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How to start freelance writing as a side business

7 must use tools for pro performance

By | Trevor Martin

Ohh, let me guess you must be daydreaming to become a freelancer right, but don’t know how and where to start?

Nowadays, people do think that one source of income is just quite not enough even with a full-time job or work, You can’t live life the way you dream of in fact some of them can’t even pay the bills and buy essential pantries.

This is all because If you just compare today’s dollar buying power it’s much less then it was 20 years ago and the major reason is due to inflation around the world, price of daily necessities have grown up such as school fees, rents, taxes, and bills, etc.

Table of contents
  1. What is Freelance writing?
  2. The nature of Freelance writing
  3. 11 Types of Freelancers
  4. How much do you get paid through Freelance writing?
  5. How to get paid on Freelancing platforms?
  6. Do I need a specific degree for Freelance writing?
  7. Advantages of Freelance writing
  8. Disadvantages of Freelance writing
  9. 7 must use tools for pro performance

So if you are like most of the people waking up every morning dragging yourself for going to your job or work. You might want to have something quite different

 A Side hustle to rely on for instance if one day you woke up and suddenly you get fired from the job so what is the best option?

So here we are about to share with you the top trending and the fastest way of earning money into your side pocket. So, why not just bring it on?

Most of the time you might have heard how to get started a career in freelance writing? but have no idea what does it involves?

Such as do you write on Upwork or Fiverr?

What type of writer are you?

Do you write business to business or business to consumer?

Do you write for magazines or brands?

Well, these are all the questions about the meaning of freelance writer so don’t worry we are here to take you through this luxurious journey into becoming a pro Freelance writer.

What is Freelance writing?

Freelancing is a diverse group of people with a wide range of interests they sell their skills with words to anyone in need of help.

Freelance writing deals in writing for any subject in any field or industry.

A freelance writer is a self-employed person. He/ she writes ads, articles guest blogs for companies, news agencies, software houses, or other clients. 

The nature of Freelance writing

A freelancer writes for a client or more than one at a time there is no limit to it, and they get paid as per agreed terms either per assignment or bunch of assignments and the location is remote.  

11 Types of Freelancers

  • Blogger these are people who write frequently for their audience as per their personal interest and post them on Blog platforms such as Blogger or Word Press. It’s more of a personal diary or online journal.
  • A business writer writes stories for trades, Human Resource documents, training manuals, writes proposals and plans for companies or reports on financing and other economic ups and downs for publications.
  • Technical writing it’s more of technical experts in IT or engineering field who write user manuals, assembly instructions, quick reference guide for types of equipment, Software, hard wares, and other parts.
  • Marketing and sales copywriting these types of writers are creative to through sale pitches for different products, brands, and businesses by creating ad scripts, running email campaigns, social media posts and, etc.
  • Content writer is all about writing engaging content on websites for their audience and customers through webinars, Info-graphics, e-books, whitepapers, and blogs and,
  • Ghostwriter its similar to the content writing but the only difference is that he/she writes for other people while being a ghost or anonymous mean you would’ not get the content or the particular post named under your belt on the client’s platform.
  • Seo writer these writers are well crafted on providing highly optimized content according to the search engine terms and conditions as a way to rank on Google, Bing, Yandex and, etc.
  • Academic writing focuses on writing essays, the in-depth researched article reports for Academic Journals, thesis, or class-related materials.
  • Professional writer freelancers who have worked on different freelancing platforms such as Freelancer, Fiverr, Upwork and etc for an awhile can call themselves as a professional writer.
  • Content strategist focuses on the end user’s need he/she is the head of the content writer’s team, Plans out a strategy such as style guides, content migration plans, inserting keywords, and meeting the requirements of metadata frameworks.
  • News writing focuses on writing stories for magazines and scripts for News agencies on online media.

How much do you get paid through Freelance writing?

The best thing about freelance writing is that there is no limit on how much you can earn?

It’s all about setting the price as per your rates and the workload you can handle according to your lifestyle needs. How cool right? 

But now you must be thinking that how to rate yourself?

For this purpose, you need to research in your market by researching different online resources what is the demand and supply?

Remember experience matters a lot.

If you are starting from scratch obviously you can’t rank yourself asking for 1000$ per article I am sure you would end up by getting Zero clients and demotivated.

The better option is to go with the wave so adjust your rate a little below than the average according to the industry and the services you can offer,

Initially, most of the times you need to write free articles or samples to get a client and by the time you will be able to create a portfolio

  Let me break it down further

How to get paid on Freelancing platforms?

  • Get registered on any freelancing platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr and, etc.
  • Set your profile
  • Set the billing details
  • Create an online resume to make it easy for the client to choose you amongst others
  • Attach few of your achievements
  • Search out in the job query list
  • Choose the best you like according to your interest and expertise
  • Send a sales pitch in which you need to sell yourself for this particular job
  • Sooner or later the prospect interested will email you back asking for some samples or published articles if any
  • Make sure to tell them the time availability and the rate you prefer to meet up the deadlines
  • Discuss with them the billing details how you would like to get paid PayPal, Skrill or Payoneer therefore whatever you both choose the best option
  • If it’s a contract based work then you need to check the terms and conditions and if so you agree to work with them that would be great!
  • Next step would be to give the best content on the given time
  • There you go they would check out the content by different resources and
  • Finally pay you the amount agreed upon

Do I need a specific degree for Freelance writing?

So the answer is NO! Not at all.

If you are a student you can be a writer,

If you are an engineer you can be a writer,

If you are a storekeeper you can be a writer,

If you are a housewife still you can be a writer

So there is no restriction on who can be a writer and can’t be a writer? 

Yes, indeed it would be great if you do specialize in few online content writing courses it would give you an edge towards your writing career.

Now let us discuss

Advantages of Freelance writing

  • You are the all in one boss of yourself
  • Daily new topics
  • It improves your online general knowledge
  • It allows you to have freedom over your schedule your location, your work, and your finances.
  • You don’t need to get glued on to office chair from 9 to 5
  • You can just work remotely from anywhere around the world even while cuddling your baby.
  • You can fix your rate as per your expertise and workload
  • You can gradually increase your rates as you get experienced
  • Do the work you as per your interests
  • Can do part-time while continuing your day job
  • Instant payment, no need to wait for the end of the month to get paid

Disadvantages of Freelance writing

  • No office atmosphere
  • It’s hard to manage time
  • Hard to prioritize family, friends, or work
  • No social life
  • A medical issue like blurred vision, neck and eye strain issues while sitting for hours in front of a laptop or desktop
  • You have to catch up with the deadlines
  • Repetition of changes to meet the demands of the client
  • Pretty hard to get that 1st client
  • No control over finances after getting the first assignment don’t know when will the next assignment will be assigned
  • Sometimes hard to cope-up with multiple jobs at a time
  • Occasionally notorious clients get their work done but they don’t pay you back and you can’t follow them up because you are in touch with the client remotely.

Now as you have understood that freelance writing is one of the worthy side hustle business option,

We are going to share with you the bonus material by giving away 7 must use tools for pro performance

So let the countdown begin

7 must use tools for pro performance

  • Canva it’s a multipurpose designed app on the internet to make your blog or the content more visually appealing and effective by adding in content images, creating graphics, animated designs creating social media relevant posts and, etc.
  • Yoast SEO it’s one of the best content writing tools for creating SEO friendly content as it gives you the necessary guideline on how to optimize your content as per the requirement of search engines such as adding meta descriptions, shortening the paragraph and, etc.
  • Sumo it’s a must-use tool for your blog as it allows you to access various analytics to your blog such as create email capture forms, add or share social media buttons and, etc.
  • Stackedit while editing most of the time for web writers it’s time-consuming to download anything or copy from other websites and while pasting the format changes so this editor helps you copy down and convert text into .html the best part is that it even works offline.
  • In academic and business circles plagiarism is the most serious offensive issue so we need to make sure that our content is totally plagiarism free, online tools like Prepostseo plagiarism checker, scan my essay or Turnitin similarity checker will help you stay away from this offensive.
  • Just like plagiarism, keyword stuffing is also an offensive action due to which Google ranks you out, so tools like keyword density checker or beutifytools, rankwatch are the favorites to go with to avoid these mistakes.

Grammarly is the best tool for writing down as it helps you quench through grammatical issues I am sure no one is perfect but this tool helps you write the best content while highlighting the grammatical issues and offering the best alternate word for your text.          

 

 

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