Are you an aspiring content writer? Or, are you looking for surefire ways to improve your content writing skills?
Get inspired and learn some proven steps to kickstart your content writing career in this recap of Mamu Liberty’s one-on-one interview with Hazel Pan, a well-known branding content strategist, and copywriter.
Plus, get to know how she overcomes challenges, her writing process, and tips for newbies. Let’s get started.
How to kickstart your content writing career
1. Pursue your calling.
Hazel says that her love for writing is innate. She pursued her calling as a content writer amidst objections from her mom, who wanted her to become a doctor.
Early on in her college days in 2008, Hazel began her writing career as a content writer.
She recalls getting writing gigs as a working student. Her job at essays.ph served her purpose. It provided her extra income while allowing her to work online. During that time, working in a call center was the most common option. But with her sideline, studying remained her priority.
Most of all, her part-time job provided her rigorous training as she wrote articles on almost any topic that clients needed.
Over time, she proved that content writing pays off well, literally and figuratively.
2. Get a mentor.
Getting a new writing job led her to new opportunities, including having a mentor. Hazel adds that her “informal” mentor was a solopreneur who believed that Filipino writers deserve to get high compensation just like their foreign counterparts.
She did numerous collaborative stints with her mentor until she learned how to get direct clients herself. Her first full-time client hired her as a digital content manager.
3. Build relationships with your colleagues.
Getting more clients is a breeze for Hazel. Her secret? Former colleagues refer her to their respective clients. For example, an SEO specialist and a web developer give her constant referrals to clients who need her content writing expertise.
“Building good relationships with your colleagues leads to being top of their minds when a situation calls for it,” Hazel explains.
4. Always do your best.
“I give my best shot in anything I do. And by consistently doing it, I can ask for premium pay,” Hazel shares.
That’s one way of saying that doing excellent work is part of Hazel’s DNA.
Hurdling challenges
Was it always smooth-sailing for our featured writer? You guess it right! Hazel also experienced challenges in her career.
Wanting to give up
She admits that she felt like giving up as she left content writing for a while to do copywriting, which is more lucrative.
Such shift allowed her to write direct response emails and copy. With today’s trend in digital marketing, she says that both content writing and copywriting are equal in terms of the value they offer to clients.
Overcome writer’s block
Most writers experience getting stuck with writing. Hazel overcomes writer’s block in varied ways. 
She does more research on a specific topic, listens to related podcasts, watches YouTube videos to get a new perspective on the topic, asks her friends about it, walks around, washes the dishes, and plays with her child.
Make your research less time-consuming by niching down.
Niching down helps you to get focused and become an expert in a particular type of written content. It also makes you out from the crowd and be seen as a go-to person in that industry.
But, of course, you’re not discouraged from learning new niches which may come your way.
Writing process
Here are the steps in Hazels’ writing process.
- Immerse in the client’s writing style or preferred writing style and the client’s assets (website, previous content/videos/podcasts/interviews).
- Create an outline.
- Add placeholders.
- Conduct research.
- Write.
- Edit.
Content writing tips for newbies
Conquer your self-doubt. Between self-doubt and lack of skills, self-doubt is the bigger problem. You’re stuck if you lack confidence in yourself, in your abilities and actions.
Hazel shares these tips.
- Trust that you want the best for yourself.
- The stories that you tell yourself become your reality.
- Pursue something when you’re mentally and emotionally ready for it.
- Seek professional help, if needed.
- Have a growth-oriented attitude.
- Brush on your grammar and keep on improving your content writing skills.
- Know your nemesis and work on your common grammar errors, like the use of mind-boggling prepositions.
Writing competence and mastery are developed from long hours of learning through hard work, tenacity, and positive criticism.
As Nikita Gill puts it, “Growth is simply learning how to suffer gracefully, elegantly, constantly moving and traveling without letting your pain tear you apart.”
Surprise ending
Remember the short stories of William Sydney Porter, a.k.a. O. Henry? The interview ended with a surprise ending.
Hazel intends to join the Ben Button Writing Course when the next batch opens.
“I want to meet people. I miss having classmates who go out of their way in helping others. The current COVID-19 crisis saddens me; I only get the chance to talk with few people,” she intimates.
Check out the Ben Button Writing Course and discover how it can help you start your content writing.