I’ve been very blessed with good writing skills and have enjoyed writing all of my life. I rarely build myself up at all and have a hard time believing that I’m good at “much” but I know writing is one of them (and being a mommy 
I’ve never had a client say that they weren’t happy with my work. My biggest problem has been meeting deadlines (which I am finding more and more difficult as my son becomes more active 
Today I found out that one of my clients thought that my writing was “fluff.” Part of my problem with keyword articles is that they tend to come across that way to me as well. A lot of the keywords are ones that are very similar so I have to try and find a way to spin it into a different article (like, the difference between dogs and dog…)
I was thinking all along that I was doing a good job of beating the keyword article fluff, when I ran across a forum post by a former client. It basically said that this person had hired someone to write their articles and the articles were well written but said the same thing over and over. I had a sneaking suspicion that they were referring to me, though I didn’t think I’d ever written anything like that.
I contacted this person and it turns out that it WAS me. I was devestated to learn that they thought this and hadn’t told me. So I feverishly went through my files and dug up those articles. I am either crazy or oblivious but I don’t see a single thing wrong with them. They were researched as well as could be for the very small amount of money paid for them, written in a flowing manner, and the only repetition was done between certain keywords that were far too similar to do anything else with.
This truly baffles me. I had offered to re-write these articles not wanting to tarnish my good name, but I honestly don’t know what I would do differently. They are not going to win any literary awards, but they are quite good keyword articles.
As my husband says, not everyone is going to like everything I do. I guess I was living in a dream world. Have you other writers had someone dislike your work?
Tags: clients freelancing · freelance writing clients · ghostwriting troubles · writing trouble2 Comments
2 responses so far ↓
Hi Jenn,
This is just an off-the-cuff opinion, but it seems to me that when you write for “keywords”, you get stuff that “keywords” like.
While it’s difficult for somebody like you who writes for a living, writing for human consumption and writing for “keywords” are two different things, and if you ask me, people who want a certain keyword density or x% of a certain keyword in the article need to realize that they have just given you an extremely inflexible framework upon which you have to write.
Your hands are tied, and while it’s not my place to tell people their opinions(!), they should realize the constraints they placed on you when they hired you for the project — and be happy that you can even generate something that makes sense when read.
And keep plugging away; eventually you’ll learn even more ways to make these “constricted” writing assignments even better.
Best regards,
Tom
Hi Tom,
I truly believe that as the search engines become more intelligent they will prefer articles “written for humans” as well.
Thank you so much for your response and I totally agree. I really dislike writing keyword articles, but as they are my bread and butter I do it
As for this batch of articles, the subject matter was extremely constricting and there just wasn’t a whole lot of information on it. so, I visited various company websites etc. to do the research, and spent more time than I even should have.
It is interesting to see how different clients want the articles framed, and I’m finding that the more freedom I am given, the better the articles are.
I have one client who gives me article titles and just lets me loose…no keywords mentioned. I adore those articles and they read quite well on his webpage.
Anyway, I think I’m rambling on a bit and have to go write some more articles (thankfully these are without keyword restrictions
Thank you for your post Tom, that did make me feel better!
~
Jenn