What Does an Online Freelance Writer Actually Do?

By Lisa A Mason

While you may be excited about starting a website or blog for your business or cause, more than likely when it comes to actually putting content on it you may be floundering. If someone has suggested you hire a freelance writer you probably want to know what does an online freelance writer actually do? Simply put, they put words to your ideas. But there's more to it than just that, of course.

You can either provide your writer with a list of titles you want to include on your site, or you can simply give the writer a topic and tell them how many articles or blog posts you want. This is the most basic of online freelance writing services.

Many online freelancers have found that there are many other services related to websites and blogs that they can provide for their clients. These include proofreading and editing content for clients, improving the all important search engine optimization of your website or blog, helping promote your site or blog via social networking and even putting together your website or blog and managing it for you.

Online writers have to keep a finger on the pulse of Internet commerce, strategies and methods of promotion. When it comes down to making a list of what an online freelance writer actually does it's difficult to come up with a short list that clearly defines all the ways a freelance writer can benefit your online presence.

While website and blog content is a specialty, you have to consider that in order to be found by clients a freelance writer has to know about all aspects of branding, SEO and promotion as well as how online business works. Most online writers maintain their own blogs and websites; they have portfolios and online libraries of writing samples and the means to network tirelessly.

When you find an online freelancer that can provide all the services you need, you'll see what a relief it is to simply hand over the worry and stress of filling your site or blog with quality content, attracting visitors and even interacting for you via social networks. You may be a Twitter fiend personally but that doesn't mean you know how to properly market your blog or website on Twitter. An online freelance writer does, and many writers offer this as a service to their clients.

Take advantage of the skills and abilities that an online freelance writer has to improve your web presence.

Lisa Mason is a freelance writer with a specialty in Internet content and SEO articles and the author of How to Earn a Living Writing for the Internet. She has written thousands of articles, hundreds of ebooks and thousands of website pages and related content in more than 10 years as a professional writer.

See her website for a free article writing template guide as well as more writing tips and info on the writing services she offers.

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Home Business Opportunities: Online Freelancing

By Jude Elile

Dear friend, do you know that it has become a common fact that many business owners choose to work from home these days, and most new businesses start off in the home of their owner or manager? If you are seriously considering making-money-online as well as setting up your work at home business fast, then here is one of the few business opportunities I intend sharing its success secrets with you.

Here is today's feature in this new series:

History has it that "Work and love" are the two most important activities available to man on earth - am sure you will agree with this, else I shall be most delighted if you will mail me your contrary view. As you spend few minutes to read through this very important topic, make up your mind to both prioritize and delight in 'your work' or home business for it informs the secret to your success financially.

Making-money-online by working from the comfort of your home or from a low cost Turnkey Office Space becomes easier via online freelancing and this might as well be what you've been looking for to enable you reach your goal of earning $300 to $1000 per week.

GETTING STARTED

FAQs
Who is a Freelancer?
The word "freelance" comes from the old English concept of Knights-for-hire, but in our present day it refers to anyone in the service of more than one employer. A Freelancer can be a Self-employed person offering services to number of industries vis-�-vis accounting, web or business writings, design, software development, coaching, data entry, administrative support, researching, etc.

You may need to look out for two or three companies willing to hire you as a freelancer. There are few good ones but start by going through this accredited firm - see below

What Personality Traits and Skills should a Freelancer Possess?
It is important that you be - or quickly learn to become - confident, adventurous, flexible, organized and able to work without supervision. As a freelance business owner, you also must be a good manager, bookkeeper, and a promoter. You'll have to be able to "Multitask". That is, be capable of handling a number of diverse projects each with different deadlines, for your employers.

Is Working from Home as Wonderful as it's portrayed?
Yes and No. Well yes, because it offers convenience, minimal startup cost, and comfort. A low overhead, no commuting hassles and putting up your own hours of work are addition to the plusses. On the contrary 'No', because there's only you - and if you are not disciplined at your work, you'll spend valuable time with the kids, relaxing, watching TV or visiting with friends. This can be a sure way to failure for any freelance business owner.

What Sort of Funding is required to Jumpstart a Home Freelance Business?
The rule of thumb here is that you aim at starting small and be cash-flow conscious. Generally, a budget of between $500 and $1,500 should get you adequately started as an online freelancer working from home. You'll need the following:

a. A computer with good internet connection.
b. A printer and day to day office stationeries.
c. A comfortable chair and an office table.
d. An online domiciliary account.
e. A telephone set
f. Reserved fund to provide for, at least, your 2 to 3 months upkeep.

You may have to make a list and plan a reasonably modest budget beforehand. You don't want to blow your entire savings on setting up your home office, then having nothing to utilize and live on before attracting business.

GETTING IT DONE

Making the move to online freelancing requires you draw the line that separates business and personal life since both would be under the same roof. Afterward, follow these simple but effective steps:

1. Develop a Simple Business Plan. Even if you've lined up a client or two, it will plot your first year's sales goal and activity. Not only will your business plan help you clarify your business purpose and prepare well for the tricky startup phase, it's also essential if you plan to borrow money in the future.

Use as your starting point your vision of where you might want to be in five years time, so you can show in your plan how you'd start to move toward that point.

2. Market and Promote your freelance business. Whether or not your freelance business is in the industry you've had experience with or not, you will need to build list of employers or companies you would like to work for. From experience, it's better and less risky to work through globally accredited third party freelance exchange company. One of such that I have joined can be obtain on request. And another am yet to take advantage of because of their monthly fee is Gofreelance. Utilize sales letters, excerpted articles, emails to potential clients, personal net-working forums, free web traffic offers and importantly, submit your proposal via the freelance exchange companies you choose to work from.

3. Focus on Customer Service. Becoming a very profitable freelancer is largely a matter of time and it is far better to keep a client happy than to spend the same amount of time finding another one. Hence, being prompt and delivering a professional product or services for the proposed budget are the cornerstone of a successful freelance business.

4. Work at having more than One Client. Get used to the idea of losing clients and gaining new ones; it's part of the nature of the business. To protect your freelance home business, work at having 3 - 5 clients every new month and ensure that you always keep on good terms with them so that they'll want to 'use your services' other times.

All you'll need for now is to set your ball rolling! Should you require more detail about freelance exchange companies that will earn you tons of cash while building your home business you might want to check them by getting across to me.

Then, watch for additional blog posts from me over the next few weeks, as we uncover simple, yet profitable home business opportunities you can startup from the comfort of your home and create massive new cash-flow in your freelance business.

How much cash-flow will you generate?

Let's find out... over the next few weeks!

To your success

Home Business Opportunities
Copyright � Jude Elile, The small business helper
http://home-businessprofit.blogspot.com

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The Online Freelancing Folly

By Alan Paterson

Online freelancing has become very popular over the last few years, but it has also caused a lot of people more problems than it's worth.

In this article we're going to have a look at some of the problems associated with doing online freelancing. We'll have a quick look at why some folks are doing it, and then we'll look at a few of the things to bear in mind if you decide to have a go at trying a bit of online freelancing.

Why are so many taking to the internet to make money?

Everyday there are more people taking to the internet to find a way to supplement their incomes. Some only need a small amount of money to keep paying the bills on time, but others have found that they are suddenly in a large financial hole that they can't see any way of clawing themselves out of.

There are a large number of reasons, and each one is just as good as the other.

If you've been online for any length of time you'll have seen that every man and his dog is (allegedly) making money online, and it'll lead you to believe that it's going to be an easy fix for your financial problems - but it isn't. Yes, people are making money online, but most will have struggled to get to that stage, it isn't an easy fix, it takes time and effort. It's usually at this stage that the majority will give up, and most of the rest will suddenly stumble on the idea of online freelancing.

What's wrong with online freelancing?

Well, generally, there's nothing wrong with doing this. You can start to live your dreams of making money online, but there are a few things that you're going to need to take into account when you're doing it.

First, was it really your intention to get a second job working for someone else? Most folks when deciding to work online do it because it gives them a sense of freedom that they don't get from working for someone else, but, that's exactly what you will be doing.

When you take on an online freelancing job you'll be committing yourself to completing that task over a certain number of days, with status reports filed regularly, and for a pre-agreed amount of money for doing the task.

If there are delays it could cost you financially. If your work isn't up to scratch they may have the option to refuse it and not pay you. Then there are the other costs involved. There will be a fixed fee to go to the company that you found the job through, and you may decide to pay extra to apply for more than x number of jobs per month.

All of these costs need to be noted so that you can work out if the amount of money your willing to receive to do the job is actually a profitable way to spend your time.

How could it not be a profitable way if you've got money coming in from it?

An advertised job, put up recently on an online freelancing site, had job seekers willing to write for US$30. Not too shabby you might think, but, and this is where many of these job seekers go wrong - they don't read the advert thoroughly, the person was only paying US$1 every 400-500 words.

Now, most article writers will write articles of around 500 words, meaning, if your bid of writing for US$30 is accepted, you'll have to write about 30 articles to get that money. To make a reasonable hourly wage of say US$15 per hour you'll have to write 15 articles, which is one 500 word article every 4 minutes.

Another wanted someone to write 35 articles in 3 days and most bids were coming in at around US$30 to get the job. If you were the lucky person chosen to do it you'd be working for US$10 per day and writing between 11 and 12 500 word articles per day.

Then you have to take the fees that you worked out earlier off of the amount you're getting.

Over the years two things seem to have happened to get online freelancing to the stage where the job seekers are doing a lot of work for very little in return.

The first is that the expectation of the person posting the job has risen. That doesn't mean that they used to accept any old rubbish, and now they want reasonable quality work. It means that they expect to get more for their money. It wasn't unreasonable for people to pay upwards of US$10 for a good quality article in the past, but now, they want at least 3 top notch articles for that same US$10.

Why the change in online freelancing? There are so many people out there trying to get the same jobs. Out sourcing work has become a buyer's market, and the folks bidding for the work aren't doing themselves any favours by going in with extremely low bids. Sure, it might secure you the work, but at what cost when it comes to the time taken to do it verses the money you'll get?

With the number of job seekers willing to bid ridiculously low to get the work, the people offering the work feel that they can ask for more to be done. And why shouldn't they demand more? If you don't do it, someone else will, won't they? So, what have we learnt from this article about online freelancing?

People aren't finding that they can make money from some of the other ideas being taught, so they go for the online freelancing option.

Because there are so many job seekers trying that method to make money they undercut each other's bids, which drives down the money they can make, but still means they have a lot to do to make it.

A lot of people aren't fully reading what they have to do as part of the job, and find that they are doing more than they bargained for.

Even when they do think they have a good deal, they aren't always subtracting other costs to find out the amount of money they're really working for.

And finally, the people advertising the jobs are asking for more and more to be done, and know that they will still get it done at a rock bottom price because job seekers will undercut unrealistically just to be making money online.

Having said all of that, some people really are doing well from online freelancing.

For more interesting articles on this, and other topics, please head on over to Alan D Paterson: The Blog.

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Starting Your Online Freelance Career

By Maryke-Anne Janse Van Rensburg

With technology today, the whole wide world has become a virtual community. You can sit in your study at home and work for someone in the United Kingdom. You can receive projects, finish them and submit them for payment, all from the comfort of your own home!

Everywhere on the internet, everyone is talking about becoming a freelancer and how easy it is. But let me tell you, it is not that easy to get your foot in the door. There are thousands of online freelancers out there, just waiting for work. Some of them work for ridiculously small fees which make it even harder to find work.

Does this sound very negative? I'm sure it does. But, if you start the right way, you could be making a comfortable income in no time at all.

It is important to keep your resume updated. Keep on adding skills to your resume and never stop learning! If you want to shine, you have to learn and keep on learning.

First you have to find your niche in freelancing. Even though there are thousands of different online freelancing jobs available, it really boils down to four categories:

• Data Entry
• Writing
• Personal Assistant
• Website developer

These categories have different niches.

Data Entry can be anything from adding products to websites to adding articles to blogs. In some cases you could be expected to gather information and send a report in excel. If your administration skills are good, this is certainly one way to begin your Online Freelance Career.

Writing is a highly sought after skill. If you have a certain subject you are very knowledgeable about, you could write yourself into a Freelancing career. You will need to know about keywords, long tailed keywords and keyword density. So it would be good to do lots of research about this.

Personal Assistants are also popular Online Freelance careers. Here you will really need excellent administration skills. You can be asked to send out email, answer incoming call, and could even manage someone's diary.

Website Developers are in great demand, especially Freelancers that can work on the Joomla, WordPress, Dolphin and other platforms. You will have to know how these platforms work and how to install the components, modules and plugins.

You should have a basic understanding about SEO and know how to add content to the website. The two most popular platforms are Joomla and WordPress.

As you can see there are many opportunities in Starting your Online Freelance Career and all you will need to do is, find the one that suits the qualifications or skills you already have.

Maryke-Anne J van Rensburg is an online Freelance expert and has made name for herself on various freelance websites.

Through a lot of research she has found that there are certain skills that an online Freelancer should have and she shares this with all. Creating step-by-step manuals and giving tutoring classes via Skype.

For more information on courses offered by this Freelancing Expert check Freelance Online Business Strategy @ [http://fobs.sa-linx.co.za]

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The Hidden Treasure (A Glimpse of an Online Freelancer's Life)

By Lindsay Saludar

Look how time flies so fast and it has been almost a couple of years when I started online freelancing. I've been aware of it since 2000 but because I was so young and pre-occupied, I have to set it aside. Not to mention the "conservative & traditional" working norm that was inculcated in my mind since I started talking and walking. It was just a couple of years ago that I've considered it wholeheartedly and devoted some time and effort. Today, I am reaping what I've worked hard for so long and it's a rewarding experience for me.

Based from my own experience and personal views, online freelancing requires time, dedication and lots of patience. For professionals like me who was educated and trained in a very different field and environment entails a "super saiyan" transformation or "moon crescent power make-up" transformation (dragon ball and sailormoon hangover). Kidding aside, freelancing is a serious stuff so-to-speak.

Layman's misconceptions about Online Freelancing and Facts

Most of non-online freelancers (layman) would think that this is a child's play and will not bring in some serious dough.

Misconception No. 1: Easy breeze

"Chillax "mode or short for chilling and relaxing is the first thing in mind when someone hears online freelancing. But they are wrong! Like any serious regular "office" employment, when work calls in, there is not second to waste. Online freelancers would sometimes deprive themselves of food and water and even bathroom breaks just to finish a project with online tracker system on their computer screens. When there is no activity recognized by the system, it is then subtracted to the freelancer's fee. You may think that being a regular employee (with so much time for mind wondering while on your desks or in the field) would be better.

Fact: If you've accepted a project that is time based (with online time tracker and activity screenshots) it is more likely that you have to sacrifice some time to finish certain task but there are clients (employers) who are understanding and considerate that will give you an hour break for 8 hours of a day's work. If you happen to accept a non-time bound project but with certain deadline, it is much better because you are responsible for your own time management.

Misconception No. 2: No penny

There is no future in this career. Oops! That is not so true. Among the freelancers and clients that I've met along the way, online freelancer have even sent their siblings and children to school, build a house of their own and even travel to places that they've want with work just a click away on their laptops. In addition, building your career profile on the net would be not that quick and easy at first but it will develop over time. Before you know it, you might be even having your own business.

Fact: With the explosive growth of cloud-based computing system and mobile devices development, it makes professionals like me, to take our expertise outside the office norm and even multiply potential income compared to regular office earnings. For some country like in the Philippines (US have passed a bill for online work taxes), online freelancing has no tax fees yet, so you get your income without that much deduction except for 10% freelance platform (Odesk or Elance) would charge the clients. Take note though, there are some clients that would include the platform fee on your professional fee but that can be negotiated.

Misconception No. 3: Not ideal

It will not fulfill my dream job. Yes and No. Yes, if it entails a hands-on personal appearance on the work field and No, if it demands just your expertise, advise and our even your voice online. You cannot build a house in North America online if you are a carpenter in China (but you can still promote your services within your community) but if you have an inclination to arts, writing, technology and even customer support, and then this is a great avenue for you within the comforts of your home.

Fact: Dream job criteria depend on each individual. If you want more flexibility, creative control, work at home, earn more money or grow your own business, then online freelancing is best for you. These are the top 5 answers according to the 2010 Global Freelancers Survey. The majority would be flexibility as they go into certain projects or contract.

Here are the top ten (with no corresponding order) in demand jobs that I've dogged into for the last couple of years. (Each freelance platform has their statistical report but this is based on personal daily experience online)

1. Technical support

2. Customer service

3. Data entry/ Encoder

4. Programming

5. Web development

6. Web content writer

7. Graphic Designer

8. Translation

9. Editor

10. Project manager

Like a diamond buried for so long in the mud and rocks, online freelancing is a gem if found. Once you have found your niche and build a career on it then you are more than a millionaire. Not just in terms of the money but also the life you've always wanted.

I wonder what are other personal misconceptions that you might have in online freelancing and personal reasons for choosing one?

I would love to hear from you. Feel free to share your story or experiences as well.

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