As a freelancer, you know you need to put money aside for your tax bill. But do you also put regular sums into a ‘buffer fund’?

This is a fund you can draw on when:

1. you can’t work because you’re ill, or you need to take time off to care for a sick relative
2. you have temporary cashflow issues because a client is late in paying you
3. work is thin on the ground
4. you want to take some time out from work to study or learn new skills
5. your partner has lost his/her job and you’re now the sole income provider
6. you have large unexpected bills or items of expenditure to pay for

This time last year I had to draw on my buffer fund because of points 3 and 5. Without those reserves, we would have found it hard to pay our monthly outgoings.

You can read entire books on the subject of SEO and sign up to all kinds of courses but if you don’t have the time/inclination/funds to do that, here are five SEO tips that will help your blog or your website achieve higher search engine rankings.

1) Find keywords

And make sure you make a list of the right keywords. These are the words your readers/potential clients are actually typing into search engines – not the words you think they should be typing in.

Use Google’s free keyword tool to see what people have actually typed in to reach your site. You might be surprised by what you see. There are lots of paid-for keyword search tools around but I haven’t used any of these, so I can’t really comment on how good they are.

Welcome to guest writer, Margaret Ousby, who explains how and why she changed her freelance career from that of a copywriter to an acupuncturist.

After fifteen years as a freelance creative copywriter I hit a wall.

I started freelancing because I loved writing and wanted the flexibility to be able to work on my own projects while writing for a living. At first I enjoyed the variety – a script one week, a brochure the next, a speech for fun and the occasional annual report to top-up the bank balance.

I could set my own hours, take extended breaks to work on personal creative projects and even turn down work if the brief didn’t spark my imagination. Compared to my time spent as a ‘corporate wage slave’ I felt free and in control.

Welcome to guest writer, Griselda Halling, who provides some useful diet and nutrition tips to help us perform at our best right throughout our freelance day.

As a nutritionist advising on school food, I spend a lot of my time writing and telling people about how nutrition affects children’s concentration, learning behaviour, sleep, mood and immune function, not to mention their long term health. I explain that there is now a body of scientific evidence showing that hydration levels, food additives, blood sugar levels and food sensitivities all influence children’s all-round performance.

As freelancers, we want mental clarity and lots of creative energy, don’t we? Schools can certainly see the principles for helping pupils do better through diet, but do we apply the same logic as adults?