For the past eight years I've been writing for income that means I've built
a writing agency called Express writers I've written two books so you think you
can write, and practical kind of strategy and marketing writing hundreds of blogs
to promote myself and my agency creating top read content on guest publications
and interviewing hiring and training hundreds of writers my most recent
accomplishments were speaking live on stage yes and launching an SEO focused
freelance writing course and you can check out the link for that course in
the description it's the truth that I found out in the last eight years is
that writing for income goes far beyond just knowing how to write well that's
the crooks but there's a lot more things involved so in today's video I'm going
to share with you five key factors that have contributed to my growth with my
own self started writing career including tips on how to get started
from the ground up how to market yourself the skills you need to learn to
make a lot more revenue as a writer marketing tips and more so if you're
watching this video and you want to make writing your side hustle or a full time
living opportunity this video is for you I dropped out of college at 19 years old
to pursue my passion which was writing so I'm in the last eight years this has
been my full-time thing if I can make it happen you can too let's get into it
okay so my first tip is gonna be really simple you need to do a gut check and
you need to make sure that you love writing writing is going to be the crux
of what you do if this is your side hustle full-time online income
opportunity so if you don't love writing you're not gonna love what you do in my
experience the best writers come from a place of loving to write this was true
for me I actually wrote a 200 page novel at age 12 I was filling books with
poetry short stories fiction nonfiction so do a gut check and make sure that
writing it's one of your favorite things some symptoms of this can include
writing as a hobby writing to fill your spare time loving your English classes
in high school or college my second tip if you're serious about this and you
want to make this your full-time thing making a living writing you need a
website so if you want to pull in the best gigs the best clients really commit
you need a site I would suggest buying a domain that either is your name or
something that would attract your ideal audience so my writing agency is Express
writers calm and one of the purposes of starting a site is so you can start
writing content on your site today I still blog up to two or three times a
week on our agency blog at the write blog so your site and your blog needs to
become your marketing tool on the write blog I consistently publish content that
attracts our to ideal audience types which are either freelancers or a group
of marketers and agencies the freelancers buy the courses and books
that I offer and the marketers and agencies are our ideal clients so some
of the topics I write on would include how to build a strong digital content
strategy how long should a blog post be productivity and work-life tips for
marketers etc so create a site and start a blog and begin there my third tip this
is a good one are you ready learn the skills that add a layer of
money-making assets to your writing chops this is huge and it's actually
under util by a lot of online writers especially
those that are just getting started so good writing is the core but on top of
that our skill sets that you can build to market yourself and tell your clients
you're able to create more strategic content that will get them real results
online so for example content marketing is an industry that's currently worth
400 billion dollars and a large part of the industry is buying content creation
or investing in that in some way businesses are hiring paying and
outsourcing their content needs but you really need to know the skills they're
looking for on top of writing so what are those skills
this would include knowing how to build an online content strategy knowing SEO
and how to find great keywords that will attract their ideal audience knowing how
content drives growth in terms of brand awareness list building audience growth
list building email marketing techniques Facebook ad copy social media character
limits and after six years of spending a lot of time in the consecration industry
I built two courses that can really help freelancers maximize this layer of added
skill sets that you can add to the knowledge of great writing to attract
and help your clients in a better way so you can check those two courses I have
out one is a content strategy course it's very intensive that's a content
strategy course calm and the other one is a simple easy-peasy SEO writing
course SEO writing course calm okay moving on to number four great writing
skills will come with time and practice now here's where my not so fun writing
tip is going to come into play a lot of copywriters will advise you against
taking these low-paying jobs you need to go for that higher rates while that's
true I think it's critical at the beginning to take lower paying jobs
really gets no content create a lot of content and get better and better and
better and then charge that price that you want to go after in all honesty this
is how I grew my content writing skills from less than beginner to
in demand blogger and author I wrote hundreds and hundreds of articles in my
first year at anywhere from three to five cents a word for locksmiths car
dealers hardware companies digital marketers you name it okay let's wrap up
with my fifth tip so number five would be to learn marketing and yes this does
tie in to our third tip about adding those layers of skillsets to your
writing abilities that can boost the revenue of your clients but I
specifically mean learn marketing for you as a writer coming on the scene
you're going to have to build your brand you want to apply marketing techniques
that will help you be seen and heard and get those leads so don't be shy put
yourself out there there are so many ways you can market yourself today one
idea would be you could go to conferences with a business card and
start conversations with marketers that are looking for content you could also
grow your business page on Facebook with videos and really good content you could
go to Instagram use writer hashtags look for clients post quality content you
could start a YouTube channel create videos you could learn how to beat the
LinkedIn algorithm and create organic post that will reach your ideal buyer
and don't forget to focus on writing your own blog and growing your email
list so this list is crazy long but what's really cool is that as you learn
these skills and market yourself you'll be able to create more strategic content
for your clients and apply those skills to how you write for them I would
recommend picking one key thing like building your Facebook page focus on
that for a week a month a quarter however much time you have to devote to
writing being your full-time or part-time thing and then move on to the
next thing I hope these five key tips really helped
I focused on practical advice that really worked for me and I started at a
place that was less than beginner I simply had a love for writing and I
pursued that and made a career out of it so I believe that you can too
and if you have any questions let me know in the comment
I'll be happy to get back to you thanks so much for watching and I hope to see
you around
so in tonight's video my goal is to share with you five key factors the hell