If you are a great writer, you probably have a college degree and make a decent living. However, there are thousands of people who are great writers and editors without a college degree (my father included) who have never realized how easy it is to make money online.
If you are a great writer, here are a few tips that can help you make money online.
1. Starting your business.
I would recommend that you begin with a simple business name and website. What you’ll want to do is perform writing and editing services for students, businesses and individuals. There is a lot of money to be made in writing and editing because you don’t have any overhead and most of your employees can work remotely. You can even contract with individuals so you don’t have “employees” that you have to give health insurance and other benefits to.
Your company name could be Great Copywriting, EasyEdit, QuickFix, There, Their, They’re.
2. Building your online presence.
Here is one tip that I can’t stress enough, use examples, references and testimonials.
You might need to do some pro-bono work in the beginning just to get your feet wet, see what customers need and so you can have some examples of you work. Just like any other industry, if you’re going to make money, people want to know that you can actually do the job they’re paying for. That is why you need examples, references and testimonials.
3. Establishing your brand.
Once you get the ball rolling (and not before), think about additional expenses that will help with the future of your company. One of those such expenses is having a professional logo and website designed.
Unless you are extremely talented with Adobe Photoshop (or the like), please just pay for a logo. 98% of people create a personal logo and it is horrible. And a horrible logo will make people leave your site without buying any of your services. Here are examples of a good logo and a bad design.
4. Paying for advertising.
This is the only point in this process that you should be paying for any advertising. If you follow the above three steps you will have a website with some examples and a look that is very professional. Now you want customers to end up there. There are thousands of free ways to get traffic to your website, but none quicker and easier than Google AdWords.
5. Hiring help.
You might need/want to hire some help. The best recommendation I can give you is to make sure you really hire the right person. If you hire someone with mediocre writing/editing skills, they can tarnish the company image that you’ve been working hard to promote.
Those 5 tips are admittedly basic and are meant to provide a general overview. If you want some more info on any of the particulars of any of the sections, just post a comment below!
Thank you, Brandon. The good logo, and bad design examples were great. I’ve tucked them away along with this post into my August workstation. Your name ideas were terrific.
Thanks Nia, how are the audio books websites coming?
This is very good advice Brandon, most people try to do everything in the wrong order. It is definitely important to establish your brand before paying and hiring, people miss that step a lot.
Ah, Brandon. You’re sweet. How’s the baby? How’s your wonderful wife? I hope that everyone is well and very happy. Of course I have a zillion things on my plate and I make progress daily–it’s just that I have so far to go!
Perhaps a case study on those audio book site would be a way for me to give them the attention they so deserve.
Yes,, I have to be ready for July. 😉
All the best,
Nia.
Something else to think about:
Just starting out you can usually get a decent logo designed for about $200 if you enter one of the contests at sitepoint.com.
Then, when you’re rolling in the dough, you can get something super-duper 🙂
Brandon! good step by step explanation how to make money with a website.
Great advice, my brother and I are currently doing all of that for our businesstwins blog. Plus we are getting a design done by innate.media.group for a ecommerce website we are hoping to launch in about 3 months.
We have written a business plan, and everything we do we have our selves as well as our father proofread.
It’s not easy creating a business and writing for a matter of fact. It’s all about branding and how you present yourself (i.e., through writing on the internet).
Great post! Although, I’m not a writer, it’s great to see it from the other side. Gives you a wider perspective, thanx!
Good writeup there Brandon, though I’d be cautious buying advertising from the word off, and to be honest I’ve tried to keep that to an absolute minimum – concentrating on other avenues such as article marketing etc. However, I do feel that getting help when you need it is good advice – no one can do everything on their own.