Freelance Writer - if you had to start again where would you look for clients?

This forum is an excellent place to start.

Just post an ad.

Offer a great solution for a good price.

If that dont work hit up the freelance websites.

If that dont work hit up bloggers and other media empires and tell them you will write for beer money

With the same knowledge I have? Literally anywhere that this forum and it's low end content market is unheard of. I'd go offline or directly to other websites.

If you are going to ask that amount of money, then you will need to list why someone should buy articles from you. If you can show some of your previews works it will be great.

Search on forums about article writing services, or ask webmasters if they want your help. If you are able to write them a helpful article many of them will think about it.

This forum and other similar forums are often useful. However it's also important to create a genuine presence in a forum if you expect people to pay for articles you write.

You can also advertise in classified sites such as Gumtree and Craigslist.
Email friends and family to ask if they know anybody needing your services.

These tips should get you going anyway.

You may seek for business partnership with other service providers (other than your writing services, of course). Refer clients to them and they will use your content writing services. You may also build working relationship with offline clients.

In no particular order...
1) Post in the Warrior for Hire section
2) Post on digital point
(for both of these you'll find 95% of people will want cheap articles, don't get discouraged. You're only interested in the top 5% anyway. Ignore the rest).
3) Post on CraigsList and other similar sites.
4) E-mail website owners directly
5) Contact via phone, in person or email offline businesses.
6) In your down time, write for constant-content.com

The most important thing is that no matter where you're looking, you need to pitch them on why they need your articles. Keep these things in mind:

Many people on WF and DP don't understand the value of true, high quality content.

CraigsList doesn't often take too much of a sales pitch because if they are in the writing section they must be looking for you. Just list the details of what you can provide them and some examples of the work. CL is a numbers game, get it in front of enough people and you'll get sales (don't forget to contact people who post requesting a writer too!)

when you contact website owners you need to properly explain what your articles will do for them. You can start out with a general form letter but make sure to customize it for each site owner.

Contacting offline businesses will require you to explain to them what you'll do, how you'll do it and what benefits it will get them (use $$$ amounts if possible).

Hope that helps.

Michael

When I started my article writing services website with my mentor I had no problem finding work, I had the opposite problem! I couldn't find a good writer who was a native English speaker. I had to look on odesk(dot)com. So I guess if I was starting out I'd sign up at odesk and promote myself from there. Hope this helps.

Your own domain. Work it. The $20 per page rate is low really for ghostwriting - most buyers - not "typical marketers" pay way more than that.

I agree about getting your own site. Put up samples and information to let it do the selling for you.

Try to target a handful of niches that you can specialize in, and then seek out businesses in those niches and pitch your services.

Once you get things set up and figure out your rates, be confident about what you charge. If you are uncertain, clients will pick up on that and feel you're not worth what you say you're worth. Go headlong and don't hesitate. Unless you're way out of the ballpark, you can find clients who will pay what you want.

This is interested, i`m also looking for a way to get customers for "article writing".
I tried digital forum, is fine.
But i need more customers because in the end a few will turn into regular customers.
So where to put the ad , not warrior or constant content.
Other websites? examples ?

Thanks

Set up your own portfolio website, get a professional WP theme (there are tons of fabulous, elegant free themes specifically designed for freelancers, photographers, and designers), display some samples of your work (watermark them, stamp them!), with your contact info, and spread a special price for first 10 or 20 customers (discount and bonus). The aim is to gather testimonials.

To market yourself, you can go to forums like WF or DP, Fiverr and its clones, or to freelance websites like odesk, elance, and freelancer.com. If you're choosing 3rd party freelancer websites, you must weapon yourself with a really effective script to really persuade the future client and winning the bid, explaining why the client should pick you and not someone else. (and that's where your portfolio website can come in handy ).

You can also become a guest blogger, writing tutorials in writing/ web design etc websites with high traffic -- to build your brand. And joining some freelance communities to educate yourself, from most of them you can keep up on how to win clients and handling some technical stuff (priceless!).

In Clickbank there's a $37 useful ebook titled 6-figure freelancing. It's a good ebook about setting up freelancing business. And Tiffany Dow has a product "ghostwriting cash" which is very good too (no affiliate whatsoever) and newbie friendly. You may want to check them out.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for the suggestions guys, I think creating my own website is a good investment of my time.

Also I think I might need to create some social media accounts, I have had some people ask for links to FB and twitter accounts to find out more about me.

A little rephrasing might help a bit.

Where would clients look for you?

Do you have a website with proof of your skills where clients can easily contact you? Any testimonials?

Do you have a forum profile with lots of posts proving your expertise in your area(s) of expertise?

Or a LinkedIn profile like Joe recommended?

If you were the type of client that you're looking to get, where would you go to find a writer? I doubt serious clients would go to fiverr or iwriter. Not saying the websites are bad, but if I were a serious business owner I probably wouldn't want to get a cheap $5 writer, and iwriter isn't exactly a household name yet.

I'm not sure if having a Kindle book or two on Amazon would help. If you were able to successfully promote a book, something along the lines of "how to publish an online newsletter" or "how to get more customers using the Internet", maybe you could tie in your services to it? Any published authors can chime in with their experience?

You can do that in odesk and also they have that widget that you could use to advertise your account to other sites

TBH, if you set up your own site and get it ranked on page one of the search engines, you won't have a problem finding clients. We routinely get far too many orders for our writing team. This is when I go to odesk... I pay the freelancer's $15 per article. You'd be surprised how many writers will line up to work for you

Your last line, " am specifically talking about clients that offer rates of $20+ per 500 words. So not sites like fiver, odesk, freelancer and so on."

is exactly how I get my $20 plus clients.
I tried Freelancer.com and had a terrible experience there, and would never sell anything for $5 so Fiverr is out for me. However, I use ODesk quite often and have found some of my best clients there - all of whom pay me top dollar. I am currently working with a client of 2+ years who pays me much more than that, and I found that client on ODesk. You have to be patient and not accept junk offers, which are probably the types of offers you are referring to, right?

First, I would take an assessment as to what LEVEL of writing services I can offer. Not all writing jobs are the same. Some don't require any thinking or creativity. Others are just rewrite jobs. Even others involve high levels of analysis and critical thinking.

Second, I will research the competition and look at the pricing for the writing tiers my work falls under.

Third, I will produce samples and put them up on my site

Fourth, I would offer free samples to people looking for content in my tier. You'd be surprised as to how many long-term content provision deals you can get if you go this route.

To be honest, the standard keyword sniping type of writing is fast developing into a race to the bottom. There are fiverr ads advertising 1500 words for $5 and some ads on forums for .003 cents per word. The future of content is not keyword articles or reworded garbage. The future of GOOD PAYING content projects is higher levels of research, more analysis, and emotionally/intellectually engaging content.

Ready... Warriors For Hire. If you can produce quality content then people will pay you quality money

@jctorpey I am not surprised that you got some $20+ gig from odesk, however most of the gigs there are worthless for someone aiming at such such a number. I have not quit using odesk yet, because from time to time I do see some great job offers there. The crappy thing is the rate is like 1 in 30.

I would start on this forum if I had to start back over and do freelance writing. Back when I did freelance writing I didn't use this forum and I know I could have found some great clients here.

Yup..Start on these forums, then go to the other sites that you mentioned although i really doubt if any of them would pay you $20. You can also do some advertising for yourself like visiting blogs and leaving comments or making a signature to suggest your expertise.

Posting an ad in the Warriors for Hire section of this forum will get you some clients. Put a link to the ad in your signature and participate, by adding value, in forum discussions on a regular basis.

You should also contact web designers and SEO providers, by phone or email, and solicit your services. For every 100 or so you contact, 1 or 2 will be interested. Your conversion rate may differ from that depending on your email copy or phone pitch, but you can fine tune your approach as you go.

Lastly, contact brick and mortar businesses with websites and offer to provide them with solid content. It helps to seek those who are actively buying online advertising as they are already aware of the importance of the internet as a marketing medium.

Just keep in mind that whatever lead generation method you choose to pursue, and you should engage in more than one, the overwhelming majority of contacts you make will not result in a gig, but a small percentage will; that small percentage is enough to build a full-time income for yourself.

Just be persistent and you will see good results.

If I were starting over again, knowing what I know now, I'd never touch a forum that had anything at all to do with Internet Marketing. Period.

I'd not post here in the WF, use Digital Point, or go to any other forum.

Why?

Too many people who are trying to get a start in business and can't afford a decent article "live" here. I'm not saying that there aren't good clients here, but the majority of what you'll find in IM forums are what I call "one offs" and you never hear from them again. They'll come in, tell you how, if you can do this one job to show them how good you are, they'll have thousands of more articles for you. You agree, and sometimes at a reduced rate, and then never hear from them again.

I'd start with Mike's (Seatbelt99) advice and hit Craigslist first. You can pick up a few clients there.

After that, I'd start looking for websites in whatever town or city you live in. Find the ones that look like crap (and they're not hard to find) and/or the sites that haven't been refreshed since 2006, go to the contact page, and attempt to contact the business owner and see if you can design a new site for them. It takes 30 seconds to go to Google and type in "[your city] + plumbers" (for example) and scroll down the list to find the non-franchise, local guys.

That should keep you busy for 3-5 years. After that, come back here and let us know that you've run out of people and we'll start you over again.

-- j

$20 for 500 words is really too high price the normal price is $7, if you managed to get that kind of client then you would really be too beneficial...

as a freelance writer this thread has had some great information and details. kudos to all who replied and helped. i've used DP and here along with CL for advertising along with my own site. Fiverr I can't figure out but it takes a while to build a repeat clientele for your services. Good luck.

Thanks for the input so far guys, most of my work as been coming from oDesk at very poor rates. But some money coming in is better than nothing. I hope to land some better clients from other marketplaces real soon.

I started off writing by looking for jobs on Digital points forum. It wasn't very high paid work but it got me enough money to start investing in other things. I got some long term jobs there and the work was easy and quick.

I would consider offering copywriting services here on the Warrior Forum. There is big bucks to be made here with those services.