I’ve been rewriting personal profiles for the last couple of weeks. The original documents I’ve been working from have to be sufficiently altered to avoid any search engine duplicate content filters.

At best content that’s seen as duplicate is not listed by the likes of Google – and at worst duplicate content can have a really bad impact on a website if too much of it is clearly lifted from elsewhere.

The reason I’m rewriting is because my client has a number of related websites, offering the likes of real estate for sale overseas, or expatriate services, and many of those advertising their legal or fiscal expertise via my client are paying for placement across all of the sites.

I enjoy the work; I like the challenge drafting something totally different that basically says absolutely the same thing. It’s playing with words, which is what I love.

However, a couple of the profiles I have to recreate were written by me originally. I find it almost impossible to re-do my own work. Because I did my very best in the first instance, I feel that anything I subsequently present will be a second best version.

So, I have to work doubly hard to make the content read well when it’s my own writing that I’m redrafting, and every step of the way is painful. I drag my feet and grind my teeth throughout the process.

I’m actually glad I have deadlines to meet otherwise I’d probably never force myself to focus and get it done!

I’m lucky enough to be working with a really talented writer on a new series of country guides. These are being written specifically for pre-retirees planning their relocation overseas.

The guides are divided into clear sections, which helps with research I find. I like to be able to divide up big projects into bite-seized pieces, and this time around it’s proving quite easy to do.

Whilst the research may be straightforward, the writing is hard! The target audience is mainly British, and it’s likely our readers will have a fairly good base knowledge of a country that we are writing about. However, there’s a balance to be struck between assuming knowledge and missing out critical information.

Interestingly the writer I’m working with is Russian, but her grasp of the English language is incredible.

Also, because she learned English as a second language in a formal fashion and to a very high graduate level, her understanding of English grammar is exceptional. So whilst I may have to edit her work to take out the odd bit of Russ-lish, she’s working hard to tidy up my overuse of exclamation marks and my misuse of semi-colons…

I recently completed the most comprehensive retirement abroad guide in the history of mankind (pretty much!). It contains everything from pre-planning information, to lifestyle considerations – right down the nitty gritty of the financial considerations of pre and post-retirees who want to live abroad in retirement.

Knowing where to start with such a guide is one thing, but knowing when you’ve actually written enough is equally tricky. Luckily I worked with a really supportive editor who told me when she felt she’d really read enough!

I took that are my cue to stop writing.

The guide is part of the Expatra.com project that I’m really excited to be a part of.

I’m hoping that the guide will be an exceptionally useful resource for anyone planning a move abroad when they retire. There are so many things to think about, plan for and consider that I wanted readers to be able to tick things off their to do list as they read through the guide.

I went for a fairly linear structure, working through each of the main topics of concern in turn in a question and answer format.

Because the guide is meant to be accessible and a truly useful stand-alone read, rather than being a pre-sell for a service for example, I decided on a fairly personal and friendly tone.

I will link to it when it’s available online – after the designer has worked his magic.