Morning Conference: Freelance support, SEO updates and yet more on Substack

Supporting Freelancers in the post-pandemic world

I'm not sure how many of my readers are freelancers (and I feel a bit guilty about that, because I feel I should know that sort of information about my audience), but if you are a freelancer, this is for you. The Society of Freelance Journalists is getting more formal and organised, a year after it was founded:

Twelve months later, the Society of Freelance Journalists, as we are now known, has grown to almost 1,500 members all over the world. In the last year, our community has gone from strength to strength. We’ve partnered with the European Journalism Center on a series of workshops and contributed to a House of Lords report on the future of UK journalism. As we mark our first birthday, we’re excited to announce another milestone: SFJ is now a bona fide Community Interest Company.

Read on to find out why this matters:

🎂 The Society of Freelance Journalists turns one — and we’re updating our status

Like many good ideas, it began with conversation and coffee. When I first sat down — virtually — with Laura Oliver, John Crowley and Caroline Harrap, the UK was three days away from its first…

The Society of Freelance JournalistsAbigail Edge

Born of the bleak times during the early pandemic, the Society was invaluable in helping me find some work to tide me over during the first lockdown when my income dried up. As more of the industry relies on freelancers every year, finding new ways of supporting each other is going to be vital. If you're a freelancer, consider joining the SFJ — it's free!

Quick SEO Round-up

• 🔍 Last year ⅔ of searches ended up without a click. If you're doing SEO optimisation, then optimise for complex intents. If you're still optimising purely based on keywords, you're toast.
• 🕵🏻‍♂️ Google's new more privacy-friendly ad targeting might be more PR than a genuine commitment to privacy. Gosh, gee whiz, what a surprise.
• 🎦 Some updated guidance on video SEO.
• 👨🏻‍💻 Some more info on how Google uses keywords in URLs. The take-away from this is that you should sweat this if you want to rank quickly for a breaking news story, but otherwise not worry too much.
• 🔌 Hey, new date for my popular SEO course!

Other Quick Links

• 📧 A new newsletter by journalists of colour for journalists of colour.
• 💰 One writer with a Substack deal lays out his financials. $45,000 upfront, but he's got over 1000 monthly subscribers already…
• 📈 Some things the US press successfully got better at during the Trump presidency.
• 🤖 Here's what journalists need to know about SXSW 2021.