If you’re looking for an easy way to make money, you’ve probably considered trying your hand at online copy-writing. The idea is fairly straightforward: you click on a few links or engage with a few short forms and you’re rewarded financially. You keep working until you’ve reached a certain threshold of earnings and then you can take a break or continue on as before. The potential to make money online is great because it means you can work when you want to work and how you want to work. It also means you can make a living doing what you love.
However, as with most things in life, the devil is in the details. The question is, “How to make money online by writing” and this blog post will set you on the right path.
Find Your Niche
The first step to making money online is to figure out what you’re good at. If you’re a fast typer, you might try your hand at editing or you might consider creating content for social media platforms like Twitter or Instagram. These are all viable options but all of them require you to find your niche. What is your niche?
The answer to this question will dictate which of these opportunities you should pursue. If you’re fantastic at marketing or if you have a good eye for design, you might want to try your hand at becoming a freelance writer or blogger. Maybe you’re excellent at talking to people or maybe you have an interest in fiction. It’s up to you to find your niche, research the appropriate tools for the job and then dive in.
Once you’ve found your niche you can develop a strategy. Do you want to focus on long-form content for social media? How about trying your hand at creating infographics for smart shoppers? What about investigating the emerging world of conversational marketing or how to become a virtual assistant?
Understand The Mechanics
Anyone can write an infomercial or sales pitch, right? Not so fast. While yes, anyone can write those types of copy, not everyone can write compelling stories. As a copywriter, you’ll be tasked with crafting engaging dialogues that compel readers to take action.
The fact is that not everyone can write compelling stories or creative copy because not everyone can empathize with the characters or understand the context of the narrative. To put it simply, not everyone can write narrative non-fiction (or really any kind of non-fiction) for a living. This is something you need to keep in mind as you explore the world of online writing.
Know When To Stop
You’ll be tempted to dive into the money-maker known as online writing, but you must resist this urge. Even though you might easily be able to enter the lucrative world of online writing, you might not be able to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. This is because as an unpaid worker you’re ultimately responsible for your own expenses. This means that you must understand when enough is enough. To put it simply: when you’ve made enough money to cover your expenses for the month, you’ve made enough money. This might mean that you should consider going back to school to further your education or finding a side-hustle to bring in some extra cash. There are plenty of ways to make money online but being a full-time writer is not one of them. It’s not always easy to tell how much you’ve made until you’ve reached a certain threshold and at that point you’ll have to decide whether or not to keep going. Consider the costs of staying in school versus the costs of getting a job.
Another important consideration is how much you want to depend on writing for your income. The majority of the work-at-home opportunity involves connecting with potential customers and getting paid to provide helpful information. However, if this is not something that interests you, you might consider looking into other options.
Put In The Work
In addition to knowing when to stop, we’ve also established that you must put in the work. This means that even though you might have found your perfect job writing for online copy-writing platforms, you must prove yourself by consistently and diligently putting out valuable content. To do this, you must establish yourself as an expert in your field by creating high-quality content that is both informative and entertaining. Most importantly, you must continue to produce content even after you’ve reached your threshold of earnings. When you’ve created enough content to meet your basic needs and then some, it’s time for you to take a break, study or pursue other opportunities.
This blog post has provided you with the necessary information to get started and continue earning a living as a writer. When you follow the advice laid out here, you’ll begin to see the results of your hard work quite quickly. Money isn’t everything and while you might not want to do this for the money, you’ll be glad you did it for the benefits.