How to Find Freelance Content Writing Jobs for Beginners at Home

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Legitimate Online writing jobs with no upfront investment, ideal for college students and stay-at-home Moms and Dads

Online content writing is a perfect opportunity for stay at home parents and for college students looking to make side income.

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Content writers work for blogs, online magazines, online newspapers, commercial websites and ghost writing ebooks.

Online writers have different specialties and niches and they can also be generalists.

You can be a beginner, an authority/expert writer, or a journalist type, among others.

One of the most common type of online content writers is the SEO copywriter. This writer can be a generalist or a specialist (niche) and mostly writes for online publications.

The pay scale for content writers vary a great deal. Your pay will depend mostly on experience and the types of online publications you write for.

Generalists usually get pay at a lower rate than specialists do. So, if you’re a subject matter expert, you can expect to get a higher pay. However, there are plenty of writing jobs for generalists too.

Aside from SEO writers, you can find more specialists jobs for technical, creative and resume writers.

Here are some reasons Moms, Dads and college students are side hustling with online content writing.

• Help paying off debt
• Set up a financial emergency fund
• Fund retirement accounts
• Help pay for college
• Create a vacation fund
• Make ends meet
• Stop living paycheck to paycheck

Freelance Content Writing Jobs for Beginners: Writing tips

Although online writing is for the most part informal, there are still guidelines you need to follow when writing for the internet audience.

These tips are some suggestions to help you when creating content for blogs or websites.

Be concise. Internet writing is typically done for search engines to discover it. Focused and concise writing is easier for the engines to scan and understand. Therefore, you should stick to the point or topic of the writing.

Research your title or headline. The title of your writing is the first thing the search engine will scan. A well-researched title is able to catch the interest of the engine.

Learn basic SEO. Search Engine Optimization means that your writing is designed to be found by the search engines. Even though you don’t have to get highly technical, learn some of the basics of on-page SEO writing techniques.

Related Content: 15 Quick and Easy SEO tips for beginner bloggers

Be specific. Online writing needs to be specific, mainly for two reasons. First, internet readers tend to have a shorter attention span than hard copy readers. Second, the search engines scan the page for context. Therefore, the more specific this content is, the higher the chance the engine will make a match.

Answer the question. Content writing generally focuses on one or two questions the reader or searcher has. Therefore, make sure to answer the question the reader was sent by the engine to get answer for.

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Break up the content. Use headings and subheadings. Write paragraphs of 2-3 sentences for visual breaks and scanning. Number and bullet the text, when appropriate.

Edit your work before submission. Wether you’re writing for clients or for your own website, editing is very important.

Grow into a niche. A niche is a specific topic, such as, nutrition, travel, health, personal finance, parenting, lifestyles, frugal living, beauty, photography, social media posts etc. If you’re considering to write online content for the long term, a niche helps you to charge more for your writing.

Deliver value. Make sure to write in your own voice, deliver your work on time and add value to your clients. This is a good way to secure future work from the same clients and to have permanent work as a freelance writer.

Freelance Writing Jobs when you have no experience

There are three things I recommend if you want to become a freelance content writer and have no experience. Building upon these can help you land better paid gigs later on.

• Search for writing gigs in job engines – These may be lower paying jobs at the beginning, but they will help you learn and build a portfolio.
• Guest posts for blogs – Don’t be afraid to contact blog owners directly and just ask for guest posts opportunities. Your content helps the blog owner and you can start building a portfolio. Make sure to ask for feedback and for a by line on your post.
• Create your own blog to showcase your writing and expertise.

Find Freelance Content Writing Jobs for Beginners at Home

Websites and publications of all sizes are looking for content writers. The freelance positions are listed on jobs engines and on the hiring websites.

These freelance positions can be part-time, full-time or side gigs. Ideal for college students and stay-at-home Moms.

Keep in mind that pay will vary greatly, depending on your experience and niche.

Many of the content writing assignments can pay $100 per article or more. In contrast, there are also those paying in the low range of $10-$20.

There are digital magazines that pay $100+ per article. This can be a good source of income for a beginner content writer.

Make sure to read each magazine’s submissions guidelines. Take a look at the magazines published articles to see the tone and styles favored.

Here is a list of online magazines

• Make a Living Writing – pays $75 to $150

• ListVerse – pays $100

• Clubhouse magazine – $200

• Working Mother – $100+

• Freelance Mom – $100+

• Blasting News – $12 per 1,000 readers

• Metro Parent – $35 to $350

• The Dollar Stretcher – .10 per word

Related Content: 6 Passive income streams you can build with your talents

Here are some remote freelance writing jobs at content engines and others. The pay varies for the jobs found thru these engines.

To get better search results use keywords like: “content writing”, “freelance writing”, “copy writing”, “remote freelance writing”, “web content writer”, “SEO writer”, “marketing content writer”, “social media writer” etc.

• Contena – This site lists well paid writing jobs.

• Amazon

• Linked in

• Freelancewriting.com

• Media Bistro

• Flexjobs

• Upwork – This is a bidding site. It has a mix of low paying writing jobs for beginners and some better pay in the $100 per article range.
• Facebook groups – There are FB groups for every industry. Freelance writing is well represented on FB. Find groups on FB for freelance writers.
• Constant Content

To sum up, these are some of the ways to obtain freelance content writing jobs at home. If you’re a very beginner, you may have to start with lower paying clients to learn and to build up your portfolio.

For more experience content writers, there are opportunities directly with magazines and websites. Likewise, some of the job engines also list well paying opportunities. Always read the publication’s guidelines to make sure you write to its style.