How to Make Money with Your Words: Here is Perfect Writing Tips To Beginners

For all of you who have never made a single dollar from writing but want to start — this guide is for you. I recall so many advertisements that said writing online was “simple” and that you could earn money in the process.

I didn’t really trust them then, and I sure as hell don’t want you believing any of that stuff now.

In reality, writing articles and starting to generate income from doing so can be challenging for a beginner. Then again, it is not exactly a tall order either.

That’s because there are many more places to begin today, as well as lots of different platforms and clients that require content.

The competition may not be as stiff as you think. Yes, there are thousands of cheap writers out here seeking a quick payday… but that can benefit you if you know how.

This post details my experiences in monetizing article writing and covers three main areas:

• Writing for others — clients (primarily individuals, sometimes agencies), usually as a ghostwriter or for SEO articles.
• Writing platforms — like Scripted, Textbroker, and the like.
• I write blogs on platforms (for instance, Medium) or on my own site. I’ll also show you how to build a portfolio, approach clients the right way, common mistakes by other writers that are easy to avoid, and eventually expand your writing into full-time work.

The fastest way to begin earning from your writing is to put it out there simply. Stop overthinking; just write and click publish.

Many new writers get mired in the early days — they feel they have to pick a niche, write some articles upfront, or build their social media.

None of these are bad, but do not let them distract you from the most important thing — writing.

Publishing material online can help in several ways:

• Develops writing habits: The more you write, the better you get. Writing regularly sharpens your skills over time.
• Builds your portfolio: You’ll have some evidence of your writing skills, which can be shared with potential clients.

I recommend starting with one blog post or article a week. It is realistic, and in a few months’ time, you can have something to show potential clients fairly easily.

The Best practices: Content Marketing Institute — CMI has been a great resource, long on depth but with one catch.

Buffer: The company who made it big in the productivity space by transitioning from a social media scheduling tool.

HubSpot — More than just the best inbound marketing platform, it offers a ton of industry news and well-written posts that sales will actually enjoy reading.

The Best Platforms Where You Can Submit Your Articles: Write up your blog or complete it on other platforms like Medium, Vocal, and Newsbreak.

Go with Medium if you’re new to this instead of starting a blog.

To cut a long story short, you could use it when you may only want to write and publish your stories without using the other benefits, which saves you time.

One of the best parts about having a blog is it’s your own space. So, own it with subscriptions, products, or some ads. It’s all you.

However, this means more things for you to manage.

Get feedback. Improve. Repeat. Don’t sweat it if you are all over the place with your subjects. Nobody cares at this point. Just get your articles out there.

The second step — find a niche

Once you have plenty of your work posted online, think about niching yourself.

Find Your Niche as A Freelance Writer

It accomplishes four things for you:

• It requires that you specialize in a topic, which makes freelancing clients more interested in working with you and more willing to pay your rates.
• You will build authority among your writing communities.
• It means higher pricing.

How should you select yours?

You want to find a topic where there exists the possibility that someone might pay for what you write.

A good niche example comes from Rachel Presser, known as the Sonic Toad — she’s a reptile lover.

She added a Kimberley rock monitor to her collection! One supposes she excels at herpetological photography.

So many reptile fans purchase magazines, but there aren’t a lot of lizard authors.

That combination makes her a perfect niche writer for a publication like Reptiles Magazine. (You can read her story here for context.)

There are some topics, mind you — there isn’t anything really impossible when it comes to niching down as a freelance writer — but they can be more difficult than others because writers will actually jump up and write about these fun ones instead. These are:

• Lifestyle
• Travel
• Cats (I know, right?)
• Food

So, those might be the best ones to avoid if you’re just starting out.

Note: A niche doesn’t have to be just a topic. Writing well in an engaging way that also makes it consumable by a lay audience is a niche. I have turned this “niche” into contracts and jobs in backend development, data science, fintech, telecoms, and more.

At this point, you have a topic that interests you and can be worked on to completion (even if some of the ideas will fail), and now it is time to build your focused portfolio.

Let the Ideal Client Hypothetical Guide You

Find a niche company on LinkedIn. Review their blog: What are they not writing about? Write that blog post. It does a few key things:

• Creates content that directly ties into how you brand yourself, which people in the industry can see.
• Great for writing in your niche.
• Pushes you to produce good stuff because, in theory, the client is your reader.

Write at least three articles and add them to your portfolio. A separate page on your website OR a Medium list OR a link-in-bio tool OR a Carrd.

And you can use all free tools that will help make the appearance of the portfolio at a professional level.

Yes, I know content mills are usually looked down upon, but here is where they can serve a purpose — even for new writers just starting out, like myself.

• Builds your writing skills
• Teaches you that your words are worth cash
• Gives volume to add to your portfolio

If nothing else, if/when a content mill job accepts you, they may want some kind of niche.

POPSUGAR Voices, Scripted, Textbroker — these are easy places to get started with a writing career.

For whenever a freelance client inquiry about your experience, you have something to point back at in terms of either proof or references.

You will not be valued at your value, and you may lose even more money by getting paid a little.

Let’s recap. By now:
• You can already write yourself
• You’ve got a niche
• You have a portfolio
• You know the content mills (AKA “clients”) from prior writing gigs

Now you are ready to expand your reach of people that will pay you money for writing.

That could be a customer, but it is also a reader who rewards you for your writing in some way.

The more people that read what you write, the better your chances of getting one or the other to pay for it.

Remember: You can cold pitch for clients. I am not a great pitcher, if you consider my propensity to earn money with writing that builds an audience:

Clients call me up when they find one of my articles online or on social media.

I can still monetize with article writing in other instances (AdSense, affiliate marketing and growing my newsletter)

So, I start by focusing on this step. Scale Your Audience

That’s him, that is your largest possible market on Google. You only make money writing once you have some knowledge of SEO and start getting ranked for keywords like:

• Adsense ad revenue
• Affiliate marketing (linking to a product, the reader buys it and you get a little kickback from the vendor)
• Any additional sales

It also means, a potential client might stumble upon you and hire you because of your writing. That’s how I landed my very first freelance client.

Thought Leadership
The other method to increase your audience is by sharing ‘thought leadership’ content around where there already are eyeballs — on social media.

A CEO might not be explicitly looking to hire writers, but if she sees your post and you wow her with knowledge on the subject matter — you just got hired.

This content helps:
• Build your reputation in your niche
• Add more to your portfolio
• Expand the set of readers willing to pay you money for what you write

One way is to create thought leadership content and post it as a guest post that you write for someone else’s website in exchange for exposure to their audience and a backlink (a huge boon if anyone links this article on your site).

Now you are no longer a would-be writer… now you may be an author! Chances are you landed a couple of content mill jobs, or maybe one or two clients came to find your services.

And now you realize that what is to rave about are the articles that bring in money.

Here’s how you do that.

Industry secret: it is kind of difficult to find someone who will write an article well.

It is not as competitive as you may expect. worse, unreliable writers than good ones are impacting the failure rate.

Unfortunately, with the rise of AI, there are now even more writers who think they can ChatGPT their way to a buck.

These “writers” are mistaken; a high-quality freelance writer will shine like a diamond to clients who see it in comparison.

At this level, you can obtain clients in 3 ways:

1. Upwork, Fiverr — You will find decent freelance writing opportunities here but many scams and extremely bad clients there too.

2. You can also probably land a fair amount of cold pitching clients right through LinkedIn.

3. Find calls for writers through a job board like Qwoted or Superpath.

This simple strategy works with all those options above (the Ideal Client Hypothetical), so you should be able to pitch them work that is a mutually beneficial fit.

The reverse with client writing is you get paid a single fee for an article and then it’s back to the grind.

Now comes the earning part of writing, which involves appealing for views and traffic — an important side.

They make money per article. It is going to take longer for the content you are building on your own site, but eventually, as those pieces of evergreen content gain traction, passive income will start rolling in over time.

For your personal blog, focus only on what gives you the highest returns. Here’s the reference:

SEO Optimization — This helps receive more traffic on the site and makes you eligible for other ad networks besides AdSense, like MediaVine.

Choose a quality affiliate network: Find products that match your audience, and incorporate them into the content naturally to avoid seeming too salesy.

Start building your email list: Write to be read in the market. For instance, provide solutions to the challenges your audience faces and sell to them directly.

Sell ad space on your blog or newsletter. I am using Passionfroot for my sponsored newsletters.

What’s next? Give yourself a pat on the back, you are a paid freelance writer now! This is how to scale:

• Make your website client-friendly.
• Add client testimonials.
• Screenshot your bylines so they are visible in a portfolio.
• Broaden your outreach.
• Ghostwriting: Another high-paying field that is competitive and hard to break into. Platforms like Reedsy can help.
• Earned Media: Pitch your way into Forbes or Business Insider.

Future Directions: Content Marketing, SEO, and Email Marketing. Free resources, like HubSpot tutorials, are a fantastic place to begin.

Fellow Writers: Network with writers! Jobs may come, collaborations may occur, or even friendships; it all makes sense.

The best part about writing after 2024 is that there is nothing to do except write and keep going. It is a positive feedback loop, and if you’re passionate about writing, this is where you want to be.

This is my favorite writing advice: Write the BEST YOU CAN WRITE AS OFTEN AS POSSIBLE TO GET PAID AGAIN AND AGAIN. That breaks down into many ways to write, but in order to earn money as an online writer — that’s it.

1. Write something you enjoy

2. Post about it online

3. The more you can do it without sacrificing quality, the better.

The rest is details.

You will notice clients come to you based on your work, and you’ll build a readership that trusts you and wants to pitch in.

Writing is hard work; writing for a living can be even more difficult, but few periods have made it easier. Good luck out there, fellow writer!

Source