Sign up and we'll send you 3 companies hiring writers now. Plus, we'll send more companies as we find and review them. All in our free email magazine. We're dedicated to helping freelance writers succeed. We send you reviews of freelance writing companies, assignments, and articles to help build your writing career. You can view our privacy policy here, and our disclaimer.
To get started, simply enter your email address in the form on this page. Freelancing Spotlight: Demand Studios. Written by David G41 Demand Studios is now hiring writers again. Overview eHow needed content. Back when, Demand investors thought this was an exciting, disruptive business that was going to transform publishing forever. On its debut, the stock shot up.
Why is Demand worth so much less than before? Because traffic is shrinking, and revenue and profits are vaporizing as a result.
It was a struggling company then. Here are traffic charts for Demand Studios and its eHow site from Alexa :. Notice how those declining traffic curves resemble the stock-price chart?
A lot less. That means the stock is worth less, too. What happens when a company loses that much money? Cutbacks and desertions. At Demand, a couple months after the bad loss news came out last fall, it meant the company closed all their foreign offices and stopped assigning articles for their non-English websites.
And this month, more executives jumped ship to other, more stable companies. And Demand knows it. In the future, you can expect there to be less and less opportunity to write these, and less and less pay for whatever assignments of this type remain.
The main takeaway: This downturn in traffic on mass quick-content sites is not a fad, a fluke, or a momentary aberration. Google continues to update its algorithms, on a mission to exclude these sorts of sites from search results. This may be upsetting news, if you are currently earning a decent portion of your income from content mills.
With the fall of junk mass content comes the rise of in-depth, high-quality content that readers find super-useful. If you can write it, there is going to be ample opportunity to earn well online in the coming years. Coming up, companies will be competing to post the most valuable content possible on their sites.
Share your take in the comments. My key marketing tools are my LinkedIn profile, which needs updating, and my website, which is also in need of a tune up.
They often hang up. This lands clients better paying jobs that are of higher quality than those they find trolling job boards. I probably lose a lot of work because my website is weak, but at the same time I land a lot of work because of it—and the jobs pay well, not a little. My goal is to earn what Carol describes that she earns.
It comes from researching my markets and working the findings. People need to eat. Thanks Carol, for the encouraging news.
I am finding two trends as I search daily for new opportunities. First, there are far less ads in Craigslist, Indeed and other sites, placed by obvious content mills. That is a good thing. I also feel that their are a great many former content writers to compete with when a real potential client posts an ad for a writer.
I used to get a response, with much higher frequency, two years ago, than I do today. I feel that is because standing out among the hoards is becoming more difficult. Many content writers are applying for positions that they may not be qualified for, but think they are, creating a myriad where the shining stars are harder to spot for those who seek quality writers. In addition many former and current mill writers are still willing to work at a lower rate tightening the competition and lowering the average rate in the US.
Most good writing gigs are never advertised. That is not necessarily true. If I am a lawyer or roofing company and need a writer for articles to improve my SEO I will advertise for one. That is how I found two of my best clients, from an ad.
Here is a writer who substantiates this and gives some great advice. More than he could deal with. After tweaking his requirements, that number was reduced by 50 percent, but still overwhelming. My advice to him was to look on LinkedIn. Ignoring ads for a freelance content writer is ignoring a valuable resource. Granted, I have acquired clients from recommendations and at least a couple by approaching them directly. I am not and never have been a mill writer.
I did start out working for mini mills which call themselves web developers or marketing companies, but they are not mills per se. People who have made money in the past as writers are not going to walk away easily if a source dries up. They do it because they like it, in many cases, and will try keep up. If I quit when things dried up, as they did at least once, I would simply be a quitter and not a writer.
Well, I certainly agree with that writer you linked to that if you ARE going to spend time trolling Craigslist, you have to learn to do it in a very efficient way that cuts right to the gigs you want. None of these clients come from ads. I got some OK clients, but they were never my best clients, from mass ads.
Niche online job boards were better. But ultimately, strong inbound marketing great writer website and LinkedIn profile, people seeing my post on big blogs and prospecting yielded better-paying work for better companies and more enjoyable projects. Ah, okay. I am looking forward to the days of creating valuable content that is actually valued. Bring it on! Strict editing. I learned a lot from this content editing position.
And it's located in Santa Monica, CA and working remotely for them helped. Responsibilities such as bringing effective and creative writing to a larger audience via the internet, maintaining research level accuracy, following adherence to time schedules, and being well versed with American style writing. I worked remotely for Demand Media Studios, enjoying the wide range of topics, the good publishers and the reliable payment system.
Overall, my experience was good. I haven't worked there since it changed names. Pros Diverse topics and good publishers. Cons Photo options--nothing else, really. The best feature of working for Demand Media Studios was being able to set the number of hours I wanted to work and the time of day I worked. DMS is a content provider in a variety of subject areas, which fitted my varied editing and writing background. Regular performance reviews provided constructive criticism that enabled one to learn and improve skills.
Content supervisors were always available to answer questions and provide feedback. The work culture, although experienced from the distance of my online work station, seemed warm and friendly. I enjoyed working for DMS and would happily continue working for them, but work has currently come to a stop due to some reorganization. Thus I am looking for other opportunities. Cons Unreliability of available work.
Yes There are 4 helpful reviews 4 No. We want to help you find great companies. Help us be the best! My day works when I work. I pick my articles online and write at my leisure. My only challenges are completing my revisions and not talking the editors critiques personally. Pros working from home. Cons revisions. As a writer, I can never tell what the editors are looking for.
Sometimes, their suggestions make a lot of sense and other times they seem very arbitrary. I suppose it gets better as you write more and get used to the style. Perhaps if I had stuck with it long enough I might have become more efficient. Another issue I had with it is that sometimes the topic choices are incredibly bizarre and seem to be based on nearly nonsensical Google searches.
Pros Can work whenever you want, as much or as little. Cons Low pay, strange topics. Yes There are 5 helpful reviews 5 No. A typical work day unfolds with intense research and writing to produce professional articles according to strict rules and guidelines.
I am constantly learning to present only pertinent information and to do so in a structured manner. Management consists mostly of copy-editors who are usually helpful in guiding me to produce my best work. Some of the editors are very good and helpful. This was one thing I loved about Demand Studios. They have various article formats and this is unusual in an online writing company. You are rated on several things including spelling and grammar. You are also rated on the number of articles you write, how many are approved clean, how many are sent for rewrite, abandoned and rejected.
You want to keep your scores as high as possible. Not only will it, generally, keep you in a job but it will also make you eligible for higher paying project lines. Remember the bit about rejected and abandoned articles? Well create a place for those articles to go by creating a Yahoo Voices account.
Then when you get a rejection, you can change the title and put the article on there. Demand Media owns the title but once the article is rejected or abandoned you own the content.
Apply and be accepted. Once that is done you can fill out the profile or not, it is not a big deal here. After you are accepted you will have a queue that will allow you to save up to 5 articles.
Go to the jobs board and find 5 you like and think you could write with a minimum of effort. In the interest of time, try and choose the same format. Write and submit the articles. Once these articles are submitted a block is placed that prevents you from claiming more articles. Use that time to study the formats. There is a format guide on your dashboard. If any of your articles are sent back for a rewrite, do it immediately. Normally you have a few days but you want that block lifted and until you have them cleared you are stuck waiting.
Once the articles are approved and the block on your account is lifted you claim as many articles as your queue will allow you to claim. Most people immediately jump to queue of
0コメント