What type of income goals have you set for yourself as a freelance writer? No matter who you are or how much experience you have you need goals to chase. Many new freelance writers start with the goal of earning $100 per week. This is a great starting point, and is so for a common reason: it is possible to reach but not so easy that everybody can do it. What happens when you want more from your career? This is when you may decide that you want to move from $100/week to $100/day in income.
Before I go any further keep in mind that this is not a move that is easy to make. To go along with this, it is not a goal that every freelance writer shares. Some of you will not aspire to earn $100/day and others will be reaching for much more.
The following tips are meant to help you take your income from $100/week to $100/day:
1. Know what you are doing right. This is an important step to take if you are ready to move your income to the next level. Once you know what you are doing right you can begin to duplicate it time after time. For instance, if your clients love your SEO articles you may want to think about making this your specialty. Stick to what you are doing right and what you do best.
2. Scale, scale, scale. In other words, do more work for more clients. If you are only making $100/week it is safe to say that you are not working with a large number of clients. As you gain more clients it is only natural that your income will begin to spike.
3. Find higher paying jobs. Contrary to what is noted in point number two, there are some freelance writers who do a lot of work for a little bit of money. This may be acceptable when starting your career and while you are attempting to gain traction. But if you want to see your income at the next level you need to find clients that are willing to pay you more.
4. What would a “tip list†be without talking about marketing? The easiest way to increase your freelance writing income is to become a marketing machine. No matter what you should find time to market your services on a daily basis. Check out this past post – How to Market your Freelance Writing Services.
By implementing the above tips you will find that moving from $100/week to $100/day is more than possible.Â
As a freelance writer you will be taking on a variety of jobs on a regular basis. This can become confusing if you are not organized. It is very important to know the job requirements of each project before starting. To go along with this, you must also keep these requirements in mind as you move through the project. If you don’t you may end up with a completed job that is far from what the client is looking for.
What type of job requirements will you face as a freelance writer? This depends on two factors: the type of project and the client. For instance, the requirements for an SEO article are going to be much different than a feature article. For an SEO article your client may tell you to use a specific keyword a specific number of times. But with a feature article you will not be dealing with these details but instead others such as overall length, number of sources, interviews, sidebar content, etc.
As noted above, the client you are working with will determine the requirements for the project. You will find out soon enough that every client has their own way of doing things. I have clients who believe that SEO articles should be 500 words with a density of three percent. But on the other side I also deal with clients who feel that 300 words and once percent density is best for search engines. As you can see, it is important to get used to dealing with a variety of clients.
Before starting any job you should be 100 percent aware of the requirements. Since each client is unique you should never base one project on another. Instead, know exactly what the client wants and use these requirements to guide you through the project from start to finish.Â
No matter what career path you choose it is easy to reach a point in which you stop trying to improve yourself. This is not a trap you want to fall into as a freelance writer. You should work hard to improve yourself and your career day in and day out. By doing this you will find out soon enough that your career is moving in the right direction in terms of new clients, income, and much more.
There are many ways you can continue to improve your freelance writing career even if you feel you have reached the pinnacle. Just a few examples are listed below:
1. Improve your communication skills. Believe it or not, this is one area that many freelance writers ignore because they feel they don’t have to communicate with others. This is far from the case. By improving your communication skills you will find it easier to land new jobs, keep clients happy, etc.
2. Improve your writing skills. This goes without saying, but it is something many freelance writers take for granted. When I look back at my work from three years ago I often wonder what I was thinking at the time. This is not to say that my work was bad, but through the years I have improved quite a bit. It is important to improve your writing skills as often as possible. Remember, practice makes perfect; or it at least gets you moving in the right direction.
Keep in mind that the freelance writing industry is always changing. What works now may not work next year. For this reason it is important to be willing to improve and change as time goes by. You never want to get stuck in a rut.
The most successful freelance writers are those who are always improving in one way or the next. As noted above, you can improve in many ways including your communication and writing skills. No matter what, work hard everyday with the goal of learning something new and improving your standing as a freelance writer.Â
