What Does a Freelance Content Writer Do?

Before we start writing on- “What does a freelance content writer do?”, we need to know what a freelance content writer is.

What is a freelance content writer?

The term "Freelance content writer" includes two distinct parts in it- "Freelance" and "content writer".  "Freelance" means selling services by an hour or hours, a day or days or per job. A content writer refers to someone who writes or develops content for various publications, digital media, and traditional channels. Therefore, a freelance content writer is an individual or a person who writes content for blogs, articles, websites, white papers, press releases, product descriptions, emails, business proposals, newsletters, academic courses, social media platforms, etc.   

Unlike full-time or part-time employees, freelance content writers are self-employed writers cum contractors who bid, engage and communicate with clients online or offline to get content writing projects from them and coordinate with them until delivery and later.

Freelance writers can work for multiple clients belonging to various industries and different business verticals.   

What are other popular terms related to content writers?

Other popular terms related to content writers are content developers, digital writers, bloggers, copywriters, SEO writers, academic writers, SEO content writers, web content writers or website content developers, web writers, wordsmiths, etc.

Content writers can write, publish and distribute content through various digital and traditional channels to boost their popularity. Digital writing can target to rank a website, improve traffic, enhance website visibility, increase conversion rate, create brand awareness, and market and sell products and services over the internet. It engages audiences online and brings them closer to a brand or business.

Types of SEO content writing?

SEO content can be divided into off-page and on-page content like off-page and on-page SEO activities.

On-page SEO content

On page SEO content includes texts on web pages and writings of Meta titles, Meta descriptions, Meta keywords, etc. Besides, it can practice other SEO activities like long-tailed keyword formations, parallel key-phrase writing, etc. 

Off-page SEO content

Off page SEO content includes the writing activities done and posted outside of a website to increase its visibility, improve traffic and bring its ranking on the SERPs of major search engines with popular keywords, search terms, parallel search terms, and relevant and related words, information, products, and services. Articles, blogs, press releases, emails, product descriptions, SMS writings, and many activities like these undergo this category.

SEO content writers have good command and excellent skills. They know how to write high-quality content for the search market as well as the display market. 

Freelance content writers can include content marketing in his or her wide array.

What is content marketing?

Content marketing is a well-planned marketing approach focusing on creating unique and quality content and distributing it on various valuable and relevant channels, keeping pace with the target market and defined audience to attract and grab their attention and motivate them to take desired actions.    

What does a freelance writer do in reality?

Selects the right niche

He or she will select the right niche before proceeding to content writing and content marketing. Correct niche selection plays an important role in the indexing of a website, blog, portal or digital channel. 

Finds the best keywords related to your products, services, websites, blogs, portals or digital channels

He or she finds the best keywords, key phrases, relevant and related words, and parallel search terms to use in content.

Forms LSI keywords, long-tallied keywords, and key phrases to write high-quality content  

He can form long-tailed keywords and key phrases, dovetailing relevant and high search volume words related to a website, product or service.

Writes relevant and high-quality content    

Using those keywords, key phrases and relevant and related words in titles and subtitles, he or she will write unique, relevant and high-quality content that is search engine-friendly and user-friendly. While writing digital and SEO content, he or she must keep a close look at various factors like keyword density, keyword proximity, keyword prominence, keyword mapping and other activities related to readability index.

Edits content as per the needs of a client

He or she edits content if required, until a client likes it exactly  

Bids on various projects and communicates with clients

A freelance content writer acts as an independent contractor. He or she bids on many content writing and marketing projects. With the aid of various means like telemarketing, digital marketing, references and online bidding, he or she can generate genuine leads and turn the leads into his or her positive clients. After that, a content writer can communicate with the clients and act as a project coordinator to provide them with satisfactory services according to their needs. He or she looks after account and delivery and finally gets payment from them for delivering projects as per their (clients) requirements.

Handles and manages multiple projects

Proficient freelance content writers run offices and own teams to handle, manage, and deliver multiple projects on time or before time.         

Understands digital measurement metrics

An expert knows the digital measurement and engagement metrics of digital marketing.

Content Writing Jobs on Social Media Platforms

Are you a budding writer interested in making a bright career in content writing? You have started applying for content writing jobs publishing on various job portals and social media channels.

If you are applying on job portals, you are on the right track. However, when you take the same actions on social media pages and posts, you waste your time and do not get your expected results. All your endeavors go futile.

No doubt your flair for writing content persuades you to send applications quickly on social media sites for a shortcut. You love applying for writing jobs there as you need to write less and communicate fast.  Are those correct and applicable to your case? If yes, you are not on the right track but in the right destination to know the reality. Applying on social media platforms is just killing time if you are a passionate content writer. 

Now, the question comes- why replying to "situation vacant" or "need content writers" on social media pages and portals is just wasting valuable time?  You might have noticed that either you did not receive any reply or had a bitter experience of nonpayment after delivery in many cases.

Why do these happen?

If you critically look at the posts or new opportunities for freelance content writers on social media, you will notice that a vast majority of posts are coming from the same groups having common areas of interest in content writing, copywriting, content marketing, editing, etc. To be more precise, freelance content writing groups, academic writers and many content marketing business pages randomly post these with the objectives of attracting budding writers and increasing participation, visibility, performance, and traffic on their social media pages. You need to understand that as they are groups of regular or freelance content writers why they would pass you many projects when there is a crisis in the market for content writing projects, and they already have many professional writers in their groups to execute writing tasks.

Their main objectives are to motivate you to take their desired actions on their fan pages and increase activities and the number of fans and followers on their social media business pages. They want to make their social channels participatory and super active. Besides, these postings help them in "trending" and promote their targeted keywords, key phrases, and other search term through hashtags.

They can make a specific topic, event, incident, hashtag, or keyword popular through trending. These help them increase more page visibility and audience engagement than usual. Trending on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or Instagram can give their pages a significant facelift and a big boost to their brands and businesses.

How to Hire Freelance Content Writers

Are you an individual or a business entity looking to hire freelance content writers? Most of writers or wordsmiths are asking you for upfront payment. Right! You have a hesitation whether you will have quality works after sending payments. Sometimes, you think of losing your money. You get in a dilemma- What will happen if your selected person goes away with your money? You cannot decide what to do.  Here is a solution for you. You just need to go through this small piece of writing.  Keep reading until you finish it.

  
On the other hand, content writers cannot be blamed for demanding upfront. Sometimes, a few dishonest people go away with their (content writers or copywriters) handwork. This is why the copywriters don’t want to go ahead without taking an advance or upfront payment. However, there is a way to break the deadlock.  

Before hiring a professional content writer or creative wordsmith, you need to find the right fit for you. 

Given below are the tips on how to find the right freelance content writers for your projects: 

Make sure you are hiring an experienced content writer 

Hiring a fresher for your project can put you in trouble. This is why hiring one having several years of experience is always good. To be sure that you are hiring an experienced wordsmith, you could ask him or her to send you the profile or portfolio link. 

Ask for the previous works 

Sometimes, previous works can help you make a decision. To do so, you just need to ask the freelance content writers to send their previous works done for other clients. 

Assign a small piece of writing containing less than 150 words 

This is the small yet giant step for you to find the right freelancer for you. Just assign your freelancers a small piece of writing on a specific topic selected by you. It will help you understand the quality and writing style of the content writers. 

If the writers can pass all these three steps, you can hire them as your freelance content writers. 

How to hire efficient freelance content writers     

Hire for a small SEO project

At the initial stage, you can them for a small SEO project requiring some articles, blogs, and PRs for link building. You can assign only for each type to check the quality and style. It means you can assign only 3 for the first term. 

 

How to pay for your first content writing project   

Just pay 50% (as upfront) of the total amount. Assigning only a small volume of work is always advisable.  As you pay 50% in advance, an assignment of a small volume of work lowers the chance of losing your money. Say for an example, if you assign 4 articles, pay for only 2. After getting 2 articles, you can pay for the rest 2- if the wordsmith can deliver you the quality work.   

How to assign content writing projects

If you have started working with a freelance content writer, you just need to start with a small step as mentioned above. You can increase the work volume with time.  You can start with 4, then 6, 10, 14, 20 and likewise. Don’t pay the entire amount before delivery. Always pay 50% in advance, not more than that. 

How to Become a Freelance Content Writer and Make Money from Home

Are you planning to make a career in content writing domain? You are more interested in working from home and making money online. If yes, you are in the right place.

It is a very lucrative profession requiring no significant investment to start. There is no dedicated course to help you learn content writing tips. This is why I will try my level best to let you know how to become a freelance content writer through this blog post. 

Before getting into the main part, I would like to throw light on the below-mentioned questions:

What is a content writer?

A content writer is a professional writer who produces textual content to publish online.  He can work full-time or part-time basis.

What does a content writer do?

A content writer searches online to collect data and information and write engaging content, based on these (data and information). He or she produces different types of textual content in different niches for on-page SEO, off page SEO, social media post, etc. There are website contents, articles, blogs, and press releases to inform people about a product, service, and business or only educate people about something or someone.

Who is a freelance content writer?

A freelance writer is an independent writer who works on a self-employed basis. Freelance content writers work from home or own offices for different agencies, organizations and business.

What are the different genres of content writing?

• Articles

• Blogs

• Press Releases

• Web content writing 

• Academic content writing

• SEO writing

• Technical Writing

• LSI writing

• News writing

• Storyboarding

• Content writing for social media

• Travel writing

• Business and marketing content writing

• Financial writing

• Real estate content writing

• Entertainment content writing

• Medical content writing

• Automotive content writing

• News journal writing

• Fashion writing

• Sales page writing

• Brochure writing

• Email writing

• Ad copywriting

• Social writing

• Legal writing

• Shorter sentences

• Use of more active words

• Try to use active voice

• Do not use jargons unless you badly need to use there

• Take care of the grammatical issues.

Now let me come to the main part. This part will answer all questions mentioned in the title of this blog post.

How to become a content writer

The matter of fact is that writing is a 99% hard practice and only 1% inspiration. You need only 1% inspiration while you are developing a piece of content. What you need as the basic skills are a very good grasp of English (this is only for an English content writer) and a flair for developing crispy content. A very good understanding requires on the topic that you are writing on. Else, you will get confused and confuse your readers as well. 

Follow the tips (mentioned below) while developing content
 

How to become a freelance content writer

There is no quick math and the rule of thumb how to become a professional freelance content writer.

Find your clients and make a client database

To become an independent writer or a freelance content developer what you need to do first is to make a strong client base.

Deliver industry standard content

To make your clients happy and satisfied you need to sharpen your skills, research much on the topic, use relevant and related words in the content,  edit content and proofread it properly until it reaches up to the mark. 

How to make money from freelance content writing    

To be paid for your freelance content writing works, you can start bidding on various freelancing sites except (Fiverr, as it is a scam site). Besides, you can do various social media posts with attractive images and engaging texts. You can advertise there. Creating your business pages for various social media platforms can bring you many valuable clients.