A STEP-BY-STEP Guide to Starting your Online Writing Career
by Eve Price
Review My SiteSo you want to get paid to write? Where do you start? This is a step-by-step process; some things need to go before others in this process. Some of these steps take longer than others because you will be waiting for approvals, etc. Plan to spend your first day just getting things set up as listed below.
1-Start out by creating a free website with free hosting. Don’t invest any money just yet. You may want to upgrade your website later to have more bandwidth and other features. An upgrade will cost 5.00 to 20.00 per month, depending on the package you choose.
The best free website with free hosting (and the easiest to make) is found by clicking this logo.
You should create a website with a name that search engines like. For example, one of the hottest subjects online is about making money from home. If you do not know a lot about that subject yet, then just create your website so that you can write about a subject that you DO know.
But before you name your site, several free sites will let you put in a phrase or a word and then will return to you the most popular keywords, which will not only give you a good idea for a title, but you will have keywords that can be placed on your home page. Search engines will look for those keywords.
However, how would you like to have the actual keywords that Google will look for, causing your article show up high in the search results? I will explain more about this at the end of the article. Don’t worry; it’s free.
2-Once your website is finished, write 2-3 articles about your site’s subject. Make them at least 300-400 words each. (Word has a word counter at the top.) You may have been writing for a long time, or you may be a novice at it. Either way, you MUST check your work before publishing it at your site. (Everybody makes mistakes.)
Here is an excellent free spellchecker and it also checks for sentence structure and grammar. Word has a spellchecker, but that’s it, so don’t rely on just that.
3-When you are satisfied that your articles are as good as they can get, then go on and publish them to your site. The above link for a free website walks you through that process; it’s not hard.
4-Now create a resume, that shows what you are interested in writing about (it can be several things if you like, in fact it is better if you do have several interests), and why you are qualified to write about it/them. For example, if one of your interests is bowling, talk about how many years you have been a bowler, any leagues you were on, etc. You will need that resume to apply for writing jobs. Save it in a word document on your desktop.
You will also need the URL address of each page of your articles at your new web site, because you will need them to show some of your work when you apply to write. I keep all my articles’ URLs in an excel file on my desktop.
5-There are numerous “paid to write” places on the web, but I am only going to list three of them for you, because they are three of the best ones for which I personally write, and KNOW that they pay. I suggest that you apply to these sites in the order that I am giving them to you. Why? Because the learning curve is better taken if you do them in this order. You will understand this after you write for money for a while.
Also, apply to one at a time, in the order given below. After you are accepted, then write at least 3 articles for the site that just accepted you. After those articles are published, then apply to the second one. Repeat and rinse before you apply to the third one.
Why do I need to apply to more than one site for a writing job?
They all have different pay scales, and you want to have multiple streams of income.
Associated Content--Pay is ok (BUT don’t choose “exclusive” when you publish an article there, so that you can re-publish it at other sites.) Because this is the big advantage here; you can re-publish the same articles at other sites.
Factoidz- Pay is better--will let you re-publish articles that you write for them after 30 days of being published on their site. They only ACCEPT articles that have not been published before.
Experts123- Pay is best--They only ACCEPT articles that have not been published before.
Plus, they own the exclusive right to your work from now on, but the pay is the best.
Where can I re-publish my Associated Content articles and my Factoidz articles (after 30 days)?
When you are ready to re-publish an article, there is one reputable places that will publish articles that have been published before. Helium is the place you want to use. They do not have to review you before you post. Just sign up and post, and your articles are published as soon as you post, no editorial review.
Helium is one of the first online writing sites, and they have a huge marketplace of assignments that pay upfront payments that can become pretty hefty for you. But you do have to be a very quality writer to get the big payments from there. So go step-by-step as described above, before you apply for assignments at Helium.
All of the sites above have assignments that you can accept for a certain dollar amount, or they will pay you for your own idea for an article that you write. The assignments pay more. Some will pay you “production bonuses” as well.
In other words, the more “productive” you are, the more bonus money you make. In addition, they will pay you a certain amount every time someone “views” your published article is viewed. This is called “page views.” That can be very long term residual money. The same article can make you money, month after month.
But to get those “page views”, takes a little more work. You now have to promote your published articles.
6-How to Promote Your Work
A-This is the easy one, just email all of your contacts in your address book. Send them the title, the link to the article and a short summary of it. This is the quickest promotion, your friends, family, etc. Create your “signature” in each of your emails to be a link back to your website.
B-Social Sites and Sharing Sites: You know who they are.
A few pointers about promoting at social and sharing sites:
· Never post your full articles out there anywhere, (even email) just the title, a little summary of the article, and the link back to where they were published. (Remember you want those “page views”) DO however, include your freshly made website URL in your profile, when you sign up for any social sites. This is called “backlinks”, and it puts your material out there more.
· Always make a profile, because you need to let people on those sites know you are serious, and not just a “fly-by-night”. In addition profiles will allow you to post a link to your website.
· Every time you go to one of these sites to promote your published article, always “follow”, make a “friend”, or whatever else the site offers to “connect” with at least two people’s profiles. The reason for this is because you will get more people looking at your article. Once they see you have “followed” them, they will want to see who you are, and what your writing is like. They may just “follow” you back and then they are notified by email every time you make a new post about a new published article, (with a link to it) at most places.
· Every time you go to one of those sites, always post at least two comments on two people’s articles. This lets people know you are a “giver” and not just “taker” of page views.
· Without going into the terms of service of each one listed below, remember to read each site’s terms of service, so you do not get kicked out of a site with a lot of people that may read your articles.
· When you set up your profile, BE SURE that you have marked everything to “public”, your profile, your links, etc. (not your email or address or phone).
So what if I am not an expert on anything?
Everybody buys and uses products, even you.
Most “paid to blog” sites are actually just reviews on products at their sites and they pay you a percent of the sale, when someone buys that product, or on how many good comments you get about your review.
However, one site, Squidoo , lets you review products from Amazon, and then write an article about it, and include links to your Amazon products. When someone buys that product, you get a commission from Amazon. You will need an Amazon Publisher's account to do this. It's free.
In addition, Squidoo has other ways that they to pay you for the same submitted articles.
Then of course there is Google Adsense. Google puts ads on your website, and if anyone clicks on those ads, you get paid by the advertisers.
Go ahead and sign up for Adsense. Not only can you earn money for the ads they place at your site, but only members of Adsense get access to their free Keywords tool that I told you about at the top of this page. The Keywords tool will be more than valuable to your in causing your articles to get top billing on Google.
In addition, be sure to visit the jobs search board for freelance writers, just click the tab above that says "Free Job Board".
Happy Writing.
