Category: Content Writing

The service sector in Indian economy is growing, and growing for almost three decades since early 90’s. India’s annual GDP is over $2 trillion now, and growing rapidly. 53.8% of the GDP came from service sector last year. For a developing country, this is a huge number; and is only expected to grow in the next few years.

There is another angle to this story, a complementary one though. India can be considered the freelance capital of the world. It’s because,  out of every 4 freelancers in the world, 1 is Indian. The community of Indian freelancers and the freelance content writing platform has increased by over 20 million. Over 20 million Indians are providing services in Event Management, Language Training, Animation, Software Development, Design, Content Writing and what not. Just type “Freelance..” on Google Search box and put any alphabet after that, you’ll find a plethora of freelance service options to choose from.

Of course, it has its advantages, and sometimes you have to make a few compromises as well. But life is about choices. And it’s you, who has to decide what suits you and what doesn’t.

Talking about such a huge community, and trying to fit it into a single context won’t be justifiable. In fact, even if I decide to stick only to freelance content writers, it is still such a diverse group of people that defining them in a single statement may be fine, but describing what they are in one sentence can be a huge mistake.

I accept this fact, and with complete honesty, that I wasn’t completely aware of the impact and potential of freelance content writing in India before joining WittyPen. From the number of writers involved, the number of businesses working alongside them to the amount of content created and the impact it has on the audience – everything is on such an unprecedented scale. From where I see it, it’s massive and growing. Freelance writing is in its early stage in India, but you cannot deny the scope of its growth.

There is one aspect of freelance content writing in India if overlooked for a long time can hamper its growth, and that is the lack of organization in this industry.  Because the market is not very organized and there are almost no standards set, writers have to settle sometimes for a really low cost for their services. The scenario is equally challenging for the businesses dealing with the freelance writers, as they struggle to ensure the quality of the content, simply because there are no standards.

That’s where WittyPen comes into the scene. When I was planning to join WittyPen, Anshul Motwani (CEO and Founder, WittyPen) told me:-

“We are trying to solve a unique problem here. We are not acting simply as a middle-man. We are trying to ensure the desired quality of content to the businesses and justified and timely payments to the writers. Our ultimate goal is to eliminate this problem, and make it smoother for both, with efficient processes and brilliant communication.”

Over time, working with numerous freelance content writers, strategizing with WittyPen, and communicating with the team and the writers, it became clear to me that the way we work and the processes we follow provide a sense of security and freedom to the writers, which in turn help produce a great quality content that a business would be willing to put on their website.

This is what sets the freelance content writers working with WittyPen apart from other freelance writers. The organization of processes, sense of security, and the freedom of creativity is what allows the writers to focus on their primary jobs-how to become the best content writers– only. Let’s look more into it, and try to evaluate every aspect of it:-

Organization

As I’ve mentioned earlier, we bring in the organization of processes. It does not only help the businesses to get quality content smoothly but also helps the writers. From an order being placed on the platform and its allocation to a writer to the delivery of the content and feedback – everything is seamlessly designed and discussed.

The whole process is transparent to both the customers and the writers. The idea behind keeping the entire process well organized and transparent is to avoid reinventing the wheel for each order placed on the platform. But, don’t confuse the process as being completely mechanical. We know that we are working with humans and not machines. Automating the processes have their own benefits but adding a human touch makes it complete.

We often take initiatives on our side to ensure that the writer has everything needed before getting started on a task. We ask our writers to approach us freely if something is not clear or needs any clarification.

One of our writers once mentioned it to me,”The best thing about working with WittyPen is that I personally don’t have to negotiate with customers for the amount and don’t have to run behind them to get paid.”

This is what organization brings in- the freedom to focus on just a single aspect of the job and not worry about others.

Credibility

This is another direct benefit of organization. Because this industry is so unorganized, it is difficult for a writer to have faith in the customer sitting at the other end, and vice versa. That is what we bring in – credibility.

In my early days at WittyPen, I received a message from one of our writers that the task allocated to her was dropped for unknown reasons. She asked,”Does it mean I am not going to get paid for the work done?” I told her that there might have been some technical issues behind the message. Those were really early days but I went ahead and said,”Even if it is dropped for any legitimate reason, you’ll be paid your due amount.”

It wasn’t instantaneous. This was the result of the kind of credibility I witnessed in the actions of everyone working at WittyPen that I didn’t have to double check before making such a bold statement.

Next day, when I discussed it with Anshul, we sorted it out, went ahead with the task and paid the writer her due amount after the completion of the task.

Payment

Payment is the biggest concern in this industry. Not only the amount generally paid is too low, but not getting paid at all is also a sad possibility. I often receive messages from writers regarding the payment. Sometimes customers take their time in evaluating the content, accepting it or suggesting any changes. We, on our part, always try to make this process as smooth as it can be but sometimes despite all our efforts it takes time, and that is when writers get impatient and anxious.

Neeraj Kadam, Sales & Digital Marketing Head of WittyPen, has a great experience of working with freelance writers and he explained it to me-

”The anxiousness you witness is not entirely because of the payment delay. It is also because of the underlying fear of not getting paid at all. The market is so unorganized that it is not rare to not get paid at all.”

This is one thing we can ensure at WittyPen — that as a freelance writer, you will get paid for your services. We pay an average of 1 INR per word, which is significantly higher than the industry average.

Turn Around Time

Quality takes time and we understand it. More than anything else, creativity is one thing that requires time. Thankfully, even the businesses we work with understand it and allow us to take as much time as needed to draft a brilliant piece of content.

The average turn-around time for a content piece is 48 hours at WittyPen. It is because a significant amount of drafting a quality content piece goes in research and understanding the in’s and out’s of the requirement. If we force our writers to deliver the content in a shorter span of time, chances are that the research would be compromised. We don’t want that.

Every writer has their own style of writing and even the research style varies but cutting short on time is not going to help anyone. At times, writers have promised to deliver the content before the estimated deadline. Well, as a writer if you can manage that’s well and good but if you are compromising on quality, delivering before the deadline won’t make any sense.

The turn around time of 48 hours may seem short, and at times we do extend deadlines for research-intensive projects, but offering that for basic content pieces will only make you lethargic. However, having a set deadline is always helpful, and that is why in most of the cases, we stick to 48 hours mark.

Information Accessibility

Writing without adequate information is like shooting in the dark. You might miss, you might hit. This is also one problem with the content industry that sometimes even the customers are not very clear about what they want. And, in order to get even the slightest detail, writers have to follow them like crazies.

We solve this problem at the very beginning. We make sure that we ask all the relevant questions to the customer right at the time of placing an order. It sometimes may feel quite overwhelming but it compels you to think and have a rough idea as to how the final draft should look like.

If something is not clear even with the details on the form, we often get in touch with the customers to understand the whole requirement.

My colleague, Sharan Ahluwalia, has conducted numerous interviews with the representatives in different fields on behalf of the customers and conveyed the information to the writers. At times, we connect our writers to these representatives as well to have well-formulated information.

Professional Assistance

We always make sure that we are available to our writers for any assistance. At times, it is not possible to reply instantaneously and the response gets delayed, but we make sure that we do answer all their queries.

Sometimes requirements aren’t very clear and sometimes the writers need more information. Sometimes our process becomes a little complex for them to handle. We are always there to help in any form and encourage feedback to improve wherever we can.

Creative Independence

This is by far the best perk of working with WittyPen as a freelance content writer. We provide all the requirements and necessary guidelines to follow. After that, the ball is in your court.

You are always invited to bring in your personality and creativity to the content. We often advise our writers to not restrict themselves to the standard norms followed by the industry. If anything is beneficial to the reader and conveys the message that the business wants to convey, just go with it.

If you think that a particular framework would make more sense to the readers, go with it. Pictures, videos, graphs, charts, stats, data, external links or anything that you find relevant and interesting, and it goes with the target audience – include it in the draft.

Conclusion

WittyPen is a young organization, a bunch of vibrant passionate people. Surely, we are not perfect, but we always look to improve. Same goes for the freelance content writers working with us. They are professional but passionate as well. They are open to new challenges and to improve their niche. Our responsibility, as a platform, is to allow them the access to sufficient information and the hold of creative independence and let the magic happen.

The story of WittyPen is not simply about a group of people sitting in front of their computers, gazing and typing some random words on a screen in an office chamber, it is the story of multiple talented professional and freelance content writers taking pride in what we do. And the joy of working along the lines of one’s creative liberty is ineffable.

Of course, no organization has a single story and neither do we. It is a web of stories crafted meticulously by hundreds of freelance writers who have made this journey possible and enjoyable. We cherish every moment of it and hope to continue doing so in the future.

Will you join us?

Whether it is a blog or a landing page or a listicle, the headline serves as the face of any content. This make it very important to know how to write catchy headlines that can drive engagement.

Content experts firmly believe that headline is the most critical element of your marketing copy. The saying “first impression is the last impression” makes a lot of sense when we talk about headlines.

Catchy headlines have the ability to capture the interest of your audiences in a span of just a few seconds. A not so impressive headline can have them bouncing off of your website, skipping your blog or leaving your email unopened, no matter how great your offer, never to return.

Your headlines have the power to distinguish you from your competitors and also create a strong loyal base of customers.Not paying enough attention to headlines is one of the most common mistakes professional writers make. It is also said that headlines in SEO storytelling are the hardest part of content marketing. Agreed, it requires some creative and smart thinking. But all those efforts are totally worth it when your customers start to engage with your content.

Have a look at this video and learn to write catchy headlines!

We hope that this video was able to explain you about how you can craft winning headlines.

Happy Writing!

If you are a writer who is passionate about delivering meaningful content, then I am sure you must have often come across the rare occasions of higher payouts. It surely would have boiled your blood. Despite having the right education, the right experience and the right contacts you often find yourself in the zone of underpaid employment. In short – Being an underpaid writer is a painful experience.

The imbalance between talented writers and the true value that they deserve is not hidden. It is highly annoying to be paid in peanuts. But what is more irking is to see heaps of mediocrity in content writing that exists without an ounce of shame. There are people who call themselves “writers” and are barely able to complete a paragraph without grammatical errors. There are big IT firms, multi-faceted digital marketing agencies that don’t mind having average content being produced. They just blatantly put it out there just because they don’t want to spend more time and money on good content. Therefore, It is painful to see skilled writers like you getting paid less, or maybe getting nothing at all.

We believe that good writers like you who are committed to their craft should be compensated fairly. Since we understand the endeavours that you put in and the struggle that you go through while providing quality content writing, we want to give certain tips that you can use to get what you truly deserve.

Here Is What You Should Do If You Are an Underpaid Writer

1. Stop Overthinking

If you are paid less for what you do, you can undermine your confidence level further by doubting your capabilities. You should completely put a full stop to questions like:

1. Am I good enough?
2. There are so many good writers out there. Why would they choose me?
3. Why can’t I do this?

Hence, these statements are up to no good and all they can do is to deter your fighting spirit. So if you have to be on the top of your game, then you need to project yourself as someone who is not only confident about his/her skills but also proud of them.

2. Don’t Play It Safe

What I am going to talk here is very much linked to the first point. Just because “everyone” likes a particular content type or a particular content piece is the “popular” choice, you should not limit yourself to writing what “everyone will like or what is accepted in the industries. I mean, I am not asking you to be a rebel. I am just asking you to have faith in your creativity and ability to take risks. You should not suppress the “creative thinker” in you because of the fear of rejection or because of the possibility of your content being controversial. Therefore, you should be able to pen down your honest most thoughts. This is how you will become a noticeable writer, who would be revered and valued for speaking his/her mind out.

3. Don’t Accept Low Rates

This is where you go wrong in establishing your value amongst your peers and potential clients. Just because you are at the starting point of your career or you want to please your clients, you can’t accept a price that does nothing to justify your quality of work. You know what is worse than getting paid less. It is “Quoting your priceless”. You need to build your portfolio and writing career in a way such that where you really believe that time is money and that your time is valuable. At that stage, you will have the sheer confidence of asking what you deserve. And believe you me, you will surely get that.

4. Start Upgrading Yourselves

Building your skill set at any point in life is a good idea. Whether it’s your apprehension about using social media or it’s your low frequency of writing, you need to improve on them all to sustain in the market and ofcourse establish your real worth. Staying abreast of what is happening in the world of writing is crucial for you to trod ahead in the journey of right pay. Building your skills is not only a resume-booster; it will also position you for personal and professional opportunities.

5. Have a Good Mix of Creativity and Business Strategy

I understand that you are a writer, and the creative streak in you prods you to “innovate” and “imagine”. But for you to be financially stable and get what you deserve, you need to attach a business value to your creativity. You need to be very well aware of:

• The services you are going to offer
• To whom you will offer your services
• Your experience
• The value of your time
• The value you provide to your customers.

Ultimately, the answers to these questions will become the foundation of your business plan, which is your roadmap to becoming a well-paid writer. So, with this, I have arrived at the conclusion of the article which is” as a writer you should never fail to assess your true value, and you should keep honing your skillsets to establish yourself as an entity or a brand that is irreplaceable.”
While we would want you to keep a note of those above tips, we would also like to enlighten you with the fact that we at WittyPen are always on the lookout for writers who provide quality content writing.

We make sure that the writers who contribute to making our platform even better should never be valued lesser than what they deserve. So, if you think, you can be a valuable addition to the team and you don’t want to be an underpaid writer, then you can apply at our platform.

All great writers, whether freelance content writers, or otherwise are often caught up in the cobweb of insecurities and underconfidence. We are drawn towards negative thinking when we write something and we keep asking ourselves questions like

• Are we any good?
• What is it that we lack to be the best writer?
• Will my work be accepted ever? Should I just stop writing because of the fierce competition?

These pessimistic thoughts and insecurities will do us no good if our aim is to become the best writer and have people read your writing while beating the rest. What can help you and I is some optimism, self-confidence, and right knowledge.

Become the best writer. Read below to know how.

We did a little bit of homework on how to become the best writer in the industry. And we would love to share it with you as well,so you can become a better writer.

Read

To be the best at writing, you must read and get educated all the time.There is no “right time to learn. You should learn all the time. Learning combined with your writing skills will help you project yourself as a skilled and a knowledgeable writer in your domain.

Store Ideas

Good ideas are for the keeps. Those ideas can be your creation or they could be inspired from somewhere.  But collecting them is the key. Gather your inputs at one place and refer to them as and when you require. A great tool for collecting your resources is Evernote.

Keep Writing

The saying “Practice makes you perfect” holds true if you want to be a good writer.  Writing is a skill, and like any other skill, you have to practice it to get better. Write everyday,every week, improve your writing skills, write stuff for yourself, write for a blog, write for other publications. Write just to write, and have a blast doing it. It gets easier after awhile if you practice a lot.

Experiment

It is great to look up to the maestros in the field for inspiration. But it is greater when you come up with some brilliant ideas of your own. Give your reader a new piece of writing.  Experiment with your style of writing, your tone, your mechanics, your themes. Try out new words. Invent new words. Experimentalize everything. And see what works, and toss out what doesn’t.This will help you in better writing and also in developing a sense of confidence in your own ideas.

Write. Erase. Rewrite.

This is a daunting task, but an important one too. Stephen King calls this killing your darlings.

It sure does feel that way, but like we mentioned above, it is important and the many writers do it too. Rewriting will help you to be concise and will help you to filter the best of your content. In simple words, it gives the ever-needed finish to your work and makes it appear more appealing.

Get Regular Feedbacks.

A good writer accepts criticism.To get a better perspective on your content piece, and for better writing, you should show it to others to get a review. These “others” need to be good writers and editors who can give an honest feedback that lacks bias. And on your part, you need to be a good listener to the criticism and accept it graciously without being defensive. This will only help you in becoming better than the rest and the best at your work.

The bottom line is we need you, the writer, to be good. Actually the best. This is crucial at a time when you are not the only one with the voice, and for your voice to be heard, it needs to not too loud, not too mellow, just perfect. Start writing!

These were tips to become best writer. We hope that you use these insights to get the most out of your writing. We at WittyPen also ensure that the writers deliver the best of their abilities, and if you feel that you have what it takes to be the best writer in the industry, then please register with us.

You write, you blog and you want an audience for your content. Sometimes finding an audience for your content is the first step towards finding customers for your product. Whatever, be the case you need to educate people, teach them about what you do and make them believe in what you do. But first, you need to reach out to them. Search engines are doing a superb job providing an audience for your content and the content, for which people are looking for.

Search engines manage the content in a form of depository and make them available whenever people go looking for them. However, Search engines have to follow some algorithms, some rules, in order to provide the exact content, the user is looking for. Search engines are making themselves better with every single day, however, you as a blogger have to comply with some rules to make a better content accessible to the users.

Writing well is the essential skill for writing a great post, however writing an SEO friendly and at the same time, user-friendly post/blog is altogether a different skill. Having said that, Writing SEO friendly and writing gracefully does not mean two completely unrelated things. Former is a little modification of the later one. Here are few SEO optimization tips which can help in writing an SEO friendly content:-

1. SEO friendly content does not contradict with user-friendly content

An SEO friendly doesn’t have to be written in a completely mechanical way taking the soul away from the writing. The search engines are making themselves smart with much improved ‘ranking algorithms’ which try to identify a great and useful content for the reader from a mediocre one. In the older days of search engines, the whole process of the search was designed around ‘keywords’. The search engine would take a keyword as a string and try to match the similar string with the content on existing web pages and throw the relevant sources to the reader. However, at present search engines are trying to understand the keyword, as a ‘thing’ rather than a ‘string’, and trying to provide the real genuine information about a topic. That is why, the writer still needs to create a beautiful piece for readers to enjoy, however with minding the basic regulations, the writer can reach out to a greater number of people.

2. Key words at Key positions

Key words help the search engines to filter the content and provide the most suitable option to the users. As a blogger, take some time out, find the relevant keywords for your blog subject. Find the targeted keyword and the frequency at which they are targeted. Since the high targeted keywords are already targeted by a bunch of people and organizations, try to target the keyword with medium and low-frequency keywords. It is always a great strategy to put the key words in the title, headings, sub-headings, image alt source and also in meta-description.

3. Provide links

Providing links to the relevant web pages shows that enough research has been put in to ensure the good content. By doing that, you may also end up providing some additional and useful information to the reader. You can also link to any other blog of yours if it is relevant to the topic. The recent SEO strategy revolves around, providing a topic oriented content. What you can do is to make a web-page work as a cluster for the entire topic and provide links to the sub-topics which would in return provide a plethora of resources for the reader to get the information from. It will increase the navigation and crawlability. Not minding that can create some serious issues for your blog post accessibility.

4. Use heading and sub-headings

Writers understand their style of writing, the flow and the structure of their pieces; but sometimes they find it difficult to translate their structure and flow in headings and sub-heading. Headings and subheadings break the entire content into pieces and make it scannable and readable. It is crucially important not only because it increases the readability of the post, but at the same time it makes it easier for the search engines to follow.

5. Use paragraphs and use lists

It is again important from the point of view of readability and being scannable. It also leaves the reader satisfied at the end of the blog satisfied with a clearly distinguished information. Also, Search engines find it easy to index the lists from the text, so make sure that you have used them in your text. But don’t overdo it, just for the sake of search engines.

6. Use Signal words

The readers find it great if the writer is writing with a clear conclusion and emphasizing on the crucial point by using the signal words, such as ‘first of all’, most importantly’, ‘finally’. It increases the readability for the readers as well.

7. Image alt text and audio video transcript

If you decide to attach an image or an audio/video file, and it contributes to the content of the post, do not forget to provide the genuine image alt text and video transcripts. Search engines do not scan the images and video, hence they do not understand the content of the images and videos. It is a way of making sure that search engines understand the content of such files.

8. Meta Description

Meta-description is the description of the website, which search engines use to provide details to the users. It should be around 160 characters long, as precise and accurate as it gets and if naturally possible include the keyword.

9. Detailed

Because it takes research, ample data and deep understanding of a particular subject, it is understood that it should take enough words to explain it. On the first search page of Google, the difference between the number of words of the first one and the last one can be as big as 400 words. Make sure that you have explained your topic well, with ample examples, data, and study.

10. Readability

Writers often end up writing too complex articles for the readers, as sometimes it can boost their ego of being highly intellectual and smart. However, it’s not about the complexity involved in a blog that makes the readers fall for it, in fact, it is the opposite. Keep it simple and keep it stylish. Edit your blog and don’t do silly mistakes.

11. Mind the SEO strategy changes

As it has been mentioned earlier, the search engines are making themselves smarter day by day and trying to be as helpful as they can in providing the best results to the user. That is the sole reason, their algorithms of ranking the webpages changes rapidly. There is no specific strategy which would be relevant for the eternal time. As a blogger, you need to smart to understand and update yourself with the current changes.

Finally, we can make a quick list to produce an SEO friendly and a user-friendly post, both at the same time:-

• Use headings, sub-headings, image alt text, audio/video transcript
• Clear, concise and accurate meta-description
• Key words at key positions

These were some  great organic SEO tips for you to enhance your content.Here are some rules for effective content writing to improve your SEO even further.

And one final tip, which is bonus for reading the whole article

Use the keywords and proper functions to name a link, i.e., don’t just name a link-“click me”; instead write- “enter WittyPen.”