Freelance
Writers' Series
Career & Business
Development Help
From 0 Clients to $250/Day in
Less than Two Weeks: Remember, December is supposed to be a slow month for freelance writers. Before I tell you how I’ve turned what is usually a month I spend doing behind-the-scenes tasks like updating my websites, writing and submitting articles and organizing receipts for the tax man into a busy freelance writing season, I want to back up and give you a little background so you can understand better how you too can profitable break into a new freelance writing niche. Case Study: How to Turn December into a Profitable Freelance Writing Month This year, I started to do SEO article writing. For those who don’t know what this is, read more about it here. Even though I’ve been freelancing since 1993, this is a very new form of writing for me. Most of my clients are small business owners who commission newsletters, brochure copy, articles for their websites, etc. I have some corporate clients who outsource their editing/rewriting work to me, eg, editing annual reports. I decided to give SEO writing a try for four reasons: i) I was bored with my existing workload; ii) I’d read a lot about SEO writing and knew that it was going to be lucrative long-term; iii) there’s not a lot of competition in the field (not for good, quality writers anyway); and iv) it’s quick turnaround (in pay and assignments). As an aside, it fits my rather schizophrenic writing personality too in that I may write five articles in one day on extremely different topics – from wedding accessories to mortgages. As my brain likes to flit from project to project, this works great for me. How to Break into a New Freelance Writing Niche (Profitably!): How I Did It & You Can Too! As this was a completely different field for me, I had to start marketing from scratch. Following is how I went from 0 to 60 in about three week’s time. Marketing for New Clients? Here’s a 3-Step Plan that Works Every Time 1) Website: I took about a week to build a website specifically for this type of writing. 2) Research: I compiled a list of SEO companies I wanted to contact for work. 3) Contact: I contacted them – one at a time, using the names of appropriate contacts where possible and at minimum mentioning the company in the email when no specific name could be found. Marketing Success by the Numbers: What makes this plan work every time is that you make contact every day with a certain number of firms. In my case, I decided to contact – at minimum 20 companies a day. This is simply the power of “marketing success by the numbers.” What is this? Quite simply, there is an old door-to-door salesman idiom, “If you knock on enough doors, you’re going to get orders.” One expression I heard summed this sentiment up perfectly. It went something like, “You can tie a sales presentation around a dog’s neck and if he passes enough people, he will come back with orders.” On the very first day of marketing, I received two inquiries from companies wanting to use me for pending projects in January. About three days later, I received another inquiry from a potential client who wanted to package my services with a presentation he was giving to secure a client, and in the second week, I landed a client who gave me 4 writing projects in three days (the first article consisted of two assignments).
This client is a
large SEO marketing firm and wants to put me on their permanent staff of writers
(we’ll see how this pans out). If you want to learn more about how to start an SEO writing career, order the ebook, How to Start Making Money as an SEO Content Writer, here. It’s one of the easiest ways to start making money as a freelance writer, especially if you have no experience.
In this ebook, I
outline exactly how I went from 0 clients to 14 writing
assignments in
The best part,
I’ll show you how to start from scratch – with no experience, no samples and no
2008 Income Goal: In 2008, my goal is to have SEO Content Writing be 50% of my freelance writing income – with the remainder coming from passive income via my web entities (InkwellEditorial.com, Money-Making-Videos.blogspot.com, SEO-Articles-for-Sale.com) Read here about my $250, five-hour day – after marketing for just over a week. Labels/Tags: how to make money as an SEO content provider, how to make money writing SEO articles, seo content provider, seo article writer, seo content writer, freelance writing advice, freelance writing jobs
Freelance Success Stories:
There are freelancers who make very good livings at what they love. Inkwell
Editorial's newsletter features these successful professionals who put to rest
the phrase, "starving freelancer."
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