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8 Tips For Newbie Freelance Writers

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Freelance Writer|8 Tips For Newbie Freelance WritersSome get into freelance writing because they want the flexibility, others because they love to write, most are probably somewhere in between! Whatever the reason behind braving the freelance writing world, as a newbie you might be in search of a little advice to help you along your way.

Get blogging

When you’re starting out, you’ll definitely want to get yourself a blog as part of your website. You’ll still be honing your craft at this stage; so your blog can help you to create samples for your portfolio and improving your writing. If you’re looking to write in a niche area, then you should generally focus all your blog content around this topic. The great thing about blogs is that it’s easy to get plugins that can link to your social media. If you promote your content enough, it’s more likely that potential clients will discover you.

Teach yourself SEO

When you are writing web-based content for clients, it’s often all about search engine optimization. Due to this, if you make it your mission to teach yourself about SEO, then you’ll ensure that you have the skills you need (and you won’t have to try and wing it)! Teach yourself about basic keyword research, meta titles, anchor text, and how to best format an article.

Perfect your research skills

As a freelance writer, you’ll want to ensure that your research skills are top-notch. Ensure that you are using credible sources and properly fact-checking all of the information that you come across. Don’t just go for the first sources that you find, if you take a look at the writing and the quality isn’t high, keep looking. Take your time, find reports, statistics, and quotes to support your writing. Practicing thorough research for your blog articles can help you to improve these skills for when it comes to dealing with clients.

Plan & Organize

When you are managing multiple projects for a range of different clients, it’s vital that you plan and get as organized as you can. Set yourself a schedule which helps you to allocate the time that you need to work on each piece of writing. Don’t take on too many projects when you are starting out. In the beginning, it’s likely to take you longer to complete your research and writing, so make allowances for this.

Get on top of your invoices

One of the challenges of being a freelance writer is keeping on top of your invoicing and ensuring that each client pays you on time. To help you with this, it’s a good idea to use freelance invoice software. Doing so can help you to create invoices and automate the chasing up of your payments too. Ensure that you keep records of all your invoices for tax purposes later down the line.

Keep redrafting

When your still a newbie, you can’t expect everything you write to be amazing straight away. If you’re writing something and you don’t like the sound of it, just keep going. Get the first draft done and you can come back to perfect it later. You’ll often need several first drafts to get something to the standard that you want. Over time, you’ll get quicker, and the redrafting process will become easier!

Use tools

There are a range of tools and apps out there that you will want to take advantage of as a beginner freelance writer. Grammarly is a great tool that can help you to run a thorough check of your spelling, punctuation, and grammar. It’s often handy to have a tool like this to check your work (especially when your a few projects in and your eyes are heavy)! If your working from home it can be easier to become distracted so you can also make use of some productivity apps to help you to stay on track.

Keep searching

If you want to keep gaining new clients and stay afloat, it’s vital to keep searching for new projects. Make sure that you SEO optimize your freelancer website and advertise your services on LinkedIn. Look on sites like Problogger or Upwork to source new jobs. You should also ask your clients so far for testimonials that you can use on your website. Testimonials will allow you to show off your credibility and gain more interest. The more that you improve your portfolio, the easier it becomes to get more work (so hang in there)! Treat your website as a way to market yourself as a business.

How To Set Up A Successful Business From Home

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StrategyDriven Starting Your Business Article |Running a Business from Home|How To Set Up A Successful Business From HomeRunning a successful business from home and enjoying the freedom to be your own boss is a dream for many people. Setting up a business is a challenge that takes plenty of hard work, time, and dedication, but for many people, it’s worth it. With this in mind, here are some key tips on how to set up a successful business from home.

Create a detailed business plan

Before you start any home business venture, it is crucial that you create a comprehensive plan outlining your business goals, along with a timeframe from reaching each specific goal. Doing so will help you stay organized, motivated, and keep you on track to achieve your business goals. Obviously, you want to push yourself, but at the same time, it is important to be realistic and set achievable goals, especially when it comes to financial forecasts. Take a look online for a useful step-by-step guide on how to write an effective business plan.

Take advantage of technology

Modern technology and the internet have opened up increasing opportunities for small business owners and freelancers. All businesses can now advertise their products and services to a worldwide audience on major selling platforms like Amazon and eBay. Freelancers can also now find numerous job opportunities online. For instance, you can find everything from graphic design projects to film and TV jobs online by searching on popular freelance sites and job boards. All businesses should also take advantage of the power of social media and focus on this when devising their marketing strategies. Social media offers every businesses the opportunity to connect with their target audience on a daily basis, grow brand awareness, and increase sales and revenue. Better yet, many social media platforms allow you to set up an account and post for free!

Get dressed every day

When working from home, it can be tempting to lie around in your pajamas all day and never leave the comfort of your bed. However, many studies have found that this is a far less productive way of working. There is no need to dress up in fancy designer outfits when you’re working from home, but showering and getting dressed as part of your morning routine is the best way to get your brain into work mode and increase your productivity levels. What’s more, dressing in professional clothing during your working hours will also help keep your work and personal life separate and notify people that you are working.

Have a separate office space

Similar to the above, it is vital to have a dedicated office space that you can go to every day to complete your work tasks. Again, this will ensure that you get into work mode each morning and should also help you remain productive and motivated throughout the day. Try to make sure that your office space appears professional and remove any distractions like televisions or mobile phones. This will help you remain focused on your work tasks.

The Best Jobs For People Who Love To Travel

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StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Travel Jobs|The Best Jobs For People Who Love To TravelBeing trapped behind a desk or in a cubicle every single day can be incredibly tedious, especially when you’re dreaming of adventures in far off places. Most people get a break from this monotony for only a few weeks a year when they head off on vacation. They spend the rest of their days getting work done and wishing they had the opportunity to explore those foreign places better. If you’re not happy with this life, then don’t settle for it. Instead, find a way to turn traveling into a career. With that in mind, here are thirteen of the best jobs for people who love to travel.

1. Pilot

Everywhere you go, people will give you reasons not to become a pilot. They’re quick to list the hardships and misfortunes that pilots have to face, as well as the dangers of the role. However, deep down, everyone knows that being able to fly is incredibly cool. What’s more, you’ll earn a good income from it. The training required to become a pilot is extensive, but the benefits are clear. Along with the money and cool points, you’ll get to explore new places almost every day.

2. Flight Attendant

Not everyone is cut out for the life of a pilot. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t still work on airplanes. As a flight attendant, you will be responsible for the comfort and safety of every passenger onboard your flight. This means checking that the emergency equipment is working and that you have plenty of food and beverages. The requirements for being a flight attendant do vary between airlines, but you must be able to stand for long hours and reach the overhead bins.

3. Cruise Ship Worker

Being scared of flying shouldn’t hold you back from traveling or making money from it. If the air isn’t for you, then you could see the world from the water instead. Cruise ship jobs have a reputation for being some of the best in the world. There aren’t many careers that offer free room and board, as well as a competitive salary and the opportunity to see the world and meet new people every day. This might seem a perfect job, but it does require long hours and hard work.

4. Travel Agent

For a long time, the travel agency industry declined, as people began going online to book their own vacations. Over the past few years, however, it has made a comeback, mostly thanks to its expertise and solid reputation. The requirements to become a travel agent aren’t as strict as many travel-related careers. However, there is training that you must undergo. As a travel agent, you might receive discounts on travel, as well as opportunities to travel abroad for work.

5. Writer

Writing is a job that isn’t restricted to any one place. You can write from anywhere in the world, and travel as you do so. Some people even choose to use travel as inspiration for their writing. You could write a non-fiction book about a destination, for example, or a novel set in the country you’re exploring. Alternatively, you could create a travel blog. It can take time to make money from blogging, but quality posts and a blogging schedule will help you to grow your audience.

6. Tour Guide

Imagine roaming the streets of Paris or canals of Venice while making money by sharing your love of travel with like-minded people. As a tour guide, you can travel wherever you want to, sharing your passion for wanderlust with others on vacation. All you need for this job is local knowledge, and the confidence to share it with a large group of people. A lot of tour guides work as freelancers, but there are companies out there that hire guides to run their travel programs.

StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Travel Jobs|The Best Jobs For People Who Love To Travel 7. Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistants do administrative work for small businesses and start-up companies. While this is typically done at home, there’s no reason why you can’t work from wherever you choose to. As long as you have a laptop, reliable internet, and phone connection, you even can do this job while you travel. Many businesses will allow you to set your own hours, but others expect you to be available during certain times of the day, so bear this in mind when you start.

8. Truck Driver

Fans of road trips should consider a career as a truck driver. When working as a long-haul driver, you will deliver cargo from one destination to another. Depending on the company that you work for, this might mean traveling to other countries. From mountain peaks to shorelines and everything in between, you will see plenty of landscapes as you travel, as well as architectural gems. You might not have much time to explore, but you won’t be stuck behind a desk.

9. Photographer

As important as it may be to remain in the moment, we all take photographs when we’re on vacation. Rather than keeping these to yourself, you could upload them to stock photo websites. Once approved on these sites, you will earn a sum of money every time someone uses one of your pictures. The trouble is, this is unlikely to make you enough not to work elsewhere. Rather than take up an unrelated job, you could work as a photographer for destination weddings too.

10. English Teacher

We all have knowledge or a skill that we can teach to someone else. When your first language is English, and you are familiar with basic teaching skills, you can teach English abroad. To be able to do so, however, you will need a degree and some teaching experience. As long as you meet these requirements, finding work should be relatively easy. Those that would prefer not to spend all day in a classroom can opt for a part-time position or teach over the internet.

11. International Aid Worker

Although it can be, travel doesn’t just have to be about having fun. No matter where you are in the world, you can make a positive difference in people’s lives too. All over the globe, there are people in dire need of help, due to famines, wars, and natural disasters. As an international aid worker, you would be able to assist these people. While there are lots of volunteer options out there, some organizations offer housing and a full salary for those that work for them.

12. Au Pair

While most common in European countries, like France, there are jobs for au pairs all over the world. Being similar to the responsibilities of a nanny, as an au pair, you would have to take care of the children of the family that you work for. You might have to prepare their meals, help them with their homework, and take them on days out. In exchange, the family would give you a free room and board. Some au pairs earn a small salary too, as well as other perks, like vacations.StrategyDriven Professional Development Article |Travel Jobs|The Best Jobs For People Who Love To Travel

13. Bartender

You can find bars, nightclubs, and restaurants all over the world, with the job descriptions for bartenders being the same nearly everywhere you go. You’ll find it much easier to secure a work opportunity in popular tourist spots, regardless of your experience. That being said, the more experience you have under your belt, the more opportunities will open up to you. Speaking the language will come in handy too, so you might want to attend a few language classes.

If you dream of exploring the world, then ditch your desk job and make a career out of traveling.

What To Consider When Moving To A Home Office

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StrategyDriven Entrepreneurship Article |Home Office|What To Consider When Moving To A Home Office There are many appealing reasons to work from home when you run a business, and just because you initially chose to run the business from an office elsewhere, that doesn’t mean that you can’t come home if you want to. In fact, since it can save you money and make you more productive, it is something that many business owners are thinking about.

What will you need to consider if you decide to move your business to a home office rather than an external one? At first, you might not think there is much to consider at all, but when you start to work out how to get it done, you’ll realize there are a number of things to take into account.

Is There Room?

Moving from a reasonably sized office space to a home office could be difficult due to the space needed. If you look at what space you have available now, and what space will be available when you move home, is there much difference? If not then this point won’t be something that needs to concern you, but if the room you intend to use at home is much smaller, you will have to work out where everything will go.

Something that can work well is searching for The Lock Up Self Storage near you and putting some of your files and documents or even equipment in there until you have organized your workspace correctly. That way you won’t be delayed and neither will you be cramped.

Is There Somewhere To Go?

As well as knowing that you have the physical space you need, do you have a room that can be used properly as an office? Moving from an external office building to a home office can be quite an adjustment. You need to ensure that you have enough space to work, simply sitting to the kitchen table or in the corner of your bedroom is not a good alternative option to an office. It will be difficult to concentrate, and you might not be as productive as you would be if you had a dedicated room.

Where Will Guests Go?

Not everyone is going to be comfortable with visitors to the business coming to a home address. Although working from home is something that many people do, there is still something of a stigma when it comes to having meetings with colleagues, suppliers, or clients.

Where, then, will you have these meetings if not in your home office? Where is the nearest appropriate space you can use? You can choose to hire a dedicated office space with a meeting room, or you could go to a café or coffee shop, for example.

The Physical Move

Finally, even if everything else is organized and you are sure you are ready to move offices, how are you going to do it? Will you need a specialist mover to bring items to you, or could you hire a van and do it yourself? How long will it take and what kind of disruption will it bring to your business?

This is certainly something that will need to be considered as picking the right time to move is just as important as moving in the first place – using up vacation time or a weekend could work better than midweek, depending on your line of business.

3 Innovative Ways You Can Move Your Business Online

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When you first start your business, a lot of it boils down to trial and error – especially if you have never done it before. You could follow another person’s business hints down to a tee, under the impression that whatever worked for them will surely work for you too. But as every company is so different, you will stand a much better chance of success if you take the plunge and carve out your path. That said, there are always certain things that successful businesses have in common, and one such example is having efficient operational systems in place. There are so many different components required to keep a business ticking over on a daily, monthly, and annual basis. Using multiple systems, or a poor one, won’t hold you in very good stead against your competition. Manual systems, in particular, are very outdated, and as the business world is all about efficiency, you may want to consider moving every aspect of your business online. This can be pretty intimidating if you are something of a technophobe, but it honestly isn’t as complicated as you may think. Here are a few examples of ways you can bring your business into the digital age, to create a more straightforward and streamlined company.

Employee training/monitoring

Depending on the size of your business, training and monitoring your staff can be a bit of a laborious ordeal. Sure, you want to invest time into your team so you can rest assured they know exactly what they are doing. But taking time off from your work to do so can potentially have a knock-on effect to the daily runnings of your business. With that in mind, moving your training online can save both you and your colleagues a lot of time. Plus, you can also invest in performance monitoring software so you can keep tabs on your team from anywhere in the world.

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Accounting

Bookkeeping and accounting are often the banes of a business owner’s life. Keeping track of all your expenditure, as well as any profit you turn, can easily be confusing – especially if you are doing everything by hand. Inevitably, pieces of paper will get lost, and those finance notes you made at 3 am suddenly don’t look quite as coherent in the cold light of day. Using something like hnwi and online accounting software can help you keep all your financial information in one place. Just make sure you have plenty of security on your computer systems too, as obviously, this is some pretty sensitive data.

Cloud computing

The term ‘cloud computing’ is a bit of a strange one – it arrived a few years ago, but still, very few people know what it means! It is something, however, that can revolutionize the way you operate your business. The Cloud is fundamentally a network where you can store files and documents, which means they are not linked to a particular hard drive or desktop. Therefore, you and your colleagues can access your work from any location, at any time – perfect for a modern business which has to work around the clock.