Domain Magnate

I’ve worked with at least a few hundred freelance writers over the past few years, so I wanted to share some tips from the webmaster point of view on how to get more business and more clients for freelancers.  These are based solely on my own experiences.

• Always use Proper English.
  A fairly simple thing to do that many beginning writers don’t pay much attention to. If a writer I’m planning to hire uses stuff like “u, ur, coz, im”  it doesn’t matter how good his reviews are, or who recommended him, there is just no way he’s getting the job. Even if it was through an  IM conversation. I wouldn’t want any of that in my articles and I definitely expect a writer to be professional enough to use perfect English in his messages.
• Adhere to Timelines
  It’s widely known that freelancer projects are rarely completed on time, so if you want to differentiate yourself from the other writers be reliable! if you say you’ll deliver within a week, but complete the work in 3 weeks instead we won’t be working again. Plan ahead, if you know it’ll take you 3 weeks to complete say so upfront. Delivering on time or before is a great way to make sure you’ll get more projects.
• Quality, not Quantity
  It’s a very competitive market! Probably hundreds of thousands of English writers around from all over the world. But while others are lowering their prices to get more clients do the opposite – raise yours and improve the quality. Market yourself to the higher end clients who pay more per article and deliver higher quality content for it.
• Know Your Niches
  Don’t write about everything under the sun, pick certain niches, areas to focus on. Study them, publish articles in popular publications on them and be an expert. Nothing gives you more credibility in the eyes of the client than having your  articles published in large publications. Doesn’t have to the NY Times though, a wikipedia page, or a big article in any established site is no less credible to convince a client.
• Give the Clients What They Want
  More professional writers always ask for more info on what the client expects. Does the review need to be positive, balanced, recommending? Should the style be more personal or general and heavy on facts? Should be there be sub headings?
• Always Spell check
  Always go through the article after it’s complete to fix any grammar mistakes and strive to have perfect grammar in all your writing. Don’t deliver half done work.
• Research
  Make sure you know what you’re writing about, do your research, cross reference several sources, get your information from a credible source. Don’t take up heavy articles on complicated niches you don’t know much about unless you plan to spend the time to research it.
• Get Published!
  Most writers, even the more experienced and professional ones never seem to know where their articles are. A potential client will always want to see your work and it looks much better and more credible if it’s published on a popular site on the topic, than if you just copy paste the article. Anyone can set up ezinearticles profile and add a few articles – get your articles published on more credible sources, like Associated Content, Helium, eHow, Wikipedia etc.
• Have a Portfolio to Show
  Set up a simple portfolio site. Google your previous articles, or get the links from the clients to add to your portfolio. Most clients wouldn’t mind and will even appreciate a link to their page from your portfolio site. And this would be a great testimony to your professionalism for all future clients, seeing your articles live on popular sites in the niche.

Got more tips? Post them below in the comments.

Today it’s exactly 5 years since I became a member of DigitalPoint forums and it was always an important part of my business. I got started with my web business there, learned most of the basics and picked up some of my best earning sites there for rather cheap, sold many domains for good prices back in the day when people were willing to pay high for aged domains, bought and sold tons of links and services. Also hired a lot of people with many of whom I still work today.

While the marketplace is simply HUGE it’s not a place to sell or buy domains for domainers. DP members mostly don’t understand the value of domains, it is however the best place to buy cheap, bulk seo services, backlinks, web design and site building services, hire data entry people and much more. From an average thread I make about willing to buy some links for my sites, or looking to hire a writer, or designer I usually get 30-50 pms. Imagine that: you want to hire someone to design your sites and all you need to do is make a small post with information on what you need and request the designers to send samples and pricing. In a day you’ll have 30+ inquiries to choose from. Sort them by pricing and quality and pick the best one.

The vast amounts of people willing to do almost any simple job for pennies is truly overwhelming there. The extremely brutal competition on DP makes people lower the prices for their services to such ridiculous amounts that I can hardly understand how they make a profit on it.

You can hire a full time link builder, data entry person or a virtual assistant there for just $250 per month. 200+ hours for $250 which comes down to just about $1 per hour. However lets not forget that while this is merely 1/15 of a salary in the US, it’s considered a good amount to earn per month in most of the 3rd world countries. And for $400-500/month you can hire a really experienced SEO person there for a full time job to take care of all the seo needs on your sites. That is even less than most companies charge for SEO services.

Outsourcing has truly become global and DP plays an important role in the process by enabling both the service providers and service buyers find each other easily, quickly and without any additional fees. That is unlike all the freelance sites that profit well from both sides.