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Tuesday, March 18, 2008

How To Start A Copywriting Career

Internet copywriting makes a good home-based business. With the growth rate of the web, demand for copywriters will continue to increase.

Typically, copywriters are tasked to promote a website through ads. Also, some are paid to write content for blogs of several small internet-based businesses.

However, internet copywriting is not easy. Yes, you get paid well but there is a price to pay. You have to start right by setting up your credibility. Also, obtaining and handling clients is as important as your writing skills. This entails long hours of studying the internet market, practice writing and getting your name on the internet. You will find that internet copywriting is a whole lot different than the usual media.

So, how do your start an online copywriting career? Here are some tips on how.

First of all, read copies/ads on the internet. Copywriting deals mainly with advertisements. Read ads and find out what makes an effective copy and what doesn’t. Also, copywriters may find themselves creating content or newsletters for websites and blogs for specific or broad trades/topics. Find out which trade you may write for, but eventually, with research you may find yourself writing for any trade.

By reading ads and web content, you may notice the repetition of several words or a phrase of words. These words are called keywords. They key to advertising online is keyword. Search engines use spiders that read only keywords. Study how and where to place keywords that would make the content search engine optimized but still makes it an effective copy.

Secondly, be your own client: write samples. Your samples will make up your portfolio since you do not have any published work yet. Write as many samples of any kind of copies taking care to search engine optimize them. It would be a good idea to own a blog where you can post your samples. There are several free blogs that are user-friendly. Choose one that will be easy for you to maintain.

Another way to fill your portfolio is to do apprentice work for a copywriter. This will be good training ground for you. Eventually, you will know how things work.

The next step is to build your credibility. When you start getting your own clients, they would want to check your credibility. Be sure that they would check you on Google or Yahoo. So, get your name on the internet: promote your name and blog. There are several methods to do this: submitting site feeds and site maps, joining blog directories and article marketing, to mention a few.

Article marketing is a guaranteed way to get your name on the internet. This deals with creating good and original articles and, submitting them to various article directories. Since, you already have a blog with original content; this will just be a copy-paste procedure. Article marketing would not only get your name on the internet but will make you an expert on your niche and may obtain you possible clients.

Finally, get clients. Article marketing would have obtained you clients but it would also be good to know where to get clients on the internet. You can look it up on search engines where, you will be provided with websites that posts freelance projects and or portfolios. These sites offer free membership but paying for a membership would not hurt as the ROI will be far greater. Also, paying members obtain a greater percentage of the projects available.

Start your copywriting career right: work both on your copywriting and client acquisition skills. Copywriting requires a lot of work but can be a lucrative home-based business.

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