How to Gain an Advantage Over the Competition

The following is a guest post from Corey Freeman. Corey is a 17-year-old entrepreneur and female freelance content writer. She currently resides in the United States and hopes to attend college for Business Administration. You can read more about her work at her freelance writing blog, Writer Seven.

What if I told you that you could make twice as much money than every other freelance writer who is just starting out? Sounds insane, right? Well, pick your jaw up off of the floor because there’s just one thing you need to do to charge double the rate of the “average” freelance writer:

Learn Your Basics

Knowing how to form fully-functional, high-impact, grammatically correct sentences will put you light-years ahead of the $0.0015 and $0.1 writing “professionals.” Whether or not you’re a native English writer, you can easily charge more when you develop a great writing foundation. Let me explain:

As a freelance writer, people are hiring you to communicate for them. Writers with a poor grasp of spelling or grammar cannot communicate as effectively, and do not convey the client’s message as easily. Therefore, they charge lower rates and take in more amounts of work to make up for their skill level.

Now, the freelance writer that improves their writing, spelling, and grammar skills can communicate much more effectively, and can begin making more of their income from fewer clients. Would you rather have a few high-paying clients or dozens of cheap ones?

The Truth About Grammar

The truth is that 80% of users agree that grammar is important online. That means that if you can communicate more effectively to 80% of your client’s target audience, you can charge more for your writing services. Quality always beats quantity.

How to Improve Your Writing Skills

There are a couple of key methods you can do to improve your writing, and I’m going to list them right now:

Read! – Reading is the most effective way to become a better writer. You can read just about anything and still improve your writing skills just by looking at the content. Concentrating on books, magazines, and other printed and professionally edited materials will allow you to see how sentences and words work together.

Write Every Day - You should be practicing your writing skills every day, whether you’re writing a post on your own blog or just typing out an email to a client. Practicing your writing skills keeps you sharp and helps you to develop your own personal writing style. Having a personal blog is the best way to get in daily writing practice.

Develop a Style – Many freelance writers think that the client is paying for generic, “newsy” sounding content. This is false! Clients want freelance writers who can create engaging, interesting, and informative content that keeps people coming back for more. Creating your own personal writing style is essential in marketing and branding yourself as a freelance writer.

Get Some Training – While you might be skeptical about getting some formal grammar training and or exercises, let me tell you that you can now pick up beginner workbooks for as little as $0.99! For less than a cup of coffee you can seriously improve your writing and grammar skills. If you want to make more money from freelance writing, you have to check out these Writing Workbooks.

Summary

Here are the three best ways to gain an edge on your competition:

• Read more to develop your understanding of the language.
• Develop a personal writing style that sets you apart from the others.
• Get some training and hone your writing skills.
  
  

What Do you Think?

Are you ready to get a leg up on the competition and begin building your freelance writing business the right way? Share your thoughts and opinions below!