Freelance Copywriting – Insider Secrets

Like most people that have started out as a freelancer, I have made a few mistakes. The difference is, I’ve also managed to maintain a way of life that most people envy… being able to sleep in, take my daughter to the pool, leave my PC and have two days off in the week… write and market in ‘snatches’ of time.
Now I’m not saying I’m earning a full-time equivalent salary yet, but considering the amount of time I spend doing it, it pays very well. As an intermediate copywriter with two-three years experience, I charge out at A$65 per hour for copywriting, and $50 per hour for ad management. It is a recession and I charge what my clients can pay… there’s nothing to stop you from earning $110 per hour or much more down the track.
But how far you go with freelancing depends on your amount of work hours, competitors in your field, how experienced you are, and how good you are at selling yourself.
Do I need Qualifications and Experience?
For copywriting, qualifications are not obligatory. If you want to write for small business, it’s also far better to have worked IN a small business than to have an advertising agency/PR background. Because small business people don’t have the large advertising budget of corporate clients, if you can understand what they need AND achieve more ‘bang for their buck’, then they will come to you again. They are also more grateful than corporate clients.
Up-sell to Rewriting
For small businesses and consultants, every dollar counts, and you might have to convince them that it IS worth it to rewrite the whole website rather than fiddle with ‘simple edits’. Because many clients are very sure their words are fine… they just need proofreading, or updating, or some such. Then your outsider perspective can become very useful as you must stress the need to rewrite to suit the purpose and goals of the website. If you are able to write in ‘pyramid’ style (most important points first), use commonsense phrases, and direct voice, you will be streets ahead of most “I did it myself” small business websites.
Earn More as a SEO Copywriter
If you can also integrate knowledge of search engine visibility; research and use one keyword phrase per page; and suggest page titles, meta description, alt tags, and headings, your web copywriting business will become SEO copywriting. SEO copywriting is highly sought after, and so you can charge more for this work. It usually involves at least half an hour more research than the average page.
I hope this gives you a bit of an insight into the freelancing world before you step head-long into it.