The freelance writing tips below are great for anyone who wants to make money writing.
In the know your skills article, I detailed the fact that you should only do something that you love and are good at.
If you follow this principle, then you will have significant chances of succeeding. There is no way you can just write like Kristi Hines out of the blue.
Kristi is actually my favorite writer. If you check out her stuff, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Before I get completely out of topic, I would like to share these writing tips you may not have heard anywhere else.
As you continue with your freelance writing business, start implementing the tips below. Aim to be a giant affiliate marketer at some point. At the end of this article, I will tell you how it all adds up.
1. Proper Time Management = More Money
The difference between freelancing and your day job is the fact that as a freelancer you have all the time to yourself; or so you cheat yourself.
You need to work as hard as anyone else to make serious money online. Avoid distractions such as social media feeds, checking your emails every 10 minutes, chatting with everyone, and being straight up lazy among others.
No matter how fast you type, you can’t earn much from writing if something distracts you 90% of the time.
Instead, use your free time to enhance your typing and reading skills. Aim to get to levels where you can touch-type at 100 words per minute and speed read at 500 words per minute.
Both typing and speed reading are skills that require some sort of training, mostly self-help. They will come in very handy in your research and writing skills. If you want to do social media, then learn some proper social media marketing skills.
2. Start a Blog
Since most of your stuff will be online, then you need to increase your web presence. One of the best ways of doing this is by starting a blog. Write about stuff you love.
Test different blogging skills such as blog marketing, search engine optimization, and search engine marketing among others. Instead of looking for samples from your computer to give prospective clients, you will only need to give them a simple link to your blog.
3. You Can’t Do Much Monetizing in a WordPress.com Blog, Use a Self-Hosted Blog Instead
You may have heard that WordPress is the best content management system. This is true, but it works better for a self-hosted blog (where you pay for the domain name and hosting and then install the free WordPress software).
In case you want to do affiliate marketing or incorporate Google AdSense and other ads, then note that you cannot do that with a free WordPress.com blog.
The best place for you to go would be self-hosting in hosts like HostGator. This tutorial will help you set it up.
Here you can freely insert all your affiliate links and incorporate AdSense. You can also monetize your blog in several other ways such as product sales, courses, and events.
4. Join at Least One Web 2.0 Website
They also called these revenue-sharing websites. Before you make enough money to start your own website, it is good to have some articles on these sites.
The best place to start is HubPages. After posting some articles on these sites, you can apply for Google AdSense and other advertising features such as eBay and Amazon associates.
The sites will then share their ad revenue with you. Trust me, you will not earn a lot from these sites, but as a writer, at least you’ll have more content out there to share with your prospects.
Check out this post to see why you need web 2.0 sites and secrets on how to optimize them.
5. Start Doing Some Affiliate Marketing
This is where most millionaires make a kill online. It is simply referring people to different products and earning a commission for sales or leads. Check out Affilorama for lots of fun and cool stuff on affiliate marketing.
Most affiliate marketers make their money on ClickBank. Unfortunately, ClickBank does not work in Kenya. You can try out other sites that you will learn about in Affilorama.
6. Submit Some Articles to LinkedIn and Medium
These are great for article marketing. These still help build your online kingdom. It’s good to keep getting your name out there.
I recommend these two since they are no-brainers. You can join each platform right now and submit articles there in minutes. You don’t have to go through editors, heads of content, etc.
7. Pitch Top Blogs for Guest Posting Opportunities
You now have an arsenal of good content to showcase your skills. Now, start pitching top blogs such as Forbes, HuffPost, Inc, and Entrepreneur.
Having even just one article in one of these places can skyrocket your freelancing career. How? If a client asks you for your samples and you share a link to your Forbes article, it shoots up your credibility.
How It All Adds Up
How I wish I would know all the above freelance writing tips before starting my writing business. If you have all the above set up and running, they will complement your writing income.
Have you ever asked yourself where all those articles you write go to? Guess what? They mostly end up in the above places; affiliate marketing websites and blogs, web 2.0 sites, and as guest posts in top sites.
If you were to use these from the beginning, you will just need to tweak them a bit once you have your own blog and affiliate marketing business running.
It will save you a lot of time and money by just tweaking them, pointing links to your sales pages, sitting back, and making money online.
You will also have familiarized yourself with these sites, which will make it easy for you when doing internet marketing.
It will also help you know where to post your practice articles and earn some residual income from them. Of course, don’t post poor content anywhere online, it will work against you.
If you found these freelance writing tips useful, share them with your friends using the social buttons below. I would also appreciate reading some comments from you 🙂
Invaluable stuff, Walter. Thank you so much. I’m now striving to join the paid article writing course.
Hi Ian,
Thanks a ton. I’ll be happy to see you soaring!
Thanks for this,I am Ugandan and have been looking for ways to make money besides my day job
Thanks Walter for the invaluable content
Hi Kirunga,
You’re always welcome.
Stay tuned for more!
Waah Walter this is priceless, notes taken- literally. You are a generous soul. Your generosity will come back to you good measure pressed down, shaken together and running over! Amen
Thank you so much, Valentine! God bless you!
Thanks for the tips!
Most welcome!
Quite informative.
Daniel
Much appreciated Daniel.
I came across your blogs and since i started reading your articles, i have not seen stopped looking for more. I am a writer and it is my first time to create a blog page. my blog is http://www.izaiacalvin.blogpost.com. i would like you to give me tips on how to improve my blog. thank you
khylecalvin@gmail.com
Thanks Izaia. I think you gave the wrong link to your blog. Kindly read my free blogging ebook, implement the tips and let me know if you have any questions. Download it here https://freelancerkenya.com/go/list
Great Ideas. Kindly sent my your email and contacts so that we can arrange for further discussion on this topic.I love the insight that comes out of this articles. I have tried to log in to many sites e.g iwrite,elance but their requirements are discouraging man.my email address is jackotienokey@outlook..com
Regards
Hi Jack
Thanks for your compliment.
My email is walter@freelancerkenya.com. Feel free to email me anytime to talk more. Don’t worry. With hard work you’ll make it.
Great site you have here. I love your articles, well researched and just great stuff! Thank you Walter.
Thanks Jos. I appreciate your kind words.
This is just great Walter,you are one of some Very few individuals especially in Africa,willing to share secrets pertaining to their professions.Majority believe that by so doing,they will be creating rivals who may end up stealing the limelight from them.You heart is brimming with a very precious commodity,its called LOVE.
Warm regards;
JEREMIAH CHAMAKANY,BARINGO COUNTY IN RIFTVALLEY
0727310782
Hi Jeremiah,
Thanks a lot for the very kind words.
I’m just getting started with blogging, and I have been writing articles for quite some time now through various outlets. I am a full-time freelancer (writer and virtual assistant.) This is great advice! I think you have just helped me make the change I have been looking for toward better earnings and SEO for my blog. Thank you!
Hi Beverly,
Thanks for your comment.
I hope it works out great for you. Always feel free to ask any questions.
Cheers 🙂
You are most welcome 🙂
thank you for this helpful article, recently i joined hubpages. hope it works well for me. as for triond it is not working at all. would be grateful if someone throws light on how to make money with triond,thanks
Triond has less traffic and will help you make some little cash.
To make money with Triond, simply associate it with your Google AdSense account. I hear they also pay per the traffic your articles receive.
Feel free to search on Google on ways to make money on Triond.
Cheers 🙂
thanks Walter for replying, its pleasure to get your feedback
Hi Walter,
thanks for the good article. I just wanted a clarification on article directories. Could you give examples of some of them.
Hi Cate,
Thanks for your question.
They include ezinearticles.com, articlesbase.com, buzzle.com e.t.c. If you Google “best article directories” you’ll get a whole list.
I hope that helps.
It is possible to have your articles rejected on sites like iwriter, and maybe you don’t have a chance to make corrections and submit article at the same site. You can submit your articles here: http://www.triond.com/users/gituhu they pay you per articles view, and believe me, you can make unlimited cash from that rejected article. You also have a chance share adsense revenue with triond and I guess you know how hard it is to get an approval for an adsense account on your own…………………….. Try this out.
Peter,
That’s exactly my point on web 2.0 sites. HubPages and Squidoo seem to perform a bit better than Triond though.
Hey Walter, Now a days we people are getting more involve with freelancing. The important thing is you have to be a bit more serious. Cause it has to be done in correct way.
Walter, thats wow!! I really appreciate your writing. You wrote really nice. Thanks for sharing this article.
MicroQube
Hi Walter,
Haven’t been here for sometime. Glad to know you’re top 10. Let me log into fogs and offer you my support. As usual, thanks for the great advice 🙂
Hi writermsa,
Thanks for being one of my top visitors 🙂 I deeply appreciate your support on fogs. In fact I have stuck at number 3 for sometime and am looking forward to getting to first place. About the advice, you are most welcome.
Hi Walter,
You’re most welcome. Your article is funny, interesting and it deserves to win. Let us know how you perform. We await with bated breath 🙂
Thanks a lot Walter. About the voting you’re welcome and I hope you got to top 10.
I appreciate the help. I’ll persevere and do both 🙂
You are always welcome. Yes, I am at top 10 but they extended voting for a week :(. I hope that by then I will still be among the top 10 to receive the grand award. Check out my newest post on how to keep me on top. Thanks
http://freelancerkenya.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/how-to-vote-rate-comment-and-favorite-my-article-in-fogs/
Writer Msa,
On the business, it is wise to persevere and do both as you have said. Your writing for others should fade off slowly as you start earning money from other online sources.
Hi Walter,
First off thanks for this really great advice. After reading it I tried to join hub pages and affilorama but there seems to be so much to take in that am considering just sticking with my writing career. I tried to post an article on hub pages and they have many restrictions about photos. I know my article will look better with the photos but I don’t know any website with a wide range of photos for commercial use. So for now I’ve just saved my article. Any ideas :)?
Hi Writer Msa,
First of all thanks a lot for voting for me on the article contest.
As for hubpages and other web 2.0 sites, it is a bit of work when starting but you’ll appreciate it six months down the line when you’re even getting a few dollars from adsense. You can get free photos from Flickr or sxc.hu. In case you are talking about a website, you can make your own screenshot of the site by using the Snipping Tool (in case you are using Windows 7).
It is okay to stick to writing but it will be much better when you are writing for yourself and earning from the affiliate sales. Since you love writing like me you can still continue earning some dollars from iWriter.com.
Affiliate marketing on the other hand will get to a level where you will not need to be doing much hands-on work. If you do it well, you’ll still be earning from the sites with little effort and get time to write and do other things. Note that success is never guaranteed but if you get there, you can earn thousands of dollars from it.
All the best 🙂
Some really good advise you have shared with us. Thank you so very much for your knowledge and wisdom. Peace and blessings be with you.
You are welcome Pastor Davis. I thank God for his wisdom 🙂