• Home
• Writing For The Web
• Beat Your Paycheck! Web Writing SECRETS
• About
• eBay Income
• Ebooks
• Privacy

Web Writing: Your Top Five Money-Making Skills

May 31st, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Web writing is booming. Anyone who can fill a Web page with words is making a very nice income.

However, there are a couple of downsides to all this happiness for writers. The first is on the client side - competition is exploding, and at the same time the search engines are taking a sharp sword to content exploiters. The second downside is on the writers’ side - since everyone’s a writer now, it’s difficult to differentiate your skills and stand out.

So, dear writer, it’s time to upgrade your Web writing skills. Not only are you doing your clients a favor because you’re producing the great content your clients need (it makes them money), but you’re also standing out from the rest of the writing pack.

Here are the top five money-making skills for Web writers today:

1. Blogging - Become A Pro Blogger: Your Clients Will Love You

Blogs are essential for Web sites, because they’re indexed fast. Every site needs a blog. Get up to speed on blogging, fast. It’s an essential skill for a Web writer.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Your Clients Need Your Skills

With billions of Web pages online and millions added every week, your clients will thank you if you learn how to optimize Web pages. Keep it simple: you just need basic on-page and off-page optimization skills, you don’t need to become a coder.

3. Link-Baiting: There’s Gold In Links

Link-bait content is gold online. Link-bait is any content which attracts links from other sites. If you can create link-worthy Web pages and articles, you can name your own price as a Web writer.

4. Fast Site Creation - Move At The Speed Of Thought, And Win

Writers write, but online it’s handy if you can toss up a basic Web site within a day or two. This is because everything moves fast online: to get in on the ground floor of a new trend, you need to be fast. Do yourself and your clients a favor and learn to quickly create basic sites.

5. Domain Name Expertise - Million-Dollar Domain Names

Some domain names are worth millions of dollars, and their worth will continue to grow. You’re a writer, so you know the power of words. If you can create great domain names, the web is yours.

So there we have the top five money-making skills for a Web writer.

Feeling overwhelmed? Don’t be. You’ve got plenty of time to learn these new Web writing skills, and you don’t need to be a pro in any of them. The basics are easy to grasp. So get writing with your new skills. You’re doing your clients and yourself a favor, and you’ll stand out as a real Web writer.

Web Writing: Top Five Web Content Items You Can Write For The Web (And Get Paid For Writing)

May 23rd, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

New to writing for the Web? The Web is a vast marketplace for your writing. Although each site has its own content requirements, some types of content are common to most sites because of the benefits they offer to site owners, and they’re easy for new writers to write too. In this article we’ll discuss five different types of content.

Before you start hunting for writing gigs, I recommend that you create a small site and post some writing samples on it. You can create a site for free very easily, and can develop your own comprehensive portfolio and lead-generating site later, as you grow as a Web writer.

So here we go, five types of content you can write:

1. Articles - Useful Information Which Attracts Traffic

The “content is king” mantra is sprouted by everyone online, simply because it’s true. All sites need content, and articles are easy to create, easy to put online, and they work as little sales people for years, attracting new customers to a Web site.

2. Blog Posts - Everyone Wants A Blog, But No One Has Time To Write The Content

As businesses see the benefits of a blog (wider online reach, great visibility, easy syndication etc), there’s a major problem. Who will write the blog?

You, of course.

3. Reviews - Read It, Use It, Talk About It, Review It

People hunt for product reviews online before they buy. Reviews are a must for many sites, and you can write them. Tip: make sure that you’ve actually used or read whatever you’re writing about. Fake reviews sound fake.

4. Autoresponder Copy - Helping Web Sites To Stay In Touch

An autoresponder is just an email address which sends out a message, or series of messages, when someone sends a message to it. Autoresponders enable businesses to lead customers along the path to a sale. Think of an autoresponder series as a series of articles.

5. Reports - For Lead Generation And Traffic

You may have heard the term “viral traffic” online. It’s often applied to short five to ten page reports. Businesses offer them free to generate traffic to a site and make sales. However, they sell reports too, when the information is valuable and is available nowhere else. You can easily write reports.

How To Use The Five Types Of Content To Get Writing Gigs

Just as you’re new to Web writing, most Web site owners and businesses are new to the Web. Use the list above to get writing gigs. Just explain to your potential clients that content is king online, and offer to write articles, blog posts, reviews etc for them.

You’ll get lots of writing gigs, which are easy to write, and lucrative too.

Want to become a highly paid Web writer? You can make a full-time income as a Web writer with Angela Booth’s ebooks “Writing For The Web” and “Beat Your Paycheck: Web Writing Secrets”

Web Writing: Blogging Your Way To More Business

May 6th, 2007    Subscribe To Our Feed

Hundreds of thousands of new blogs are created every day. Yes, many of those blogs are junk spam blogs (splogs), but many are created by people and companies who want their voice heard around the globe. A simple blog gives you immense power, so blogging is an important way to get new Web writing clients.

So how do you create a blog which will get new Web writing clients for you? It’s a simple process. Let’s follow it step by step.

1. Decide On Your Preferred Clients - Who’s Your Target Client?

Blogging is instant publishing. So, just as with all publishing, whether it’s newspapers, magazines or books, you need a target audience. Fulfill the needs of your target audience, and they will find your blog. So you must identify who you want to work for, and then write what they want to read.

Please don’t skip this vital step. I’ve been blogging for years, and urge blogs onto my writing students. Occasionally I’ll get a frantic “Help!” from a student who says that blogging’s not working for him. Invariably it’s because he hasn’t bothered thinking about who’s going to hire him to write… his blog is interesting, but not aimed specifically at the audience he wants.

Writers tend to write blogs about writing. This is fine, and a writing blog is great as a portfolio blog, if it includes samples of your work. But if it’s aimed at other writers, then often (unless you expect writers to hire you for your editorial services) it’s a mistake.

2. Write To Be Read And Noticed By Your Target Clients

Once you’ve decided who’s going to hire you, and have targeted the blog appropriately, your next step is to get read and noticed by that target audience.

Let’s see how this works in practice. We’ll say that you’re a Web content writer. One of your target audiences is therefore Webmasters - those who create Web sites. Make a list of how your Web writing services help Webmasters, and then start writing blog posts which reveal your expertise. Read Webmasters’ blogs and forums, to find out what they care about, and write blog posts about how you can solve their problems.

3. Promote Your Blog, And Get Clients

Although it’s much easier to get traffic to a blog than it is to a static Web site, because of Really Simple Syndication (RSS) which is built into blogging software, you nevertheless need to promote your blog.

Wait until you have at least ten articles on your blog before you start promoting it. You can promote your blog in any way which appeals to you - in your email and forum signatures, by writing articles, and by writing news releases.

So there you have it - an easy three-step way to blog your way to new Web writing clients. Just follow the three steps, and you’ll be thrilled and amazed at the results.

Resources

* Writing For The Web

* Blogging For Dollars

— Next Page »

Subscribe in a reader

Copyright © 2007 Fab Web Writer: Join The Instant Publishing Revolution

Credits: Angela Booth's Web writing manual, "Writing For The Web" | Fab Digital Photography Blog - Digital Photography Tips And Inspiration - If you write for the Web, you need to take photos for the Web too.