AssociatedContent touts itself as “The People’s Media Company”. As such, a variety of writing levels and styles are published on AC, leaving Content Producers to sometimes wonder…Is quality important for submissions on AC?
The answer is yes. Quality matters. Quality writing matters more to some than others, but everyone benefits from quality, error free writing on AC. Granted, AssociatedContent is a generally lower paying market than other web content clients; this is a large part of why AC is a good place to start writing and why writers are not subject to the stringent submission guidelines of other freelance writing sites. Nevertheless, every writer on AC should strive for the best quality content they can put forward, free from typos, misspellings, and other blaring writing problems.
What can quality AC writing do for you?
Better Offers
For starters, better quality AssociatedContent writing nets better content offers. A minute spent on the forum will show that almost every writer here is trying to learn how to get better offers from Content Managers.
Start submitting informative articles that are readable and well-written. Strip away as many spelling mistakes and typos as possible. Your offers are sure to increase over the same article submitted without proofreading and editing, with little added effort.
Featured Content
In the recent past here on AC a writer complained in the comments section of another writer’s piece that her article was grossly overlooked by the AC powers that be, despite the fact that it was similar to other featured articles and offered useful information for Content Producers. A link was provided and several readers followed.
Upon reading the article, it was clear why the article was overlooked. There was, in fact, good information, but the article was not as well written as the articles that were featured. The content was choppy, contained typos and spelling errors, and was not a flowing read even though a concise web-format was technically followed. In short, the article was not quality. The same article with a little editing may very well have been featured AC content.
Professional Portfolio
When we joined AC, many of us did so because, as Administration said, AssociatedContent was a place where we could build an online portfolio as a reference and collection of writing samples. Even better- we could get paid to build our portfolio instead of posting hours of work for free just to get our names ‘out-there’.
Posting quality work on AC creates a quality, professional portfolio. To be viewed as a professional, readers need to see good quality, error-free submissions. Anything less and readers will take you for a hack. Potential clients will see you as one who churns out a multitude of copy without regard to editing. Unless they plan to devote large additional amounts of time editing your writing (unlikely), you will be passed over for someone who will submit content that is ready to go with little or no revision (note that revision is reserved for tweaking content-much less so for fixing careless mistakes). Your previous work, like you content writing gig for some hospitality jobs london area might also help.
To be taken seriously as a forward-thinking, ambitious writer, the references you cite and portfolio you submit must be as free from errors as can be.
Website Integrity
It is no secret to Content Producers visiting the forums that there are those individuals and websites that do not view AC submissions seriously. In large part, this is due to the fact that vast amounts of articles on AC are of low quality.
AssociatedContent is a community of writers. As such, the actions of a few can seriously impact the efforts of many. It behooves every single writer on AC to put their best efforts forth so that in turn the reputation of the website as a whole improves and thrives. AssociatedContent is only as good as it’s writers, but the converse is true to an extent as well. A money-making AC translates into a more stable and profitable website for all involved.
Maximize Your Effort
Effort spent writing and submitting to AC is done so for two reasons: money and fulfillment. It is only sensible to make the most of that effort, maximizing potential income and pride in a writing job well done. Hedge bets that yours will not be a low offer, confident that you put forth your best effort. Engage others in meaningful debate, placing focus on your strongly held belief, not on the glaring errors that allow readers to dismiss you. Make tutorials and instructional projects true references by checking that you have written and communicated clearly.
In short, don’t waste your own time; it and your product are too precious to squander. Improve your AC content, improve your writing overall, and improve AssociatedContent by submitting quality writing to AC.