Starting in Content Writing

Tips on how to get started in the Internet Sector?

[vincevincevince]

Dear all,

Time to ask for advice again - I now have the time, skills and resources to write and research articles at a very reasonable price. I just can't seem to find people to write content for.

I'd like to hear from any of you who have started a content writing business about what you think the first steps should be in order to build up a content writing business.

I realise that a lot of what you'd like to say may hurt your own business - but a few pointers for gettings started would be very helpful for me.

[arrowman]

I'm an Internet publisher in Europe and have been selecting writers for my websites in the past couple of months. I see many writers who are not proficient in writing for the web.

• Lots of long-long-short texts, as opposed to short-short-long.

• Many irrelevant sites at the end of the article ("further reading") instead of relevant hyperlinks on particular phrases.

• "click here" hyperlinks. "read this" headings.

• And so on, and so on.

Impress people with an extremely well-written (small) website about whatever topic you write about.

Show publishers that you know how to attrackt positive attention, incoming links and visitors. That's what they care about most.

Be specific about what you write about. There are too many writers already covering "travel, lifestyle, and people's issues" (for geeks: "life, the universe and everything").

Be personal in your presentation. Publishers understand they're hiring an IRL person, not a producer of "copy" about himself. Tell'em what you've learned from the web, what you think is still missing, overrated, underrated.

And don't forget: there's a real opportunity for self-employed writers in Google Adsense [webmasterworld.com]. I'm not really a professional writer, but right now I could live of my writing alone.

By the way, what do you write about? I've been thinking of experimenting with content for an international audience, but I don't think my English is good enough. Maybe I could use a good writer :-)

[vincevincevince]

Arrowman, many thanks for your reply - I've a query regarding:

# Lots of long-long-short texts, as opposed to short-short-long.

I've had a look on Google but I couldn't find out what it meant.

Thanks for the tip about Adsense, I have been considering that.

[arrowman]

short-short-long

An article titled "6 Rules For Writing Effective Web Copy" explains it pretty good.

[EileenC]

Just a suggestion - don't write for those folks who seem to think $3-$5 is adequate compensation for an article. There's no reason you should be working for slave wages while site owners rake in profits at your expense.

[moto]

Arrowman, can you explain what opportunities are there for "self-employed writers in Google Adsense", and how a writer can get into that?

EileenC, I agree with you about not working for slave wages, but can you say what the range of good wages are?

[martinibuster]

>>>what you think the first steps should be in order to build up a content writing business.

>>>I agree with you about not working for slave wages

Well, I would advocate that you write good quality content for influential members of the web community, not for slave wages, but for free. A good word of mouth referral is like a match to tinder in a forest.

$5 for a page that took you (the expert writer) fifteen minutes to write works out to about $20/hour. In most parts of the United States, that is not considered slave wages.

And if you intend on working for webmasters cranking out content, you better be flexible because you're going to be asked to write a lot of stuff about people's body parts and how to make them bigger, the efficacy of dubious herbs for losing weight, the entire gamut covering pills, adult, and gambling.

Can you feel the soles of your shoes getting sticky yet?

[EileenC]

$5 for a page that took you (the expert writer) fifteen minutes

Surely you jest. Quality writing, even from the experts, takes a whole lot longer than fifteen minutes.

[EileenC]

I would advocate that you write good quality content for influential members of the web community, not for slave wages, but for free. A good word of mouth referral is like a match to tinder in a forest.

Oy! Martini, my guess is you are not making your living by writing. Writers all the time are given the line about "writing for free to get exposure." Unfortunately it just does not work this way. If you work for free or for cheap, you get known as the free/cheap writer. Then nobody is willing to pay for quality work. Writers pretty much have to pound the pavements to sell themselves like everyone else. After a few years, they do get referrals, but it isn't because they wrote for free; it's because they wrote excellent quality work by someone who valued their work -- valued it enough to pay a fair wage.

[EileenC]

EileenC, I agree with you about not working for slave wages, but can you say what the range of good wages are?

Writers structure their fees in many different ways -- per project, per word, per hour. But the bottom line is what they can make per hour. Writers like myself generally earn anywhere between $50-$100 per billable hour on short term projects. Longer term contracted projects may be at a reduced rate if steady work is guaranteed. If a writer can't pull in that much, it's not a serious business venture, it's a hobby. I've said it before, and I'll say it again - if a writer is helping a site owner to make money, why should the writer accept substandard pay so the site owner can bring in bigger profit margins at the writer's expense?

[martinibuster]

Eileen, I'm not denigrating what you're doing and for all I know you're writing stellar copy for Amazon, Intuit, Intel, and many lesser known but profitable ecommerce sites. Good for you because those people need content written by an expert writer. But that business is very difficult to cultivate, I know many pedigreed writers with experience writing for the companies cited above who aren't raking in the money hand over fist: It's feast or famine.

You are approaching this discussion from the point of view that there is only one kind of web content production client. The content production world is bigger than that, and it won't fit neatly into the $50-$100/hour box. It's bigger than that with lots of unders and in-betweens.

Getting back to what the industry writing for the web really looks like, where a great portion of the action is, you are looking at pills, adult, gambling, debt relief, mortgages, travel, weight loss, and many other sites along those lines. Not exactly blue chip or white gloved but a lot, and I mean a whole lot, of production money getting thrown around.

More often that not, the people pushing those sites where are all the action is need fifty or a hundred and often more original pages asap. The person pushing the latest adult reality affiliate program needs fifty two-fisted pages of content asap- and hold the white gloves.

So what I'm trying to say is that my comments apply to the segment of the web where a content writer today is likely to find the most business.

I'm not saying you're wrong EileenC. There's a world out there that you don't serve that is fueling the content writing business- and I am saying here is how a content writer can get a piece of that action.

Your comments are not applicabable to that segment of web writing as much as my comments are not applicable to the type of client you would like to attract. Can we agree that you and I are touching and describing different parts of the elephant?

[moto]

Thanks for the info EileenC.

[King of Bling]

For those looking to break into the business, writing for web publications for less-than-top-dollar rates can reap many rewards. Guidance. Experience. Training. Invaluable opportunities to work in varied sectors without getting pigeonholed into one style or niche.

To put another myth to rest - writers don't always end up stereotyped as the 'cheap writers' - if they grasp the nuances and fundamentals of writing for the web (and/or SEs). Case in point - I voluntarily doubled one of my writers rates. Why? Because he developed into a valuable resource under my tutelage. He gained knowledge that could not be gleaned elsewhere and became a skilled Internet copywriter. He's happy, I'm happy.

Vince, go where the force leads you. There is a world of opportunity - at any level.

Good luck,
KOB

[EileenC]

writing for web publications for less-than-top-dollar rates can reap many rewards.

I totally agree. There's plenty of money between free and top dollar, however. There's nothing wrong with a junior writer accepting lower than top-dollar rates. But he should still be compensated commensurate with the value he brings to the table ... and I daresay, that's more than "free" or even 3 cents a word.

[VegasRook]

What takes 15 minutes to write can take hours to rewrite and edit into something worthy.

If you are going to write for free, or close to it, do so for print publications. At least that way you have clippings for future adventures.

Pick up the latest Writers Market.

Good Luck!

[rogerd]

Moto, I assume the Adsense opportunity cited by Arrowman was to create themed content for your own site(s) running Adsense.

This discussion highlights the difference between "writing" and "content creation". While both involve putting words together to form text, the expectations can be quite different. A site owner looking for 20 pages of content isn't looking for New Yorker-quality prose. Indeed, what would be considered brilliant writing in a literary magazine would serve poorly as web content (in most cases). Clever wordplay, metaphors, analogies, etc. zoom right past today's search engines.

[shigamoto]

Develop a good solid portfolio with various items in the areas of: news, features, reviews and general web page content.

Put the portfolio on a website, start marketing the website. Be on the lookout for freelance opportunities. There are some websites in which you can register and get pretty decent freelance jobs. Now I don't remember the name of the good one.

I guess it helps if you specialize in something, for example writing for senior citizens, business writing or technology.

Good Luck!

[arrowman]

Arrowman, can you explain what opportunities are there for "self-employed writers in Google Adsense", and how a writer can get into that?

Create a website, write, put Adsense on your pages and you're done.

If you write about something that
1. attrackts readers
2. attrackts valuable ads
you may be able to achieve a reasonable income that way. In fact, you may get rich.