depend on the database become inaccessible.  This means all the pages that are published using WordPress become inaccessible to humans as well search engine crawlers whenever the MySQL server is down; the MySQL server – so I have noticed – is down many times where I am hosting my websites.  Right now, when I am typing this, the server is down and all my blogs are down too. Luckily, my main business website is still running (this post will appear only when the MySQL is working again).

Should I switch back to using the normal PHP pages, ignore this once in a while problem, or change my host?  I like my host, though. But I would quickly like to add that I’ve got nothing to say against WordPress or any other content publishing solutions people use to publish and manage their business websites.  Anyway, I’m still thinking.

Balancing life and work as a freelance copywriter

Sep 26, 2008 Comments

Just read a nice blog post on how to manage and balance your personal and professional lives. When you are working from home it is very difficult to draw a line between working and not working and sometimes I feel I am always working even during the weekends. I remember a few months ago I had planned a 15-day holiday and accordingly I had prepared a schedule to complete a client’s assignment.  He not only delayed the assignment he also kept calling me and sending me e-mails and I ended up working all my holidays and this really created a crisis in my family.

I think having clients from all over the world does take its toll because they all have their own working schedules and sometimes I have to adjust my work timings accordingly. Still, from inside I know you can draw a line if you really want to.  What can be the cost?  Maybe you will lose a few assignments but it’s not worth it if you are losing out on quality family time and even your health.

I am gradually deciding on what days I want to work and on what days I don’t want to work.  That’s why now I have specifically mentioned on my website (look at the top-right side) what days I am working. I don’t even take the weekends off in the conventional sense because it doesn’t suit me personally.  For example, on Mondays I have my music class and I cannot simply miss it.  Since my teacher (he is around 70-year-old) uses public transport to come to my place (yes, even at that age he is quite healthy and doesn’t find public transport daunting) I am never sure when he is going to reach and this creates lots of disturbance. Besides, almost all my music classes are extremely exhausting by the time we are through, at least for me.  This practically used to waste my Mondays completely, work-wise. Then my wife suggested that I should have my weekend on Sundays and Mondays instead of Saturdays and Sundays.  I am still getting used to not working on a Monday or at least not worrying about work.

No longer I spend around 12 to 15 hours working on my laptop; the moment I have worked for 8 hours I call it a day and these 8 hours, beside my writing assignments, also include blogging and supervising other writers.

Striking a balance is really essential if you really want to make your freelance business meaningful.  You leave your regular job and start working on your own because you want to enjoy life and don’t want to spend it in the daily grind of commuting to your office and then remaining in that unfriendly building all day.  You want to be with your family, you want to see your kids running around you when you are working and you want to be with your spouse when he or she needs someone to be with.  There is no purpose in getting on the verge of achieving all this but not getting it just because you cannot organize the way you handle your work.

Setting my business goals regarding online copywriting

Sep 25, 2008 Comments

Of late I have been quickly getting rid of all the things that delay my working or make me work slow.  For instance I have changed lots of software tools recently, for example I have changed my word processor and I have also changed my spreadsheet application.  Oh yes, I use spreadsheets to keep track of my income and also the current projects I am handling.  Most of the bulkier Microsoft Office applications are out except for the windows live writer that I use to post blog posts. The moment I downloaded and installed Google Chrome it just took me a few minutes to decide that this was going to be my primary browser due to its minimalistic presentation.

I think undue distractions are one of the biggest hurdles in the way of achieving your business and personal goals so these days I have become extremely intolerant towards big and small distractions (but of course my daughter can distract me whenever she feels like).

Other than that I also changed my room because the previous room was quite noisy and full of activity (I was bang in front of the entrance so everybody was greeted by my cheerful or silly looking smile).  I shifted my working paraphernalia (just a plastic chair, a wooden table and my humble HP laptop) to my music room because it is the most isolated and peaceful place in the house.  I practice singing in the music room every morning before doing anything else.

This blog post at Zen Habits rightly says that too many goals are a sure shot way of achieving none.  There is no use going for bigger goals if the groundwork is not done.  The groundwork constitutes of smaller goals.  If I want to increase my business first of all I have to figure out what are the things that stop me from giving my best. Recognizing hurdles and obstructive habits is a smaller goal and is easily achievable.  Another goal could be taking quick decisions especially when those decisions are for the better.

You should also take smaller steps consistently without losing track of them.  Consistency is also something that I have been trying to achieve for a few months.  Consistency in performance, consistency in health related matters (because health eventually affects your performance and hence, business), and consistently in skills development.

There is an arena I have been ignoring so far: networking.  For a freelancer, the ability to network is of the same importance as the ability to successfully complete projects. Very few people know me and I too know very few people.  I am not implying that one should only network for the purpose of expanding business but greater business opportunities are just byproducts of a greater social circle.

Another small goal could be developing the habit of setting smaller goals and then achieving them.  I think this is the biggest challenge on the way of being successful no matter what you do.

Should I be charging by hour, by word or by page, for copywriting?

Sep 25, 2008 Comments

As the number of quarries increases many clients ask me how I charge.  Till now I have been charging by pages and those pages contain particular number of words.  Beyond that word limit I charge extra for every extra bracket of hundred words.  Recently I charged by hour  and grossly miscalculated the number of hours required to accomplish the task.  I told my client that I could finish the document in five hours whereas it took me more than 15 hours.  That sucked big-time.

I charge differently for different content requirements but I mostly charge per page (assuming a page contains between 300 and 400 words).  Many people on various freelancing blogs suggest that one should charge by hours because this way you can charge a fixed rate no matter what the client wants you to do.  For me it doesn’t work because I want to provide a flexible quote to my clients.  Besides sometimes I also outsource my work and I am never sure how much time the writer is going to take.  It is better to pay him or her a fixed amount for a document of a particular size.

Anyway I am still in the process of deciding how I should charge but for the time being I am charging by page.  I have been charging like this for more than 3 years now.  Just because I have been charging this way for such a long time doesn’t necessarily make it right but my clients seem to prefer this. The method of payment should be useful both for my clients and myself.  What I mean is I would like to charge in a manner that my clients don’t have to overpay me and I don’t end up undercharging.