Content Magician, Freelance web content writers

Apparently, having installed one theme after another into the website so that we can have one that works without giving us tech-glitches is giving us migranes the size of an earthquake. We’re writers, not tech geeks and after all the songs that we’ve been singing about how seamless and workable wordpress is as a blog content management program, we’re sorta….eating it back, one word by one word. Full stops and all.

Anyway, bear with the changes for a while. We’re trying to iron out the mess here.

Write long, write happy and write well for now.

Despite what people think of sales letters today, as a writer, here’s what I think of them….they work! Sales letters work provided that you get the right writer to write the sales letter for you. Some of them are totally off-the-hook, long-winded and ludicrous and present some of the most ludicrous claims ever…but they work. Sales letters, though, like to beat around the bush and tell life stories. These works are produced by sales letter writers who are unfamiliar with how these things work on the Internet. Along the way, the writer forgets that the purpose of it all…and it’s to sell. Nothing turns buyers off more than a web page that appears to be nagging at them.

The one way to sell someone something, in particular, the target market, we need to zoom in on THEM. They have a problem, they have a pain and through the sales letter, we remind them of that. Then what the writer should do is to tell them that we understand their problem and can relate to how mind-numbing their pain is….and we have the solution! We want to tell them that with that solution, we can change the way they function and live completely. If it applies, the sales letter projects that the solution will bring them the kind of happiness that they’ve been hoping for!

And not tell them that your grandfather’s smoking killed him. (more…)

One of the most common questions a fledgling freelancer asks is, “Someone wants me to write some articles for them and name my price. How much do I charge?”

You have to come up with a number… so what do you do?

There are lots of things you can do to determine a price to charge:

First, you can charge a flat-rate for your writing and sell it the same to every person.

Usually this is a per word rate, such as 1-100 words for XX dollars, 101-250 words for XX dollars, and so on, or it can be a flat rate per word such as $0.10-1.00 per word, or more or less. You set the rate. The problem with flat rates is that every writing is different and the research and time it takes to write varies and thus so should the price.

One thing you can do is try to put it back on the contractor requesting your services. Tell them, “I don’t have a flat rate, but rather charge for each unique project,” and then ask them, “Did you have a budget you were looking at for this project?”

They might or might not tell you, but maybe they’ll hint at an amount so that you know what your ballpark is to work with.

If they won’t offer you any hint, then the next step is to look at other publications/sites that are similar to what is being asked of you and find out what the going rate is, or as close to it as you can get, and then set a rate that is close to that going rate.

Set your rate a bit higher than you really want or need and be prepared to offer a lower rate if they say that’s too high. After all, it’s a negotiation as it would be with any contracting type of job. Also, set yourself a threshold that you will not accept less than XX amount, and don’t let them talk you into less than that unless they can offer you some other benefit besides cash (backlink, free promotion for other things, etc that might benefit you).

Your goal as a freelancer should be to constantly increase your breadth of published credits and to make money to support you in your career. That does sometimes mean taking higher and lower payment on similar type content, BUT if someone is really lowballing you, don’t sell yourself short. You’ll get a reputation of working for peanuts and eventually that’s the only jobs you’re going to be able to get.

So, to recap:

• look at what others are paying/charging for similar content
• try to get the contractor to let you in on their budget
• don’t sell yourself short
• offer a bit higher than you are acting ‘needing’
• set a minimum threshold and don’t go below it
• and did I mention don’t sell yourself short?

Keep in mind, writing is a profession. Regardless of what some people may think or tell you, writing well is a skill, a talent, an art… and you deserve to be paid a livable wage for the quality work that you do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle L Devon is a professional writer and freelance editor, providing editing and writing services through her company, Accentuate Services. To network and connect with other writers, please visit her FREE writer’s forum at http://www.writersforum.info. For more freelance writing hints and tips visit Michy’s freelance blog at http://michysthoughts.blogspot.com/

Please feel free to share this article on your blog, newsletter, website or other print/electronic format, provided the article is not edited and all links are live where possible. Thank you!

We all know that without the help of search engines, the chance of your new business blog or website having incredible, eye-popping traffic is close to nothing. So, if you want people to find your blog or new fabulous website, you’ll need to do something about it and the thing that you have to do is to pump it with some content. By saying content, what I am saying is that you need to put into your website or blog, some really kick-ass articles written by, either yourself or someone you hired.

Blog vs. Website

I remember someone asking me this question… ‘Is it better to have a website or a blog?’ and my answer it depends. That’s because with a business blog with good content written for it, you’ll have the slight edge over someone with a website. A business blog is interactive…it allows for people to pump their own words into the comments section….and interactivity is what the Internet is big on these days.

With a website, you’ll have all your portfolio and stuff in it and people just browse through it. If there’s no need for interactivity or feedback, a website is usually quite enough to get by.

Blogs are more interactive

But if you have a business blog, what happens is that people get the chance to speak up and say something about the topic that you’ve just posted. This makes them excited about your business blog and the chance of them coming back is good. As the Internet continues to grow, many people find themselves LIBERATED in a sense that they can now post their thoughts freely on the Internet for all to see and no one can actually make them say or write otherwise. Isn’t it exciting? Just for the record, my father just discovered the joy of having his own blog and posting comments in other blogs as well. “Why didn’t they invent such a thing like this before?” he laments, scratching his head and furiously tapping the keys to his keyboard.

It’s true….why didn’t anyone invent this kind of thing before? But it’s a good thing that we all have the chance to build our own blog these days. Suffice to say, a business blog is very different from a personal one. You’d have to take great care in the things that you chose to write about on your business blog, you see. One wrong thing and it’s bye bye customer.

Promote your business blog and bring in the bread
And with a business blog, you’d usually have to work a lot harder at promoting it. Granted, a business blog just isn’t as….you know, cool or fun as a personal one. But if you work hard at promoting your business blog to search engines and other bloggers, you might end up surprising yourself by a good Google ranking at the end of the day.  

If Google thinks your business blog is cool, it usually brings in the bread.

“It was just there last week!” screamed my client over the phone as I held the receiver as far away from me as possible. “Why isn’t the listing there anymore? Why isn’t it on the first two pages? Why has it fallen off the face of the earth? I thought I did the right thing already!”

The thing is that I write some stuff for this client, some search engine promotion related stuff and he’s been pumping his blog and website like mad now. Before that, when he first started his website and blog, he had some SEO guys come in and do some SEO work for him. All was fine and dandy; I have to say the SEO guys did a pretty neat job. But this is more than half a year ago we’re talking about – things change, Google change, criteria change and the website and blog needs to change too.

And SEO is a darn stressful industry – quite like the share market, really. This time, we’re not fighting for money, we’re fighting for ranking with the top SEO tactics we know and hiring of some big time guys to come in to sharpen our websites and blogs for us. And we’re watching and watching and watching….and watching, go to sleep, wake up and watching and watching. (more…)