Writing online

[missscruff]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum. I just wondered if people had any positive experiences of paid writing work online?

I've been writing for <snip> for a couple of months now and I'm getting paid £5 for every 500 word article I write. I was a bit nervous about doing it at first but its working out well and I'm getting paid promptly.

Can anyone recommend any other websites where I can get paid for writing articles? Preferably ones that you have triedand can vouch for.

Thanks!

[Clinton]

People dropping links in their first post around here are generally viewed with suspicion.

I've deleted your link. Please reply to tell us some more about what you do and why you are on these forums. Maybe you tell us what threads you liked and/or how they helped you,

[missscruff]

Oops sorry!

I work in an office by day but I don't get paid too well for it. I always see adverts for work-from-home schemes on the internet and used to be really wary of them.

Like I said, I've been doing the writing for a couple of months now and its working out well. I think I'm probably quite lucky that the website I used is genuine and wanted to know about other peoples' experiences with working-from-home writing websites. I'm thinking about trying out a couple more writing sites but don't want to get scammed!

Are they mostly dodgy or are people finding them a good way to earn money?

Sorry about the link thing! I've never really used forums before! Just thought it might be a good way to get advice from people who have a bit more experience in making money online.

[Ajeet]

Just a moment ago I read an interesting post on this topic: http://www.youngprepro.com/freelance-writing-clients/ (not affiliated with this site in any way)

[Kay]

I do a bit of writing online, but I don't use sites that are marketplaces for writers. Mostly I just hang out on places like here or other forums and if someone has a job, then they'll ask me if I'm interested, I do the same, if I have a job I want to sub-contract, then I'll get in touch with someone I've met on a forum.

If you're a complete newbie, then maybe you'll have to prove yourself somehow. If you're not, then you might find that people will come knocking on your door asking you to do stuff for them.

Edit: I used the word "sub-contract" in error and may have given the wrong impression. I don't sub-contract any work which I've undertaken to do for others. I should have said "outsource", which is what I do with some content writing for my own sites. Sorry for any confusion.

[jamesuk]

There are a lot of things you could do to get writing gigs online. If you go on some of the Internet Marketing forums, you will find a lot of marketers looking for good writers. You can set up a thread offering your services. Some examples of what you can offer are to write content, articles, amazon product reviews and press releases. Beware that a lot of forums will require you to contribute first before you can offer paid services and also you may well have to pay a fee to get a listing. Start off small, but as you gain confidence, look to expand. Maybe try to specialise in certain niches where you can make a name for yourself as the go-to person in that area.

You can also register with sites that make their money from producing keyword driven content - associatedcontent.com (Yahoo recently bought these guys for around $90 million dollars - their model is simple: pay people like you to write articles on subjects that they know are trending and then syndicate those articles to sites across the Internet. You can register as a contributor herehttps://contributor.yahoo.com/signup.html. There are numerous other similar sites, such as paidcontent.co.uk and demandmedia.com (they own and run ehow.com, which you may have heard of).

If I was looking to gain maximum leverage from my writing skills, I think I would go the PLR route. (I appreciate that if you are new to all this, you may not have heard the term, but if you google it, you will get the idea). Basically, it would go something like this:

1. Choose 1 or 2 niches that you have an interest / skill / knowledge in
2. Use the Google keyword tool to do some basic keyword research
3. Write a series of 5 - 10 articles relating to that niche which are targeted at those keywords
4. Offer those articles to webmasters / marketers who are active in that niche

The advantage of this is that you can write the articles once and potentially get paid 50 - 100 times for the work rather than once (you do need to restrict the number you sell - people won't want to buy a set of articles that may potentially appear on 1000's of sites across the web.)

To give you an example:

You are interested in the fitness / health niche. From basic keyword research, you see there are a lot of people searching for information about Dr X's surefire method to lose weight. You write 5 articles on the subject, each targeted at keywords relating to this. You can then sell these articles, limited to 50 lots @ $17 a pop.

The best place to start doing this is on marketing / webmaster forums, but once you become confident, you can even set up your own website and charge interested people a recurring monthly fee - each month they pay their money and receive a number of new articles that they can use. An example of a site that does this is hxxp://kickstartplr.com/ (replace XX with tt - not sure a backlink from this site is in order!)

Best of luck!
- hxxp://

[Clinton]

hi missscruff, welcome to experienced-people.net and thanks for the PM.

Are they mostly dodgy or are people finding them a good way to earn money?

When it comes to the Making Money Online niche, most sites are dodgy, unfortunately.

What subjects you're best at writing on?

[DomainMagnate]

I can give you some perspective from a different side since I frequently hire freelance writers.

Pick one of the popular commercial niches online (health, finance, education etc) that you're more interested in and if you're good: produce quality content and deliver on time, finding clients won't be hard. The market is saturated with low quality content so writers compete by lowering their rates - raise your rates and quality instead!
Other than quality timeframes is the most important thing to clients. Personally, even if the writer is good and the prices are fair, but he promises to deliver in a week, but does it in 3 weeks instead, I most likely won't work with him again. Deliver on time!

[KenW3]

Can anyone recommend any other websites where I can get paid for writing articles? Preferably ones that you have tried and can vouch for. Thanks!

I would recommend trying Guru.com and eLance.com. The difficulty with sites like that is the competition from other writers. Initially, you are competing based on price until you can point to a body of work that can distinguish your abilities. If you try these, please let us know your experiences with them?

If I was looking to gain maximum leverage from my writing skills, I think I would go the PLR route.

Interest in PLR has diminished due to the Google panda, but is still being used as filler. For webmasters not interested in ranking in the SERPs, duplicate content still has a place. It is certainly a way to increase writing income, but requires a reputation and a sales site to offer it, unless a writer can partner with an existing PLR provider. I have a directory full of that stuff and MRR material, that I search for ideas when I can't think of something to write

I always see adverts for work-from-home schemes on the internet and used to be really wary of them.

...and should continue to be wary of them

When you are building a reputation as a writer, all of your writing, posts here, emails, offers you respond to, will be examined. Once you have the rep, though, you won't have to apply for work, you will need to turn it away. The best writers end up working with a very small number of clients, and eventually don't need to advertise or offer services.

[Fish]

I just came across this today: http://jobs.problogger.net/
There's also Demand media (demandstudios.com), which might be a good way to get started and build a portfolio.
I think the PLR route is pretty thankless. I used to buy PLR from a woman at Warrior Forum. She wrote good stuff - far better than average - and had a good reputation. And yet, she always seemed to have money problems. Maybe it was just a weird sales pitch, or maybe she's a compulsive gambler. I don't know. But if a "successful" PLR writer is struggling that much, it makes that approach look less than attractive. If you pump out good articles that retain your name on them, I would think it's a matter of time before you can ask for more.