7 Common Mistakes of New Freelancers

Copyright (c) 2010 Nick Clipton

Newbie freelancers commit common mistakes. Perhaps one of the biggest mistake new freelancers make is thinking that writing is easy.

1. Big words. Thesaurus can be a best friend or a worst enemy to new freelancers. Why? Because there is a tendency to use words that most readers won't understand. Articles should be concise to allow readers to easily understand it. If they have to waste their time trying to understand the meaning of the words you use, they will probably not read your article. Always keep the words simple and straightforward.

2. Spelling. Even if you are good at writing, you still need to proofread your article for misspellings before the submission. Proofread everything. Read and edit it a couple of times to see if you've missed something.

3. Too much fluff. Freelancers often assume that by fluffing up, changing sentence to passive voice to make it longer is the easiest way to write. Yes, you will get the word count that you need but with sloppy wordy writing. Your article becomes inferior with all these needless words. Don't fluff up your writing.

4. Thick paragraphs. New freelancers often commit the mistake of making their articles read like a school textbooks. Thick paragraph full of information full of details is good if it is well organized. But online readers like articles of lists better than articles with big blocks of content. They only want to scan and read the parts that caught their attention. It's better to break the writing into smaller chunks to make it readable.

5. Audience connection. Freelancers commit a mistake when they who they are writing for. They are writing for the wrong audience. Newbies usually tend to write to themselves. Try to figure out what kind of reader will be reading your article. Research if they use and understand special terms, the way they speak and the things they want to hear

6. Keyword overstuff. It's a misconception that Search Engine Optimization means that you should put the keywords as much as you can in an article. Don't cram keywords in your article to much.

7. Unrelated Headlines. The title or headline is important whether you are writing articles, blog post, sales page or press releases. The headline is the reader's guide. This is what will attract the readers to read your article. Take time to make your article a strong headline to get the attention of your readers. A strong headline will get the results that your clients want.

To be a good freelancer, try to avoid common unnecessary mistakes.