This is the last episode from the FCDC content writing cohort, and in this episode, Tara Struyk does a brief review of all the previous sessions held during the course of the cohort.
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Name: Tara Struyk
What Tara Does: VP of Content at Janalta
Company: Janalta
Noteworthy: Tara is a writer and editor with several years of experience in online media. She specializes in writing about personal finance, real estate, and health and wellness.
Connect with Tara;
Investing in Reading and Skill Improvement
Tara talks about the importance of investing time in reading and skill improvement. She suggests committing to a regular reading schedule and immersing oneself in content from writers and publications one admires.
By regularly reading and analyzing content, individuals can enhance their writing skills and gain insights into effective writing techniques.
Components of High-Impact Content
Tara outlines key components of high-impact content, including a compelling introduction, understanding the audience’s needs and intent, establishing authority through credible sources, providing uniquely useful content, and fostering audience engagement.
She stresses the importance of these elements in creating content that stands out and resonates with the audience.
The Importance of Content Briefs and Outlines
Tara highlights the value of content briefs and outlines in guiding the writing process. She suggests that thorough understanding and planning through content briefs can streamline writing, clarify objectives, and ensure alignment with the target audience and goals.
By utilizing templates or programs to create content briefs, writers can enhance the clarity, efficiency, and overall quality of their content.
Approach to Keyword Research
Tara discusses a strategic approach to keyword research, showing the importance of understanding topics comprehensively rather than merely identifying keywords.
She likens keyword research to detective work, where writers seek to understand search intent, identify common themes in search results, and uncover gaps in existing content.
Tara Struyk 0:05
So I’m just going to kind of review the previous, some of the previous classes. And then if you have any last questions on any of the material or anything else, and then there were a couple of questions that people had asked me, so I stuck those on to the end, so we can kind of discuss those.
So there we go. So week one, we did the reading list, kind of kicked off with that as a key thing that I think everybody should invest in, just invest in improving your knowledge and your skill at reading other writers, and just noticing things. So I recommend gathering your reading every week, and specifically committing a time and date to read every week.
So like, put it in your calendar, it’s just like, you know, a doctor’s appointment or whatever, like, it’s, it’s an appointment with yourself to, to read that content, especially online, things are changing so quickly now, like every week, it’s really important to stay on top of that, and, and have a good understanding of of what’s happening.
And then just to read other writers that you admire that you want to be like that right for the publications that you want to write for, just reading that and being regularly immersed in, that will help make you a better writer and help you really start to notice the things that they’re doing that make them good writers. So definitely recommend, I hope you’ve all been doing that.
And I definitely recommend continuing to do that, you know, forever. So pick your pick your people pick, pick your publications, make sure you line up an hour of material for yourself every week, and then sit down and and read that material once a week are really good practice to have, I think in any career, but especially online, where things are just always moving.
Week two, we talked about high impact content. So if you remember, all of these components have like awesome content and kind of went through all of these. So the whole thing like the whole article, white paper, whatever, it’s obviously the whole thing is important. But these are kind of the areas where you want to have or you want to focus some extra attention and really think about them to make that content stand out.
So you need that killer introduction nice and concisely written, explains what you’re going to talk about brings people in, hopefully encourages them to read that content, because they understand what they’re going to get out of it. And they can see that you’re an engaging writer, and you’re going to be able to, you know, bring them along and make that interesting to read.
You need to know your audience and what they want. So that’s kind of where that research comes in that keyword research your content brief. Just understanding who they are, why they would read this, what you can give them will help you nail down exactly what you should be talking about and how you need to know their intent.
So that’s kind of related, but what they want, why they’re I mean, if we’re creating content for search, especially why they’re searching this or, or just why they’re there on the website that you’re writing for, and what what they what you want to provide in that content, what they want to achieve. Your content needs to have authority. So why should the reader trust you?
Is it because you’re an expert is it because you’ve talked to a lot of experts, you need to make that clear. And I always recommend citing sources as well. So high quality sources. And speaking to sources, we talked about that a lot. But really, unless you are a very high level expert yourself, you need that. And even if you are, those people are referring to case studies and research and things as well.
So everybody kind of needs that backup, and that sort of justification for what they’re writing about. And your content needs to be useful. So it needs to go beyond words and fluff and be uniquely useful. And then finally, if you can, you need to connect with your audience. So this is going to be a lot easier if you’ve done your research, you understand who they are, what their pain points are, what the point of your content is, but you want to kind of keep these things in mind to to create the best content possible.
In week three, we talked about content briefs and outlines. So here’s kind of the brief we used this template or some other one like it, it should be your best friend. I know people are kind of like and you know fill it out because they have to but you really need to think about this as the most important step.
Because again, if you if you don’t under standees things if you don’t understand why you’re writing this, what you’re trying to do, what your unique angle is, what your position is, compared to other people who are competing for that keyword, you’re probably not going to be writing in the right direction. So this is really where you should spend a lot of your time.
And it should make writing a lot easier, because now you know exactly where you’re going, right? Otherwise, you’re kind of making it up as you go. And that’s when you really get stuck sitting there for a long time is when you’re not sure what to write about next, really all that work should be done in advance.
And then it’ll also give you all the clues you need to write all that metadata that’s optimised for search. So it’ll just make the whole process a lot easier, a lot more clear. It’ll make your content better. So whether use this brief or some other template or a programme, that helps you, you definitely don’t want to skip this step. Week four, we talked about keyword research.
So digging a bit more, digging down a little bit more into that brief and in that, that outline. But I think the important thing to remember about this is keyword research is not just about, you know, going through the motions, pulling out the keywords, it’s really should be a bit of an exploration. The point is not really to find keywords, it’s to understand that topic.
So I like to think of it as or understand that search, I like to think of it a bit as like being a detective, you’re going to find how all these parts fit together. What people are searching and why they’re searching. What do the results have in common? And what are they missing?
It’s it’s you trying to find your position in that in that topic, and trying to understand how you can deliver something of quality. And there are clues everywhere, right? You can find clues in the search results in the keyword tool of your choice like SEMrush, AHrefs, you can find it in search features, like people also ask FAQs and related searches.
And you can even find information in you know, forums, things like Reddit, so you’re just really trying to understand what do people want to know about this topic? And how can I do a better job than some of the content that’s out there? How can I provide something more useful? So that’s really the point.
And I think, if you think about it that way, too, it makes it a little more interesting, yes, you’re looking at this giant long list of keywords can be a bit overwhelming. But that’s really what you’re trying to do in that. Exercise. Week five, we talked about content frameworks, so introduction types, post types, conclusion types. The point of it is really just to be aware of them, watch for them when you’re doing your reading and other people’s work.
Review them and consider it sit or them when it’s time for you to write something, there’s more effective ways to prevent to present certain kinds of content. And so these can help you find the most effective way to say what you want to say. And again, reading other people and kind of looking for those recognising those will help you see ways to use those more effectively.
So definitely recommend reviewing those at some point, maybe testing them out in your own writing and kind of see how you how you like it, how that goes. Week Six, we talked about on page SEO, there’s three kinds of SEO on page off page and technical.
The one that you’re really going to be able to control is on page, most of that is in the writer and editors hands. So you can use your content brief to figure out what keywords you’re targeting. Throughout your piece, use a few keyword variations. And then you know you want that target keyword to appear in your title meta description.
And if you had headings, so you want to understand what that keyword is, you want to be able to do that thoughtfully. And you want to do it in a way that is reader-friendly. So, you know, I think everyone knows putting your keyword in a million times is annoying and not helpful. So you want to kind of give Google those clues but still be reader-friendly.
And honestly, like using it mindfully helps the reader as well, right? Because they’re skimming, they want to know what this content is about. And if they have searched this keyword seeing it there, kind of tells them they’re in the right place. So look at it from the readers perspective, consider some of the guidelines around on page SEO in terms of Google and trying to kind of put those together in a way that makes sense and is readable.
Tara Struyk 10:06
week seven, I went through the slides and realised I just skipped over week seven and went straight to week eight. So I guess, my, hopefully my writing and editing skills are better than my counting. But anyways, we we went straight to the gate, I don’t think FCDC has gotten that far.
But I guess they’ll fudge that over in the presentation of the slides. So under week eight, we talked about finding and using sources. So I would say this is one of the most important weeks we covered. And it’s also an area where I think most writers in general could improve.
And the list on the slide comes from Google details how quality, Google’s quality raters should assess content quality. So we can kind of surmise that this is also how Google is aiming to gauge content quality. Are you providing original information reporting, research analysis?
Are you providing substantial value? Does your content meet that mark, and I think this is becoming even more important, because some of these things are things that AI can’t do, right. And now, as writers, we may be competing against content that is written by AI.
So we want to reach out and make those personal connections, get sources in our stories, do original analysis, the days of sort of rewriting other people’s content, in our own words are definitely over was never really a great strategy to begin with. But that’s going to pay off sort of less and less, if at all. So really, I think everybody can work on that or work towards that.
There are tools like harrow as I mentioned. But there’s also just meeting people connecting with people, keeping a list of sources. So that’s something that you can build over time, as well, so that you’re able to reach out to people and get their input and opinion on your content.
So super important. week nine, we talked about improving your work. So you want to kind of read like an editor editors like clean copy. So you can be your own editor. First. You want word choice, that’s clear, simple and powerful. You want to look at the reading level or readability. And these are some of the tools that we talked about using for that, you want to use transitions, like the bucket brigade to kind of bring people along, right, they’re gonna hit the content at the top of the page, we want to keep them reading down as far as possible.
You want to use examples. That’s one of the ways that helps people trust you, as well as when you have really clear and thoughtful examples. People just understand examples better. So it helps. And then you want to have sources. So again, super important to make that whole thing come together.
Week 10, we talked about internal linking, this is the kind of linking you’ll have the most control over as a writer, editor, certainly on your own website and have total control. So that’s helpful. We kind of talked about the page on the left versus the page on the right.
One of them is easier to find both by people and Google. And then it also visit that page with more inbound links is, is also position as part of a larger resource, which can help improve the performance of that page. And there’s definitely data case studies to back that up. More internal linking is good, as long as it’s relevant.
So I would say link free frequently and thoughtfully. And if you’re doing it as an editor, Content Manager on your own site, have a bit of a process around that to ensure that that happens on every page, because what you don’t want is to have a new page, create a new piece of content and just have it floating there. on its own. It really limits that contents performance.
So keeping it LinkedIn to other content is really important. Week 12. Ai, ai and content. So we had a good discussion about that. I think the key things to remember are AI is already writing content. It’s here it’s writing, it’s definitely here to stay and will likely improve will definitely improve over time. So stay on top of those developments.
And I think reading can really help with that there are people doing some really interesting things with AI and content. So I would find some of them on LinkedIn Twitter, to kind of read about what they’re doing. So that to help you With your experimentation and sort of learning, and do experiment and learn, right, so try to use it in your content, see how it can help you because it’s definitely becoming, and will be a part of the content creation process.
But then also keep in mind the things that AI can’t do, and use those to your advantage, right? It can’t have experiences, it doesn’t have an opinion. It can’t interview sources. It’s not the best at creating something truly unique. It’s looking at what’s out there.
And it’s creating something from what exists, it can’t really move outside of that, right, we looked at that story, in futurism, about AI in Sports Illustrated about AI writing Sports Illustrated stories. I mean, that was just such a unique piece and sort of discovering something new. That’s a piece that AI couldn’t write. So as writers, we need to be looking for those opportunities to, to create something different.
Week 13 was around building your portfolio, building your portfolio. So I think the place to really start there. And in this example, I was saying, you know, if you’re an SEO writer, maybe your goal is to write for sem rush, right? That’s a really big name and the SEO or, you know, there’s a few sites like that, maybe you don’t have enough experience to to get that job.
So you want to kind of back out from that and look at other sites that would give you the, the clips for your portfolio to help you get to that job. So these are some of the ideas that I had for sort of finding those some organic competitors, sites that link to SEMrush. Other sites that are buying your brand keywords, other sites, sem rush authors write for.
And just try to get into that space, get some clips in that space. And, you know, just keep working towards improving your portfolio moving towards that goal. So that’s something that that takes time, but you can definitely work on it systematically, right? So you’ve got a list, maybe you’ve got, you know, SEMrush is like tier one, you’ve got tier two, tier three, can start at the bottom, and then just try to work your way up by continuing to wait for those publications.
Okay, so then I had a few questions. So I think, oh, good fills here. So this is Phil slide. I’ve had a few ways that I’ve gotten backlinks, I’m trying to think of some of the ones that are most useful for writers. I think the sort of easiest one is to cite sources and let them know when the content is published.
So if you can have a piece of content with a number of quality sources, and you keep that relationship, like you’ve talked to them, and you come back and say, here’s the link to my piece, thanks so much for, you know, helping me out.
Most of them will probably post it on social media, and there’s a good chance that they’ll link to it. You could certainly ask it or just say, you know, if you have a blog or something where you can link to this, that would really help me never hurts to ask, you have that relationship.
So that’s one way to to get a backlink if you are cited anywhere, so you could be a source for other people’s content. And you know, you you could sign up on harrow as well, if you have feel you have expertise in a certain area and answer some queries.
If you were cited, somewhere you can ask for a backlink. So that’s another way to to get one that again, like there’s some relationship building there, but it helps be linkable, so create content that’s really unique and useful.
That’s a really broad piece of advice, like what does that really mean, but I would recommend checking out some case studies of sites that have done that really successfully. Sites like HubSpot, Survey Monkey, I think monday.com. They’ve done things like templates, built a content marketing strategy around making content that’s really uniquely useful for something specific that people want to do.
And that tends to be really linkable. And you can kind of look at how other sites have done that. By looking at who’s linking to them. You can use SEMrush or Ahrefs or program like that to see what backlinks other sites are getting or even other bloggers and just have an understanding of where they’re getting their backlinks and how you might be able to do something similar. You can build and keep a list of journalists in your niche.
Tara Struyk 19:55
This one’s a little bit maybe more on the content marketing side but if you keep that list of journalists. So say you’re working in the tech space, you’ve you’re keeping a list of tech journalists, if you create something like an ultimate guide, and maybe an ultimate guide to using AI or understanding AI or whatever, if you create something that’s really great, you have that list of people who have the ability to create a link to create a link in their content, you can send it out and say, hey, hey, I created this I’ve made, this is something that you can use in your content.
I’ve done that successfully on bigger projects, like if we pulled all our users on a bigger site and gathered a bunch of data, we’re able to send that out to contacts and get them to write some stories around that, right. And then the last one, I kind of touched on it, but use a tool to see what backlinks are getting.
So that you can understand how you got them, and why people linked to that content that’ll help you hopefully replicate that in the future. And then the last slide I had here was from my goal on project management is my project management slide. There we go. So I got the opportunity to take an executive coaching class a couple of years ago, with a couple of coaches who work with managers and teams to help them work better and more effectively.
And the coaching went on for a year was like an hour, a week, every year. But it boiled down to a couple of really simple principles, and then just a lot of sort of reflection and education around them. And they’ve really, they drastically improved my work and ability to deliver good work.
And it sounds really simple, but it’s actually a practice. So the first is to become accountable. So in project management, in any work that’s going to especially involve juggling a lot of things. And certainly, freelancing does, right? Because you’re not just sitting at your desk and kind of, you know, getting paid for that eight hours, you’ve got to really hustle to get that to get that work and like deliver it and the more you can deliver, the more money you can make.
So that’s project management and itself, right. But if you think about being accountable, imagine being on a team where every single person did exactly what they said they would do when they said they would, I mean, that would be a very effective team.
Essentially, anything you promise to do is kind of a matter of your integrity, right? And when you think of it that way, it’s actually really serious. You think like, I’m going to commit to delivering this article, you know, on Friday, that’s a matter of your integrity. And, you know, getting that done is about more than just saying yes. And it’s about more than, you know, I think the first step is people put that in their calendar, right?
You put it in your calendar, I’ve got this article due on Friday. But what do you do to ensure that really happens, right? Because life life happens, you have other commitments, you have other assignments, you have another job. And then you know, life always throws all kinds of other things in the mix to make things complicated. So yeah, I mean, you put the deadline in your calendar, but then you really need to block off time and get good at blocking off time for when am I going to work on this project?
Right? Is it going to take me two hours, three hours, four hours, I need to block that into the day, because otherwise what tends to happen is life happens, Friday comes close. And then we’re, you know, scrambling to do that. So I think learning to manage your time, like understanding, I’m going to need at least four hours for this assignment or five or six.
I’m going to block that in during the week. And I’m going to manage that with my other commitments. It also means if you are sort of committed to being a 100% accountable, and you know, no one can deliver 100% But that’s kind of like the goal what we aim for, is you need to be mindful of that time and how much you commit to right so if you are taking on 10 assignments, can you really actually deliver those good quality on time?
You know, we need to be really mindful. So sometimes that accountability in project management means prioritising saying no negotiating deadlines. And just being really mindful of what you can commit to. So that means looking at everything in your life right and what you have time for so if you start block blocking off, that time to work on things, it starts being a little bit easier. are like, it’s not just sort of a hope and a prayer that I’m going to get all this done this week, like, if I’m going to commit to this, I’m going to have those blocks of time to get that done.
I’m going to get it done. So I think that’s, that’s really key, just starting to think that way. It takes practice, to learn to do that to prioritise to even just, you know, you reflexively want to just accept that work, but just to say, Okay, I need to think about whether I can actually get this done, whether I can do a good job. If not, maybe I need to say, Can I have an extra week, maybe I just need to say no to the things that are on that list that are less important, less impactful on the career, pay low, or whatever it is, right, something has to give.
So I think that’s the biggest one. And then, you know, there’s, there’s some systems that you can build around that. So get a system for managing your time. Like a project management system, your calendar, I’ve used Meister tasks can be really good.
So having your tasks kind of lined up by deadline, and then and then kind of coordinating now with your calendar, blocking time off, this helps helps you understand what you have in the queue, what time you have, and then kind of plan out each day and week in terms of what you want to accomplish sort of the day before
. So usually, every day, I kind of look at what do I need to prioritise today, block out times to work on that. And then at the end of the day, kind of assess, what did I get done? What does tomorrow need to look like? Just being really mindful of how, how the how your time is organised.
I think that’s the biggest one. And we kind of talked about that too, on one side, but in freelancing, just being really accountable is something you have total control over, you might not have control over sort of everything else. But that that’s one thing that you can definitely have control over. And people appreciate it a lot, it has a huge impact on your ability to get more projects with that client, impress that client.
So just just doing that can go a long way. So I think that’s kind of step one, in project management is just one big aim to become 100% accountable, and then to build out the systems that you need to do that, and continue to assess, you know, that’s a work in progress. Like, you know, maybe this week you didn’t deliver as well as you wanted to what went wrong?
What do you need to do to do that? Really think about it as, as a matter of, of integrity. For me, that’s really helpful because I think everyone wants to have integrity, I want to have integrity. So when I’m, you know, thinking about these things, it’s like, okay, I want to be a person with integrity. What’s it going to take for me to to get this done?
Yeah, so that’s kind of my, my spiel on project management. That’s the last slide that I had. So if any, we can maybe take some questions and then look at some portfolios if you would like to do that. Does anyone have questions from the slides or just in general from other slides?
Whatever you like so we had Chidinma’s portfolio and we had Adanna’s wireframe for her website. I don’t think we have Chidinma in here. So uh, Donna, did you want us to take a look at your wireframe? Yeah.
Adanna Nnamani 28:56
Yes I do.
Tara Struyk 28:57
I see Nina. Yeah, Nina, if you wanted to put it into Slack, then we can have a look. I’m trying to open my slack but it won’t let me in here.
Catherine Gowon 29:14
Okay Should I send the link in the chat.
Tara Struyk 29:17
Yeah
Catherine Gowon 29:19
Okay let me do that
Catherine Gowon 29:20
Let me See if I could get into my slack
Nina Camara 29:23
Hey Tara Can I also send it into the general chat so everybody could?
Tara Struyk 29:29
Sure
Nina Camara 29:30
So everyone can See yeah? Thanks.
Tara Struyk 29:34
Let’s try and pull these other ones up. There we go. All right. So since Adanna was first we can maybe start with hers. So I will pull this one up. Did everybody have a chance to look at this? Okay. So we’ve got wireframe for Adanna’s portfolio.
We’ll hear any comments from anybody who had a look before I kind of make any suggestions on this link to is in in the FCDC chat in our Slack channel. Do you have any thoughts Adanna? Is there any areas where you think this needs more work
Adanna Nnamani 30:21
So personally no, I don’t have any. The only thing is that I’m still contemplating on my brand color, and stuff like that. But that’s not really important but so that’s basically where I am but for the blog section and everything I’ve like, gotten everything like lined up already.
Like, for example, normally a portfolio, they do have testimony and the rest of them. So since I will not be having those testimony, what I was planning to do was that I’m getting a piece of articles like SAAS articles ready, like making work for Saas companies, then I’ll publish it on medium, then link to it. That okay, this is the way I write and stuff like that.
Tara Struyk 31:12
Okay. Yeah. And I think like testimonials and stuff are important. If you can get even, you know, a friend or someone that you know, you can do some work for them, or just get something in there. I think that’s helpful. I know a lot of people starting out, like, if they have a contact, can I can I do something for you so that you can leave me a testimonial.
I think even if you have some work where you can show results, like someone that you’ve worked with, where you had a certain number of conversions, or you had a certain amount of traffic growth or something like that anything concrete that you can give that shows, because we can all say whatever we want about ourselves, right?
And what what people who are hiring want to see is what results have you had. So I think the biggest thing is you want to make this results focused. So any results you can, you can show in this as sort of proof that you know how to do these things will go a long way.
And obviously, as you build your portfolio, as you have more work to show, you can add that you can add that in. If you don’t have the testimonials yet, I definitely would just leave that out. But whatever you can, whatever you can find to sort of prove out your results, I think is helpful.
But I think overall, it’s pretty, it’s pretty solid, like I think you did a good job of, of being convincing of showing people what you’re able to do. And I really liked this section here where you kind of show the process like, this is what you’re going to do for people.
I think that’s helpful, because that’s what people cannot want to understand, especially maybe companies that don’t have this expertise in house, they want to understand what you’re going to do for them. I think you might want to be careful with some of these acronyms like CTA, again, people who are hiring, you may not have a content department or may not understand those.
So you want to kind of put into layman’s terms what you can do for people, right? And that’s kind of where you want your your focus is like what you can deliver, not sort of the process of what you’re going to do. Does that make sense?
Adanna Nnamani 33:49
Yes it does
Tara Struyk 33:54
does anybody else have comments on adanna’s? Portfolio? Or Adanna’s Website? Nobody? okay.
Nina Camara 34:04
I think it’s really well structured. And I liked that Adanna mentioned pain points and potential buyer
Tara Struyk 34:15
Yeah, I agree. And I think this year, I think was the pain points are some of the concerns, right? Solutions, especially if you can have some proof that you’ve done some of those things. I think that’ll go a long way to helping convince people that you’re the right person for the job.
All right, we will try. I see Chidinma’s in here now so we can have a look at this one. Okay. Is everybody seeing her cover letter? Yes. I thought this one was really good. Like I thought it was really well written and kind of pulled me along quite well.
So I thought you did a good job of that. sort of introducing yourself, what you’re going to do. For me, the part that I thought could be improved is this part at the bottom. It’s a little bit process oriented. So you’re going to create engaging content, ensure the main keywords, these are sort of the things you’re going to do. But I think you would benefit from being more focused on what you’re going to accomplish.
So sort of like through doing these things, what are you going to accomplish for that person who’s hiring you? So you’re not just creating engaging content, you’re, you know, driving results in some way. And if you can prove that all the better, but converting visitors to customers, like those kinds of action phrases that show the result, because that’s really what, what they care about.
I mean, I think the phrase is like, nobody wants to know how the sausage gets made. I mean, this stuff is sort of important for you, but it may not be important for the person hiring you what they want to know is that, that you get results. So I think you can almost rewrite all of these in a way that sort of flips it the other way, like, what is the result for the for the employer? Does anybody else have any comments for chidinma’s cover letter?
Nina Camara 36:26
I think the beginning is good. I think there’s a strong there. Mm hmm.
Tara Struyk 36:31
And has this work for you? You said that, Chidinma you said you’ve used this as it worked for you.
Chidinma Nnamani 36:36
Yeah I’ve used it to get 2 clients in the past.
Tara Struyk 36:42
And it helps it, it works for you to to get those clients. Yeah, yeah. So I think you know, you’re on the right track with it. I’d recommend those little tweaks to kind of improve the ending there and really show people what you can do. And again, if you have those results, from people that you’ve worked with, then you can put that in just like writing any other content that we talked about.
You want that evidence. So you’re saying you create content that converts? Do you have an article where you can? Or do you have something where you can actually prove it? That’s what that’s what people want to see. Right? We can say whatever we want, we want to kind of show that we mean what we say or what we say is true.
So that kind of definitely applies to your resume portfolio, as well, the more you can prove out that you’ve actually done these things, the better. See what else we’ve got in here Nina’s here. Oh, cool. Is this? Um, I haven’t seen this before. Is this like a portfolio? Website? Contra?
Nina Camara 37:55
Yeah. So it’s like a it’s a freelance marketplace. And you can also add your portfolio there, they have different templates, and looks quite neat.
Tara Struyk 38:04
Cool. Yeah, I, like it. Looks good.
Nina Camara 38:19
To me, I was wondering, you know, like, if it looks good, if I put like different types of content there so that, you know, it looks specific shows people like or what types of content I can deliver. But so, you know, there, if it is balanced enough, because I don’t want to be it just seemed like too much, you know,
Tara Struyk 38:38
yeah. Are you able to segment like the content that you show, so you can kind of show the niches that you specialise in?
Nina Camara 38:52
I don’t think that it works this way. So you can you can choose your skills there, rather than types of content. So what I did was to basically choose spaces which would demonstrate these skills and only to add to this section and continue showed it to me. Yeah,
Tara Struyk 39:14
yeah. Yeah, I think it makes sense. You could probably have more here because when I look at this, you have some different sort of content areas. So it’d be nice to better understand what your sort of areas of expertise or specialisation are.
And maybe some of your unique skills like I did, like how chinma kind of listed out some of the key things that you can accomplish for people. I think that’s always helpful. So I think you could probably make this a little bit more active in terms of like, these are the results that I can that I can deliver that would Be helpful, and maybe some of your areas of expertise or writing areas are kind of like the kind of work you’re looking for.
Because that’s not totally clear. To me looking at this, but those would kind of be my main comments around it, it’s nice to see are these links to like publish? Pieces? Yeah, that’s cool. I think also, like, these look like projects that I don’t fully understand what the projects are.
So like, whether they’re published writings, you might want to have a little kind of thing at the top, like explaining what this is and who you did it for, so that they can understand the context of this work a little bit better. But it definitely looks good.
And like looks professional, I think you probably just want to, you know, kind of explain to us a little bit better. What you did, and if there were any results, what the results were, because that’s the other thing that I’d probably want to know. Does anyone else have comments for Nina’s portfolio?
Adanna Nnamani 41:08
Personally I find the portfolio very attractive, like these segments, and the rest of them. But just like you said, like, going like seeing it for the first time. I’m like,a bit confused, for example. I think, if I felt like we should be specialised in something, because I like it, that way you can rent it.
The first three should be talking about one niche, the other side, should be talking about another niche and stuff like that. But apart from that, or you can even specify it also in the about section or something like that?
Tara Struyk 41:43
Yeah. I think just a little bit more information. Because, you know, I think for us when we’re creating our, our website’s portfolio, this all makes sense, right? Like, this is your work, but coming at it from an outside or not knowing just understanding better what it is who did it.
What there were there were any results and and then understanding you a bit better. So kind of getting into the outsider’s love, right, like, am I do I really understand what what your skills are? And what what I can expect from you. I think that could probably be communicated a little bit more clearly. But yeah, overall, I think it’s a good start. I haven’t seen this, but it’s, it’s cool. We’ll see if there’s anyone else.
Nina Camara 42:34
Thank you, everybody. It was really useful.
Tara Struyk 42:36
Yeah. Hopefully, that that helps. And we could definitely chat a little bit more about it. So I will take a look. By this weekend, and any assignments that got updated this week, and give you some final comments on those. Does anybody have any other questions?
Nina Camara 42:56
Yes. Sorry. Yeah. I mean,
Tara Struyk 42:58
yeah.
Nina Camara 42:58
In that portfolio and there was an article and I don’t know, like now we don’t have time. But please remind me to send the link on Slack. And then like, whenever you have free like to give some feedback on it, because basically, first time I’ve written this kind of piece for FinTech, so okay, I’m wondering,if it makes sense.
Tara Struyk 43:16
Yeah, sure. I mean, that’s definitely a big, that could be, like good niche to be in. That’s a big area. Now, and lots of opportunities there. So sounds interesting.
Tara Struyk 43:29
Yeah Thank you.
Tara Struyk 43:32
Any other questions? Yes. Itoro Michael. The articles, I’m going to get them all. venue that I haven’t provided comments on yet that I’ve that I’ve seen updated. I will look at them by the weekend. So I’ll provide final comments for everybody.
But I think everyone did a good job overall. always room for improvement. I think the big ones are the sourcing. And that one’s hard, right? Like it’s hard work. But yeah, that that’s probably the biggest one. And then the other one that I see the most is the introduction. Like, just really spend the time there to make that really engaging and readable and fun.
That’s another one where I think everyone could polish a bit more. But I’ll go and provide some more comments for everybody. So content over the next couple of days. That’s it. Everybody’s quiet. Okay. Yeah, well, I will say thanks again, to everybody for having me as a teacher. When I looked through all the slides, it was really cool to see everything we covered.
And it was good for me because I don’t, you know, necessarily reviewed all this stuff that often so it was it was an education for me to go back through some of these things and think about why I actually do them. Whether I’m doing it the right way, you know, do I need to rethink my process. So I think It’s been helpful. And I appreciate everybody’s time and attention.
Hopefully everybody’s enjoyed the class and learn some things. And, you know, we can keep in touch, feel free to add me on LinkedIn. That’s mostly where I’m active on social media. And I look forward to seeing what kind of projects you will all get in the future. So good luck to everybody. Good luck in your writing. And hopefully, you all have the success that you’re looking for.
Nina Camara 45:31
Thank you so much, Tara. I really appreciate
Nina Camara 45:34
Yeah, likewise, I really like like how detailed resources it was honestly, like, reminded me of my university days. And that’s been a while.
Tara Struyk 45:42
Thank you, everybody. Hopefully, we’ll stay in touch the videos will be there. I think you can review them. And I think there was some other good like the other teachers during this season had some really good courses too.
So you might want to check those out and get a bit deeper into the copywriting and the other one was content marketing. Learn more there, get a bit deeper. But yeah, continue in the FCDC community. I think it’s an awesome opportunity. And maybe we’ll all reconnect in the future.
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