Tuesday, 2 January 2018

How to Start Freelance Writing With No Experience

Do you want to know how to start freelance writing with no experience? Is it your desire to work from home and make money online? If your answer to the preceding question is yes, then you are in for an exciting journey of turning your skills/talents/services into a profitable business without leaving the comfort of your own home. But here is the caveat! Reading through this blog post and giving it thumbs up is not enough to make you money. Applying the tips and secrets shared here will be the turning point to your financial freedom.

Paradoxically speaking, making money online with freelance writing business is as easy as it is difficult. You must put your foot in the door in order to have a taste of success. With that said, let’s get started.

What is Freelance Writing?

Freelance writing, in my simplest definition, is the business of prospecting and fulfilling writing assignments of clients for agreed fees within a specified period of time as an independent contractor. In other words, you are willing to offer content writing services to anybody or company as a freelance writer and not as a full time writer or employee of an organization or publication.

You can become a freelance writer in the following areas of specialization: copy writing, ghostwriting, creative writing, technical writing, book review, article writing, SEO writing, press releases, blog post, newsletter writing, and so on. Depending on your passion and ambition, you can offer two or more services in any of the areas mentioned above. Freelance writing business is very lucrative if you have the knack of it because you are actually selling your services or talent and nothing more. The more value you are able to command and it is appreciated by your clients, the higher you will be able to charge them per hour/word of work done.

Because this article is showing you how to start freelance writing with no experience, you must be prepared to learn the trade of word craft from expert writers in the industry, do a lot of research cum practice writing and ask for critique. You may not appreciate this simple tip which I am revealing to you now until you come across some online freelance writers who charge as much as $500 to $1000 per article of just about 1,000 words. But run-of-the-mill content writers cannot charge more than $10 to $20 for the same article.

How Much Money Can You Make as a Freelance Writer?

It depends! That is the simplest and closest answer to the above question. It is difficult to put a ballpark figure on how much money can you make as a freelance writer at the beginning of your writing career. For instance, if you are a non-native English speaker and writer, you may not be able to ask for high rates from the get go until you prove your worth to your clients.

You should not be surprised to see some online freelance writers charging as low as $5 per 500-word article. So, you have to write 20 articles in order to make $100 a day. You will find such meager rates from free-for-all freelance writing jobs websites. This is because they pay less to content quality. However, if you are charging even as low as 20 cents per word, you only need to write an article of about 500 words to make $100 a day as a content writer. There is a lot of difference between writing for content mill sites and soliciting premium clients who value your services.

As you can see, lots of variables are at play when it comes “how much money can you make as a freelance writer?” Do you have superior portfolio to enable you charge higher rates for potential clients? Are you a gifted or trained wordsmith? Do you have the confidence to charge high rates? Can you find the right clients who are willing and able to pay what you are worth? These are few of the many questions which you have to provide spot-on answers to.

How Do I Get Freelance Work? 

There are many ways to get freelance work online but some are quite obvious to implement while some are creative. But the bottom line is that it involves hard work, working smart and being patient. You cannot get it right the first time or overnight. I will discuss two ways to solicit for freelance work in this blog post.

The first and easiest way to find your first clients is to subscribe to Online Writing Jobs website. It is a third party site which match makes you to your ideal clients. They have done all the research and dirty work to establish relationship with online publishers and organizations who are ready to hire you right away. It rules out the idea of facing constant rejections or no-reply from potential clients who don’t know you at all.

The online writing jobs website also took it upon itself to provide you with comprehensive freelance writing guide and instructions on how to succeed as an online content writer. Click here to read more about this website and you will thank me later.

Secondly, you can get writing clients using search engines like Google.com. All you have to do is to enter a keyword phrase related to your niche market and add “write for us” or anything close to that. Get a list of these websites as many as you can which appeals to you. Next, go to their individual websites, search for an email address of possibly the digital marketing manager or simply fill out their contact forms if any.

The above exercise is really a numbers’ game. The more contacts you can reach, the merrier it becomes. You never can tell who is ready to hire you as a freelance writer straight away. In other words, you have to cast your net far and wide. You have to be are ethically aggressive and massive when you are prospecting for clients online. You are not looking at the ninety-nine percent of potential clients who will not reply to your email but the one percent clients who will hire you.

So far, I have given you two ideas to answer your question, “How do I get freelance work?” In due time, I will publish full-blown article on how to prospect for freelance writing clients and get hired.

Good Habits of Successful Freelance Writers

It is not just enough to know how to become a freelance writer online and stop there. No! You have to cultivate good habits which will sustain your online business in the long run. For instance, the habit of meeting deadlines is critical to your online business success. Also, delivering quality content to your customers all the time is important as well. You must not compromise on quality service offering because it is the fastest way to lose a client to a competitor i.e. a fellow freelance writer who is frantically soliciting for the same client you are working for. 

To tell you the truth, there is always keen competition among freelance writers on the internet. You will find writers who are willing to do the same writing job which you are currently handling for lesser rate and maybe with even better quality. My candid advice is that you just have to be on your guard until you are fully established as a content writer with hundreds of retainer writing jobs.

Meanwhile, I will be publishing an article to answer your other question, “How do you become a freelance writer?” It will be a step-by-step guide on how to get started and succeed as a freelance writer. You will succeed!

About the Author

Mr. Oseremen Aigbokhae is a vast online content writer. You can hire him for your writing jobs by clicking here now. He will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you!

Wednesday, 27 December 2017

How to Make a Living Online Working from Home as a Freelance Writer

Writing content of various types for website owners and online publishers for a fee is big business on the internet. As a freelance writer, you can make a living online working from home on a daily basis if you understand the nuts and bolts of how to get writing jobs online. In this blog post, I am going to walk you through the basic steps to financial freedom and fulfillment offering content writing services for fun and money.

There is something you will learn from this web page whether you are a beginner without experience or intermediate freelance content writer without much success yet. First and foremost, you should bear in mind that you are starting a business online for the long haul. The value you can bring to the table in your content writing services will determine how much you will earn in the long run. To this end, there are obvious skills which you have to hone and improve upon as time goes by.

These online writing skills include good research skills, willingness and ability to solicit for writing assignments on a regular basis, internet marketing skills, search engine optimization (SEO) and keyword research skills, just to mention a few. Over the life of this blog, I will be writing and publishing articles on each of these topics extensively in order to equip you to become a successful freelance writer.

Meanwhile, let’s go through the steps on how to become a freelance writer and be successful as well.

1.    Build a Website Blog for Your Writing Business

In case you don’t know, you are about starting a professional writing business capable of attracting potential clients who will be far and near. You need to create a virtual office or writer website where you will be able to publish essential information about you such as how to contact you, brief resume about you, uploaded writing samples to show your potential customers who may request it, and so forth.

Creating or building a website blog for this purpose is damn cheap or even free. You can create a simple website without all the bells and whistles using the free blogger blog site. It will not cost you a dime or cent except for the time to set it up. But the only downside is that you will register a sub domain name with blogspot.com included in the full URL address. It is good for a start if you want to test things out and see how it works.

However, if you are not comfortable with the long-winding sub domain name plus the blogspot.com domain, you can do the smart thing by investing about $10 to $15 to buy domain name of your own. You can then redirect the custom domain name to your free blogger account for free web hosting. This ten dollars investment in your own domain will give you unique identity for your web content writing business.

But if you want to go full throttle, you can invest less than $100 in a unique domain, website hosting and professional blog theme to spice up your online business office. This investment from the start will make your online writing business to stand out right from the get go.   

2.    Optimize Your Website Blog

The next step after creating a website is to optimize it so that you can easily be found online by those you hope to work for and get paid to write. By optimization, you are basically preparing your writing business outlet for the online marketplace. The goal of optimizing your website is to make it easy for your potential clients to find your writing services on the internet in your target niche market. Let me quickly run through the items which you have to consider and take care of.

(i)    Create Essential Web Pages on Your Website

There are essential web pages which you have to create and upload, namely: contact me page, about me page, etc. You want to make it easy and fast for website owners and publishers who desire to hire you to reach you for proposed writing assignments. This is why the foundation and structure of your website are paramount in the beginning. If you are not sure of what and how to go about it, simply visit few content writing sites and study their different and unique styles of presentation.

(ii)    Optimize Your Website for SEO and Keywords

Your website is actually the gateway to the world of words even when you are asleep. The smartest way you can be found online without spending money on advertising is through search engine optimization and keywords.

For example, if you are a business credit writer, you will certainly want to optimize your writing website for keywords such as business credit, business loan, etc. You can also write SEO articles and publish them on your website blog targeting these keywords and phrases. Sincerely, it is not as difficult to do as you may be thinking right now!

3.    Write and Publish Writing Samples on Your Site 

At this stage of setting up your online writing business office, you are almost ready to hit the ground running. How do I mean? So far, so good; you have already primed your website to start attracting clients who you can write for and make money online. But if you don’t have previous writing experience working for clients before now, you may find it difficult to get your first client. In most cases, having quality writing portfolio under your belt can go a long way to convince online publishers to hire you without vacillating.

This is what I suggest you should do to get started. First, research and pick 3 to 5 popular topics in your target niche market which should include keyword phrases with high volume. Write SEO articles around these topics and publish them as your writing samples. You can convert these articles into a PDF document to make it fast for you to mail out when required by a potential client.

You are actually preparing yourself as ready online freelance writer willing to take up clients as they give you briefs on topics and subjects to write on. You don’t want to be caught off guard and ultimately lose a potential client for good. 

4.    Start Soliciting for Writing Assignments in Earnest

You cannot make money on the internet as a freelance writer without finding website owners and publishers to write for in the first place. In order to get a handful of them to start with, you have to ethically do massive and aggressive marketing of your content writing services on a regular basis. 

There are many creative ways to get writing clients online. But if you are a greenhorn in freelance writing business, you can do yourself a world of good to subscribe to online writing jobs website for a comprehensive guide and instructions on how to get writing jobs and get paid online and on time.

You can also create accounts with LinkedIn.com, Facebook.com, Twitter.com, etc, for social media marketing of your services. It is absolutely free to sign up with these social media websites. As a freelance writer, you must not be timid and cold in marketing your services. In addition, you have to be prepared to receive rejections in droves.

You may only find one from every ten publishers you contact who may be willing to ask further for your services in detail. And he may not even hire you in the end! It is one of the hazards of the trade. For instance, cold pitching through emails of up to 25 potential clients per day is not outrageous if you want to be in the business of freelance writing. Always send out pitch letters with confidence and expect the best as an optimist.

To call a spade a spade, finding clients to write for regularly is the hardest knot to crack in this business. You will always find better writers with superior experience than you vying for the same writing jobs online. But don’t let that deter you because I know and I am convinced that your ideal customers are waiting to do business with you somewhere on the internet if you market your services wide enough!

It doesn’t matter whether you are non-native English speaker or writer; you will always find the right client to work for and get paid to write online. The bottom line is that you have to look long and hard to really find clients who will be willing to hire you. Please don’t be over ambitious and set reasonable expectations from the beginning and you won’t be disappointed!

You can click here now to learn more on how to get writing jobs online with certainty. You’ll succeed!

Wednesday, 31 August 2016

Why You Need High Quality Content to Transform Your Online Business

Every internet entrepreneur needs constant but high quality content to generate leads and sales on a regular basis. Content can be in the form of infographics, SEO articles, videos, audios, webinars, podcasts, just to mention a few. However, as a freelance writer, I am concentrating my writing here on generating search engine optimized articles, ebooks, newsletters, landing page content, and so on, to attract regular website visitors who may become your raving fans or customers. 

Although it has become a cliché to say content is king, its importance in web presence and visibility cannot be downplayed. This is why I think you (i.e. webmaster, blogger, internet marketer, affiliate marketer, etc) need high quality content continuously to transform your internet business for the best. With that said, let’s look into what good content is and how to get it.

What is Quality Content?

Basically, quality content is content which communicates an information or idea to a target audience and it is useful, usable and shareable. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect with a piece of content to qualify as good but we expect it to be interesting and relevant to the online community it is intended. In other words, quality content should inspire, entertain, educate and inform the readers.

As a webmaster or online business owner, you can write articles yourself or hire a freelance writer to do the job for you. However, hiring a freelance writer will depend on your budget. There are run-of-the-mill article writers and ghostwriters who will charge you $5 to $10 per article. But if your desire is to be in business for the long term, it is good business idea to look at publishing quality content from a different and higher level. This is where I will come in as your content writer.

The Benefits of Publishing Quality Content

The most important element or variable which will make your target audience to stay longer on your website is good content. This is also true if you are actively involved in content marketing. The list below is few of the benefits of publishing quality content on your blog or third-party websites for promotion.

  1. As a website owner, you will be perceived as the expert or authority in your niche market if you are known and consistent in publishing stellar articles always.
  2. With quality content and all other things done right, you can rank for your target keyword in search engines which will guarantee free targeted traffic to your website/blog.
  3. You can build an email list of subscribers from your blog with ease because your prospects would have been presold.
  4. Webmasters and content publishers alike who know good stuff will readily link to your work thereby getting you natural backlinks and website traffic.

There are loads of other benefits which will accrue to you as a webmaster if you cultivate the habit of creating and publishing quality content. I am therefore encouraging you to take it a step further by hiring me for your content writing and marketing projects. You will be glad you did.