Online writers are earning big - enough to not just survive, but thrive. Online writing is now a gainful, full-time option.
Humble Beginnings at Content Mills
For cautious beginners, an online content mill (or content farm) is a decent place to start. Content mills churn out petty but time-consuming writing tasks that don’t require a high writing skill level.
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This is ideal for part-time writers or beginners who are just looking to find their footing and are willing to work at cheap rates.
Job boards like ProBlogger or Contena are regulated forums where established writers come to find work. Jobs posted here can range from beginner to expert level of writing skills.
Browse Online Job Boards
These are good places for you to dip your toe into the waters of full-time online writing. Chances of landing higher-paying writing jobs are greater here, but beware of scams.
Join a Freelance Writing Platform
With platform options like Hubstaff Talent, Freelancer, Upwork & Credo to name a few, online writers are spoiled for choice.
Create your job profile on any (or all) of these freelancing platforms to reach out to as many potential clients as possible. As per an Upwork survey, around 80% of large corporations are planning to expand their use of freelancers.
But the saturation of freelance writers on such platforms has enabled clients to choose the ones with the cheapest rates. So, you may find yourself stuck with large bulk-writing tasks at moderate pay.
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Also, many of these jobs involve ghostwriting, which makes it difficult for you to build up your own portfolio.
Start Your Own Blog
A simple WordPress blog can act as more than just a platform for you to practice and improve your writing. Start by carving out your content niche (what do you enjoy writing about?).
With witty post titles, well-formatted content, striking visuals, and an engaging style of writing - you can amass a growing readership by creating more blogs.
You can promote your blog on social media. The more views you get, the higher your content will rank on search engine indexes, which will lead to even more views.
Using AdSense, you can even monetize your posts and start earning money off your blog. Write promotional or sponsored content revolving around certain products or services to get paid even more.
But be prepared to face standard blogging hassles like registration of a new domain, hosting and monetization details and so on.
Google dislikes web-pages that are not mobile-optimized, so your blog will need to be mobile-ready in order to make a bigger impact and draw in more readers on their mobiles. Also, text-heavy blog posts are losing popularity.
Guest Post on Other Sites
This is a good way to build up your portfolio and expand your reach at the same time. Some websites are even willing to pay for good content once it gets approved.
Write for the Future: Visual Stories
Write in the new content format: Web Stories. They load rapidly on mobile phones, thus ensuring high mobile user engagement.
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And Visual Stories is a free-to-use platform that houses this exciting new format. Post on Visual Stories and generate content that is aimed at pleasing and engaging the elusive mobile users.
In the form of Google’s own Web Stories, your content can enjoy online exposure at the next level. Google is committed to favoring mobile-ready content over conventional content.
This means that your Web Stories (being mobile-ready) will get a head-start on SEO rankings. There’s a chance your Web Story goes viral. That kind of exposure pays for itself.
Publish your Stories on any of the 50+ websites that are a part of the Visual Stories platform. So get started on fattening up your official Visual Stories portfolio by using their free Web Story Builder tool to write immersive Stories.
The builder has images and video library to add to your story along with the ready-to-use design templates. This tool was designed to be easy to use. Light on text, but high on impact, Web Stories will enrapture your readers.
Visual Stories can set you up with a visual blog or an AMP website enabled with the Web Story feature. Harness the latest AMP and PWA tech to expand your reach and start your own mobile-friendly site.
Visual Stories can host your new website and even optimize its ad placement, to boost monetization and ensure maximum earnings from ad revenue.