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How to Sell Your Writing Skills and Make Money

By Nirupama N Raghavan

Experienced freelance writers make money by ghost-writing scores of articles for clients across the world. the following useful article writing and selling tips will help budding writers find a firm foothold in the world of content writing. You can plan and prepare your writing career and prevent a "trial and error" approach.

The important fact to bear in mind is that in order to be able to sell your writing services, you must be able to first follow certain basic rules of online writing.

Article Writing Tips

1. Writing formats: Get familiar with different writing assignments that you could be asked to complete. For example, writers could be asked to work on grant submissions (requesting funds for upcoming projects, usually related to NGO and charitable organizations), press releases (information regarding the release of a new product or service), website content (landing page, "about us" page and so on) or e-books.

The formats of each form of writing is different. There is plenty of information available on the Internet; invest time reading about different types of writing.

2. Choice of English style: Articles are generally written in American, UK or Australian English. Please understand that these are all different variants of the English language. Clients may request that articles be written for a local or international audience. There will be subtle differences in spelling as well as language.

For example, "neighbor" is American English while "neighbour" is British English. Similarly, the Americans say "counselor" while other countries spell the same word as "counsellor".

If you are not sure, ask your client for further clarification. Correct spelling is a crucial factor in getting good work assignments. One incorrectly spelled word can ruin the impression.

3. Research: Researching abilities are another vital contributing factor in crafting a top-notch article. As a budding freelance writer, you may be required to write articles on various genres and subjects. These could include finance, banking, gardening, cooking, health, business, home decor, parenting among several others.

Obviously, we cannot be experts on every subject under the sun. Hence, intensive research will help you find out salient facts and useful information.

For example, if you are asked to write an article about savings accounts in the UK, sit down and read through four or five credible websites for information. If you read about "CD ladders" (bank deposits), look for more information about CD ladders and how they work.

Your article should be able to provide solid, useful and well-researched information to readers. Your aim is to put together information from various sources so that the reader has access to all the information in one place.

A word regarding choice of websites: Please bear in mind that there are excellent websites and several mediocre and unreliable ones at the same time. Avoid gathering information from "forums" etc. Stick to government, educational or reputed websites. This way you can be sure of providing your clients with updated and factual information.

4. Work count and keyword insertion: Keywords are important words and phrases that help an article or website attract traffic. They are based on the factb that all readers begin a search with a word or phrase.

For example, readers looking to travel to Paris may type in "Paris holiday" in the browser to begin seraching for good Paris holiday deals. Clients may often request the use of certain keywords in order to help their website gain visibility.

For instance, a client may ask you to write an article of 500 words and use a specific keyword say, three times in the article. You must be able to weave the keyword skilfully into the article without making it appear contrived. Avoid simply "stuffing" it in. Use the keyword in a way that sounds sensible and logical.

Ideally, keywords should be used in the title, first line and last line (however, this is not a hard and fast rule). Pay attention to required keywords and keyword count.

Please do not "fill" in the article with useless, shallow information. In the world of freelance writing, this is referred to as "fluff". As the name suggests, "fluff" refers to useless, irrelevant information that is merely written to complete the required word count.

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