We’re the lucky ones, we writers.

We get to practice our craft and get paid for it. While most of us may never actually achieve perfection, the cumulative effect, hopefully, is a portfolio of decent writing.

Some writing is great, some is average, and over time you raise your own bar. As with all work, the longer you stay with it and the more consistent your habits, the higher the overall quality of your writing.

However, a few troubling trends are sneaking around. I’m afraid they’re pulling some excellent writers off course, and diluting their ability both to improve their skills and to earn a good income working from home.

I know, because they’ve taken their toll on me, too. That’s why I’m warning you now…

But first; the good news. A great foundation for building a business of any kind also applies to a freelance writing business. Follow this simple writing law, and you’ll be rewarded with the potential to become a great writer.

If you learn from other writers, and collect advice about writing habits and practices, then you’ve already been exposed to a version of this: Focus on serving your audience, that one person who really needs to hear what you alone know THE MOST about.

That’s it… Focus on service.

Maybe you’re thinking right now, “But I don’t write for charities. I don’t write for nonprofits, or even for service companies. That’s okay. Stay with me, and you’ll see how this applies to you, too.

There are basically two kinds of web writers. Those who sell their writing to others (copywriting, ghost blogging, and content writing) and bloggers who make money from their blog through affiliates, advertising, and product sales. Many writers do some combination of both.

If you’re just starting out, maybe you’ve got some writing chops and you’re ready to start creating your own content, or do some writing for others and make money. Great! There’s a huge need for good web writing and people will pay you well if you’re reliable and solid.

Want to write well, and build a lucrative business writing from home? Begin with this mantra. Focus. Service. Focus. Service. (Tweet this.)

Focus on service and you’ll quickly begin to attract an audience, and a list of clients who need your skills.

How can writing embody service?

Service can take the form of an advice column, a how-to article, an entertaining diatribe, a descriptive feast for the senses, or a listicle. Service even has countless tones; it can be humorous, sincere, informative or confrontational. Service is in the eye of the beholder, which is why it pays to know your reader.

The service of writing takes many forms. It is akin to cooking, and just as quickly consumed. You create something, just as a chef cooks; and your client tries it, or gives it to her followers to taste. All you have to do is find the angle that works best for you, whether by subject, or style; for your own audience or another’s. Then you see if it’s palatable by how much interaction it brings.

Sounds easy enough, right? A good work ethic, discipline, and a commitment to write every day are great qualities of a writer. Heck, just sitting your butt in a chair and pressing your fingers against keyboard buttons is what separates most lucrative professional writers from their frustrated counterparts! But even if you have all that, I guarantee you’ll still confront these pitfalls in the business of writing.

TRAPS that keep you from “The Law of Focused Service”

Along the way, especially as I was building my writing business, I fell into the trap of forgetting this simple law. It’s very easy to do, in fact, because the writer’s mindset and lifestyle are so conducive to this weakness. Here’s how to anticipate the most common writing traps and avoid the mistakes I’ve made.

Since the two key components to the advice “Focus on service” are 1) Focus and 2) Service; it’s probably pretty obvious where it’s easy to fail.

Three Things That Kill Focused Service:

First, the easiest way to falter in blogging, or in finding the right customers for your writing services, is to envision too many readers or customers. Solve this by maintaining a clear picture of your audience.

1. Fuzzy or nonexistent audience ID kills your writing. (Tweet this.)

You’ve heard that before, haven’t you? Know your audience. Write to that person.

The inherent problem in this statement, however, is the very word “audience.” We’re imagining dozens, maybe hundreds and thousands of readers. We want a lot of people to read our writing, right? If your blog only has one reader, it’s not going to be a very successful undertaking, so we envision multitudes. And then we commit the first fatal mistake.

We confuse the number of clicks and shares we desire with the number of people we should be writing to.

The problem results in a profound lack of focus. In trying to please everyone, you interest no one.

It’s terribly distracting to crave, imagine, or wish for a huge following – a “readership” — while you’re writing to one person, isn’t it? The beautiful irony is this. Instead, make (virtual) eye contact with one guy. Lock in, pretend your answering a question that he asked and smother your desire to make your answer fit a slew of different points of view. If there’s more than one answer, you can always break your topic into small parts and address each part separately, in individual blog posts or videos. But for now, conquer the task at hand and answer that one question or address that one topic from that one person. Focus.

It’s not easy, but it’s a skill worth practicing. Once you get it, your voice comes more naturally, and your articles and posts will have that lean quality and structure readers can easily follow.

2. The fabulous lifestyle that can sabotage your writing…

Don’t you love it when people rave about working from a home office? Your freelance writing “lifestyle” is rife with distracting elements. The very reason you may have chosen this home business path is so you could attend to children, hobbies, a chaotic schedule, or a desire to squeeze every ounce of joy, productivity, and freedom out of your life. And still make money writing.

Unfortunately, you absolutely cannot develop good writing skills unless you just sit there and write. From most outside perspectives, that looks pretty boring. For the writer without a laser-focused attitude of service, it’s like writing at a three-ring circus. Even in relative quiet.

There’s always that temptation to stop, look up, look around for inspiration. And as soon as you do, there’s the leaky faucet; or your dog giving you “that look;” the plant that looks like it could use some water, the box of chocolates, email…

On top of that, there are the flat-out interruptions: The phone call from school, the UPS delivery, or a flash of lightning/power blip that occurs more often here on the outskirts of Austin that you’d ever believe. So what do you do while your computer is rebooting, or “as long as you’re up?” Check your phone, get a snack, take a shower… see, I fight this monster daily. You know you’re losing the battle when you start writing about your distractions…

But I was talking about focused writing, wasn’t I? Well, you already know it’s not so easy to refocus after you’ve lost it.

Whenever I need encouragement and tips for blocking out distractions, I look to the master of web writing focus and productivity, Daphne Gray-Grant, or I slip into a cocoon of white noise with an app like My Noise.net. I like the brown noise. It really does help.

3. “Maybe I’ll just write another blog post about me today.”

Another significant pitfall I see among bloggers and other writers seeking work is confusion about content that actually serves a purpose. You see a lot of motivational hooey these days, mixed in with some really good motivational business blogs. Some business websites lean so heavily on inspirational content that you’d think that all it takes to be an entrepreneur these days is to find yourself, become self-aware, and live your bliss. You’re also taught that as long as you’re “passionate” about your topic, you’ll find a loyal audience hungry for your content.

While this may be true for a finely carve-out niche or a celeb with the cult of personality, don’t make the mistake of thinking that all your many splendored interests will translate into a great blog or a large, engaged target audience.

Your content must have value.

Writers are often good at extracting information from piles of interesting sources. (Interesting to the writer, at least.) In fact, that’s one of the reasons we are writers – we’re just so ridiculously captivated by all sorts of details, ideas and concepts that must be put on paper and shared! But an active mind and a relentless curiosity can be the tyrant that sucks your productivity, your effectiveness, and eventually, your business.

Even if you hustle like Gary Vaynerchuck, you still have to identify that one specific thing you serve up daily, tirelessly, and relentlessly to your followers. What this doesn’t mean is lumping all your interests online as if you were the web’s expert on them all – PIYO, raising chickens, juicing, and reading mysteries – and expect a groundswell of interest in your writing (or writing services). It doesn’t work exactly like that. (Oh, how I wish it were true.)

While your trip to the cactus nursery may be the notable high point of your weekend, and a privileged peek into the less dominant facets of your life besides your business writing; too much social sharing and blogging about your hobbies, social life, or your cat’s most recent accomplishment detracts from your most important task – that thing you’re known for – your writing or blogging.

Focused service requires editing, both on paper and in your content. Even if you DO have more time to play than your friends with regular jobs (shh), focus your play in areas that energize your writing and share that with your audience.

The best writing gig in the whole world

You know what’s really cool, though? It’s when you can write about what you like to do, whether that’s social media, raising thoroughbred bloodhounds, or parasailing; and get paid to write about those activities. That way, the ruthless editing is confined to your articles and not your lifestyle. You simply live full out, and describe your experience to your waiting fans.

It can be done, especially now that there’s a targeted niche just waiting to be created every living day. The secret to focused service is delivering value within a solid, entertaining and clear writing style, in a focused, consistent manner.

Heart in web photo by Neal Fowler on flickr

What are your greatest challenges working from home? I’d love to know. I’m checking in with my readers and favorite freelancers for some input on that. If you have a moment (actually about 2 minutes) to answer a few questions, please click here. I’d love to connect. Hey, thanks in advance!

A little fun in the field this week. I’ve been playing with an ad campaign for a squeeze page and thought I’d share what I’m doing. A friend and client asked for help on an ad to place in a large national website’s “classified ads” page. Here’s how we’re breaking it down.

Before you write the ad, you need the squeeze page the ad will lead to. A squeeze page is a page made for the purpose of collecting email addresses. In a pure squeeze page you don’t have any other way out (except for the web form where the reader opts in to a list, or the back button in the browser. So the viewer is literally “squeezed” into making a decision. Yes: opt in, or No: close the window or go back where they came from.

I usually write either of two kinds of squeeze page (if possible, I like to test both):

1. Content-rich, written with an open loop.

2. Copy-intense: more persuasive, direct response style writing.

In the first case, I write content, an article on a subject that will make the reader want to learn more.

You can do the same thing by writing an article or making a video explaining something of interest or solving an immediate problem for the reader. But you must keep an open loop. You mustn’t exhaust the subject. That’s very important. You always have to leave something out, something important but that you obviously didn’t get around to talking about. It’s the next part of the subject that needs to be discussed. Maybe you only provide a partial list of possible solutions and then you ask the reader to opt in for a free report that covers the rest of them. For example, “How to command your audience’s attention within 10 seconds of your speech.” Once you tell how, then you offer to show them how to keep their audience’s attention through the rest of the talk. Your reader sees you as an expert on the subject and will (hopefully) opt in to get the rest of your speaking tips.

Another way to use content is to lead the reader to another problem. For instance, now that you have this short term problem taken care of, you’re going to run into this other issue very soon. Again, you are telling your reader, “We’re not quite finished with this. I’d love to tell you more, but this article is getting a little long. Opt in for the rest of the story.” For example, the content of the article could be on finding a good physical therapist who can work with your arthritis. But now you’e going to need to find a way to fit the PT into your schedule. So the free opt in might be “How to fit PT into your work schedule and still stay productive” or “How to warm your boss to the idea you’re taking time off work to go to physical therapy.”

Still another way to use content on a squeeze page would be to cover one subject and then tell the reader there are other complementary topics she might enjoy. Let’s say your article is on “The ten steps leading to a great webinar.” At the end of the article, you would add, “If you enjoyed this article, get “Ten resources for webinar success,” or “Get 30% more leads from your webinar.” Based on the knowledge you just shared about the prep-work for a webinar — hinting at all the benefits of hold a successful one — your reader would opt in for more information from you on the subject.

There are so many ways to use content creatively to entice interest and build your list. You can probably think of many more, once you get started applying these ideas to your own industry.

The second way to encourage someone to opt in is more of a copywriting, direct response-style option.

In this case, you’d include copywriting elements that encourage the reader to take action using testimonials, social proof, security, survival, authority, scarcity, or any of the other powerful influencers on human psyche.

This style works best with a strong voice of authority, or a personal story the author tells about his or her own offer. You can cover a lot of ground this way, and really bring the reader into your mission, your community or tribe. Information providers apply this style of copywriting well because through it, they can be warmly and personally persuasive.

You can write a longer page, or, using bullet points and a short summary of the benefits, keep the page clean and clutter-free. Either style results in the invitation to download or register for the free gift, your opt in offer.

Now for the ad directing the reader to the squeeze page:

The next step is to create a short ad leading someone to the page. For an average PPC ad, let’s just assume you are limited to about the length of a tweet, 140 characters, give or take. A typical Classified ad, Facebook ad, Google Ad or Tweet all have about the same restrictions.

For the first, content-heavy article style of squeeze page, it works best to describe the content of the squeeze page directly.

The opt in at the end actually comes as a surprise benefit of reading the article all the way through. Your reader isn’t really surprised, but if the content is good, entertaining, relevant, and helpful, the reader will probably play along and opt in. This is why it’s important to include compelling content writing with some flair and promise…not just some soulless, dry article. You are laying the groundwork for a small decision to be made. People don’t say “yes or no” to a faceless, boring string of words. People say it to a person, and they say it to themselves. Make sure your content is infused with personality.

So let’s use the example of the webinar: If the article in the content rich squeeze page was “The ten steps leading to a great webinar,” you would reveal the outcome of the squeeze page. “Planning your best webinar yet: how to prepare an event that goes without a hitch.” Or something like “What do all good webinars have in common? What the Pros know about planning for the big event.” Or simply, “Ten steps for hosting your own lead-generating, profitable webinar.”

In the case of the direct response style squeeze page, where the opt in is the actually to download the free report “The ten steps leading to a great webinar,” you would go a different route.

In this case, the opt in is the content. It is the promise you are asking the reader to trust you to provide, if they give you their email address. So you need to go at this from a different angle. Your ad should not promise the “ten steps” directly, but point the reader to an honest discussion about the benefits of holding webinars in general. Like “Why you need to plan a webinar that rocks their client’s world,” “The benefits of an awesome webinar” or “How lead-generating webinars help your grow your network and boost your industry clout.” Then when your reader clicks on the ad and arrives on the page, your copy does the rest. The only obvious action is to find out how to hold a great webinar yourself.

Breaking down the ad and the squeeze page into a natural sequence of events will improve the chance that your reader will opt in. If you’re not sure if that connection is naturally received by a reader, please get an unbiased friend or colleague to walk through the sequence and give you their opinion.

Of course I’m happy to have a look, too. Fresh eyes on your content and copy will help you hone your message and touch the hearts of your best future clients.