Web Content Writing
The internet's thirst for high quality written content is ever increasing. Search engines need significant amounts of text based content to ensure accurate and topical indexing of pages. As a result, there are many opportunities for writers to produce good quality writing, specifically tailored for use on web pages. Some will refer to this content production as 'copywriting, but the term copywriting is actually applied to sales or promotional writing. However you see the term copywriting, there's no doubt that the opportunities to produce web page content are growing.
To illustrate the point, take a look at constant-content.com. This is a hugely successful site where you can sell articles for use on websites either as unique content, for use only once, or as reprint articles for use on many websites. The site has great credibility with both writers and website owners alike and contains good advice in the author forums on how to sell more articles. Some of the forum statistics show that if you have as few as five articles accepted, you have a 97% chance of making at least one sale.
Success is not automatic, but there are a few things you can do to make it much more likely that you will succeed.
- Start off with subjects that you know well. It's important to establish your own credentials as a supplier of high quality writing. Tackling an overly diverse range of subjects may hamper your establishment in the market if you have difficulty producing articles on subjects that you are learning as you go along.
- Look at what is selling wherever you are doing your research. Certain subjects will sell well on certain websites or in specific markets, so make sure you are trying to sell the right content in the right place.
- Take seasonal trends into consideration. Unsurprisingly, webmasters will be looking for articles related to the season. For example, Christmas articles will sell well in the weeks approaching the Christmas holiday season. This is also true for other times of the year, like Halloween and Easter.
- Keep writing. If you are using a site like constant-content, the more your write the more you chance you have of making sales. Keep your output high but never compromise on quality. Quality impacts your reputation and credibility as a supplier, so never trade it for quantity.
Much of the work for web content can be found by networking in website developer forums. Take a look at the Digitalpoint.com copywriting forum or the Sitepoint.com content writing forum for good examples. These sites mostly target webmasters and search engine optimisation specialists, but the copywriting forums are frequented by many freelance writers looking for work as well as site owners looking for writers to produce original content.
Look for commissions wherever possible and be aware that these markets are price sensitive. This means you will need to be prepared to demonstrate why the customer should commission you. Have a portfolio of articles that show your talents and be prepared to supply them to prospective customers. For this, it's sometimes good to be able to point a prospective customer to a web link where they can see one of your articles already published.