20+ Words Every Freelance Writer Should Know
In the writing game you’ll come across a lot of industry-specific words that may trip you up a little. Here are 20 words every freelance writer should know so a client or editor never leaves you confused with their lingo.
Pitch: A pitch is an email, letter or message that you send to a business or publication offering your services. When an editor says that they want you to pitch them an idea it means that they want you to outline an article idea and send it to them.
Bandwidth: You may have a client or editor ask you if you have the bandwidth to take on a project. It just means that they want to know if you have time in your schedule.
TK: This is an editing mark that means “to come.” Putting this in an article lets your editor know that you intend to add more to this section. Editors may also put TK in your article where they want you to add to a paragraph or expand on an idea.
SEO: Search Engine Optimization. It is the technique of creating an article that search engines will like and rank high in search results. Learn more about SEO here.
Keyword: Words in an article that lets a search engine know what the article is about. An important part of SEO.
Keyword phrase: Think about what you type in when you're searching for something online. That is called a keyword phrase.
Net earning: This is how much profit your freelance writing business (or any business) has made after expenses and taxes.
Gross earnings: This is the amount you earned before any deductions or taxes.
Fluff: Filler that needs to be cut from an article. It is extra words and sentences that are there to make the word count larger but doesn’t add anything to the article. Can also be used as another word for BS.
Headline: The title of a peice. Many clients will have certain length requirements and capitalization requirements for headlines, so be sure to ask.
Queue: Often a list of articles that writers can choose assignments from. It can also refer to a bunch of articles that are waiting to be edited or published.
Gaf: Shorthand for paragraph. Someone who says gaf typically picked up this term in journalism school.
Subheading: A title that is given to a set of paragraphs on the same topic. Online articles and many print articles are divided up into sections using subheadings.
H1, H2, H3: The size of a subheading. Typically, most online publications use H2 subheadings. You can choose the heading size with most article tools such as Google Docs, WordPress, etc.
Slug: This is whatever you want the web address to be. It can also mean a short name for your article.
Internal link: This is a link that goes to somewhere else on the site when you click it.
External link: These links take readers to other sites.
Do-follow, don’t-follow links: Sometimes clients will ask you to put these links in your articles. Dofollow links are your normal links. Nofollow links tell search engines to ignore the link and will have a rel=”nofollow” HTML tag. This will prevent the link from harming a site's rank on a search engine.
Lede: Basically the introduction to the article. Sometimes it refers to a snappy summary of the article in just one sentence that compliments the title.
Byline: The name of the author of the article.
Hook: The part of an article idea that will make your article catch reader’s attention or stand out.
CTA: Call to action. A sentence or two at the end of the article or copy that encourages readers to take some kind of action, like click a link, read the next article, or purchase an item or service. Here’s an example:
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