Help! I Want To Be A Web Content Writer

Author: A. Antonow

A few years ago everyone seemed to be bemoaning the state of the printed media; arguing that the Internet would make writers and their books obsolete. Well, guess what? The Internet has not made writers a dying breed. In fact, the Internet (aka the information highway) has created new writing opportunities that pay quite well.

Web writers receive lots of work, varied assignments that keep things interesting, a comfortable work atmosphere (home), and the satisfaction of having their words appear on millions of computer screens around the world. Plus, the money from web writing can makes it easier for freelance writers to pay their bills.

You can get in on this exciting online opportunity right now by following eight basic steps:

Step One: Surf The Internet

Look at websites that interest you. Bookmark your favorite pages and return to them for further study. As you study these web pages you will notice things like:

tighter writing,
shorter paragraphs,
casual, chatty article styles,
long, hyped sales pages, and
search engine optimized content.

Then ask yourself the following questions:

What else stands out to me?
Why would I return to this web page, or this website?
Why would I buy from this company?
Why would I trust this company?

Step Two: Find Your Niche

As you consider writing for the Internet, you will discover that you don’t have to jump through hoops to show you are an expert in a specific area; but you will need to show your prospective client that you are:

capable of learning more about the company’s product, industry, or service,
can write with search engines in mind, and
can capture the attention of its audience.

As you study the world of web writing, ask yourself questions like:

What interests me?
What subjects do I want to write about?
What areas am I knowledgeable in?
What areas am I willing to learn more about?
Am I willing to put in the changes necessary to make the content grab a web browsers attention fast?

Step Three: Determine Your Price

One of the downsides to writing for the Internet is that you are competing with writers from all over the world—and that means some clients expect you to write for next-to-nothing. Another downside is the fact that you are giving up “all rights”. In other words, you won’t be able to sell reprint rights to the work you create.

Before you begin looking for web writing work, you must set your prices. Setting a fair price that keeps you in the competition can be difficult, but not impossible. A great place to begin is by discovering what other web writers, with your experience, are charging and how they determine their rates. As your skills improve and your resume builds, you can increase your fees to match.

Once you set a fair price, don’t be surprised to discover that a few potential clients want you to lower your fees. It’s up to you to offer a discount, but keep in mind that once you offer the discount, they’ll expect you to keep giving them the discounted rate. With so many clients out there willing to pay adequately for your time and expertise, you are better off sticking to your original fees.

There are three ways you can set your fees: by the project, by the hour, or by the finished word.

When choosing to set your fees by the project, you need to understand how much research and how many hours go into a typical project. Then you need to add a little cushion for difficult clients, rewrites, and research. (A press release for example runs $175 with two edits. A complete rewrite is extra.)
When choosing to set your fees by the hour, you need to keep in mind that you are a business with business expenses and taxes to pay. If you need $15 an hour to live on, then you need to charge $30 an hour. (The average rate for beginning web copywriters is $30 per hour, $40 for intermediate writers, and upwards of $150 per hour for specialized and highly skilled web writers.)
When choosing to set your fees by the finished minute, you will be giving the client a per word fee. To determine a fair rate, you need to determine how long it will take you to produce one 500 word web page, then you need to set your hourly rate and divide that number by the number of finished words you can produce per hour. The resulting rate is your per-word charge. (Most web copywriters charge anywhere from fifty cents to one dollar per word.)

Step Four: Sharpen Your Computer Skills

Take a computer class or two. The more familiar you are with web design, Internet research, blogging technologies, e-book software, zipped files, merging files, and so forth, the more qualified you look to your prospective clients and the more money you can make.

Be sure to brush up on your typing skills, as well. Web writing work can include some tight deadlines. You can earn more per hour by simply training yourself to work quickly and effectively.

Step Five: Hone Your Web Writing Skills

Web writing is a breed of its own. As we have already discovered, it tends to be briefer and less formal than writing done for newspapers, magazines, and book publishers. If you want to write for the Internet, you need to be familiar with search engine optimization (SEO), keywords, and keyword phrases.

The concept relies on the fact that most web surfers use search engines such as Google (www.google.com) or Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) to look for information on the Internet. This means that a business’ ranking in the search engines can mean the difference between success and failure.

All businesses want their web pages to come up first on search engines and the process of assuring this is complicated. Search engines rank web pages according to relevance, freshness, and popularity of the website. Relevance is determined by how often a website is updated and whether or not the web page targets a specific set of words. They key to writing effective articles designed to capture the attention of the search engines without losing a reader’s attention is learning to add just the right amount of keywords without losing the quality (or heart) of the message.

Writing search engine optimized content takes practice. To help you get started, check out these websites:

Once you have a basic idea of how writing search engine optimized content works, practice.

Come up with a topic.
Decide on a few keywords.
(Words someone might use when looking for that subject in a search engine.)
Write a short 250 to 500 word article. Include enticing, tight content and your keywords.
Test your article. Place your article on a highly trafficked website such as an industry leader or a free article reprint site like Article City (http://www.articlecity.com/). Then wait a few weeks to see how your article ranks compared to other articles in the industry.

Writing practice articles will not only help you hone your web writing skills, but they will give you a few samples to show potential clients.

Step Six: Uncover The Opportunities

There are plenty of web writing jobs out there, all you have to do is look for them. Start by monitoring online job listings like:

However, don’t just turn to online sources. Your local marketing, PR, and advertising companies all hire writers to create online content. Web design companies and software companies also need writers to help them create content for their clients. Working with these types of companies can give you steady work.

Step Seven: Learn To Answer Ads The Smart Way

When you respond to ads for web writers, be aware that those ads often net hundreds, even thousands, of responses from professional writers and would-be writers alike. Your response to these advertisements needs to stand out; therefore, you must personalize every response—form letters will NOT work.

Your response should address the concerns of the client:

your qualifications,
your pay scale,
samples of your work, and
most importantly, what you can do for the client.

Make suggestions, or share your ideas, about what you can offer the client but never point out errors or problems with the company website. Impress the client by doing a little research on the company (or the individual) and include that research in your proposal. But above all, be straightforward, honest, and professional.

Step Eight: Create More Assignments From Your First Assignment

Once you’ve completed that first assignment, let your client know you’re available for further assignments. Then ask your client if you can use his/her name as a reference. Ask if you can use the content you provided as a sample for your portfolio (never put the entire web content on your website, but provide a link to the company’s web page). The idea is to take each assignment and create a new assignment out of it.

Follow these steps and you’ll be well on your way to having all the paying assignments you can handle!

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