It's Easy to Make Money from Home as an Online Content Writer

If you want to make money from home and you are a competent writer, there are a lot of writing opportunities on the internet. These writing opportunities tend to be looked down upon by traditional writers since many online writing projects do not pay very well. However, it is possible to make money from home as an online writer, you just have to know what pitfalls to avoid and the best ways to go about getting clients.

Firstly, many writers might claim to be able to make money from home, but they actually have a very uncertain income. They write articles and submit them to various publications and hope they will be accepted. Only 20% of freelance writers are actually able to make a full time living from their writing. So if you want to make money from home as a writer it only makes sense to consider the growing demand for online content.

To make money from home as an online content writer, you must be able to write for search engine optimization. This means that your articles will need to include keywords as naturally as possible. This is not easy if you actually want your writing to flow well. Some of the keywords I've been given have been challenging to say the least and sometimes you just have to do the best you can with them. Nevertheless, it is a skill you need to acquire if you want to make money from home writing online articles. I wrote this article using the keywords 'make money from home' and 'make money'. So if you noticed the phrases being repeated and wondered why I couldn't express the idea differently, now you know.

The possibilities that exist to make money from home by writing for websites include writing articles, e-books, blogs and forum posts. There are some excellent freelance job sites which advertise writing assignments which you can bid for. Scriptlance, getafreelancer, rentaghostwriter and writerlance do not charge for registration but take a fee when you receive a project. Freelance writing classifieds and webmaster forums are other places where you can pick up writing assignments. You can definitely make money from home as an online content writer.

However, you won't be able to make money from home for any length of time if you don't earn enough. This is the number one pitfall for new writers. You will notice when you bid on the freelance sites that some people are willing to take $1 to $2 per article. These people are working from countries where this is still good money. But if you live in a Western country with high costs of living, you will not be able to make money from home writing for peanuts. So don't try. Have good samples you can use to demonstrate your skills and bid low but not too low to get started. $5 for an article of 500 words is probably okay for starting out. I made the mistake of writing for $3 an article when I started out and I promise you it is stressful. This is because clients still want a high quality job despite the low price. I almost gave up on my dream to make money from home when I found myself working long hours for very little money. I had to refuse work so I had the time to look for the higher paying jobs. And yes, they are out there! Once we put the right value on our services it becomes possible to make money from home - good money.

The other pitfall common to the new online writer is over estimating how many articles can be written in an hour. It will be impossible to make money from home that's livable if you can only write one or two $3 articles in an hour. Until you get very fast and have accumulated a lot of knowledge in a niche area, you will spend a fair amount of time researching your topic before you even write it. If you want to make money from home as a writer, it is important to factor research time into your article rate.

After reading this article you may be doubting your ability to make money from home as a content writer. Don't be discouraged, many people are able to make money from home by writing for the web and you can too.