Writings of an Introvert

Freelance Writing Online – Tips, Ideas and Anything You Might Want to Know

• Know the terms. In any job we get into, there are always the jargons and in freelance online writing, you may want to browse a little on what SEO or PPC means. You might also want to familiarize terms such as AdWords, landing page, resource box, keywords, keyphrases, search volume, SERP, SEM, paid listings and many others. Indeed, you should have knowledge on internet marketing as well.
• Know the basics. Writing for the search engines is different from writing in a magazine or a newspaper. You have to have articles that are informative to readers at the same time being friendly to the search engines. This balance is crucial because having one without the other would cripple the purpose of your online article.
• Speed is a factor. Freelance writing online is not just about delivering good quality articles free from plagiarism, it is also about beating deadlines and giving your clients on-time services. Keep in mind that in the online world, there is no night and day. Transactions happen round the clock, visitors browsing every minute and every hour, competitors strategizing all the time. Of course, you can drive away competitors with speed. The virtual world is quick-changing, so you have to keep up with the pace. If you want to do freelance writing online, you have to learn how to write 500-word articles in less than an hour. Indeed, if you want to make money online, do not waste time.
• Know where to find work. The challenge of online writing is where to find work. Indeed, there are a lot of people looking for writers but can you find them? If you are interested to make money online, make the internet your gold mine. Dig and pan until you can find. It is not about waiting for clients to come by, it is about looking for them.
• Upgrade your skills. The internet is fast changing and every time clients are screening for online writers, they often add another preference -- ‘must know how to build links,’ ‘familiar with article spinning’ – they all ask something new each time, so take the challenge to upgrade your online writing skills.
  
• Enjoy your work. It’s not that freelance writing online is not a great work. In fact, you can find a lot of things to enjoy. Great pay, no rude supervisors to deal with, you can bring work if you want to travel, you can be with your family all the time, you don’t have to deal with annoying workmates and you can do your work at your own pace. Just don’t cross beyond the deadlines and don’t be someone full of excuses (clients hate to hear typhoons, blackouts, hospitals, not feeling well, grandmother died….). You are not allowed to get sick, and you are not allowed to procrastinate either.
• Invest on a treadmill. No, it doesn’t have to be a treadmill. Just give time for a regular exercise. Deadlines, article submissions, researching your topic and sitting in front of your PC all day can be a back pain. So if you want to do online writing, make sure you do regular exercise as well to keep those joints in good shape. Happy writing!
  
  

The World of Freelance Writing

So I am back in the freelance writing world. Not new to me though. Years back, after my first stint in the Development Work, I was doing freelance writing for training documentations and research. Back then, internet marketing is not yet very popular, probably because it was not that very accessible (probably not to me), and freelance writing pays good.
Writing online has been a trend these days. Employers around the world, may it be individuals or companies are offering all kinds of writing jobs from blog writing to web content writing to rewriting jobs to technical writing... and the popular SEO writing... there are lots of them actually.

Sad to say, you can just have a mere $1.00 for a 500-word article. ..

And because of the demand, writers all over the world converge in freelancer's sites to bid for writing jobs. Bad thing, the price has gone down drastically. Competition is stiff. Freelance writers from non-English speaking countries abound to offer their 'excellent, grammatical-error free' English.

Of course, you can also see native speaker-writers trying to get to the top of the ladder the same way as those who are selling their software-manipulated rewrites or those who are even struggling to get the right words to say in their bids.

Sad to say, you can just have a mere $1.00 for a 500-word article. Or else, you still need to negotiate hard for your rates. I once tried negotiating for a mere $2.00 rate for a 500-word rewrite and the buyer just told me he can already get an original article for that rate. tsktsktsk.

If you are lucky enough, you can get a client who pays for what your writing is really worth. Or if not, at least a decent amount for a decent article. Somehow, as writers, we always have that sense of responsibility to our readers and provide them good articles that are worth reading.

Even if sometimes we do not get credit for the articles we write, we still have that dedication in writing good because it is our passion, and we always want our readers to be correctly informed.

Hopefully, freelance writing online would not just mean getting web traffic and writing for other's profit but also giving online readers the accurate information they are looking for.