Freelance writing services from Bob Bardsley, professional content writer since 2006. Hire me today to write for you online or in print or read more about me here.

Out of Office (Urgent Orders Only)

Sunday 17 December 2023

I'm now fully booked until January 2024 and will be working on existing orders through Christmas and New Year.

Established clients, if you need anything urgent between now and Wednesday, January 3rd, please contact me via email and mark your subject line 'Urgent'.

New customers are very welcome to make enquiries. If it's a genuine emergency I will try to fit you in. All other orders will be dealt with in January.

I will have access to emails throughout the holidays, but might be slow to reply between Wednesday December 20th and Wednesday January 3rd.

Thank You and Merry Christmas

Thank you so much to the clients who have been with me throughout this year despite a challenging economy, and to the new customers who have helped to keep my income sustainable in a cost of living crisis.

Very best wishes to all for happy holidays and a prosperous new year - I'll see you in 2024.

Trello Down on Deadline Day - What To Do?

Thursday 30 November 2023

What do you do when your project management platform goes down on deadlines day? That's the issue Trello users faced on November 30th when the task-planning tool became unresponsive without warning.

Users were met with a slow-loading Trello dashboard, which soon stopped loading at all. Trello's Status page reported "an issue that's causing Trello to be slow or unavailable to our users" at 9:21am EST (2:21pm GMT).

Trello Status page, November 30th 2023, 4:35pm GMT

With just three business hours left in November in the UK, losing access to your task-planning tool is less than ideal - so what can you do in such circumstances?

Christmas and New Year Availability for Freelance Copywriting Orders 2023

Wednesday 29 November 2023

We're nearly into December and I'll be looking to tie up any loose ends and complete my current freelance copywriting orders with plenty of time left in the run-up to Christmas 2023.

Christmas decorations and baubles
Christmas Decorations by Dids, via Pexels

Availability is still good and new orders are welcome, from both new and existing clients. These will be scheduled on a first-come, first-served basis, with priority given to pre-Christmas deadlines where urgent.

I will have access to emails at all times, and enquiries are very welcome, even on the holidays. Smaller orders can very likely be delivered even between the dates listed below, and I'm happy to discuss larger orders ready for an early start in January 2024.

With that being said, please aim (if possible) to work around the following dates:

  • My last scheduled workday before Christmas 2023 will be Friday, December 15th.
  • My first scheduled admin day after New Year will be Wednesday, January 3rd.
  • My first scheduled writing days after New Year will be January 4th-5th.

If you do need to make an urgent enquiry between the dates listed above, please clearly state 'Urgent' in your email subject line and/or message me on Twitter or Threads, and I'll reply as soon as I can.

There's still a full month to go, so I'll save the retrospective stuff for December, except to say thank you to everyone who placed an order in this difficult economy - I know the industry as a whole has been feeling the pinch, and I'm grateful as ever for the excellent clients I have the pleasure of working with.

Here's to a brighter 12 months in 2024 and a well-deserved break for everyone to see the back of this turbulent year.

Cyber Monday, User Reviews and Time-Limited Offers

Monday 27 November 2023

Cyber Monday can feel like the neglected younger sibling of Black Friday, but it should be an important part of your marketing mix in the days after the US Thanksgiving celebrations.

This is especially true for ecommerce and online retail websites. Cyber Monday was created for you, so don't miss out on the marketing opportunity it represents.

With that in mind, let's take a look at some stats surrounding Thanksgiving, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, as well as some research into the impact of Cyber Monday deals on buyer behaviour.

A MacBook laptop and a mini shopping trolley full of gift-wrapped boxes
Laptop and cute little shopping trolley full of items

How I Became an Unofficial Doctor Who Author

Thursday 23 November 2023

There are a few things that have been a feature of my life since before I can remember, stretching back into those misty moments of early childhood that my brain decided not to store. Among those memories lost to time are the first time I wrote a story, and the first time I watched Doctor Who.

A mockup of the Time Scope 2020 book cover floating in outer space
Time Scope 2020 mockup generated via Book in Motion

Five Places for On-Page SEO Keywords

Wednesday 22 November 2023

On-page SEO keywords are still a valuable way to tell search engines (and human visitors) what your content is about. A few relevant words and phrases in prominent places will help to signpost the search robots towards indexing your page for the 'right' topics and themes.

But where do you put those keywords? As the average page length gets longer and longer, you're now faced with anywhere up to about 2,000 words of content to try to optimise - and that's before you start on things like meta tags and alt text.

Google Search homepage displayed on a laptop screen
Google Search by Jessica Lewis via Pexels

Even if your content management system (CMS) only allows you to edit plain text, there are plenty of places for on-page SEO keywords that don't need you to edit HTML code directly.

Black Friday Deals on Outsourced Writing

Monday 20 November 2023

It's the fourth week of November, and that means it's about to be Black Friday (Happy Thanksgiving, American friends!). I have some availability between now and Christmas, so for 2023 I've decided to offer some Black Friday deals on outsourced writing for websites, print or anywhere else.

There's a limit to how much I can take on at Black Friday prices - and it's worth noting I'm UK-based, although I welcome enquiries from overseas too - so here's my offer:

£5 per 100 words
Minimum order size: 2,000 words (£100)
Maximum order size: 5,000 words (£250)
Additional words charged at £10 per 100 words

If you're interested, just email me and ask, and I'll confirm my availability. I'll take on as much as I can, but obviously there's a limit, especially as we get closer to Christmas. I'll keep this offer open through Cyber Monday week too, so orders are welcome until December 1st 2023.

Black Friday spelled out in Scrabble tiles
Black Friday by Sarah Blocksidge, via Pexels


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I reply to all enquiries as soon as possible. Any order size is welcome and my prices are negotiable.

Where my schedule allows, I can work to tight deadlines and unsociable hours to deliver urgent orders ASAP.