Ok, so we’ve talked about starting your blog and how to insert yourself into the public through social media sites, but what now? Maybe you’re having a little trouble getting that gravy train started. I mean, we’ve all heard that success doesn’t happen overnight (turns out, it’s true). But don’t get discouraged! Keep researching and writing your top notch blog posts, and while you wait for your checks in the mail, we’ll get you set up with some other gigs.
If you’re a writer, like me, you probably thought that your college education was wasted on language and syntax. Did you know that there’s a whole mess of people out there who don’t want to deal with the content aspect of their business? They would rather outsource these menial writing jobs to someone who knows what they’re doing, rather than butcher their website and destroy their credibility. The good news is that there are a ton of sites out there that will hook you up with paid writing gigs. The bad news? Everybody and their mother is looking for a piece of that “easy money” so the competition can be stiff.
Let’s not dwell on the negative though, ok? If you’re a decent writer, chances are you’re going to stand out from the pack. One place you can look for writing jobs (and a ton of other freelance outsourcing) is Elance. Elance has everything from Writing & Translation to Web & Programming to Design & Multimedia. You know, maybe you’re just getting started in Internet Marketing, but you’re a little untalented in the design department, you can hire someone to design your site for you using Elance. But for right now, let’s just focus on the writing aspect of Elance, shall we? There’s a whole mess of different skill sets that are in demand for competent writers. On the writing specific front, there’s content writing, article writing, copywriting, report writing, technical writing, etc. If you’re a more technical writer, there’s also editing, grammar, proofreading, spelling, and punctuation. All you have to do is find the category that suits your talents and then peruse the jobs listed for one that you feel qualified to undertake. You put in a bid for the job, and if your bid gets chosen, congrats! You now have a nice little writing job lined up. Because your employer can rate your job performance, the better you do on this job, the better the chances are that you’ll get hired for the next one.
Another site similar to Elance is Pay Per Post. In case you couldn’t figure it out from the clever name, you get paid for each post you write. Pay Per Post operates in the same vein as Elance, but it’s more content writing specific and it’s usually on a smaller pay scale. Some posts will be as simple as writing about the weather, but because there’s little to no effort required, there’s also usually little to no money involved. Some posts will pay around $6-$10, but you have to qualify for those. See, this is where Pay Per Post differs from Elance: Pay Per Post requires you to have a fully functional blog for at least 3 months before you can be accepted (which shouldn’t be a problem for you because you’ve been rocking it, right?) and then jobs are offered based on your blog’s quality ranking.
So while Pay Per Post might sound like an easy answer because the jobs are small, they also pay less and require more information up front. Elance, on the other hand, pays more on average for each job, but that’s because the jobs offered are usually a bit more involved. So which is better? It’s really up to you and the time you want to put into it. Just make sure you don’t get too sidetracked and forget about your own blog. Speaking of which, I gotta go…that post isn’t going to write itself!
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