Writing for Money
Writing for money on the Internet often means that there aren’t a lot of secrets between my clients and myself (as far as the professional side of things of course). Every time I respond to an invitation to bid or place a bid on one of the sites I use, I check to see how much the client has shelled out on previous projects. This is partly to see how reliable these clients are when it comes to pay, and partly to see just how much they do spend in order to get content on their site.
I have been absolutely amazed by some of the figures I have seen. One client on Elance.com (one of the very best clients I have ever had, too) has paid an amazing amount of money for their content development; something to the tune of $100,000 in six months. They pay a flat rate that is higher than most other clients I have come across and do so week after week.
When I first started seeing these staggering numbers, I was struck by a question: If this is the kind of money these sites are willing to pay in order to have content created, then how much money must they actually be making?
Since that question first occurred to me, I have entertained the idea of starting my own web site so I could start writing for money on topics that interested me. The problem is that basically when it comes to computers and the Internet, I tend to shut down. I just can’t see myself spending the time learning all the ins and outs there are to establishing a web site, although I do understand the process in theory.
So you can imagine that I was pretty happy when I found a client who not only wanted to pay me for writing, but would set up a website where that writing would be posted.
So that worked out great for me, but what about for you? I can absolutely understand the majority of writers who do not want to spend their time writing away on a bunch of topics they find boring and want to start writing for money based on topics that they are interested in.
I think that the best way to do so is to start your own website; pick a topic and do some research, and if you find that it is interesting to enough people, it might well be worth trying. The trick is in knowing how to get that money coming in, and there are a few basic steps.
- Find your niche. Do you love to write about the naked mole rat? That’s great, but there aren’t enough people looking for information on that topic to make it worth your while, let alone build a career. Instead, try broadening the scope. More people may be interested in little known animals of Africa, and you could make the naked mole rat a part of the information on a site based around that.
- Deliver great content. Once you find your niche, you have to make your content engaging to your readers. Original research and a casual tone will do wonders!
- Build traffic. You won’t be writing for money by creating a web site that no one visits. Advertisements are probably the biggest source of revenue for web sites, and sites that attract a lot of traffic stand to have the highest paying ads.
- Monetize. Sell information, sell advertising space, just sell. We will look a closer look at some of the options in another article.
Obviously this is a topic on which books could be written. Creating your own web site is about much more than just writing the content, although it is the writing that will earn you the money in the end.
Related Topics
- Blogging for Money
Right off the bat, I want to tell you that I have little experience when it comes to blogging for money. Actually a more accurate statement would be to... - Write for Money
Part of the reason for the existence of this website is to show you how to write successfully online, help you to know what kind of freelance jobs are available,... - Earn Money from Freelance Writing
Time to face an important truth: in order to continue doing what you love, you need to earn money from freelance writing. When I first started out in this... - Get Paid to Write
Wouldn't it be great if we could all get paid to write exactly what we wanted. Most writers will have a few areas and topics that they like to... - Learn to Write
"Learn to write" might seem like kind of a superfluous section. After all, if you want to start a freelance writing career, then obviously you already know at least a...
