Start Writing Online for an Income

There are numerous sites online that will allow you to write about all of your life experiences and your life skills, and the best part about it is that you can earn a fairly good income from submitting your life experiences. Freelance writing is learning to share your thoughts. It allows you to be heard in every part of the world. You can use sites like Hubpages to express your thoughts completely or other sites that you write on certain topics. It will all depend on the writing site, but I prefer sites that I can choose my own topic to write on, it makes the writing flow in a better way for me and not forced. Readers can tell the difference when you enjoy what you are writing about.

In this hub I will not be leading you to the top earning sites or promoting sites that I write for. I want to share the "how to's" for those that are new to freelance writing. This hub will show you the steps that I have used over the last 10+ years to become fairly successful with my writing. I have had articles published on numerous sites, including Yahoo news. Most of my articles was published before freelance writing was so huge. All of that success was contributed to the steps I will be sharing today.

Depending upon the site you write for you can either choose your own topic, or have a few options to choose from. Either way you should start with something that you have a lot of knowledge about. This will give you a starting point to boost your writing career. When I began I started with simple "How to" articles on Ehow. So I made a complete list of things that I knew how to do, and could write quality articles on. In the beginning I could write over a hundred well written articles in a week.

For me I write mostly articles and personal blog posts about finances, family and business. That is because this is the things that I know. I have studied finances and business for years, and my family is my number one thing in my life. Now if was given a topic like cosmetics, I could research items or share some experience. But if I was given the topic of auto mechanics I would be lost and the reader would not learn anything. Or at least nothing that would be useful.

I have one notebook that I use for my writing notes. I use it to jot down topics that I want to write on, then I make simple outlines while it is fresh in my head. Even if the outline changes as I am writing, it is a starting point for each article or blog post that I write. This writing outline does not have to be pretty or even in the correct order, it is just a way of remembering what you want to write.

You may be surprised to discover that you can come up with writing ideas anywhere. When I wrote for a full time income, and before being a single mom of two, I carried a notebook with me everywhere. I would come up with random ideas all the time. I would be frustrated when I would have ideas, but would forget if I did not have it written down somewhere.

This is something that took me a while to learn. SEO is search engine optimization. It is learning to use words that will help your articles become discovered on the search engines. SEO is very important important, but too many writers cram their search terms in articles without letting the words flow. They put too much emphasis on the search engine. These articles are ones I tend to stop reading because it takes away from the point of the article, and it takes away from the writer. I believe when we are writing we are sharing a piece of us and a piece of our knowledge. I know the income is important, but once people see that you are a real writer I think they come back and read more because of your genuine work. So yes learn SEO, but do not over emphasize it in your creation, their is a fine line.

Freelance writing is not a get rich quick method. It does take time and patience. I have had times that I was making a full time income doing freelance writing. At one point I was making more than $2000 a month. This was when I wrote about 5 to 10 hours a day. I had a detailed work from home schedule. I learned how to promote each of my articles, and kept with the hard work. You cannot write a hand full of articles and think that will continue to earn consistently. Freelance writing is a job, and you have to love your job to continue to earn an income.

Most people get discouraged when they do not see their hard work pay off within a month or two. Do not let that happen to you. Keep making schedules and keep contributing. The more quality articles you have, the more income potential you will have. Even though this is something I genuinely love to do, it is serious work if you want to make a real income.

Most of the freelance writing sites have forums, or ways for you to read other peoples articles. When making your daily schedule, add time to get involved in the writing communities. Read other contributors articles, add helpful comments, and follow through if people do the same for you.

Freelance writing is not for someone to just post articles. You have to learn ways to be discovered. Getting involved in the communities will help you grow. Listen to the people that have been writing for years. There are a lot of knowledgeable writers online that can help you if you are willing to listen to what they have to say.

To break it down simply keep going and continue to learn. Freelance writing is something that you have to work on if you want to see a real income. It is not something that will make you rich in the beginning, but there are many people that earn very well writing online. It is something that you have to really want in order to reach your goals. It will take time and patience but believe me it will pay off in the end if you keep working at it.