Freelance Writer Editor | Martyn Shuttleworth | Greece

CV Writing :: Using a Freelance Writer for Your Curriculum Vitae

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 13:32:46 +0000

In the face of a mounting economic crisis, CV writing is becoming a very important talent. As employers shed jobs and unemployment levels rise, desperate job-seekers are chasing a decreasing number of vacancies. In the face of such fierce competition, having a clear and concise curriculum vitae is crucial, because it will set you apart from the pack, as a professional who pays attention to detail. Without a professional CV, the chances are that your application will end up on the rejection pile, without even being read.

Many people try to play the numbers game, and send out literally hundreds of job applications, hoping that one will succeed. Such hard work is commendable, but it is important to work smart and focus your efforts. Every application that you send out should be the best it possibly can be; otherwise, you will have merely wasted everybody’s time and effort. The question is, how do you create the perfect CV?

CV Writing and Common Mistakes

Many people download a CV template to help them to construct the perfect curriculum vitae, and this is often good enough. However, in many cases, these are out of date, or are too generalised to generate the necessary impact. Ultimately, if you use the same generic resume as everybody else, then you are not asking questions of the employer or challenging them to find out more about you.

Employers have to spend a lot of time wading through job applications and will skim through CVs, looking for the slightest excuse to discard any that do not make the grade. A spelling mistake or a poor layout will jeopardise your chances of making the cut and receiving an invite to interview. The most common mistake with resumes, including those written with a CV template, is that they are too long. If your applicable skills and experience do not leap out of the page, and are buried beneath reams of irrelevance, then your application will fail.

CV Writing and a Professional Freelance Writer

The easiest way to work smart is to hire a professional freelance writer for your CV writing. They know how to use language to create a focused, high-impact resume, one which will grab the attention of the reader and encourage them to explore your application in more detail. When sent with a strong, professionally written cover letter, your CV will help you to build an exceptional application, one that stands out from the crowd.

Busy Human Resources managers become bored after reading the same, generic CV template time after time, and something different will pique their interest and encourage them to ask you for an interview. Using a professional CV writer will pay dividends and help you to take one step closer to that elusive job.

Hire a Professional Freelance Writer for Your CV Writing

If you want to hire a professional freelance writer to create a resume for you, please feel free to contact me and I will help you to create a personalised CV that will crackle. CV writing is an art, and using a professional is the key to success.

Using a Professional Freelance Writer: The Article Bubble Bursts

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Mon, 03 May 2010 17:37:43 +0000

An increasing number of companies are starting to understand the importance of using high quality website content and articles. Instead of paying cheap freelance writers to churn out spun copy for their marketing, they want to use a professional freelance writer to produce meaningful, unique content.

This is nothing new, and many marketers and writers have known about this trend for a long time. However, I want to expand upon this point, because this move towards producing informative content ties in with what the search engines are doing to clean out the Adsense optimized content plaguing the internet.

I read a post by respected online guru, Grizzly, today and this supports what most marketers and writers have suspected for over a year; Google is going on the offensive and is looking to clean up the net. Google advertisers pay good money for prime adverts locations, and expect their adverts to be shown on useful, targeted content. Instead, their Adwords are often displayed on a content-thin blog with the sole intent of making customers click on adverts, just so that they can escape the empty content and keyword soup.

Great News for Professional Freelance Writers

As a professional freelance writer I am, naturally, very pleased about this news, although I am probably at odds with a few of the marketing-oriented people. From my point of view, anything that gets rid of the article mills paying mediocre freelance writers a couple of dollars to churn out content spun from Wikipedia or Ezine is a good thing. Simple supply and demand will now mean that experienced professionals receive a level of pay that matches their talent, without the disgraceful rates paid on many freelance sites becoming a stick to beat down rates and fuel a race to the bottom.

The interesting point in Grizz’s post is that most of the marketing experts are advocating building one or two informative, authoritative sites, instead of throwing up 20 blogs with minimal content, all set up with the purpose of funneling people towards Adsense traps. Foresighted companies are developing well laid out, content rich sites, and are cleverly using article marketing to attract direct referrals, rather than scatter tripe around the net in the vain hope of building a few backlinks.

Freelance Writing: Research and Increased Productivity

Less time spent wading through respun rubbish might mean that this freelance writer can actually have the occasional day off!

As an online writer, much of my work involves a lot of research, and being able to navigate search engines, without the same, automatically spun content dominating the search-engine rankings, is going to increase my productivity immensely.

There is still a need for good SEO practices and, as a writer, I still have to understand the basics of online marketing, such as keywords and backlinks. However, I am confident that this move towards quality will mean that I can spend more time writing and less time leaving comments on blogs that I have little interest in reading (Much like this one, I hear you say!)

As with many things, this move is nothing new and SEO is moving back towards old-school marketers, who are ethical and prefer to help online businesses grow organically, rather than follow the latest fad. The knowledgeable Peter Hoggan, at Escocian, is a great believer in Ethical SEO Services, and I have no problem giving his organization an organic link; I like what he has to say.

Hire a Freelance Writer – Get Ahead

As you can imagine, this news will take a long time to filter through the system, and many companies will continue to throw large volumes of mud at the wall in the vain hope that some sticks. Conversely, forward thinking companies can now concentrate on producing quality, using marketing techniques developed long before the internet appeared on the horizon. The article marketing bubble is about to collapse, and you have a chance to get ahead of the competition.

Web Copywriting – The Advantages of Using a Freelance Copywriter

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 12:00:46 +0000

Article mills are the bane of the internet, fueling the low wage, low quality web copywriting culture

Search engines, the driving force behind internet habits, are moving towards promoting high quality web copywriting. Rather than reward businesses that flood the internet with sub-standard articles, the search engines are adapting their algorithms to promote high-quality content and rid the internet of the spammers and empty articles.

Because marketers became fixated upon generating backlinks, to the detriment of providing quality web content, businesses used cheap freelance writers to produce countless keyword dense articles, often written in barely passable English. Internet users are sick and tired of trying to find useful information online, only to be confronted by empty content sourced from the notorious article mills. They want to find what they need, quickly and efficiently, without navigating seas of thinly disguised sales copy and painfully poor articles.

The big search engines are aware of this, and they know that consumer power can make or break their market position; they must adapt or die. The same applies to any business with an online marketing strategy; they must start to produce quality content or be left behind in the sandbox as the competition forges ahead.

Instead of going for the cheapest option, now is the time to use a professional freelance copywriter, who will be able to guide you through the transition. In hard economic times, as the advertisers focus on quality rather than saturation, the businesses producing quality will be the survivors when the internet content bubble finally bursts.

Investing in a Freelance Copywriter for Web Copywriting

Many business owners are happy to pay professional marketers and web designers good rates to promote their business, but are strangely reluctant to pay fees for a professional writer. They shop in the bargain basement and try to find freelance writers for a few dollars an hour, yet expect high-quality content. In the vast majority of cases, this approach fails. Content is king, and racing to the bottom reflects badly on your business.

The fast moving nature of the online world means that you only have a few seconds to impress potential clients and, if you confront them with poorly written content, written in poor English and with no direction to the writing, consumers will click the back button on their browser. The high rates that you paid for a marketing consultant have been wasted, all because you tried to save a few dollars. A freelance copywriter knows how to use subtle language to close the deal and entice consumers to spend time browsing your site and seeing what you have to offer.

A professional freelance copywriter will work alongside your marketers and is fully aware of the SEO techniques required to reach out to clients. A pro writer can take keywords and blend them seamlessly into flowing paragraphs and elegant prose. Search engines love high quality web copywriting and, by using a freelance writer as part of your marketing team, you can outperform other businesses still stuck in the old mentality of quantity over quality.

Your highly paid SEO marketing consultant love talented web copywriters, because it makes their life much easier. High quality, natural web content is much easier to promote than keyword soup and, if they are paid by the hour, this will also impact on your bottom line, saving you money. A marketing consultant given good content can concentrate on what they do best; helping your site climb the search engine rankings, rewarding your policy of hiring the best writer that you can find.

A Freelance Copywriter is a Deal Closer

Internet users are becoming very sophisticated and wary of the many fraudulent websites and products plaguing the internet. Amongst other things, they look at the quality of your website as a benchmark of quality, using it to gauge your product, professionalism, and customer service.

Marketers go out and find potential clients; a talented web designer uses eye-catching, slick designs to convince then to stay; and high quality content, written by a professional freelance copywriter, closes the deal. Using this trirumvate is the key to success, built upon the tried and tested sales techniques that existed long before the dawn of internet shopping.

As an example, I recently browsed the internet to look for some new door fittings, and was disgusted by the sheer amount of poor quality articles online, thinly disguised sales pitches that consisted of a couple of paragraphs written in poor, broken English.

Do these businesses seriously think that I am going to visit their site if they cannot be bothered to act professionally? By trying to save money, they lost a sale, all because they tried to write their own content or hired an enthusiastic amateur.

Web Copywriting – The Flexibility and Professionalism of a Freelance Copywriter

An experienced, skilled web copywriter is a professional with years of training and experience, so you are not going to find one for a few dollars an hour. In the same way, you will not find an accountant, marketer, lawyer, or mechanic for that rate. These professionals are fully aware of their value and set their prices accordingly.

So, why do businesses begrudge paying freelance writers a decent rate? They have been swayed by the article mills and content submission sites, and believe that you really can find a writer for cents. Sadly, in most cases, they end up with poorly written content, with little power, passion, or authority behind the copy or, in the worst cases, plagiarized content copied from other sites.

Freelance copywriters are hired guns, able to refresh marketing campaigns and imbuing them with life and honesty. Professional; freelance writers understand the world of internet marketing and can integrate seamlessly into your team, providing valuable insights and ideas on how to reach a wider audience. Most of all, they make sure that your web copywriting compels and projects your core values and integrity.

The question isn’t about whether you can afford to hire a freelance copywriter for your web copywriting. The question is can you afford not to?

Internet Article Marketing Strategy – Unleashing the True Power of Article Directories

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 11:39:59 +0000

Internet Article Submission is the Stairway to Success

Most businesses working online have heard of article directories, such as Ezine, and are aware that a good internet article marketing strategy must incorporate the potential of these sites. The idea behind article directories is elegant in its simplicity; you submit articles, and others are free to use them and distribute them around the internet, on the condition that they include backlinks to your site.

Article directories are well known by webmasters and marketers, who understand that a high-quality article site gives good quality backlinks and instant kudos with Google. Many of these flood the sites with spun content, hoping to gain an advantage in the search engine rankings.

Internet Article Marketing Strategy and Backlinks – An Unhealthy Fixation

Many of these marketers outsource work, use article-spinning software, or hire cheap freelance writers to generate content. This attitude is fine if you are chasing Adsense and affiliate sales, where you might get away with broken English and stilted, non-natural writing. However, this paradigm has leached over into mainstream marketing, and there is now a prevailing attitude that it is not worth paying a professional writer to submit quality content to article sites.

I have seen many articles, on Ezine, where the business owner has tried to hack some copy together, or has outsourced the work to the notorious article mills. They then sit back, waiting for the clients to roll in, and are surprised when this approach fails. The problem with this plan is that they became fixated on one aspect of article marketing, backlinking, and failed to understand the true power of using article directories as part of an internet article marketing strategy.

Basing Your Internet Article Marketing Strategy around Quality

Stepping away from online marketing for a while, think about what type of strategy you use in the real world. Most businesses, if they want to generate good business, focus their efforts on producing high-quality brochures and postcards, and delivering them to targeted areas.

Moving back online, that is the same type of approach that you should adopt with your internet article marketing campaign and you should see your articles as more than a cheap source of backlinks. Articles can actually form the backbone of your marketing strategy and drive high-quality traffic to your website. Using article submission directories as glorified link-farms misses the potential of two other marketing methods; direct referrals and organic growth.

The Power of Direct Referrals and your Internet Article Marketing Strategy

Sites such as Ezine, with its very stringent quality controls and human editors, are loved by the search engines. As a result, an SEO optimized Ezine article will often appear higher on search-engine rankings than your actual site. If you use them alongside informational sites, such as Hubpages, you will be able to dominate Google search results for targeted keywords.

As a result of this search engine impact, potential clients are likely to land there first and, if your articles are filled with empty-content, they are not going to click on the link. If you want to use article to their fullest potential, you need to treat them as if they were content on your own site; they are often the point of first contact and you must make an instant impression.

Making the Internet Work for You – Organic Links Keep on Giving

If you do your keyword research and manage to get your Ezine article onto the front pages of the search engines, then there is one other benefit of using a professionally written article. If the article is well written, then others are likely to pick it up and use it, which will include the carefully embedded links to your site. Apart from giving you a little more Google love, through organic backlink growth, this also increases your reach and the chance of direct referrals.

With a powerfully written, informative article, others are going to do the marketing for you, by distributing your links around the internet. This is the true power of article marketing sites, not the vague idea of building a few backlinks. There are other ways of building Google backlink love, and using article-marketing sites purely for this purpose is missing out on their true power. With a good, high-quality article, the backlinks will multiply, without any extra effort or expense.

Using a Professional Writer as the Foundation of your Internet Marketing Strategy

If you look at many of the article sites, you will see that many of the articles are merely sales pitches, consisting of two or three hundred words of clumsy language. Most people do not understand the art of writing web content and articles, which requires the careful touch of a master craftsman.

if you intend to sell something online, then going for the cheap option is a non-starter; you might think that you have a great deal by finding a reasonably competent writer, who will throw out articles at $5 a time. If this does not increase sales conversions, or the articles migrate into the Google sandbox, then you have thrown that money away.

A professional writer has the ability to write an article, seemingly about an unrelated subject, but use layered content and language to guide the reader gently down to the link at the bottom. Article sites invariably include your link at the bottom of the page, so you have to make sure that the content is well written and informative, enticing the reader down to the final paragraph and the all-important link.

Online File Sharing and the Work from Home Opportunity

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 11:15:16 +0000

Around the globe, businesses are changing the way they work, taking advantage of the new opportunities presented by the internet. Gridlocks, congestion charges, and the lack of parking are forcing businesses to look at the traditional, centralised office model, and develop new, efficient ways of working. Forward thinking organisations are embracing the electronic age and encouraging staff to work at home, an opportunity underpinned by the increasing ease of online file sharing.

Using the Work from Home Opportunity to Beat Congestion

Many organisations have experimented with staggered working hours and flexitime, but these are not enough to tackle the exponential growth in traffic. Through no fault of their own, staff waste time stuck in traffic jams, the plague of the modern city. This reduces productivity and, ultimately, impacts upon the bottom line, reducing profits at a time when businesses are already beset by economic uncertainty and rising overheads.

Using online file sharing is the way to beat this problem, allowing employees to share files and work virtually. Staff can access files from anywhere, at any time, increasing productivity and avoid the countless hours stuck in heavy traffic. Ultimately, these extra hours eat into leisure time, reducing the amount of time that employees can spend with their family.

This is a powerful demotivator and soon leads to stress and strain upon relationships. Using online file sharing avoids this, and the work from home opportunity also saves money; avoiding daily expenses, fuel, parking fees and congestion charges frees up cash for more important things.

High Speed Online File Sharing and the Virtual Office

Low-cost, high-speed internet and cheap phone calls underpin the move towards virtual working, helped by the advent of high-speed online file hosting providers, such as Filedropper. These streamlined services allow employees to share files quickly and seamlessly, accessing information as easily as if it were stored on their own hard drive. The process is simple: Supervisors and managers simply upload files to a free file hosting account and share the link with employees, allowing them to download the information.

Online file sharing is more than a work from home opportunity, and organisations are unlocking the potential of online file storage as an easy way to communicate with employees working away from the office. A free online file storage host allows teams of sales reps to access information in real-time, from anywhere and at any time. Area managers can communicate with head office, and a cancelled flight, or missed train, does not lower productivity or breed frustration.

Staff can Benefit from this Work from Home Opportunity

The list of staff that can benefit from Online File Sharing and the Work from Home Opportunity is a long one. These employees do not need to make the long, daily commute, and can work from home in a virtual office. Both the business and the staff benefit, in a perfect example of a win/win situation. Some of the professionals that can benefit from this work from home opportunity are:

Virtual Secretaries
IT Software Support
Graphic Designers and Freelance Writer Editors
Sales Reps
Data Entry Clerks
Virtual Accounts Assistants
Customer Service Agents

Online File Sharing as the Backbone of the Work from Home Revolution

Online file sharing is set to become the foundation of the new working from home opportunity. The virtual office revolution will change the way that businesses operate, as visionary companies understand the benefits of this innovative approach. Rather than force staff to make the morale-sapping daily commute, increasing costs, destroying morale and reducing productivity, the work from home opportunity is a chance to embrace the future.

Online file sharing supports a genuine work from home opportunity, allowing businesses and staff to take back the workplace and embrace freedom.

Martyn is an experienced freelance article writer. Please contact me if you want to use my services as an article and blog writer.

Hire a Professional Writer – Writing Quality Web Content

Freelance Writer Editor, Martyn Shuttleworth — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 18:51:03 +0000

The False Economy of Cheap Website Content

Many businesses, keen to establish an internet presence, spend a lot of money on Search Engine Optimisation and marketing. Quite rightly, they assume that this will increase awareness and boost their site up the rankings. However, after spending large sums on marketing experts, they shop around in the bargain basement when it comes to generating web content. Rather than pay a professional freelance writer editor, they throw a couple of dollars to one of the freelance writing article mills, which churn out reams of regurgitated content.

This race to the bottom guarantees that all of their expenditure on marketing will be wasted, because Google algorithms are too smart to be fooled by article spinning and keyword stuffing. As their site sinks into the depths of the internet, they give up, or decide that generating business online is a waste of time. If they had invested a little money in hiring a professional writer for their websites, they could have avoided this fate.

A Professional Writer Underpins Marketing Success

If these businesses had spent a little time trying to understand the science of internet marketing, they would have finished the job, by using a professional writer to lay the foundations of their marketing drive. A website is no different from a ‘bricks and mortar’ business, and aggressive marketing is no substitute for core values, built upon developing customer service and marketing the business as quality, not cheap.

Imagine a store where the staff spend their time ignoring queues, insulting customers, and know nothing about the products. This sounds simple, but so many website owners do exactly this, when they insult their customers by using poorly written, rambling web content, instead of professionally written articles and blogs .

A Freelance Writer Editor Writes Web Content that Informs and Engages

Hiring an amateur and inexperienced writer to create poorly worded content, riddled with basic errors, is guaranteed to drive customers away. The words on your website are your only interface with your customers and you only have a few seconds to project a professional image. By assuming that your customers are stupid, you lose the sale and they will never return. The basic concept of marketing is no different on the internet than when merchants plied their trade along the Silk Route:

“Identify a Problem: Provide a Solution.”

This is a simple idea, but it is so easily forgotten amongst the jargon of SEO and the plethora of spun articles and sea of pointless words. Customers want to find information, without wasting time reading irrelevance and tired sales copy, containing the mandatory red fonts, endless exclamation marks and absolutely nothing of substance. They want carefully crafted web copy, drafted by a professional writer, which informs and gently entices.

A Professional Writer – A Sculptor of Words

Hiring a professional writer creates an interface built upon mutual respect, building trust between a business and its clients. A freelance writer editor sees words as more than blunt tools for communication and, instead, shapes them into emotive sentences and flowing language. To a professional writer, words are raw clay, to be shaped into objects of beauty.

A freelance writer editor will write concisely and clearly, using subtle layers of language to appeal to the emotions. A writer will guide the customer, rather than using blunt language and including countless ‘Buy it Now’ buttons. The days of hard sell are long gone, and internet savvy consumers hit the back button when confronted with aggressive copy, mentally associating it with spam.

Experiment Resources – A Case Study in Professional Writing

One example of quality winning over quantity is the scientific resource site, Experiment Resources, a highly regarded authority site, with a Google Page Rank of 5. This leading site is regularly cited in journals, texts, lecture halls and classrooms around the world. The owner of the site decided that he was tired of the poor quality online articles on the internet, and set about developing a high quality scientific resource site.

He employed a professional writer, with a background in science, to develop informative content around strong keywords. With this alliance of sound Search Engine Optimisation and high quality web content, Experiment Resources slugs it out at the top of the search engine rankings, taking on websites with huge budgets. The visionary entrepreneur now receives a steady stream of e-mails asking for permission to cite the work in course notes and academic papers.

The site owner is working with his writer to develop a series of books, and the Experiment Resources brand continues to grow, an example of how employing a professional writer attracts success.

A Professional Writer is an Investment, not an Overhead

Scraping around in the basement and looking for cheap, rather than good value, is why many internet businesses fail. Businesses are increasingly seeing professional writers as an investment, not an overhead, and are waking up to the new paradigm of quality. Consumers want the type of rich content that only a freelance writer editor can provide, rather than the meaningless drivel available on the various article directories. A professional writer will save you money and attract success and give you the opportunity to gain an advantage over the competition.

Instead of presenting customers with poorly constructed web content, guaranteed to drive them away, you can use a professional writer to draw them in and entice them to buy.

Professional Writer Links

My personal website can be found at: Freelance Writer Editor

An example of my work at Experiment Resources: Islamic Scholars and Biology

In my spare time, I write at Dropout Nation: Conviviality – Starving the Ravenous Beast

Experiment Resources Cited on Wikipedia: Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc

Citation at the University of Jyväskylä: Case Study Research Design

Citation at The San Ramon Valley High School: www.grochbiology.org/Statistics.ppt

Citation at the University of Hawaii: www.hawaii.edu/lis/content/syllabi/684_harada_f09.pdf

Story in the RSPCA Newsletter: RSPCA