Funny story… I worked as a freelance writer for more than four years before I started to think about it as a creative profession (and even then, that realization only happened because a friend asked me, “Is it hard to have to be creative all the time?”).

For a long time, I thought of writing as something that you just “do” – like eating meals, sleeping at night or doing any kind of rote work. But the reality is that writing is an inherently creative process, and that means that it comes with its own set of challenges and demands that must be balanced to ensure continuous productivity.

There are days when I feel like my creative juices have run out and days when I feel like I have absolutely nothing left to say about the topics I typically write on. I’m sure anyone else working as a writer has experienced this type of burnout before – and while I don’t have a solution for the larger overall issue of managing creative energy sustainably, I have found a way to trick myself into being productive when it feels like I couldn’t possibly write another word.

If you bum around the popular freelance writing job boards long enough, you’ll probably come across the phrases “SEO keywords” or “target keywords” every so often. But if you haven’t had any past exposure to digital marketing techniques, it’s natural to be confused about what these words mean and why – as a writer – you should care about them at all.

So to clear up this confusion, here’s everything you need to know about what keywords are and how they’re used by web content writers…

Last week, I was talking to a new friend about my online businesses when she asked, “How do you manage to get everything done?!” It’s a fair question – besides having a full-time writing gig and a few different online businesses, I also take several dance classes a week, volunteer and do my best to find time to spend out with my husband and our friends.

But her question caught me off guard – in part because being this busy has become second nature to me – and got me thinking. What one skill that I’ve developed has contributed the most to my business success so far?