Author: gregory.brickner

There’s a great deal of confusion when it comes to charging for copywriting work. It’s not just new writers that are unsure of what they should be charging. Experienced writers often find themselves second-guessing their rates because it is such a highly competitive market.

Remember, when you are being hired to write, you are either being hired by piecework, per project hourly or on a part-time basis. They are not paying for your health care or other benefits, they donít have the hassle of deductions, and they donít have to worry about being obligated to keep you on staff. They also donít have to worry about paying you for wasted time, thereís no vacation pay, and no sick pay. They don’t have to make sure you have an office to work in, which costs money, and they donít even have to provide you with a computer.

So the first contractor that wines that you charge so much need to be awoken to the benefits they are enjoying because you work the way you do. This arrangement saves the employer large sums of money and allows him or her a great deal of flexibility. It’s also a suitable arrangement for you if these things aren’t relevant to you, and you love being an entrepreneur.

If you are a professional writer and/or editor, you should be making at least $30 an hour and double rates that are not unheard of if you have the credentials and expertise behind you. Donít be scared off by the ridiculously low prices that are floating around the internet. Those are not professional writers or editors, and most times, English is not the primary language. There’s a huge difference in the work of someone asking $30 an hour for their services and someone asking $10 an hour.

So how do you go about figuring out what your copywriting rate will be? The best way to set your rate is to decide how much money you want to make in a month. Then focus on bringing that amount of money in from the various contracts that you obtain.

However, you need to take it a step further and determine how long each project takes you to complete. For example, letís say you are doing articles by piecework, and it takes you a half-hour to complete each article. If you are only charging $5 an article, you will be working for $10 an hour. That’s unacceptable for a professional writer. However, if an article takes you 15 minutes, then that would make your rate $20, which might be acceptable.

The biggest problem you will face you are trying to set your rates is that clients donít understand that there is a big difference in quality and that they do get what they pay for. Don’t be intimidated into charging too little because if you are good, you’ll get the rate you set.

Do you like to write? Have you been thinking about becoming a professional copywriter? Then you’ll want to read on to learn more about a career as a copywriter.

A copywriter might work for an advertising agency or as an entrepreneur. These days there are tons of work available online marketing products and services for websites. You will create slogans, write ad copy, create sales letters, and do any writing related to selling a product or service.

To become a copywriter requires a great deal of dedication to your craft, and of course, you must be a skilled writer. There are many copywriters online, so the competition is plentiful, but donít worry because if you have a natural talent for this creative type of writing, then you’ll find a niche that you fit in nicely. So if being a professional copywriter is what you want to do, then go for it!

Copywriters work in several industries, including radio, television, and online. You’ll want to find an area of copywriting that interests you and find the niche where you want to let your creative juices flowing.

The fastest-growing content industry is the online industry as more and more companies recognize how important good ad copy is on their home pages, throughout their websites, where they are marketing their products and services, in their email, in their newsletters, and of course in their sales letters. Available clients range from new entrepreneurs to multi-million dollar companies, so depending on your skills and experience, you should be able to find a good match for you.

If you want to get a job as a copywriter, there are some skills that you will need, including:

• A talent for creative copy
• Ability to craft stories using words and images
• Be extremely flexible
• Be willing to work for less until theyíve established their skill level
• Be prepared to relocate

Taking a copywriting internship is a great way to determine if this is the right career choice for you. Perhaps you have been writing for a long time, but you’ve just decided to try your hand at copywriting, or maybe you have never written before it doesnít matter because you are going to have to commit to practicing your craft and fine-tune it so that you improve your skills and expand your horizon.

Working as a professional copywriter is never dull, and it can certainly be rewarding, not to mention the potential for excellent earnings.

Are you the best copywriter you can be? There are many different types of writers that make the world go round, but copywriters are one of the best-paid writing gigs out there. To excel as a copywriter, you need to be able to write good copy thatís exciting, engaging, and in demand. Of course, the best way to become a good writer is to write more, but there are many things you can do to improve your writing.

There are some excellent courses available to help you become an expert copywriter. However, if youíd prefer some free help, youíve come to the right place. Let’s have a look at ten ways to write compelling copy.

1. Write Good Headlines – This is an essential component of your copy, because if you have a weak headline, nobody’s going to want to read any further. Your title is your reader hook. Don’t forget it.
2. Keep Search Engine Optimization in Mind – You can write the best copy, but if it doesn’t rank well in the search engines, no one is ever going to see it, which is why it is so essential to properly SEO your content. That way, web surfers will find your material.
3. Make Sense – If you want what you’ve written, read your headline needs to make sense. From there, your writing has to make sense. Readers will read the first paragraph, and if it isnít clear, they will click the back button faster than you can say back.
4. KISS – The good old KISS formula (Keep it Simple Stupid) has been around a long time. That’s because it works. Keep your writing easy to read and easy to understand. Use point form, write at a grade level of under eight unless you ware working on academic papers or research papers. Keep the sentences short and flowing well, and use the words that people are familiar with.
5. Highlight the Truth – Writers tend to highlight benefits, but one of the biggest problems seen with writers is that they highlight fake benefits. Rather than making up a phony benefit, don’t list an advantage at all. However, most writing can contain a definite advantage if you look at it right, so practice a little rather than just making it up on the fly.

Copywriters can make a beautiful, comfortable living, but only if they are right. It’s a highly competitive industry, and thanks to the internet, it’s easy for potential clients to shop around and find the right person at the right price. These five tips will help you become a better copywriter in no time at all.

There are many copywriters out there, but not all of them are good, and many do not write compelling copy. Being a copywriter is a highly defined skill. Letís see if we can improve your skills just a little. Practice ñ itís key to most everything, and it certainly keys to writing good copy, because the more you write, the better you will become.

Writing copy that is persuasive and easy reading is a mix of an art form and a science. The truth is if you want to master the skill of writing copy effectively, you are going to have to work hard. Even as an experienced copywriter, many still like to study and read whatever comes their way to stay top in their craft.

What’s great is that thanks to the internet, you can find just about anything you wanted to know about copywriting online. So if you spend some time searching you will be able to find all kinds of great tips and ideas on how to make your writing better.

There are a handful of people that are recognized in the industry as the ìbest of the best. People like Chris Bloor, Carl Galletti, Mark Hunteridge, or Joe Vitale, and that’s just a few. But the point here is this ñ if you want to be the best then you need to emulate the best because they know what works, what doesnít, and how to create excellent copy.

Therefore, discover who the top writers are and then start to study their material. How they write, their style, and also many of them provide excellent information to help you as a copywriter, so take advantage of it.

The best time to write is when you feel inspired. You may have your most creative moments during the early morning hours, late at night, orÖ you need to figure out when that is, and then use it to your advantage so that you create the best copy you can.

Finally, you need to make sure that what you are writing is useful, engaging, and will draw the web surfer in. Whether you are merely providing information or you are selling something, the focus is always to convert your traffic to customers or return visitors. When your copy is good, that’s precisely what happens, and they keep coming back for more.

So, in summary, learn from the best, emulate what they do, and practice lots. Before you know it, you will be a better copywriter.

With results achieved from your sales of widgets to anyone does not guarantee that you already know your customer’s requirements. No, not at all, as no one can sell it to everyone. With a targeted sales campaign, you would have correctly identified your target audience.

From a study, more than half of the results achieved in a sales campaign depends entirely on identifying the right target clients.

To have effective sales and marketing, write for those targets, you must have identified who your customers indeed are. There are many ways to achieve this, and the most notable method is to research the database of your existing customers checking out for attributes of what brand they like, their buying behavior, how much they spend, motivators, when they buy, and any other customer attributes, this process of researching could be tagged mining and in most cases, it is the work of an expert to achieve this successfully.

From an example of choosing a customer base with ages ranging from 35 years to 65 years to market widget to, an average result of about 1% will be responders. These responders are customers who are rest assured will buy the product or services offered to them. Implementing data mining is discovering unknown databases, taking actionable and profitable information from massive databases, and using it to drive the marketing strategies. From this, you can say, an arbitrary email marketing campaign will produce about 1,000 sales from 100,000 customers.

With the use of data mining, been able to identify which customers will likely respond, your response rate could be raised to possibly 1.5%, which is 1,000 sales from emails pushed to 66,666 people. An advantage of website marketing in relating to the people you are marketing to be that your copy will be tested and tailored consequently. More like using powerful software.

Your target customers can be reached with the use of continuous market research, which is another method. Continuously researching customerís needs will enable you to keep an update of your customerís needs and wants as they are continually changing. This method is expensive and time-consuming; it will yield a more significant result when the sales take off. It must also be done constantly. Once target customers are known, writing to them can begin.

Using Focus groups, complaint logs, customer observation, customer feedback, lost and current customer interviews, and be your customer are some other methods to recognize customersí needs.

Watch your sales skyrocketing when you discover what your prospects need and want.

Do you love to write? Are you currently working as a copywriter or hoping to in the future? Thereís plenty of work available for those that excel in the copywriting field. This is a highly-skilled group of individuals, and if you arenít already, you can become one of the elite writers on the web. Here are some great tips to help you do your very best.

People Watch – You might be surprised that people watching can be of any help to you, but actually, it is incredibly beneficial. Thatís because by watching people, you learn how to read emotions, what excites them, how they react to certain stimuli, etc. So when you are writing copy, you can transfer what youíve learned into producing better writing.

Join a Writing Group – There’s nothing that will get the creative juices flowing better than open dialogue with other writers. You can also help each other with proofreading, editing, and even to bounce ideas off. Many times there are writing contests. These can help you improve your writing skills.

Visit the Scene – What this refers to is simply this; if you are writing about a beach, then go to the beach to do the writing, or if you are writing about a baseball game, then go to one and write. Your visual description will be much better when you ìlive it.

Reach Beyond Your Comfort Zone – If you want to become an excellent copywriter, you need to reach out beyond your comfort zone. Thatís because if you stay in your comfort zone there is really no challenge to your writing, and therefore no improvement. You also wonít learn anything new when you stick to your comfort zone.

Analyze Other Peoples Writing – Find authors whose writings you enjoy and then analyze them for content, grammar, flow, etc. By doing so you learn from their mistakes and you are far less likely to make the same mistakes.

Monotasking – Writing is one of those skills that require focus and concentration if you plan to do your very best. So set a timer for a specified time and write uninterrupted until it goes off. You will be surprised at how much faster you write and how much better your content is.

Know the architecture of your story – You would be surprised at just how many people do not understand their storyís architecture, which is about the same as doing heart surgery by the seat of your pants and without the right training.

There you have it – some of the best-kept secrets for writing better copy and being a better copywriter. Why not put it to the test?

If you want to improve your copywriting skills, you’ll want to check out these ten copywriting tips that are proven to work. The marketplace barely tolerates sales writing, so companies and entrepreneurs are looking for copywriters that have a record of success. Boring copywriting is an immediate failing grade. These 15 tips will help you keep it exciting and engaging.

1. Vary the length of your sentences so that you have short, medium, and long sentences. This will create rhythm within your writing.
2. Make your average sentence 15-18 words in length.
3. Take your scalpel and cut out those overweight sentences and the words that arenít needed. Keep your writing clean and crisp, so it is easy to read and understand. Donít use fluff!
4. Split sentences that are too long into two sentences, sometimes even three. Use connecting words like and, because, or, etc.
5. A sure sign you are a novelist is paragraphs that are too long. Keep your paragraphs short and containing only one thought. Two to three sentences are good. Always start a new sentence when the thought changes.
6. Sales writing requires patience, especially if you plan to be good at it. Readers are also impatient. They want to read and know whatís going on. They don’t want fluff or long-windedness. They want clear, concise writing.
7. Break up your pageís content by using headings and bulleted or numbered lists. All of these make reading much easier for visitors.
8. Use language that’s positive. This means to tell your reader what they can or will achieve using the product or service. Avoid using negativism because this puts the reader into more mediocre spirits, and they are far less likely to buy.
9. Don’t confuse showy writing with sales writing. Donít use words just because they have a buzz and sound impressive. Leave the jargon on someone else’s copy.
10. Write in a language the reader can easily understand. 

These 10 top tips work well, so don’t delay and start using them today. Before long, you’ll see an improvement in your copywriting. There’s plenty of work for good copywriters, so continue to hone your skills, and before long, you’ll be one of the best of the best in the copywriting world.