The Student Finance Blog

Around a week ago we discussed the possibility of utilizing your deign skills to earn some extra cash on the side to help pay for the bills at University or college. Well today we will be talking about how to earn some extra money online as a freelance writer.

If you’re a good University student and are a generally bright person in general, the chances are you will already possess a high level of written English. It’s easy to get started and all you need is the necessary qualities and any word processing software such as OpenOffice, Abiword or Microsoft Word.

What Skills do I Need?
To successfully become a part-time freelance writer on the internet you will need to possess some skills to make you an appealing person to hire and of course completing projects accordingly to a high level of satisfaction for the client.

• Good level of written English

• Good research skills, you will often find yourself writing about topics you have no experience of, so before starting you will need to be fully clued up in order to write about it effectively.

• The ability to sell yourself and win clients.

• Self-motivation abilities, you may not feel like doing some more writing work, but completing on time is essential for repeat custom, client satisfaction and more importantly getting paid.

• Time-management skills. Clients will usually set a deadline or a time frame to when they want the project completed. It’s important to stick to these deadlines for obvious reasons.

• SEO and experience of creating content for on-line use. Some clients will require content to be written specifically for search engines and for the promotion of their site or services, so an experience or knowledge of SEO would be advantageous. If you don’t, simply do some research and type in SEO on Google.

What do Freelance Writers do?
Freelance writers are required on the Internet for many reasons. Content is mostly king for a huge number of websites (including this one), so web masters are continuously looking for talented writers to provide quality content for their website if they don’t have the necessary skills, desire or time to do it themselves. Here are some services you could offer as a freelance writer:-

• Articles for Websites

• Forum posting, a forum owner needs posts to promote their forum

• SEO content. Content written especially to promote their website to the search engines in order to attract more customers.

• Content Re-Writing. A person may have a bunch of articles, but would like the to be re-written so that it doesn’t fall into content duplication. They can then pass the content off as their own or submit to article directories.

• Review writing. Many sites deal with reviewing products and/or services. This aspect is interesting because you are giving your opinion on physical or digital goods.

• Press release writing. Web masters will submit press releases in order to promote their site or services to the masses, highlighting their offers and qualities.

• Newsletter writing.

What are the Steps Involved?

1. Searching for Clients.

2. Winning clients.

3. Agreeing on a deadline, price and other details.

4. Completing the project.

5. Sending the project to the client via email.

6. Await client feedback.

7. Getting paid.

8. Discuss future work.

9. Repeat from point 1.

I’ve given a simple overview and guide there, next I will be posting some very useful links to get you going on the road to become a part-time freelance writer and make you some extra cash to make your stay at University much more pleasurable. Stay tuned.

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