Author: Anshul Motwani

For those who are planning to consider freelance writing, you may wonder: What is freelance writing? How does it work? Do freelance content writers make a good living?

Well, thanks to a survey by Payoneer, we just may have the answer. A freelance writer earns between $15 and $16 per hour globally on average.

We frequently connect successful jobs with working for others or moving up the corporate ladder. However, with freelancing, you can make your own!

Earning money as a freelance writer can be a fantastic side gig or even a full-time job. However, exactly what is freelance writing? Writing for clients as a freelancer differs from writing for an employer. You can independently set your hours and work from any location!

This blog explores everything you need to know about what is freelance writing. From requisite skills to potential challenges and tips to avoid them, let’s set the ball rolling!

How Does Freelance Writing Work?

Confused about where and how to start? Here are the basics!

Types of Freelance Writing Projects Leading the Market

While the content writing market is brimming with possibilities, beginners may feel a little overwhelmed when considering the projects they want to take on.

To help you get started, here are the major types of freelance writing jobs popular today!

1. Blogging

Writing content for a website and updating it frequently with blog posts in a particular niche is known as blogging.

Bloggers update their pages with new content that is entertaining, educational, or useful.
The article can cover anything from an individual’s biography to editorials meant to promote a brand or product. 

2. Website Copywriting

It is the process of creating marketing materials such as social media posts, advertisement copy, and web content. Effective copywriting can hold readers’ attention and frequently prompt them to initiate an action, like filling out a form or making a purchase.

3. Whitepaper Writing

A white paper is a document designed to increase a business’s standing as an industry authority. This kind of document is written to highlight a business’s effective solutions to problems that impact any specific sector.

4. Ghostwriting

Writing content on behalf of someone else where your name is not displayed on the byline of the finished product is known as ghostwriting. It is a great option for experienced writers who enjoy working on collaborative endeavors and tackling a wide range of subjects.

Snapshot of a Freelance Writer’s Workflow Process

1 Finding Prospective Clients and Initial Pitching

Researching and identifying potential clients, crafting personalized pitches that highlight your expertise and services.

2. Discovery Meeting

This is a preliminary call to discuss the project requirements, timeline, and budget.

3. Terms and Ways of Payment

Drafting contracts that outline terms, including payment schedules, modes of payment, and deliverables.

4. Proposal for Project Agreement

Once the rates and quantity of assignments for a project are settled, freelancers can establish an agreement and send it to the client for signature.

5. Client Briefing

Final call to verify the requirements and guidelines, like added information on target audience, keywords, etc.

6. Start Writing

Thorough topic research, adherence to the topics mentioned, and maintaining proper tonality are basic requisites while writing content.

7. Final Delivery of Work

This includes submitting the final draft within the stipulated deadline and making revisions if required to ensure client satisfaction.

How to Navigate Financial Management of Freelance Writing?

A freelance content writer’s earnings are typically uncapped. Though this is a piece of the pie, you must utilize effective strategies to ace your financial management. From raising invoices to filing tax returns, here are a few aspects you must consider:

1. Setting the Pricing

When setting your rates, consider your expertise, industry standards, project complexity, and client budget. You can choose from three common pricing strategies: per word, hourly, or project-based.

However, the pricing of a freelance writer varies as per:

• Type of Projects: Blogs are charged based on the length and complexity of the topic, whereas product descriptions can be calculated per item or per word.
• Key Performance Indicators: Writers who help improve a client’s search engine rankings through well-optimized content may set pricing as per performance. KPIs could include organic traffic growth, click-through rates, etc.
• Deliverables: Freelance writers may charge a flat fee for one-time projects, such as website content refresh, or offer discounted rates for clients who sign retainer agreements for long-term content requirements.

2. Establish Retainer Agreement

A freelance retainer agreement is essentially a contract that specifies the amount of work (e.g., projects or hours) that will be completed for a client at a predetermined rate over a specified period. It takes over the role of fee agreements based on projects.

A freelance writer can ask for a retainer fee, which is considered an initial downpayment for future writing services.

3. Invoicing

Make thorough invoices that include your rates, project scope, the terms of payment, and your contact details.

4. Managing Taxes

You must keep track of your invoices, outlays, and deductions all year to properly manage your taxes. Consider working with an accountant or using accounting software to ensure compliance with tax laws and optimize your deductions.

Essential Skills and Qualities: How to Become a Freelance Writer?

The days of needing only a strong writing ability to complete assignments are a thing of the past.

If you want to pursue a long-term freelance career, you must equip your arsenal with varied skill sets. Therefore, a blend of hard skills and soft skills is the way to go when you aim to become a successful freelance writer.

1. Research Competency

Writing quality content requires thorough research because it increases value and, above all, credibility. Finding intriguing and reliable data from reputable sources is, therefore, essential.

2. Strong Writing Skills

“Writing is an exploration, You start from nothing and learn as you go.”

-E.L. Doctorow

The most basic must-have skill to become a freelance writer is to have excellent writing skills: crisp and concise copies, top-notch grammar, punctuation, tonality, and style are mandatory prerequisites.

3. Organizational Skills

Staying on top of the writing assignments you’ve taken on is just as important to organizational success as maintaining a tidy workstation.

Remember your deadlines and maintain a calendar. Set priorities for your tasks to ensure you finish them all on time.

4. Time Management

Providing excellent content on time demonstrates your professionalism and dependability. Determine the quantity of work you can deliver before deciding on a deadline.

5. Communication Skills 

The freelance writing profession is largely anonymous, with most writers working remotely from all over the world to complete their assignments. Hence, you need to be a good communicator to pitch or collaborate with leading clients.

Apart from hard skills, a successful freelance writing journey depends on several soft skills, as follows:

6. Adaptability

Adaptability is a necessary skill for writers to succeed in a changing market because it enables them to move fluidly between subjects, styles, and formats.

7. Resilience

Periods of low income, rejections, and unanticipated obstacles are part of the process. Gaining resilience to overcome obstacles, learn from your mistakes, and bounce back after failures is a crucial personal skill.

8. Attention to Detail

For freelance writers, attention to detail is crucial because it guarantees precision and competence in their work. It is important for creating content of the highest caliber, establishing credibility, and satisfying customer demands. 

9. To-Do Mindset

It takes a self-starter attitude to land clients and finish work efficiently, as you have complete control over your work as a freelance writer.

Popular Tools for Freelance Writers

No matter how talented you are as a writer, you can always improve by utilizing the myriad writing resources available online, like:

1. Grammarly

Grammarly is an outstanding online resource for proofreading and polishing your writing. It is mostly done by editors and writers for:

• Spell and grammar check
• Recommendations for improving vocabulary
• Accuracy and writing style enhancements
• Identification of plagiarism
• Detection of tones and recommendations
• Coherence and consistency checks

• Writing advice specific to a genre 

2. Hemingway

Copywriters and bloggers can use Hemingway to make their articles and marketing copy readable and skimmable. Hemingway helps writers produce engaging content that connects with their audience by eliminating adverbs, long paragraphs, and the overuse of the passive voice. It is available for free!

3. Copyscape

Publishers and content writers frequently use Copyscape to detect plagiarism in written material. Copyscape assists freelance writers in ensuring their work is original and exclusive by detecting instances of duplicate content by analyzing a given text against an extensive database of internet sources.

How to Get Started as a Freelance Writer?

Here is a step-by-step guide to assist aspiring writers in launching their freelance writing careers:

1. Create a Strong Writing Portfolio

Kickstart your freelance writing journey by building a strong portfolio that highlights your writing abilities and reveals your level of expertise. You can present your writing services in the best possible way by designing your professional writing portfolio using these steps

1. Determining your niche and target audience is the first step toward building a strong portfolio for your freelance writing. 
2. Pick your best writing samples and present your versatility by incorporating a variety of writing styles, such as blog posts, case studies, landing pages, SEO writing, etc.
3. Make sure the portfolio is easy to navigate!
4. Write yourself an impressive bio including your education, skills and experience as a writer.
5. Include testimonials from previous clients attesting to your writing abilities.

You can use the customizable templates available online to edit content, alter images, apply unique colors, and add fonts and logos.

2. Pitch Yourself!

Here are some fantastic methods to spread the word about you:

• Customize your proposals for each client by emphasizing how your work will advance their business.
• Make your pitches unique and compelling to demonstrate that you have considered their needs and are a good fit for the project.
• Create a succinct, impactful “elevator pitch” so you can introduce yourself to others at any time. You cannot predict who you might meet who might require a writer.
• Reach out to organizations you admire and propose to write for their blog or produce sponsored content for your own blog regarding their offerings.
• Make contacts with other independent writers by joining networking groups both locally and virtually. You will find shared job openings in many of these communities.
• Check out websites like Wittypen, Upwork, and Freelancer.com that offer freelance services. Select jobs that you find fulfilling and, if necessary, use them as a launching pad for more ambitious endeavors.

3. Steer Clear of Common Challenges

Like any other profession, freelance writing comes with its own set of challenges. Here is how to overcome them and stay the course!

• During an irregular flow of work, utilize this time to curate attractive pitches, stay alert for new opportunities, and think about expanding your writing repertoire to reach a wider clientele.
• To establish competitive rates, consider the value of your services and industry norms. Aim for just compensation that is commensurate with your experience and diligence.
• In instances of rejection, make the most of feedback to hone your craft, maintain your calm, and have faith in your writing abilities.

How Does a Freelancer Writer’s Typical Day Look Like?

Contrary to the conventional belief that a content writer just writes all day, a freelance writer’s day is quite exciting and diverse. From researching varied niches to client pitching, their responsibilities go beyond writing.

A freelance writer’s schedule can change according to personal preferences, project requirements, and client deadlines. One major benefit of freelancing is flexibility, which enables writers to customize their daily schedules to maximize output and creativity.

To get started, aspiring freelance writers can join online freelance platforms like Upwork, Wittypen, or Fiverr or contact potential clients directly.

While some of these platforms are open to varied freelancing jobs, Wittypen is solely dedicated to content writing, bridging the gap between freelance writers and potential clients. With a huge pool of diverse clientele, writers at Wittypen can work with a brand that aligns with their preferred niche and expertise.

Freelance writers are notified about available projects on the Wittypen dashboard regularly, where they can show interest in assignments of their choice to land exciting projects.

The payment for each task is specified at the beginning of the project, ranging from 70p to 3Rs per word on average, and credited directly to the writer’s mentioned bank account after approval by the client.

How to join Wittypen as a writer

Wittypen currently provides a platform to 1000+ writers to work with multiple brands and agencies as freelance writers. Joining Wittypen as a writer is a simple process.

Step 1: Create an account and register with your email address to begin the application process.

Step 2: Tell us about your exprience, you detials by filling up a simple to help us get to know you better.

Step 3: Add some sample content on the topic of you choice from the list provided and write based on the brief. This is short peek into what it’s like to write at Wittypen.

Once this process is done, our internal team evaluates your application and basis on that writers are onboarded on Wittypen.

Takeaway

source

Revenue generation in the freelance writing industry is on the rise and is expected to increase. Carving your niche and polishing your skill set are crucial to excelling in a highly competitive market.

Kickstart your freelancing journey by signing up at Wittypen as a freelance writer. The platform aligns you with companies in your preferred industry, so you don’t have to spend endless hours looking for work.

Join a pool of talented writers and get a chance to work with leading global brands!

What is B2B Writing?

The B2B, in B2B Writing, stands for ‘Business-to-Business‘. As the name gives some of it away, B2B writing is when businesses create content, keeping other businesses in mind as a part of their target audience.

While the popular content forms are blogs or case studies, the evolving nature of business has also brought about a broader and more robust scope to B2B writing. Along with the popular long-form content, B2B writing has significantly impacted social media marketing strategies as well.

Ultimately, making the most impact in B2B writing lies in meeting the needs of a business, not direct consumers.

With this quick preview, let’s highlight the key reasons B2B writing is a must for every business.

B2B vs. B2C Writing: Clearing Up Differences

Copy Credits: Venkataraman Mahalingam

Why Use B2B Writing?

To shed light on the importance of B2B, here are the three key reasons businesses ought to use B2B content writing,

Leads & Sales

B2B writing has the power to boost reputation and awareness. In addition to these two elements, high-quality content, subtle but strategic CTAs, research, well-structured testimonials, and delivery, holds the potential to attract qualified leads and boost sales. You’ll be amazed to know that according to Hubspot, blogs and website content are the two channels with the largest ROIs.

Balanced Cost Impact

Among the many effective B2B marketing channels, like paid ads and events, B2B writing delivers a higher impact at lower costs. B2B writing formats, such as blogs and case studies, drive organic web traffic, and since organic business growth is unpaid, it is a very cost-effective long-term strategy.

Brand Awareness

When delivered consistently through strategic channels, B2B writing allows a business to quickly reach a wider audience and gain a positive brand image. In fact, 84% of B2B marketers confirm that content boosts brand awareness and is one of the pertinent goals for businesses worldwide.

Position as a Thought Leader

B2B writing helps establish a business’s expertise in the field by showcasing its willingness to impart knowledge and educate its viewers and clientele. With quality B2B writing, a business has the potential to be regarded as a thought leader in the field, boosting trust and reliability metrics amongst potential clients.

Since achieving such crucial business goals has been established as the intent behind B2B writing, before understanding how to create impactful B2B writing content, it is also essential to know how it stands apart from any other business model.

A Deep Dive Into Types of B2B Writing

With a clear understanding of the focus, purpose, and critical details of B2B writing, let’s dive a little deeper into the popular formats of B2B content writing, what they are used for and their impact. Here are the top types of B2B writing,

1. Blogs

For B2B content creation targeted at improving readers’ knowledge and establishing a business’s expertise in their niche and industry, blogs are one of the most effective forms of B2B writing. In fact, nine out of ten B2B marketers use blogs to achieve their marketing goals, making it one of the most popular and effective forms of B2B writing.

While the approach to delivering content with such goals is always comprehensive and research-driven, blogs as a form of B2B content creation can cater to all levels of the marketing funnel – from awareness to lead conversion.

2. Case Studies

Case studies are testimonials or showcases that allow your customers to understand how they will benefit from your product or service. This form of B2B writing is built around a detailed yet relatable scenario wherein a challenge was overcome thanks to being a customer.

Built around indisputable and rigorous internal research data, case studies play a big role in persuading your reader to become your customer. In essence, they help generate an organic lead.

3. Landing Pages

Source: LinkedIn

This B2B writing format is the airport of B2B content. When your potential customer clicks on a link from your promotions, ads, search results, or even your webpage, the landing page is quite literally where they land. Now, imagine how you’d want that to be.

As you may have already guessed, landing pages focus heavily on effective copywriting, attractive CTAs, and crisp information delivery. In short, they can hold your customer’s attention just like LinkedIn’s landing page does. While the length of a landing page depends on the typesetting factors and design, it plays a vital role in boosting brand image and lead generation.

4. Whitepaper

Whitepapers are essentially comprehensive reports created with primary research data or verified secondary data. These B2B content formats are designed to showcase a business’s position as an expert in the field and play a massive role in how potential customers perceive the brand’s reliability and reputation. 

Source: Zendesk

These reports are quite in-depth and related to a specific niche; only invested customers would require this data. Considering this, whitepapers are often not exactly freely accessible. Like the Zendesk whitepaper example we’ve shared, businesses ask for basic contact details such as name, contact number, and email before sharing whitepapers to track leads, interest levels, and potential conversions.

5. Newsletters

This B2B writing format is also quite popular amongst B2C businesses and content creators. Newsletters are a form of email content and regular communication, often delivered via email to retain everyone who has subscribed.

Newsletters can be long-form or short-form content with relevant backlinks. They often cover industry news, company updates, thought leadership pieces, and exclusive content offers. Newsletters are how businesses keep clients and interested leads updated on their growth, strengthen their position as thought leaders, and also encourage sales.

Apart from newsletters, emails are also forms of B2B writing used as short, often personalized, and targeted marketing strategies to attract potential clients to their landing pages, blogs, and, eventually, products and services. 

6. Use Cases

Use cases are a more straightforward form of ‘case study‘ that highlights where and how your product or service is valuable. This B2B writing format focuses on delivering simple situations, thereby boosting the product or service’s image and impact and is usually short-form B2B content.

While use cases are often perceived as a B2C content format, they are predominantly used in B2B SaaS content writing. An example can be presenting a use case for a project management software company by highlighting how its product solves communication issues through its automated mail feature.

7. Technical Documentation

Technical documentation is a vital part of every business, whether they are B2B or B2C. Each technical document, whether a user guide or troubleshooting manual, contains an in-depth guide to using your product.

As a part of the B2B content journey, technical documentation facilitates an informed buying decision as it transparently shares the functioning and best use of what you offer. It also helps the existing clients with a seamless troubleshooting experience in case they need support addressing an issue.

8. Product Descriptions

Source: SAP

As the name suggests, this B2B writing format involves delivering compelling descriptions of your products and services. This allows your potential clients to understand what you can offer in a brief yet coherent manner. Effective product descriptions are short, easy to grasp, and cover your product’s advantages and unique selling propositions (USPs). The SAP HCM solution is an excellent example of an effective B2B product description.

9. Social Media Posts

Source: Wittypen

Social media posts include content for platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, etc. This B2B content format has raked in quite a lot of popularity on account of how effective it is in building brand awareness and stitching a persona around a company’s values. For example, B2B technology giant Continental posted content highlighting the importance of staying healthy, which helps boost it as a top employer and organization with great ethical principles. 

With so many diverse formats, creating quality content while focusing on developing innovative products, marketing strategies, and business continuity can be challenging. That’s where guidance from content experts like Wittypen, who can deliver top-quality content seamlessly, becomes vital to building your business.

Tips for Writing B2B Content and Best Practices

Now that we have cleared the air around the types of B2B content, let’s equip you with some tips and best practices. Here are key tips for writing effective B2B content, divided into focus on audience, content and SEO. 

Understanding the Target Audience

1. Research and Ground Work: While writing B2B content, your target demographic should be at the top of your mind, so do not compromise on your research. With the help of internal data and data analytics, ensure that you understand who you are talking to.
2. Match Wavelengths with Language: Be conscious of the skillset and background of your target audience while typing up your content. For certain products and services, it is right to include technical jargon because the nature of the product is such that every stakeholder must have an in-depth understanding of it. They may even appreciate it as a show of respect. In cases where the buyers are more sales and negotiation-driven than technical, such content fails to attract leads.
3. Understand Your Market Funnel: Understanding how your audience feels about your brand and where they are in the purchase cycle is crucial. With this knowledge, you can create appropriate content strategies and effectively write for that stage.

Structuring Compelling B2B Content 

1. Follow a Structure: Ensure you use the right hook, introduction, body, and CTA structure based on the intent and approach of your content. Informational and educational blogs require fewer CTAs, as action is not the intent, whereas product descriptions and landing pages need more alluring hooks and CTAs to attract leads.
2. Build a Compelling Narrative: Content must be and stay engaging. Delivering your content as a narrative is much more engaging than a dry, unrelatable information hotchpotch. 
3. Check and Check Again: To avoid any possible grammatical errors, proofread your B2B writing and have a qualified editor review your content, so you can deliver your best work.

Incorporating SEO Best Practices 

1. Keyword Research: SEO rankings are the key to increasing website traffic and lead generation. For a powerful online presence, ensure your content is optimized with well-researched and not overly generic keywords.
2. Build Backlinks: When your content or website link appears on multiple websites, that counts as a backlink. It is often done when your content is used as a reference for data. Search engines understand this as a sign of credibility, thereby boosting your SEO ranking, and improving your visibility. By writing educational content, delivering fresh perspectives, or collaborating with other websites on related topics, more and more websites will be encouraged to backlink your content.

The Importance of Monitoring B2B Content Performance

While regularly publishing B2B content is an excellent step toward growth and success, it is not the end of the line. By reviewing how your content performs, you can identify how your viewers feel about your brand and measure your growth against your efforts. This understanding helps facilitate better strategy and is crucial to business continuity.

Next up, we’ll be equipping you with the key metrics with which you’ll be able to track your B2B content.

Key Metrics to Track for B2B Content

Here are the metrics used to monitor your B2B content’s performance,

1. Conversion Rate

This measures how effective your content is in converting leads into potential customers. It is measured by the percentage of readers or visitors who take action after landing on your content page, such as the number of times a whitepaper was downloaded or the number of clicks on the CTA after reading a blog. 

2. Return on Investment (ROI)

This is the revenue generated or cost saved from your B2B content efforts, such as revenue from leads generated versus the cost involved in researching and writing the content.

3. Average Engagement Time

This is the average time your reader stays on your website or content page without switching to another page. Higher engagement times might mean users enjoy your site, and they are measured in seconds.

4. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site before viewing another page or completing a specified action. Higher bounce rates are bad; they show that your content isn’t appealing enough for them to take action.

5. Social Media Engagement

Every social media platform has a professional dashboard to measure this. Often, it is based on either interactions or click-through rate (the number of times the reader clicks on the link after viewing the content).

Tools for Analysing B2B Content Effectiveness

With these metrics in mind, here are tools that make analysing these metrics easier,

Web Analytics with Lead Tracking

Web Analytic Tools are available on platforms like Google Analytics with advanced configurations. They allow you to track website traffic, user behaviour, and, most importantly, how visitors interact with your content to become leads (e.g., downloading a white paper after reading a blog post).

Heatmaps

Visualise user behavior on your B2B content pages with heatmaps. These tools show where visitors click, scroll, and spend their time, revealing areas of engagement or confusion and helping you refine your content for a better user experience.

On-Page SEO Checker

SEO audits are vital to assess the ranking and visibility of your B2B content. On-page SEO checkers offered by content experts like Wittypen generate a free detailed SEO report for your blog and provide actionable insights to improve your SEO ranking.

Social Media Professional Dashboards

Instagram, Facebook, and other social media platforms offer professional dashboards specifically designed to review the number of accounts your content has reached, the number of likes or interactions, and growth. 

Conclusion

There’s no doubt that B2B writing is crucial for every relevant business to maximize leads and sales. Our comprehensive guide, which highlights the key tips to keep in mind and when to use content forms, will equip you to deliver effective B2B content.

If you feel balancing effective content with your business’s strategic targets will prove to be challenging to manage alone, don’t worry; content outsourcing is the norm! You can contact our expert team at WittyPen for seamless, top-notch content writing services personalized for your business model.