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What Is Freelance Public Relations Writing
Becoming a successful freelance public relations writer requires you to write persuasively and analytically. The key to persuasive writing is the key to good writing in general: know your audience. Public relations work requires you to address various audiences, such as:
1) Your customer base. Your customers already have some idea about what your client does;
2) Potential customers. Most won't know about your client directly, but they might be familiar with similar products, services, or programs;
3) The press. They are interested only in whether the service or product your client has to offer is worthy of mention in their publication.
When you get a public relations assignment, your job is to take in all the data related to whatever your client has to offer. Maybe your client is offering a new product line, a new community outreach program, or news about a change in ownership. Your job is to: 1) analyze that data for key points; 2) determine how the data might affect the marketplace and consumers; and 3) communicate the data in a clear, concise form.
Taking in the data is the easiest part. Your client should provide you with all the data you need, plus any contact information you might need to interview people for quotes, statistics, point-of-views, etc. You need to think about how to connect what your client is offering with the needs and desires of his audience.
Example 1:
If a high-end brokerage firm wants to distribute a press release about their response to a recent rise in gold prices, you may need to research the stock market to determine what that means to investors. If you know your target audience, then you know exactly where to look to find out their typical concerns. Typical research methods may include Internet searches, investor forum posts, guides to investment, etc.
Example 2:
If you need to generate PR aimed at a particular trade group or a segment of an industry, such as promoting a local cleaning service, then you need to brainstorm ways in which your clients cleaning service provides cheaper or better care than his competitors.
Once you've done the background work, writing PR is simple. Your client should provide you with all the pertinent information about length and venue. What you need to do is communicate the details, connect it to audiences desires, and present any information that links the audience back to the client with the use of contact information, store locations, event dates, and so on.
Since there's an expectation that PR is persuasive, advertisement-like material, you have slightly more leeway with the writing than you might with informative, research-based material; but again, the audience comes into the balance.
If you're writing a report on the release of a new video game aimed at a teen-centric gaming magazine, a dry style won't be of much use to you. If you're writing about the breakthrough of a new control chip for an overseas microprocessor, you don't want to make too many assertions about how this will "revolutionize the industry," or anything that a highly-trained engineering department can't back up. In general, stick to the facts as closely as you can. Your articles should have the blend of rational restraint and promotional zeal so you communicate effectively.
Where do you get public relations jobs? Corporate PR departments are your best bet for well-paying, steady work. Some large corporations will have their own in-house staff of marketing writers, and may not be interested in taking on freelancers except at certain times. Another good choice would be local non-profit groups, political organizations, or social clubs. These rely on effective PR to grow and thrive, and you can pick up a good deal of work from just one or two groups. A drawback to non-profits or other groups is they may not have a big budget or they may not be able to pay consistently. Make sure you trust the group before you commit to full-time PR work.
Above all, be careful of doing PR for individuals. This type of PR can be among the most enjoyable assignments, depending on your interests. Individual PR projects may include promoting someone's self-published book or writing press releases for a garage band, and so forth. The downside is individuals typically have little or no budget for PR, and they often want you to work for free, alleging that "it'll be good for your reputation" or that "once I get successful I can pay you." Never do PR work (or any freelance writing work) for free. It wastes your time and it won't advance your career, except for building a portfolio of writing samples. At worst, it can lower average writing rates to the point that good freelancers go out of business. It's not good for you, for your trade, or for your fellow writers. So don't do it!
If you have the ability to analyze complex material quickly and convey it clearly and persuasively into words that your audience understands, then you are on your way to having a successful career as a public relations writer.
BONUS : What Is Freelance Seo Writing?
SEO writing is one of the newer forms of freelance writing spawned by the Internet Age, and as such, SEO writing is an excellent way -- if at times a frustrating way -- for budding writers to cut their teeth in the freelance writing scene. SEO writing takes a fair amount of imagination and some engineering grit, but if you like puzzles, then freelancing as an SEO writer will interest you.
SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization," has its roots in the early days of the Internet. Once early Internet marketers realized they could manipulate search engine rankings with meaningless content and keywords, a whirlwind of keyword-stuffed web pages swept across the Internet, all designed to push their content -- and the products they sold -- to the top of search engine lists. This sharply increased user traffic and potential profits. It wasn't uncommon to see web pages with only a few short paragraphs of copy with large, seemingly-blank areas of space. However, if you highlighted these blank areas of space with a cursor, it would reveal massive strings of invisible keywords. SEO writers used to embed invisible keywords in text to rank the webpage higher in search engines for nearly any remotely-relevant search term.
Fortunately for good web design, search engine programmers became aware of this flaw, and they refined their search engines to ignore such obvious "keyword stuffing." This major change has made search engines rank web pages more relevant of the actual content and not the stuffed keywords. Content providers responded to this by developing SEO writing, which ideally gets the same results as open keyword-stuffing, but provides a better-designed, better-written page as well. It's a "best of both worlds" compromise: content providers willing to invest in SEO writing get to keep their high search engine rankings and readers get more smoothly integrated and keyword-dense text.
There are bad SEO writers and good SEO writers. Bad SEO writers aren't aware of exactly how search engines work, and will try stuffing text with ten or twenty commonly-used search terms ("sex," "money," and the like) ten or twenty times apiece, without caring whether the actual text reads well. These days search engines are sophisticated enough to ignore these kinds of transparent keyword-stuffing efforts, a defense which only good SEO practice can get around.
A skilled SEO writer:
- Uses only one or two search terms per page;
- Uses unique, natural-language search terms;
- Integrates search terms smoothly with text;
The difference between a good and bad SEO writer are in the results. Good SEO writers can provide actual results in the search rankings. Their SEO writing talents keep the client's web pages on the first page of search engine results and create additional revenue for the client. Bad SEO writers don't keep client pages in the first page of search engine results; they create nearly unreadable, transparently phony text, and don't get paid well at all. If you want to succeed as a freelance SEO writer, you first need to learn to be a good one.
Writing integrated text is often the most difficult part of good SEO writing. The rule is you should use each search term once or twice in a 250-word block of copy. This is fine if your search term is something like "bond portfolio," but what do you do if your search term is more like "high-yield gold investment bond package bonds"? This is where the "puzzle" aspect of SEO writing comes in: no matter how cumbersome your search term, you need to find a way to make it sound natural.
Skilled SEO writers employ some tricks for awkward keyword phrases, such as the following:
- Enclosing the search term in quotes (making it seem like a precise technical term, rather than just clunky phrase); and
- Defining the term at the opening of the article and using it further on, or drawing comparisons between two SEO terms (requiring you to refer to both frequently).
There aren't any hard-and-fast rules to integrate keywords effectively; every keyword set is different and every article has different needs. But with imagination, you can get your prose to read naturally while still being SEO-worthy. Just remember the other principal rule: don't overstuff keywords in text, but rather space your keywords adequately throughout the text.
Who offers SEO writing jobs? Virtually any company with enough money and enough willingness to maintain a high web presence. Be careful of the keyword lists you take on. Generally speaking, if the client has a long keyword list and he needs many keywords in his text, then most search engines will rank his webpage low and you may not be able to achieve the results he wants. To establish yourself as a freelance SEO writer (and to get some much needed practice in SEO writing), you'll probably need to take some of these jobs at some point. Take a look on freelance writing message boards, in classified ads, and make inquiries at local businesses who either have a web presence, or who you think are ready to develop one. Chances are excellent that companies with new websites can use a skilled SEO writer.
Keep at it, learn the tricks, and remember that SEO writing is a very in-demand skill. Once you build a reputation for yourself, you can command both higher prices and higher-profile (yet easier) assignments regularly.
SEO writing is one of the newer forms of freelance writing spawned by the Internet Age, and as such, SEO writing is an excellent way -- if at times a frustrating way -- for budding writers to cut their teeth in the freelance writing scene. SEO writing takes a fair amount of imagination and some engineering grit, but if you like puzzles, then freelancing as an SEO writer will interest you.
SEO, or "Search Engine Optimization," has its roots in the early days of the Internet. Once early Internet marketers realized they could manipulate search engine rankings with meaningless content and keywords, a whirlwind of keyword-stuffed web pages swept across the Internet, all designed to push their content -- and the products they sold -- to the top of search engine lists. This sharply increased user traffic and potential profits. It wasn't uncommon to see web pages with only a few short paragraphs of copy with large, seemingly-blank areas of space. However, if you highlighted these blank areas of space with a cursor, it would reveal massive strings of invisible keywords. SEO writers used to embed invisible keywords in text to rank the webpage higher in search engines for nearly any remotely-relevant search term.
Fortunately for good web design, search engine programmers became aware of this flaw, and they refined their search engines to ignore such obvious "keyword stuffing." This major change has made search engines rank web pages more relevant of the actual content and not the stuffed keywords. Content providers responded to this by developing SEO writing, which ideally gets the same results as open keyword-stuffing, but provides a better-designed, better-written page as well. It's a "best of both worlds" compromise: content providers willing to invest in SEO writing get to keep their high search engine rankings and readers get more smoothly integrated and keyword-dense text.
There are bad SEO writers and good SEO writers. Bad SEO writers aren't aware of exactly how search engines work, and will try stuffing text with ten or twenty commonly-used search terms ("sex," "money," and the like) ten or twenty times apiece, without caring whether the actual text reads well. These days search engines are sophisticated enough to ignore these kinds of transparent keyword-stuffing efforts, a defense which only good SEO practice can get around.
A skilled SEO writer:
- Uses only one or two search terms per page;
- Uses unique, natural-language search terms;
- Integrates search terms smoothly with text;
The difference between a good and bad SEO writer are in the results. Good SEO writers can provide actual results in the search rankings. Their SEO writing talents keep the client's web pages on the first page of search engine results and create additional revenue for the client. Bad SEO writers don't keep client pages in the first page of search engine results; they create nearly unreadable, transparently phony text, and don't get paid well at all. If you want to succeed as a freelance SEO writer, you first need to learn to be a good one.
Writing integrated text is often the most difficult part of good SEO writing. The rule is you should use each search term once or twice in a 250-word block of copy. This is fine if your search term is something like "bond portfolio," but what do you do if your search term is more like "high-yield gold investment bond package bonds"? This is where the "puzzle" aspect of SEO writing comes in: no matter how cumbersome your search term, you need to find a way to make it sound natural.
Skilled SEO writers employ some tricks for awkward keyword phrases, such as the following:
- Enclosing the search term in quotes (making it seem like a precise technical term, rather than just clunky phrase); and
- Defining the term at the opening of the article and using it further on, or drawing comparisons between two SEO terms (requiring you to refer to both frequently).
There aren't any hard-and-fast rules to integrate keywords effectively; every keyword set is different and every article has different needs. But with imagination, you can get your prose to read naturally while still being SEO-worthy. Just remember the other principal rule: don't overstuff keywords in text, but rather space your keywords adequately throughout the text.
Who offers SEO writing jobs? Virtually any company with enough money and enough willingness to maintain a high web presence. Be careful of the keyword lists you take on. Generally speaking, if the client has a long keyword list and he needs many keywords in his text, then most search engines will rank his webpage low and you may not be able to achieve the results he wants. To establish yourself as a freelance SEO writer (and to get some much needed practice in SEO writing), you'll probably need to take some of these jobs at some point. Take a look on freelance writing message boards, in classified ads, and make inquiries at local businesses who either have a web presence, or who you think are ready to develop one. Chances are excellent that companies with new websites can use a skilled SEO writer.
Keep at it, learn the tricks, and remember that SEO writing is a very in-demand skill. Once you build a reputation for yourself, you can command both higher prices and higher-profile (yet easier) assignments regularly.
