How To Use The Competition To Price Jobs Right And Get More Work

One of the sticking points for many who delve into freelance writing online is what to charge. As freelance writing rates seem to be all over the place, it is a conundrum many face. Well, one of the easiest ways to discern how to price online writing jobs is to use the competition.
They are a veritable wealth of information and if used correctly can land you jobs. “But,” you may be thinking, “how do I find out what the competition is charging?”
I’m glad you asked, because thanks to the internet, that is fantastically easy to do.
How to Find Out What Online Writers Charge
Following are three things you can do.
I. Check Their Marketing Material: Look at their blogs, their websites, sign up for their newsletter, check freelance writing forums, etc.
II. Use Technology: Sign up for Google Alerts and/or check the backlinks to their site. Why would you want to do this? To see who and what types of companies are linking their site. This can lead to new advertising outlets for you.
Don’t know how to check backlinks to a site? Here’s a simple way to do it: Go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and type in “link: [website name/URL]”. Once you hit enter sites will pop up. Start visiting them to see if they could be prospects you want to market to.
Note: This is a very basic way of checking backlinks to a site. Google and other search engines usually don’t list all of the backlinks a site has, but it will give you some marketing ammo you may be able to use.
If you want to learn more about this, simply conduct a search for “How to check how many backlinks a site has” or some similar phrase.
III. Hire Them: This is an extreme example, but to really find out how the competition operates from beginning to end, hire them to do a small writing job for you. For example, three articles that you can use to do some article marketing, or a couple of blog posts you can use on your blog.
Some things you can glean from hiring the competition are:
* Did they adhere to their deadline;
* What’s their intake like (ie, questions they ask before they take the job);
* How they invoice (eg, PayPal);
* Payment methods they accept;
* Do they follow up after job is complete;
* How well the job is done (ie, were there spelling, grammar errors; keywords used appropriately in text; keyword density sufficient; etc.).
While freelance writing online is competitive, it’s that very same competition that can be your friend, rather than a bone of contention.