Excellence in freelance copywriting
Writing all of the copy for your web site yourself can be tiring and time consuming, especially if you are not a professional freelance copywriter. It can also be daunting when you type freelance copywriter into your browser's search engine and are presented with 44,800 possibilities. The problem is that it is difficult to determine what sort of service lies behind those possibilities. Although the Internet has its share of excellent writers it also a lot of hacks, plagiarists and tardy writers listed who have paid big bucks to be listed in that search engine too.
Here are a few things that you should look for when looking for a freelance copywriter:
A freelance copywriter who knows what Search Engine Optimization is.
A freelance copywriter that charges an affordable hourly or fee for their services. If the fee is lower than $25 an hour it is practically understood that your project will be late simply because that is already less than one quarter of writer's union fees. It also means that the writer will also have to be working on multiple projects in order to finance your project.
Writing all of the copy for your web site yourself can be tiring and time consuming, especially if you are not a professional freelance copywriter. It can also be daunting when you type freelance copywriter into your browser's search engine and are presented with 44,800 possibilities. The problem is that it is difficult to determine what sort of service lies behind those possibilities. Although the Internet has its share of excellent writers it also a lot of hacks, plagiarists and tardy writers listed who have paid big bucks to be listed in that search engine too.
Here are a few things that you should look for when looking for a freelance copywriter:
A freelance copywriter who knows what Search Engine Optimization is.
A freelance copywriter that charges an affordable hourly or fee for their services. If the fee is lower than $25 an hour it is practically understood that your project will be late simply because that is already less than one quarter of writer's union fees. It also means that the writer will also have to be working on multiple projects in order to finance your project.
A freelance copywriter who can establish a firm date for when you will receive the deliverables.
Another thing to keep in mind is that a freelance copywriting service is highly linked or highly rated in the search engine is not necessarily your best choice. Remember that search engine listings and indexing can be paid for.
You may not also not necessarily find the freelance copywriter of your dreams on the Internet. There are plenty of copywriters listed in the phone book and also within creative agencies that are capable of doing the job for you.
Probably the two main sites where freelancers conglomerate on the Internet are guru.com and elance.com. Both of these sites use the auction format. You post your project and name a budget and the writers that belong to these organizations bid on them. These are both reputable places to find writers willing to do your copywriting but keep in mind that both sites charge monthly enrollment fees as well as listing and transaction fees in order for you to do business.
When looking at writer's profiles on either elance or guru, it is a good idea to take a good look at any samples that they might have posted. You can also tell a lot about a writer by the way their profile is written. If the description of their own services is riddled with grammar and spelling mistakes you can pretty much assume that the copywriting that they produce for you will also be plagued with similar problems.
As these are online market places, they have their share of nuts and wackos. It is well known that really good freelance writers can be a bit eccentric as many of them on the Internet work at home and don't see a soul all day. Don't expect a freelance copywriter to deal with you like one of your corporate chums would. Many of them are freelance because they can't stand the corporate world and its jargon and protocol in the first place.
It is also important not to judge a writer too much on any negative feedback that may have been left for them for other clients. Both guru.com and elance.com slant their feedback systems so that a client can leave feedback even if there has been no contract has been signed or a single word has been written. Even an excellent writer's rating can be adversely affected by feedback left by a client that has not assigned or paid a cent to the writer!
Another thing to consider is the number of clients that the freelance writer has had as opposed to the actual feedback. For instance if you notice that a writer has completed 90 successful transactions but only ten people have left both positive or negative feedback, then you can pretty much assume that they are good freelancers. This is because on both guru and elance less than 10% of individuals actually leave feedback for a writer.
Another indication that you are looking at the profile of an excellent copywriter is a high number of repeat customers. Both elance and guru allow you to see who has assigned articles to a copywriter and how many times. If the writer has lots of repeat business then that is more of an indication that they offer reliable and accurate copywriting services than a five star feed back rating.
Both elance.com and guru.com also tell you how much money the writer has made that year from selling their services. Chances are that the higher the figure is, the better the writer is.
Another way to find a freelance copywriting service on the web is to type the words "copywriting portfolio" into your search engine. This will lead you to thousands of sites displaying portfolios that feature different types of copywriting. However keep in mind that some of these sites will be off shoots of creative agencies or advertising agencies who will probably want to charge you an arm and a leg for a brochure and some of them may belong to writers who have launched their business on the web. They might betrying to offer customers an option that is a little more expensive than what is offered on elance or guru but not as expensive commissioning the work from an agency.
As is true with all business-to-business enterprises on the web, the type of writer you should avoid is the one that cannot maintain a web site. If the writer's site has broken links, bad grammar or other problems you might encounter that old adage "You get what you pay for!" if they offer to do your copywriting for next to free!
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