Skip to main content

How Much Should I Charge for Copywriting Work?

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.

How to Become a Professional Copywriter

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?

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.

Be a Good Copywriter and Create Effective Copy

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.

Do You Know How to Write Good Marketing Copy?

There are all kinds of writing, and many have their own set of criteria. This is especially true with marketing copy. If you want to write good marketing copy, make sure you include the seven most essential components.

Marketing copy is much different because you are trying to convert viewers to a follower or paying customers buying your product or service, signing up for a newsletter or free something, etc. It is all about conversion. To have successful conversion rates, your marketing copy must:

  1. Have a refined keyword strategy. You should have the main keyword and two or three secondary keywords that will be used in your marketing copy. Aim for around a 2% density with your primary keyword.
  2. Include a sign-up form where visitors can subscribe to your monthly newsletter, new product information, etc. This is very important because the minute they sign up, you now have access to send them product information and market to them. You have effectively converted your visitor.
  3. Networking is essential to building and increasing traffic to your site. You can build networks within your marketing copy by sharing links on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Squidoo, etc. You must lead people back to your website, to your marketing copy, etc.
  4. Article marketing is a potent marketing tool. You write articles that submit them to article banks or create a blog where you post them, and then you provide a link back to your website. This one-way link is compelling in the search engines, so it helps your rankings, and you also grow your traffic because they found your article interesting, and so clicked the link to your site.
  5. Placing your marketing copy on your blog is a great way to generate traffic. Blog posts are indexed very quickly, and you can even ping them, which lets people following your blog know that you have posted new content. Make sure you take advantage of what a blog can do for you.

We have given you some great tips for creating good marketing copy, but make no mistake; website marketing requires a lot of work for it to be successful and for you to turn a site into a cash machine. So stick with it, make sure your marketing copy is top-notch, and wait to see results.

Prospect Copywriting

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.

Making Visitors Read All Of Your Sales Letter

Different perspectives exist on the writing and reading of sales letters. While some feel it is too much work as it is being wasted because no one is reading them, some people still want to write sales letters. Reading a sales letter is doing a lot of work for some people if it is very bland and boring. A sales letter is meant to be read to communicate information, and it will be a waste of time and effort if it is not read.

Sales letters have to be good and should not be strenuous and a strain. Sales letters are to serve as reminders of some necessary points and give some tips to follow. It becomes effortless and fun, profitable to you and your site once you become better at doing them.

You must be knowledgeable about certain topics and themes to be able to write a sales letter. You must be able to write most times, especially if you are the owner of the site. Make your sales letter creative and exciting as you already know what to write about and what it is all about.

These few tips will ensure your sales letters get to read and enjoyed. These include:

– Use Short paragraphs: Sentences are no longer understood when the words in the reader are too many as a result of lengthy paragraphs. Lengthy paragraphs result in hard work to read and confusion mere looking at it. The reader will play smart by avoiding the lengthy paragraphs and move to much easier ones to glance and of course, read. A single word sentence can sometimes make paragraphs.

– Use bullets or numbers: Your points can quickly be shown by making use of numbers and bullets for each of the points. This aids quick remembrance and digestion of the points. Using bullets or indents will enable readers to where each point, guide, tip, or method starts and stressed. Donít let your sales letter look like a single block of square paragraphs, make use of indentations to format your numbers and bullets properly. You can also make use of a bit of style and seasoning to your sales letter shape.

Making it as a Copywriter will take time, effort, and a lot of hard work. The more of these attributes you insert into your sales letters, the higher the accomplishment you’ll achieve. You should always be willing and prepared to stick with your training on an ongoing basis to build up your writing skills and earnings.

How to write better content for social media

Writing is not easy. Leave alone writing for social media, but everyone would think they can write well. It is until you sit down by the keyboard you find that you don’t know how to write.

Enough said. This was not a critique post but rather a helpful one on how to write better content for social media. Well, you may have read about this subject a million times, and you are about to do it now. No one has ever died of knowing too much, so go ahead and read the post.

Use clear titles

The primary reason why your blog posts never get a single click may be your choice of titles. You are a fun of abstract topics, but readers are not. They want a title that summarizes your articles or videos.

Diversify your content

Words and chunks of them will not give you any better results. Add to them some animation, videos, and creative graphics. Modern readers are lazy. If they would get a picture to summarize your content, you will be their champion. Give them what they want, and you will be the sweet song they will never stop to sing.

Create useful content

Every social media writer is yearning for the most clicks. Even as I write this post, I’m praying that it gets millions of clicks from readers. But that should never be a reason enough to write for the sake of it. You have to create helpful content. From time to time, give your readers a solution to a problem they may have. Teach them how to fix a problem at home or whatever thing you deem helpful. 

Be humorous

Will, a reader who has had a bad day laugh just because your social media content stirs up their happiness? Humor should be part of your content. Do not sound too serious about scaring your audience. Make them feel comfortable, even when you are talking about a serious matter. Put a smile on someone, and they will keep coming to you.

Be brief 

Who said that you could not pass a clear message in 150 words? It is a misconception, and you should outgrow it. You can have your post short, but be sure to pass your message. 

Be current 

Who wants to read on things that happened last month while a lot is going on today? Your content has to be on what is happening. Give readers what they want; that is a sure bait to make your content great. 

Secret Tips to Make you a Better Copywriter

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?

So What Is Copywriting

 

In general, it is writing that promotes a person, opportunity, idea, or opinion. Since we’re discussing websites, we will assume the writing will be on a website (and this will be referred to as search engine optimization copy).

There are other mediums that make use of copywriting and copywriters; television ads, radio commercials, billboards, bus ads, newspaper ads, magazine ads, etc. You come up with the idea and the point behind writing copy.

It is mainly designed to persuade, entice, motivate a listener, or in the case of a website, a reader to take action. That step could be anything from buying a product to subscribing to a newsletter, from sampling a product to participating in a survey or poll.

By the way, you can also make use of copywriting to persuade a reader not to do something or not trust something.

What types of materials make use of copywriting? Body copy, headlines, slogan, direct mail pieces are biggies, taglines, jingle lyrics, sluglines, scripts, captions, the World Wide Web, news releases, research and white papers, and Internet (website) content. It’s a pretty extensive list, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg too.

Don’t forget there are also things like print ads, mail order catalogs, brochures, postcards, greeting cards, etc. Copywriting is an excellent line of work to be in if you are any good at it, as there will always be work.

When used on websites, copywriting usually refers to the method or style of writing and wording content that is slanted to achieve higher rankings with the search engines. This is known as content writing, which means the proper positioning and repetition of keywords and keyword phrases on a website.

At some time, writing content for websites served as a means of getting better rankings because the writing was geared to the search engine algorithms. That is no longer the case, and writing is now more geared to human visitors and search engines.

Another form of viral copywriting can be in putting a lot of content on other peopleís blogs. You can pay to have your product promoted on different blogs for a set fee. You may not have to choose the copy related to your link, but it can be a straight mention on a blog that may have hundreds, or even thousands, of readers. The trick with this type of writing is to produce fluent and readable copy/content written to search engine optimization.

Writing Career Opportunities

Have you been considering writing as a career? Are you aware of the different writing career opportunities that are available to good writers? Let’s have a look at some of the things you might consider doing.

Fiction Writing

Book writing is not for everyone, but it is perfect for some. Fiction writing takes a particular type of person who has a great imagination and is very creative. Fiction books have to be engaging and keep the reader not wanting to put the book down.

Technical Writing

Technical writers are high in demand and are needed in several areas. You must be able to write clearly and concisely, and you must be able to be very articulate.

Non-Fiction Writing

This is a wide array of writing. It is certainly not for everyone. In fact, for the most part, it can be a very dry type of writing. Much like technical writing, you must be clear and concise, and you must also be an expert in the field you are writing in.

How to Writing

How to writing has become very popular in the last decade. There’s a how-to book for just about everything you can imagine from how to use Windows to how to play golf and just about any other subject that comes to mind.

Advertising and Sales Copy Writing

Do you love writing jingles, or perhaps you are an excellent writer when it comes to creating demand, desire, and strong calls to action. Then this just might be where you belong.

Content for Websites

Content for websites requires excellent writing, as well as an understanding of the search engines, the online market, and search engine optimization. Content writers are in demand more now than ever before as Google and the other search engines demand more from websites if they are to place well.

Writing for TV

Whether itís a TV soap, a TV series, a talk show, or the list goes on. Each has its own set of necessary skills. The skills you require will depend on the type of television writing youíll be doing.

Journalism

Writing as a journalist means writing newsworthy stories. These could be for TV news, magazines, newspapers, online news sources, etc. This is an interesting and demanding area of work that has high expectations regarding quality, grammar, and subject.

Grant Writing

Writers often overlook Grant writing, and yet it can be one of the most lucrative income sources around for writers. That said, it is a great deal of work, and you must be able to be convincing for the cause you are seeking funds for.

If you like to write and consider yourself a good writer, then you have the potential to be a successful writer.

10 Copywriting Tips That Work

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.