Note from Sean: This is a guest post from Location Rebel member Karen Marston. She’s been in the community for over two years, and has built an incredible business for herself as a freelance copywriter. When it comes to marketing yourself as a writer, she’s one of the best people I know.
Take it away Karen!
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If you want to become a freelance writer, you’ve probably thought about building a website. And then you probably thought about how hard that will be, how complicated it is, how long it will take, how you don’t even know what the first step is — so you put your writing dreams on hold.
Believe me, I get it. I did the same thing myself. I was a member of Location Rebel for nearly a year before I actually started freelancing as an SEO writer. But as soon as I got started — as soon as I built my website — I found clients immediately. Fast forward to 18 months later and I now run a successful copywriting business.
You can see a mockup of my first writer website here. It’s pretty awful in comparison to my current website, but it was good enough to start me off as a freelance writer — and that’s the goal here. To get started. And now I’m going to show you how to do the same, step by step, in less than a week.
1. Choose Your Business Name
Along with having to build a website, choosing a name is the biggest thing that stops people in their tracks. You probably feel like you want to choose the “perfect” name but, at this point, it really doesn’t matter that much.
Remember, you can always change it later (I did, and I’m doing fine). Right now you just need to pick something so you can dive into the meat of your website. Here are a few tips for picking your name:
- Keep it short and use words that are easy to spell. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to get to your website.
- Be relevant and descriptive. It would be helpful, for instance, if people knew at a glance that they were on a writer’s website.
- Don’t try to be too clever. Trying to be too clever takes a long time, and people probably won’t “get it” anyway.
- Look for domain names that are available as a .com – This is what people are most likely to type in. You don’t want somebody to land on the wrong website just because you could only get the name you wanted in a .net, do you?
- Choose something you like. If you like the way it sounds, you’re halfway there.
Here’s another way of doing things: Make two columns on a piece of paper. In the first column, list lots of words that you feel suit your personality. In the second column, list lots of different words for what you do (i.e. writing, writer, content creator, content marketer, content strategist). Then play around with different combinations until you land on a winning name.
This is how I came up with Untamed Writing.
2. Buy Your Domain and Hosting
There are two things you need to set a website up: a domain (that’s your website’s URL) and hosting (that’s where all your website’s files will be stored). Pretty much all web hosting providers offer both these things, meaning getting your website set up is incredibly easy.
Personally, I use Bluehost. It has one-click WordPress installation, which is something you’ll want. It also has fab customer service and a 24-hour chatline for when you get stuck with something. If you know of another hosting provider you’d rather use, then by all means, have at it (just make sure it has one-click WordPress installation). But if you have no idea, Bluehost will work just fine for you.
Sean also gives his recommendations for hosting in this post, and likes WP Engine.
Whichever provider you choose, things should be fairly straight forward. Just follow the instructions on screen, hand over your credit card deets, and you’ll click your way to your own website in no time.
3. Install WordPress
If you’re a clever old bean, you’ll have taken my advice and chosen a hosting provider with one-click WordPress installation. And if you went with Bluehost, what you’ll need to do next will be something like this:
- Log in to your website by clicking in the top right corner of the home page.
- Under the heading “Website Builders,” click WordPress and you’ll be redirected to MOJOMarketplace.
- Click “Start a brand new install,” select your domain name from the list, and click “Check domain.”
- If you want, you can change the advanced settings – this is a good time to enter your site’s name and change your password to something you’ll actually remember.
- Check the terms and conditions box and click Install Now.
If you went with someone other than Bluehost, there’s probably a very similar procedure to follow.
4. Choose and Install a WordPress Theme
If you visit your brand-spanking new domain, you will see that you now have a live website. Congrats! Sadly it’s an ugly little thing, and the same as countless other “Hello world!” WordPress sites that have been set up and immediately abandoned. But you’re not going to abandon your new website baby.
You’re going to differentiate it from the others by choosing a new WordPress theme. This will completely change the appearance of your site.
To get started, go to http://YOURDOMAINNAME.com/wp-admin and enter your log-in details (these should have been emailed to you).
In the menu on the left of your dashboard, scroll down to Appearance and select Themes. Now click “Add New” and browse the themes and see if there is one you like. There are a few to choose from, so you might want to narrow your choices down by selecting colours and other variables.
If you don’t see any you like, then I’d check out Theme Forest. They have a ton of really high quality themes, and you should be able to find one you like for under $60 (a whole lot better than $1,000s for a custom design).
Again, the important thing here is not to spend too long on this. You can always change your theme again later without affecting any of your content. For now just pick one you like the look of and move on.
(If you’re interested, the theme on my mockup website is called Fanwood. Feel free to use it if you’re a fan of the whole glaring yellow and black thing.)
5. Create the Pages of Your Website
Now that your website’s ready for action, it’s time to add some content to it. Fortunately you really don’t need that many pages to make a basic writer website. And you definitely don’t need a blog. On your WordPress dashboard, scroll down to Pages, click Add New, and create the following pages:
- About
- Samples
- Rates
- Contact
Just click Publish for now — we’ll be adding content to them shortly. We’ll also be setting your About page as your home page. To do that, scroll down to Settings and click Reading. The top option on this page allows you to choose what’s displayed on the home page of your website. The default setting is your blog (“your latest posts”). Instead, select “A static page” and choose “About” for your front page. You can just leave the Posts page blank.
Now we’re going to go back and add content to each of your pages. Under Pages in the menu, select All Pages. Hover over the one you want to change and click Edit. Don’t forget to refer back to my mockup website to give you a better picture of what you’re trying to create. Below is the info you need to include on your pages:
About/Home
This page is here to explain what you do and how you can help your clients. Here are some of the things I recommend including:
- An intro. Basically, your name and what you do. For example, “Hi! I’m Karen, and I’m a freelance SEO content writer.”
- A bulletpoint list of why someone should hire you. Include things like any writing experience you have, the fact that English is your first language (if it isn’t, don’t worry — just don’t mention it), relevant education, good at adhering to deadlines, a pleasure to work with, etc.
- A link to your samples page.
- A picture of yourself.
- Your email address or phone number.
Samples
Your samples are here to show people that you’re capable of writing coherently. So now you’re probably thinking, “But wait! I don’t have any samples!” Now is the time to create them. Make a new page for each one, and just start writing.
Your articles should be around 500 words each and written in an objective, informative way. Aside from that, you can write about pretty much anything (again, see my mockup site for ideas). Here’s what my fellow Location Rebel Kevin Cole has to say about writing samples:
This is by far the most important part of your website. Each and every one of your potential clients is going to look at your writing samples. These have to be near perfect.
Write at least five articles. Even if you advertise that you’re specializing in a specific niche it’s still a good idea to write some sample articles out of your chosen niche. In the beginning it’s going to very challenging just to write articles within your own niche.
You’ll be taking a variety of writing work so you should have a variety of sample articles.
Write a little bit of everything and make them damn good.
The beauty of SEO content is that it can be written quickly, especially if you’re writing on subjects you’re interested in and actually know something about — which is exactly what I recommend doing for your samples.
Once you’ve created your samples, you’ll want to link to each of them individually from your Samples page. You’ll also want to make sure these article pages don’t appear in your main menu bar. To do this, go to Appearance → Menus, and create your primary navigation menu from there. How easy this will be depends on which WordPress theme you’ve chosen. If you’re struggling, the WordPress support pages are a great resource.
Rates
There’s an argument to say that you shouldn’t include your rates on your website. But there’s also a strong argument to say that you should, and that’s what we’re going to do here.
Because SEO writing is not the best paid kind of work, clients are going to decide to hire you based on two things: how well you write and how high your rates are. It’s tough to get high paying SEO writing gigs. Average prices for a 500 word article are around $20-25. Low prices are around $5 (protip: don’t write for that little). If you’re an average writer with average prices, you should have no problems.
Decide on a rate you’d be happy with, then go ahead and list it. A good way to figure this out is to time how long it takes you to write your sample articles. If it takes you an hour to write 500 words, and you’d be happy to earn $25 an hour, charge $25 per 500 word article. Simple.
Contact
This is where you list all your contact details. Too obvious? Whatever. List your email address and phone number (if you’re happy for people to contact you by phone), and include a web form at the bottom of the page.
It’s easy enough to insert a form in WordPress. Make sure you have Jetpack installed (it will be in big flashing letters on the home page of your dashboard — you can’t miss it), and that will give you the option to “Add Contact Form” when you’re editing your pages. (You might also want to include one at the bottom of your Rates page while we’re on the subject — you want to make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you!)
Try not to spend more than an hour on each page or on your sample articles. Adding content to your website will obviously be the most time-consuming part of this whole adventure, but don’t get too hung up on trying to make everything perfect. That goes for the whole process of creating your website. The goal here is to get a workable site up quickly so you can go out and start finding clients and making money.
And that’s everything you need to do! I did everything on this list, including writing my sample articles, within the space of a week, so there’s no reason you can’t do the same.
What Comes Next?
Now that you have your website, you’re probably wondering what you should do next. If you want a more comprehensive guide — with personal feedback from me every step of the way — check out my course: How to Become a Freelance Writer.
Questions? Just leave a comment below!
Karen Marston runs Untamed Writing, where she helps badass businesses write smokin’ hot words. She also dishes out weekly writing and marketing advice for small businesses, and teaches a beginners’ course on freelance writing.
Great to see a fellow LR member proving that this stuff works, great write up Karen! Using this to create my own site and start on my SEO copywriting journey.
Thanks, Leandro! You’ll be amazed at how quickly things progress and the type of work you end up doing once your site is up and running! (People will ask you for all sorts of shit, not just SEO writing.) I’d love to see your site when it’s done! Shoot me an email or find me on LR if you want any feedback on it! 🙂
That’s really encouraging, thanks. Great, I’ll definitely shoot you a mail asking for feedback. I am usually shy about inviting potential criticism but I am serious about this shit so it has to be done.
By the way, I’ve said it before but Sean, Location Rebel kicks ass! That’ll be all 😉
This is a super easy way to start making money online. I set up my site in a matter of hours.
Do you think that at some point the market will be flooded with SEO writers in the future? Or will people just switch to copywriting naturally? I got started in SEO writing and immediately found copywriting gigs that paid much more money.
To be honest, I dont think so. There’s such a demand for this kind of work – and in the grand scheme of things so few people doing it – that I dont see it being an issue. Also most of the SEO writers I know dont do it for long. They start with that to build a bit of income and confidence and then pretty quickly move into other types of writing work.
Hey Tate – you’re right, this is definitely an easy way to get started making money online!
I’d say the market is pretty saturated in terms of SEO writers who charge a pittance and can’t string a coherent sentence together (often from non-English speaking or developing countries)… but there are always people out there who will pay for quality, well-written articles, which is something many non-native English speakers simply can’t do.
A friend of mine once asked me if I was worried about being put out of work by people in developing countries doing what I do at a fraction of the cost, and my answer was no. When it comes to writing, quality is hard to find, so if you’ve got that down, you’re onto a winner.
I think the best thing about SEO writing is essentially that it’s a great way to “learn how to freelance.” You learn how things operate while the stakes are low and not much is expected of you, and then you’ll naturally progress into other types of work (which, as you’ve seen first hand, clients will DEFINITELY ask you to do).
Thanks Karen. This is one post I’m gonna use as a map when setting up my website. You really simplified an otherwise overwhelming task. I am almost tempted to set up my website sooner than I planned.
Cheers,
No reason not to wait! The sooner you start, the sooner you can start growing the business!
You’re welcome, Hemendra! And I agree with Sean – might as well get started on your website ASAP! Especially now you know exactly what you need to do 😉 You can easily do all the technical parts of this in under a day, and then maybe set aside another day or two to work on writing the content and article samples (if you’re making an SEO writing website). Then blam! Website done. Time to start making money.
This is a timely article for me, and while I am not considering SEO writing, I still find the information useful. I don’t plan on using the ‘about’ page for my ‘home’ page, however. I am wondering if adding a contact form is useful in combating spam, or does it have any bearing on that application? I don’t get much spam with just posting my current site’s e-mail address on a ‘contact page’, although I do get some. I already have a domain and host and have decided on a theme, although none of them are the examples you, or Sean cited. I just need to pull the trigger. Thanks for the information.
Hey Chas, definitely take this advice in your own direction – no need to do things exactly as I say! Especially if you’re not creating an SEO writing website. This is really just a guide for people who don’t quite know how to begin – what I say will work, but if you have another way you’d rather do things, then by all means!
Contact forms are essentially the same as getting an email – the information is just sent to you via a different method, so your spam protection will be much the same UNLESS you include one of those annoying CAPTCHA things (which I personally don’t recommend – you want to make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you!). WordPress/Akismet does offer good protection against spam though. I’ve never received any from the forms on my site.
Now it’s time to pull that trigger. Good luck!
This article has got me pretty much fired up along with all of the other material on the site. Looking into getting my website up with the sample articles and everything else as soon as possible.
I have a question though, would it be possible to say, team up with another aspiring/prospective writer and launch a site? Most of the examples I’ve seen so far have been themed around one person.
Hey Edrick, glad to hear you’re so fired up!
I’m not sure exactly what you mean by teaming up. Do you have a specific project in mind that requires more than one person? Or do you have a specific person in mind you’d like to work with? Or do you perhaps just have some hesitations about going out and doing this on your own?
Absolutely it would be possible to set up a site that’s run by more than one person, but I’d question whether it’s really necessary and if waiting on this is holding you back from just getting started.
Thank you for the useful information! I’m trying to build a website too; unfortunately I’m not sure how it will look; I found IMcreator.com and they have some really catchy templates. Plus, it seems that their drag-and-drop options are really easy to use and they also have lots of stock images for free; What do you think about website-builders?
Hey James, for your first website, I think it’s more important to just get started and actually build it, rather than trying to find the best way of doing it. (After all, you can always change it later.) So if you’ve found a way of doing it that works for you, I see no reason not to go ahead with it. I don’t have any experience with the type of website builder you’re talking about, though I can assure you that setting up a website in WordPress is easy enough (especially if you follow my instructions 😉 )
The one thing I would say, if you’re building a professional website, is just to make sure you’ve got a domain name of your own [yoursite.com]. Then, so long as the website looks fine and professional, you should be fine 🙂
I finally launched a website after freelancing for over 2 years. I don’t know if I should purchase a “.com” or not…what would you suggest?
Yes, ideally you will want to purchase a .com. It’s not a huge deal if you go with something else, but it’s still the most popular and well know TLD.
I’m with Sean on this one. Go for the .com 🙂
Thanks for this info Karen. I’ve been thinking about starting a freelance website for over a year and I’ve read dozens of articles about starting. Without fail, they are all overly complex and concerned about themes, marketing strategies, etc. This was the first time I found something that was simple and straightforward and held my hand through the process. I can’t tell you how thankful I am.
Wow, high praise indeed! Thanks Carlos, I’m so glad you found it helpful 🙂
Thank you for this article! I have just started working as a freelance writer myself and have been stressing out so much the past week, as I haven’t had a clue on how to start a website. I had no idea what to start with in terms of contact or rates, simply because I don’t know any better. This gave me an entirely new level of confidence. Know that your helpful advice is appreciated greatly by this new writer right here. 🙂
You’re welcome, Tania! Glad you found it useful. Now go get ’em!
Difference between SEO writing and Copywriting?
SEO writing is designed to help websites rank highly in Google. Copywriting is designed to help people sell stuff – basically 🙂
Oh Sean and Karen, you have no idea how much easier this post made things for me. I sent my husband and kids off to the in-laws for the weekend and then…I literally started the process at about 9 last night (actually I’d done steps 1-3 earlier in the week), worked until 2:30 a.m. (I’m in a time crunch here with hubs and kids due back early tomorrow afternoon), then back up at it at 9 this morning and just finished the last step a moment ago at 12:55 p.m.
I know I have a ways to go in terms of learning the process and getting customers, but again, this article was hugely helpful in getting me on my way. Grateful!
Congrats, Stacey! And that is how you become a freelance writer overnight.
Just checked out your site. Excellent work 🙂
Hey Karen thanks for the step by step I have some question regarding bluehost when you go to sign up for their service they have some addons Domain Privacy Protection, Site Backup Pro, SiteLock Domain Security, Search Engine Jumpstart and Google Apps for Work which of these are recommended and is there any problem with starting out with there least expensive plan?
Thanks for any help
Hey Summer,
You don’t really NEED any of these, but some are nice to have. I used to do Domain Privacy Protection, because otherwise the address you list can be found online publicly, which you might not want to happen if you list your home address! I stopped doing this when I registered my accountant’s address as my business address 🙂
I also have Site Backup Pro, I believe, which will mean if my site messes up for any reason I will be able to restore it. I don’t have any experience with the others… I would definitely say you don’t need the last two anyway.
Definitely no problem starting out with the cheapest plan – go for it! You can always upgrade if you need to.
Good luck!
Hi Karen,
Your write-up is of great help! Thanks for that.
I have just bought a domain from Go daddy along with domain privacy. After buying space, I am planning for the design.
I have experience in both copy writing and SEO content. I also have considerable experience in writing research papers. Will it be a good idea to create separate sections on my website and mention them as service offers. I am a little confused since these are three different types of writing.
Can you please suggest?
regards,
Sumit
Hi Sumit,
Have you thought about just offering ONE of these services? Being seen as a specialist will enable you to charge higher rates.
If you decide you do want to offer all three services, I personally would just put them all on one services page under a different heading each. I think SEO writing and copywriting can easily go on the same page together, although it might be a bit strange to have research papers on there, as that’s a completely different field.
Karen – this is so fabulous. It was my guidebook this week for setting up my site. Thank you!!
Thanks for the article. It helped me figure out what I need to put on my site when I set it up. (I’ve been writing for other people for a while now and still haven’t set my site up.)
One thing I wanted to mention. At one point you say:
“If it takes you an hour to write 500 words, and you’d be happy to earn $25 an hour, charge $25 per 500 word article.”
I would personally recommend if you want to make $25 per hour you should charge $50-75 per article. (Ideally, you want to find clients willing to pay you at least $100 per article.)
You have to take into account that writing the article is going to involve drafting the proposal, talking to your client, getting the details of the project, and doing edits afterward. If that takes you an extra hour to do, your rate is now $12.50 per hour (at $25 per article).