Career Milestone Reflection: Share insights from writing 700+ articles

If I could go back in time to early 2016 when I was just starting out and only writing on a very part time basis, I don’t think I would ever think that it I’d be the author to hundreds of articles over the next decade.

And really, who could blame me? In my eyes, freelance writing was never going to be much more than just an occasional sort of thing, maybe enough to help with gas money or a way to finally get an emergency fund filled up.

But did it ever dawn on my that online writing is one of the most sought after digital skills in the world? No way. Of course, back then I had no idea how to structure an article for SEO, nor did I understand the power of a well-written blog.

What I learned over the past nine years is that the blog is still one of, if not the most important components of organic search and blog content that ranks will tend to rank for a long time. Once you get on the first page of the SERPs, you’ll stay there for a long time. And that is a powerful thing.

Of course, nine years ago I didn’t know what a SERP was or why it mattered. Nine years ago, ChatGPT and the thousands of offshoots were science fiction. Nine years ago, I thought that you just wrote a good article, used some keywords if the client gave you any, and hoped for the best. Okay, sometimes I still think it works like that.

More than anything else, over the past nine years and 700-ish published articles I have learned that consistency is more important than anything else. You will make mistakes and a lot of those articles you write will end up being duds. I have a couple of clients where more than 200 articles of mine have been published each, and most of them only get a few clicks a month. But one or two of them get hundreds of clicks every single month.

It doesn’t make the rest bad or less valuable; those are still important because they are being indexed and are building up your site’s credibility. It is truly a cumulative effect, and I can never figure out clients that hire me on to write one or two articles, take forever to edit and publish them, and then never call me back. And invariably, if I go check their SEO stats after we’ve gone our separate ways, the needle never moves.

But this doesn’t just apply to writing. If you go lift weights once a month, does the needle move? Of course not. You just get sore. If you try to learn a language and only practice once a week or month? Better stick to English. Musical instrument? If you want to be good, you better practice a couple hours a day.

You become a much better writer with practice, your website only grows with more content, and so on. Oh, and your freelance practice will only grow if you view it like a business and regularly do things to make it grow. So, my experience is that writing was just the vehicle that lead me freelancing; but the lessons learned are universal. Practice more, hone your craft more, do more. Take that and apply it over the next decade and see what happens.

Interested in working together? Check out my Upwork profile and send me an invitation!