Freelance Writers: How to Make Thousands of Dollars in Passive Income Per Year from Knowledge You Already Possess
Advice for Freelance Writers On How to Make Passive Income Online
Freelance writers are perfectly positioned to capitalize off of things that inherently know. Why? Mainly because they’re ahead of the curve in that, they’re online all the time.
How the Internet Changed the Lives of Freelance Writers
If you’re a freelance writer these days, you can’t imagine doing business without the internet, right? I was a freelance writer before the internet became a “household appliance,” so to speak. So I remember what it’s like not to “surf the net.” Now I can’t being to imagine life without the internet. It’s the first thing I turn on in the morning and the last thing I turn off at night.
But, I digress.
If you’re a freelance writer these days, you know about things like social media marketing (eg, Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn); blogging; search engine optimization . . . . and the list goes on and on.
But, guess what? A lot of clients don’t know about these things. Not only do they not know, they have no interest in learning because they’re too busy running their businesses.
However, many of them have invested in websites. But since they don’t get the whole “internet marketing thing,” they pay people like you to do what we may think of as simple tasks. I touch on this in the post, SEO Copywriters: How to Make an Extra $61,880 This Year, a piece I wrote for the highly regarded writing blog, Copyblogger.com.
And when clients don’t know something – but they understand they need it (this is very important)– they are happy to pay someone who does, ie, YOU!
I know this from too many first-hand experiences. If you read the post linked to above, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. So, how do you capitalize on all of this knowledge – knowledge you may take for granted by the way – floating around your head? Well, I’m going to tell you.
Freelance Writers: How to Capitalize Off of All of the Specialized Knowledge You Possess
It’s quite simply actually; you package it and sell it. Let me tell you how I’ve done it so you can see exactly what I mean.
When I first started my SEO writing company, I offered one service – SEO article writing. As clients began to request other services (eg, blogging, press releases, article distribution, etc.) I added on those to my SEO copywriting services list.
In 2009, I added the social media marketing service of twittering to our list of services. Why? Because Twitter has literally exploded in the past two years. As an SEO copywriter, I have to stay in the loop on things like Twitter. Once I started using it in the spring of 2009, I saw how easy it was and how it could add more to my firm’s bottom line. So, I offered the service to my SEO content clients.
I had one prospect call me while I was in Jamaica last fall. She worked in marketing for her firm, and was put in charge of getting them on the social media bandwagon. She was frantic about getting her firm “a twittering,” as she put it and thought it was some big old involved process.
This prospect felt bad about interrupting my “vacation,” so said she could wait. But once I told her that I could literally have her up and going in a few minutes, she couldn’t believe it.
She couldn’t believe it because she didn’t understand it. I carefully walked her through the steps though of how Twitter worked how we could use it to bring in more leads (and sales) for her firm. She was thrilled and couldn’t believe that she didn’t have to wait.
Freelance Writers: Why You Should Never Underestimate What You Know, Especially When It Comes to Online Marketing
Now, if you use Twitter, then you know how insanely easy it is. I still find it hard to believe that clients hire my firm to do their social media marketing. But, you know what, it’s not about how easy or complicated a service is. The bottom line is, if a client doesn’t understand it – and don’t want to take the time to do so – but know that they need it, they will pay someone to handle it for them.
And this is what I mean when I say, don’t take your knowledge for granted. The simplest skill you have can be worth a lot to someone who doesn’t possess it.
Freelance Writers: How to Come Up with a Profitable List of Services to Sell
Write down all the things you know how to do. Your list may look something like this:
How to write SEO content
How to start a blog on blogger
How to start a wordpress blog
How to change wordpress themes
How to do article marketing
Where to distribute free press releases
How to write a press release
How to make pdf files
How to add graphics to documents
Where to find a list of free graphics to use
How to build simple websites
How to interact on forums
Etc.
I have used all of the things listed here in one way or another to make money online as a freelance writer – whether it’s selling the information to a prospect (eg, how to write SEO content), or offering the service to a client (eg, article marketing, writing press releases), or using the service myself to promote a product/service (setting up a wordpress blog).
And this, fellow freelance writers, is how you use the knowledge you already have to make thousands of (passive) dollars per year online.
