Get Paid for Website Article Writing

loucroft

Hiya

Welldone for taking some good steps. In general those sites used to be a lot smaller than they are now, but they're very good and freelancer especially has swallowed up some of the smaller ones and is an 'international' site so using that one, I'd recommend searching with keywords you think are good - uk, .co.uk, web content etc

It's hard to say with writing. I did 2300 words this morning which took 2.5 hours with research. Generally once I either am interested in the subject, or have already researched it, and know what the client wants I generally take 40-60 minutes to write 1000 words. Longer for techie stuff, or things I really don't know about! And that time doesn't include rewrites/tweaks that sometimes are necessary.

Whenever I bid, I make sure I know I can do it before hand - this saves time with taking on jobs and then mucking them up because I haven't understood.

Always be courteous, and either put one document sample together and send it with your bid, if you're confident your work is what they're looking for (I tailor it every time, quickly, so that the samples in that document are almost relevant/similar to the work you're trying to get )

Try to list background, brief confirmation of what your bid covers and then some examples of either companies or websites you have worked for - the potential client can then check them out himself.

Also, if you have a good website worth showing off, add that but its really not necessary as your bid should be good enough.

Hope you and some others get some good tips, eventually you get work by word of mouth anyway so I only tend to return every now and then to them - I save my bid limit until I really don't have the work, then it only costs me when I'm accepted so no outlay.

Lou

Arfa__

Coming from the perspective of a web admin, wanting to buy in some articles to bolster site content or for article marketing purposes; is there any advice people can give? I've never used one of these services before, and have been contemplating it, purely to save time and help get a new site established.
I guess I'm after advice in regards to putting across a clear agenda of what is required, to get back what I expect. Any big do's/don't? Are there restrictions on where I publish the final article and its usage?

loucroft

Arfa__ wrote: »

Coming from the perspective of a web admin, wanting to buy in some articles to bolster site content or for article marketing purposes; is there any advice people can give? I've never used one of these services before, and have been contemplating it, purely to save time and help get a new site established.
I guess I'm after advice in regards to putting across a clear agenda of what is required, to get back what I expect. Any big do's/don't? Are there restrictions on where I publish the final article and its usage?

Only commission articles - never buy from 'spinning' sites because they're so close to copyright law and don't give any kind of reputation for your site, other than you've almost copied it.

Find someone that knows their writing will benefit your site - no point taking on someone that knows how to write their company newsletter, but has no experience in writing for the web. 2 completely different things.

in fact, if anyone would like more advice you are welcome to pm me with direct questions

anything that comes up as a regular question / faq I will post here

L

Mrs_Money

I'm also interested in this and have just checked out some articles on Wikinut - the English in the random three that I have just scanned through, is extremely poor. I don't understand how any money is made by these people. Am I missing something here?

mrsyardbroom

What do you do? Days of affiliate incomes are diminishing, best to keep your advice concise and let everyone know why you're making a decent income

I use Webgains and other affiliate links on my website plus Adsense. By updating regularly you can increase the amount you earn from both of these sources. I'm not making a "decent income" yet but the amounts earned are increasing slowly but surely. This month I will have at least £140 coming in from these sources. This has increased from around £40 over the last few months. I'm a pensioner so this is extra income on top of my pensions. I'm not putting the hours in to earn a full time living from it as I have too many other interests, but I'm sure it could be done.

keeping a site up to date when you don't know how to write for your audience can be detrimental to any business

If you don't know how to write for an audience you aren't going to make a living from any source. Fortunately I am an experienced writer and have done it for a living.

Paulmc77

Hi there, hope someone can help me here.
I bid on a project on freelancer.com. The person contacted me to ask for a few samples so I sent some stuff I had knocking about, just to show my skills.
Yesterday I got another message from the person asking me if we could chat on Skype as he/she sees potential.
Is this normal? I didn't think that potential writers got contacted directly like this.
Last week, on peopleperhour, someone contacted me directly for samples after I had bid on a project and soon after i got an email from peopleperhour to tell me that they were worried that people were being contacted directly about this project and to be wary of scams.
It's all very confusing getting started and getting a bid accepted seems a long way off. Anybody any advice for getting started? I'm sure once I do get some work through these sites, that I will be able to get well into it, but it's just that all important first one I need to get me going.

loucroft

The sites want all communications and payments through their site for a reason - to keep you safe and to make sure they aren't losing out on fees they will charge you if you are accepted for a job. Sometimes I don't mind being contacted directly, it saves me money and I don't have some jobsworth reading my messages to clients however clients should really stick to the rules of the site....

Some people don't or can't express their requirements over written messages. I would say have a go at skyping - its free, you might get the job, and at the end of the day freelancer.com won't miss out on their fees if you do everything else following the rules!

Good luck

loucroft

Mrs_Money wrote: »

I'm also interested in this and have just checked out some articles on Wikinut - the English in the random three that I have just scanned through, is extremely poor. I don't understand how any money is made by these people. Am I missing something here?

Some people don't know how to write in correct grammar. Some of the articles you will find are poorly written - they have either been 'spun' (the same piece written over and over again, but in a specific way so that it beats copyright) - people that do that aren't paid much.

Some you will see have been generated by a bot and obviously not there to attract human visitors - they will create hundreds of articles aimed at getting backlinks to a site that sells somethine (a crap bit of software, an ebook etc).

Really good, researched, hand written articles and web copy is what pays. You need to be good though.

Mrs_Money

loucroft wrote: »

Some people don't know how to write in correct grammar. Some of the articles you will find are poorly written - they have either been 'spun' (the same piece written over and over again, but in a specific way so that it beats copyright) - people that do that aren't paid much.

Some you will see have been generated by a bot and obviously not there to attract human visitors - they will create hundreds of articles aimed at getting backlinks to a site that sells somethine (a crap bit of software, an ebook etc).

Really good, researched, hand written articles and web copy is what pays. You need to be good though.

Yes, I can see that - but these people are plainly not primarily English speakers (it's not just a case of poor grammar skills or selling something) so I feel the quality lets the whole site down and, as such, would not be a reputable source of income for a competent writer? Or am I just being picky? I just don't see how this could be an income generator.

loucroft

personally I don't use such sites, however if you google 'wikinut' the first listing says you basically can write about anything and they'll pay advertising royalties.

I can work out how they do it - its an affiliate site. you will publish a piece about toilet problems, how to cook a salad or dusting your home the economical way, and they'll add adverts to the page. It gets a few hits, they get commission if anyone is daft enough to click on the ad and buy something and they'll pass a penny or two to you.

Avoid. It's a waste of time - would you really want to be associated with it?

My advice, if you can write then get a few viable clients under your belt - write web copy for them or blogs - and go out and find more.

Easy when you know how!