Write what you know: Advice that's never more important than in content writing

I can whip out a 400-word story on homeowners insurance in about 15 minutes. I can write a story about the gold Canadian Maple Leaf coin in about 30 minutes. Obviously, it makes more sense financially for me to write about homeowners insurance for any clients.

This is an important lesson to learn: When you are tackling content writing, when getting as many stories done as quickly as possible is the main way to earn money, you have to follow that old adage: Write what you know.

It's not because you'll write better stories. That really doesn't matter much in content writing, for better or for worse. But if you stick to subjects that you already understand, you won't waste valuable writing time researching. You'll get more stories written in a shorter period of time.

This doesn't mean that you can't ever challenge yourself as a freelance writer. By all means, tackle subjects that fascinate your. Write about something about which you have no clue.

But don't do this when you're writing content. Do it when you're taking on a story for a trade magazine or when you're covering a story for a newspaper or consumer magazine. Then you'll get paid decently for your hard work.

Content writing is a different ball game: Write whatever you can extremely fast. Leave the creativity, and the hard work, to better paying clients.