Blogging Tips

As the Internet has evolved over time there are many different types of writers that find their place on the web and sometimes all the different titles for them confuse me a little bit. Even the term blogger means many different things to many different people but there are some rules that you can apply to all types of Internet writing so that you can gain a good reputation and find yourself a supply of work.

First and foremost you don’t want to price yourself out of a good steady supply of work.  I’ve come across clients who were pleasantly surprised by what I charge and while I’m lucky because I have a journalism background and can write quickly and efficiently, I’m still surprised by what other people demand for things like Internet marketing and search engine optimization.

To each his own but my particular business model strives to have clients that last.  I’ve seen and heard of people who charge enough that I’m only left to guess they’re hoping to make a lot of money before their particular client finds out that they are being vastly overcharged.

Sometimes I think it all comes down to the kind of title that you use as a content writer because one man’s blogger is another man’s search engine optimization specialist. Here’s at least one definition for blogger that I was able to find on the Internet.

Blogger: Term used to describe anyone with enough time or narcissism to document every tedious bit of minutia filling their uneventful lives. Possibly the most annoying thing about bloggers is the sense of self-importance they get after even the most modest of publicity. Sometimes it takes as little as a referral on a more popular blogger’s website to set the lesser blogger’s ego into orbit. (http://www.consultwebs.com/articlesdt/blogs/blogs_definitions.htm)

Of course that’s a little tongue-in-cheek but the point is clear that a lot of different handles people put on for writing on the Internet don’t always have a clear definition  and that quite often translates into the kind of prices that you can charge.  For example, I’ve also looked on a professional writer’s website to get an idea of the kind of money it’s permissible to charge for Web content and here’s the information I found.

Online/Web Site Writing

Varies widely; “business” sites pay higher
$1 to $3 per word
$60 to $100 per hour (http://www.writers.ca/whattopay.htm)

Now of course there are those of you out there who hire for content writer/bloggers to do everything from websites to even the simplest of media descriptions who are rolling their eyes right now at the prices that were described above by the Professional Writers Association of Canada. But those numbers serve to illustrate the idea that like naming the kind of writers that work on the Internet, what they get paid seems to be all over the map.