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Working in an unconventional manner, like those who do freelance work, has many perks. But for those perks to be valuable to you, you must be aware of them and take advantage of them when they’re available. Taxes, for example, work differently when you don’t have an employer. When you work as a freelancer, or gig worker, you may not be aware of the tax advantages of being self-employed. Tax laws are complicated, and they vary from state to state, but when it comes to federal income taxes, you can write off some of your business expenses, which can be extremely helpful to your financial situation. 

Understanding tax write-offs

Gig workers are considered independent contractors, which means you have the option to write off many everyday expenses used while working. The key to doing it right is to keep records of these expenses. Expenses like cell phone bills, technology needed to complete your work, and paid-for apps that you regularly use during your workday can usually be written off. If you travel while working, you may be able to write off costs for car insurance and gas used. Take the time to consider what you utilize each day while working and keep records of the time used so you can accurately write off those expenses. 

Ask for help to prevent errors

Not everything can be considered a work-related tax write-off. If you’re unsure of what is considered a legitimate work expense, you may want to work with a tax professional. Otherwise, you could face an audit if the IRS thinks you’re trying to write off illegitimate expenses. Audits are time-consuming and stressful so it’s always a good idea to seek advice if you have a question about your taxes. 

When you’re self-employed and working freelance, you should always take advantage of the perks that are available to you. One of those perks is writing off your work expenses. Keep records of what you use when you’re working so you don’t have any issues if questions arise from the IRS. If you’re unsure of how best to take advantage of independent contractor tax write-offs, ask for help so you can make the right decisions that will best benefit your financial situation. 

No one is immune to making mistakes, whether it’s in a professional capacity or in your personal life. But work errors can cause issues, especially if you don’t learn from the mistakes you make. Copywriters must remember writing rules, work within client specific guidelines, and create content that reaches the target audience.  With so much to remember, copywriters do make some common mistakes. If you’re aware of these mistakes, you’re less likely to make them. 

Writing without purpose 

A good copywriter creates content where every word is meaningful. Adding fluff just to reach the required word count can cause clients to look elsewhere for their next task. Know your client’s goals and write in a way that helps them reach those goals. Understand your audience and write using words and phrases they can relate to.

Making it too complicated

Industry jargon and lofty language may not be understood by the average reader. This comes back to knowing your target audience and writing content they understand. Complicated words and phrases can turn off a reader, leading them elsewhere. When reading and editing your content, consider removing anything that sounds pretentious or too wordy. 

Not finding your niche

Copywriters often find the most success when they use their talents to write for a specific niche. When starting out, you may not yet know where your talents lie. But over time, you’ll likely discover which copywriting jobs you’re best at. This doesn’t mean you can learn to write other styles, but finding your niche may be the key to success.

Forgetting to sell the client’s product or service

Start with information to get the attention of the audience. It’s also important to provide details about the client’s product or service. But you can’t forget to actually sell the product. Whether your client wants a soft sell or hard sell, be sure to conclude your content with a line that will encourage the readers to act.

Copywriting is a popular marketing tool used by most industries. As a copywriter, you must learn to adapt, and this includes always improving your skills. Mistakes will happen, but if you’re aware of some of the most common copywriting mistakes, you can better yourself and find success in your field. 

As people spend more and more time online, careers and opportunities continue to become available for those who wish to work in the digital world. Digital marketing, for example, is gaining popularity with those who enjoy working with technology. While digital marketing uses many of the same principles as traditional marketing, those who work in the field can focus more on finding that online audience and reaching the target market in what would be non-traditional ways when compared to how marketing was done before the digital age. If you want to work in digital marketing, understanding more about the field can help you find success.

Digital marketing 101

Digital marketing, also called online marketing, means you’re using the internet and other types of technology to advertise. Many companies use both digital marketing and traditional marketing to reach their target audience. As a digital marketer, you may work on your client’s social media accounts, create online ads for websites, and craft ad campaigns for emails. Most companies are spending more money, and putting more effort into creating and maintaining their online image so potential customers can find them easily.

Finding success in digital marketing

Digital marketing involves using SEO, email marketing, pay-per-click advertising, and other methods to reach an audience. Understanding the ins and outs of social media is important if you want to work in digital marketing. If you can master these skills, you can likely find a career working in digital marketing.

SEO, or search engine optimization, involves using strategies that improve the ranking of your content when potential customers are using a search engine. Pay-per-click advertising means creating ads where payment is received with each click. These ads may be found on websites, in emails, or on social media. Email marketing involves sending regular emails to a list of potential customers to keep them informed of special deals or personalized offers. 

As more people continue to use social media daily and spend more time online in general, companies are increasing their efforts to maintain an online presence. With a career in digital marketing, you may have the chance to work in social media and create online ads and campaigns that help your clients sell their products or services. Online marketing is a good choice for those who enjoy working with technology and it’s a career that’s likely to continue to grow. 

Freelance writers face many challenges and as a copywriter, you likely realize that you have a lot of competition. Becoming a freelancer is quite easy and there are few barriers to prevent new writers from getting started. But actually finding success, and earning a reputation as a good writer requires much more work. To be successful in finding new clients to work with, and keeping the clients you have, you must learn how to set yourself apart from your competition. 

Know your strengths and use them to your advantage

To show clients why they should want to work with you, you must highlight your strengths and showcase why you’re a good copywriter. This may involve networking with potential new clients and sending your resume to anyone who might be interested. If you’re looking for new clients to work with, the competition can be fierce, so you need to make your name stand out against others.

Consider specializing in niche content

If you’re particularly knowledgeable about a certain subject, consider specializing in writing about that subject. Niche writers can be very successful if they are able to find clients that need that type of content. Even if you’re not already well-versed in creating niche content, do some research to learn about the latest copywriting trends and learn everything you can about those trends so you’re ready to write for clients who need that type of content. 

Copywriting is easy to get into, but it’s not easy to be successful. While there is plenty of competition in copywriting, not everyone can make it to the top. To be successful, you have to learn ways to make yourself stand out against the competition. Create a portfolio of your best work and promote yourself to gain visibility. Use your strengths to your advantage and consider specializing in niche content to make yourself appealing to clients. While it can take a lot of effort to make your name known amongst all the other copywriters, with some hard work, you can push yourself ahead of the competition to stay relevant, helping you retain clients and find new ones.

Copywriters are tasked with creating content that engages their audience. Whether it’s to promote an idea, sell a product, or perform some other tasks for their client, copywriters are successful when they can reach their target audience. But to reach that audience, you must know who they are. By understanding your target audience, you can be a more successful copywriter.

Who is your target audience?

As a copywriter, your target audience may change with each piece you write or if you’re a niche writer, your audience may always be the same. The key is for you to understand who you’re trying to reach. When working with clients, they may provide you with information on the demographics they are looking for in a customer. Sometimes, you may not have that information and may have to decide for yourself how to write content for the desired audience. 

Where does your target audience look for information?

Knowing your target audience is important, but you also need to know how they use media to find information. Depending on the demographics of your target market, you may need to adjust how you write content to make it suitable for the platform they use most often. Social media posts need to be succinct and eye-catching. While blog posts can be longer and contain more detailed information. Spend some time researching how your target audience responds to and interacts with media. Surveys and polls can be a great way to better understand your audience and to help you cater your writing to their reading style.

Copywriters can be excellent writers but without knowing how to reach their audience, those writing skills are useless. If you want to be a better copywriter, put some time into understanding your target audience. Know how they prefer to access information and create content based on your audience’s preferences. The goal of copywriting is to reach the market your client wants to sell or promote to, so your job as a copywriter is to understand the best way to reach that audience.

Many people deal with rejection in the workplace, especially when their job includes creativity. Writers can be particularly sensitive about rejection because when you write, it can make you feel vulnerable. However, all writers are likely to experience rejection at some point during their careers, and many will go through it more than once. Rejection can make you want to give up writing, but there are ways to deal with rejection that can prevent you from giving up on what you love.

Rejection helps you learn from your mistakes 

Being rejected can hurt your ego, but it also provides an opportunity for you to learn and grow as a writer. As a writer, you’re going to encounter people who just don’t like your work or who can give you a list of things you should change before they consider it good enough. Don’t take it personally because usually it’s not personal. When possible, ask your client what you could have done to make the work better, and if you still feel confused you can show the rejected work to a trusted colleague to get their advice. 

What to do when your work is rejected

Rejection may come in the form of a request for heavy edits to your work or an all-out refusal to use the content you provided. When this happens, it’s important to carefully consider if the rejection is warranted. On occasion, you may get criticized unfairly, but it’s usually best to take criticism and use it to advance your writing skills. Tips from others on how you can be a better writer are helpful, but not all advice is good advice, and you should always focus on constructive criticism. Take lightly those who criticize your work maliciously. In the end, it’s always a good idea to consult other writers you trust to see if the criticism is valid or if it’s just mean-spirited and made to bring you down.

Having your hard work rejected can make you feel like quitting. Writers can be particularly vulnerable to rejection because the creative process of writing means you’re putting a lot of yourself into your work. But rejection happens in every profession, and it can help you learn to be a better writer. Use constructive criticism to help you improve your skills and become better at your craft.

The rise of the use of artificial intelligence may mean that some people are going to lose their jobs. If an employer can use a robot to perform the same job without having to pay a salary, it seems that many will likely choose to do so. There are limitations to what artificial intelligence is capable of, and many of those relate to the creativity and adaptability of the human brain. While AI may be used to generate some written content, it’s highly unlikely to erase the need for human writers. 

AI can’t do it all

While it’s convenient and cheap to use artificial intelligence to perform many tasks, this type of technology is not ideal in every situation. Consider work that involves creativity, like writing, and how the human touch puts together words in a way that AI never could. While AI may be able to write any desired word count about any subject you can think of, the result may sound robotic and unnatural. People with experience in reading AI-generated content are already learning how to differentiate AI work from pieces written by humans. Spotting the differences is likely to be a valuable skill for those who prefer content written by human writers. 

Humans aren’t completely replaceable in the workforce

While artificial intelligence is being integrated into the workplace in many industries, it cannot completely replace the need for humans. Humans can reason and solve problems where a technological program cannot. In the writing world, humans create unique content based on their knowledge, skills, and life experience. When AI writes content, it’s based solely on programming and doesn’t offer the personal touch that a human writer has.

Understandably, writers and people in other professions are concerned about losing their jobs to artificial intelligence. While it’s happening already in some industries, it’s unlikely that artificial intelligence will completely erase human writers. For writers to stay relevant, the key will be to keep up with trends and to continue to improve their writing skills to show their value in creating content that is superior when compared to artificially generated content. 

Working from home is more common now than ever. Events in the past few years meant that a lot of people were forced to work remotely. Some companies realized that remote work saved them money on overhead and had other benefits for the company and the employees. Because of this, workers in some industries continue to work remotely and some will probably never be required to go back into the office. The concerns about employees working from home surround two main issues: efficiency and productivity. 

Can you be as productive at home? 

It’s easy to understand why you may not work as hard at home as you would in the office. You likely feel much more relaxed at home, and it can be harder to stay focused on your job. Plus, the social aspect of working around others often keeps people on task and allows for collaboration and for questions to be answered quickly when an issue arises. Working from home means you don’t have someone to keep you accountable in the same way you would in an office setting. For some people, this lack of accountability prevents them from working as efficiently.

Keeping work and home separated is important

Being home while you work can blur the lines between your professional life and your personal life. Learning to separate the two is key if you want to be productive while working at home. Getting distracted while you’re supposed to be working can significantly decrease your productivity. Many people who work remotely find it best to keep to a similar morning routine as if they were going into the office. This signifies when the workday starts and helps you acknowledge that it’s time to begin your day. 

Remote work isn’t for everyone

Working from home can feel isolating, especially for those who crave social interaction. Feeling lonely can keep you from getting as much done as you would when surrounded by coworkers. Plus, in the long term it could lead to more serious feelings of depression. Not everyone is cut out for remote work and many people prefer the social aspect of working amongst peers. 

Working from home has benefits, but it’s not ideal for everyone. Some people miss the opportunity to interact with coworkers during the day. Employers may worry that keeping employees at home decreases their productivity. This can be true, but some workers thrive while being at home in a familiar and comfortable environment. Employers may soon find that they must evaluate employees on a case-to-case basis to determine which employees are more productive when working from home and which do better on-site.