ONLINE WRITING JOBS CAN BE A PROFITABLE BUSINESS

One of the ways you can make money online is through online writing jobs. There are people who have become so successful at it to have established thriving businesses around freelance writing as online writing jobs are known to most people. 

The opportunities in this business are many; some of them are  writing guest posts for authority blogs, ghostwriting for books and E books, writing press releases for companies, copy writing and sales letters, assisting companies to update their websites, product reviews, business and technical writing projects and even essay writing for college students.

Though having specialist knowledge will establish you as an expert in your chosen niche, the interesting thing is that you need not have a doctorate degree in any discipline of your interest to be able to earn a living through online writing. 

All you need is a damn good writing skill, good command of the English Language or of the specific language you will be writing in, strong research skills, demonstrable ability in word processing and may be desktop publishing software and an uncanny ability to deliver according to deadline.

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If you love writing, it is time you started thinking of setting up a business around your interest.  Online writing jobs business will provide content wring services to high networh individuals, business organisations, entrepreneurs, bloggers, etc. 

Your key success factor is to establish your reputation as a good writer in your chosen area of interest, hone your skills and acquire social proofs to always get clients seeking to work with you.

How to go about it is what this article is all about.

WHY ONLINE WRITING JOBS?

If you do a simple search for online writing services, you will found that Google will return about 203,000,000 results.  That is three hundred and three million websites discussing or offering online writing services. Why is online writing in hot demand these days?

The reasons are many but I will list a few here:

Increasing use of the internet: Many businesses and individuals are going online and these businesses and individuals will always need content.

It is a type of service that is easily offered virtually –   as a content writer, freelance writer or online writer, you can work from anywhere remotely, including your home, hotel room, while train riding, just anywhere and deliver your finished jobs to anybody in any part of the word.

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It is easy to start – all you need to do is to do a pitch for jobs and where necessary provide social proofs of your expertise and experience.  Sometimes, some jobs may require simple assessment which can be concluded online. So except for the competition, getting assignment may be easier than applying and getting regular jobs

Flexible time – you work at your pace.  As long as you can meet your deadline, you can arrange to work at any hour that is convenient to you in line with your schedule.

It saves time – many business organizations and individuals tend to outsource content writing tasks to professional writing service providers or freelance writers because it saves them time and allow them concentrate on their core businesses or projects.

HOW MUCH CAN YOU MAKE?

It all depends.

Most freelance writing jobs are priced according to the number of words or per hour basis.  Some employers may have evaluated the assignment and fixed a price.  Some jobs can be priced for as low as US$5 while some other jobs can go for as high as US$250 depending on the complexity of the work.

On most freelance job sites, cost of projects are determined through a competitive bidding process. You bid based on your evaluation of the project, what you think you are worth and the time you will expend in completing the job.  Your chances of being awarded the project will be determined by the employer’s assessment of your skills, level of knowledge and demonstrable experience based on social proof presented.

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One advantage online writing provides is that you can be discriminatory in the sense that you choose assignments based on your own parameters such as earnings, niche, and word length among others.

WHAT RESOURCES DO YOU NEED?

This is one of the online businesses you can start with little or no capital . Your most important investment is your time.

But here is a short checklist of what you need to start:

1. Computer/Laptop – Loaded with word processing software of your choice (MS Office is popular if you are using windows)

2. Good Quality Printer

3. Data Subscription/Internet Connection

4. A professional email address for correspondences

5. A personal blog – get one for free from blogger.com.  You need this to show proof and for personal profiling

6. A Paypal Account – Most job sites will require a paypal account to pay writers for gigs.

Your overall writing skills measured in terms of your mastery of grammar, punctuation, spelling and style must be above average, if not excellent.  Some freelance writing service sites give training to equip their writers with the necessary skills to meet the standard usually required by their clients. 

My advice is to take these training as part of your overall self development strategy in your writing career.

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You will also need to have some proofs of your ability.  These are usually previous pieces you have written, particularly published articles in newspapers or magazines that are readily available to showcase your experience.  Most successful online writers I know of have blogs.  Having a blog with unique content is a sound social proof.

If you are a beginner you can start to build social proofs by publishing articles for content mills or writing free guest posts for blogs in niches of interest. Creating an account and publishing on blogging platforms like medium.com and some quality article directories will help to build your reputation and position you to pitch for paid writing gigs.

Another sound way of showcasing your skills is to use your social media profile particularly linkedin to publish articles in your area of interests.  Writing good posts and getting the endorsement of your network is a veritable way of building your reputation in your chosen field.  In any case, your potential employer may check such profiles in considering you for an assignment so make your engagement as strong as you can.

Finally consider creating a profile on about.me. It is one way of building up and making your profile go viral.  It is like giving out your business card.

TYPES OF ONLINE WRITING JOBS YOU CAN OFFER AND HOW TO GET THEM

Having equipped yourself to commence your online writing business or career, how do you source for assignments? You get jobs by cold pitching your potential clients much the same way you market a consulting service.  Come to think of it, you are indeed a consultant providing writing services to your clients.

In the following paragraphs we highlight just a few of the online writing jobs you can do and some of the platforms you can start with to source for jobs as a beginner.

Content Writing

This is the most common type of online writing job you can get.  Simply put, you write content for websites or blogs in form of articles.  There are thousands of authority blogs and business websites that regularly need content from subject area specialists and good writers.

One way of getting through these blog and website owners as well as other employers requiring content for various uses is to sign up with renown freelance writing websites that link writers with employers through competitive bidding processes . Some of the freelance job website I recommend you check out include: UpWork, iWriter, and Contently . Other platforms you can register to find freelance jobs are write, Fiverr, writerbay and so many others.

Through these freelance or online writing jobs websites you may also find business and technical writing gigs if your interest is in the area of investment, economy, business and finance, technology or even animal husbandry, science and the arts.

However you must do your due diligence very well before you sign with some of the many freelance platforms because there are so many of such platforms that are not very honest in the way they provide their services.

From experience I can tell that you are likely to make more money by directly pitching your potential employers. You may start by identifying websites or blogs that pay for guest posting, study and understand their article guidelines and contact the relevant editor with samples of your work or a link to your blog if you have one.

This is what is called cold pitching. Though this may seem difficult at the beginning, as you gain experience and obtain more testimonials from previous jobs delivered, it becomes easier as these potential employers through your pitch will see that you can be an asset to their media.

Freelance Reporter

Every newspaper, radio, TV channel and on-line news portal requires folks who will feed them with the freshest news. Obviously, they may have big teams of properly qualified and experienced journalists who move from place to place to file in reports, however, many big media houses are constrained by the lack of reporters in small and remote regions.

You as a freelance writer can come in here to fill in that gap. You must have the knack for getting newsworthy information and writing it down with accompanying images and videos as the case may be.  Your copy need not be perfect as there are editors employed by the newspaper and/or news channel to edit your materials and put them in the house style for publication or broadcast.

There are people who have used this model of online writing services to launch a successful journalism career. You can find freelance reporting assignments at online portals like JournalismJobs and peopleperhour.

Product Reviews

This entails getting involved in the testing of products and/or services and writing reviews about them to grow online engagement.  For you to be able to write your reviews, the company will send you free samples of the products or admit you freely into a paid membership of its service for a limited period of time so you are able to use the product or service and thereafter write your reviews of them.

Some of the places you can check out for such opportunities on the web include writerbay, upwork and constantcontent.

Email Writing

Yes, it is as simple as it sounds.  This form of online writing job entails that you help businesses write emails and distribute electronically to their customers prospects.  Usually these are customers that have been captured on their mailing list.  These emails may be for information purposes, advertisement, announcements or for customer engagement.  The service may also entail you getting responses to the email sent and forwarding to the company.  If your interest is in email writing, you can get jobs from the any of the freelance writing websites highlighted above.

Social Media Engagement

This is part of content writing services but with particular emphasis on the  creation of customer or audience engagement using the social media.  The social media, particularly Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and even Whats app are becoming critical tools for businesses, government, politicians, high networth individuals and nongovernmental organizations for audience engagement, personality profiling and image building.  Social media content writing is a whole lot of work that can keep you busy all year round. If you understand how to use the social media tools for effective engagement you can become an authority as a social media expert and make for yourself tons of money.

Check out jobsinsocialmedia and indeed for assignment in social media content writing.

Copy Writing

As a copy writer you help businesses write sales and marketing materials, advertisements as well as PR engagements for other organizations and high net worth individuals. The need for good copy writing cannot be overemphasized in today’s ever growing digital world.  To get gigs in the copy writing area, check out the freelance writing websites highlighted above.

This website airtasker.com provides a good opportunity for different category of people to make money online. It is a community marketplace for a variety of tasks including writing jobs. Writers can browse over 500 writing tasks including ghost writing, academic essays, technical writing, resume writing and even graphic designs.  Check it out.

Final Words

The truth is that if properly done, online/freelance writing can be a lucrative business career.  There are quite a good number of freelancers who are earning in six to seven figures but it requires hardwork, let no one kid you.

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