How to Become a Writer - Business Website Design and Marketing for Freelance Writers and Editors

Most freelance writers start learning their trade by working on freelance writing sites or by using the marketing potential of a site like Hubpages. These are great ways to build up confidence and learn the extra tips and tricks needed to become a successful freelance writer editor. They also help you to find a niche, build a portfolio, and develop a good list of regular clients and references.

Eventually, if you want to reach the next level and start to earn decent full time money, then you have to start thinking of yourself as a professional and entrepreneur rather than just a writer. Having the skill and ability is one thing, but you have to create a business and identity, allowing you to broadcast how great you are!

Like any business you are selling something, in this case yourself, and you need to start thinking as a professional. If you want professional level earnings for freelance writing, you have to prove that you worth it, by seizing the initiative and looking for a business website design. Investing in a professional site will define your entire corporate image, help you to sell yourself, and show that you mean business.

Whilst this Hub is aimed at freelance writers, specializing in non-creative writing, it also applies to creative writers, poets, and journalists. These writers need to have a business website design, allowing their fans to follow progress and keep abreast of the latest news.

If you want an example of a professional freelance writer’s business website design, my business website is at: Freelance Writer Editor

Many freelance writers are so keen to get started that they go into the whole website design without planning a strategy, which can cost a lot in time, money, and wasted opportunities. Some try to use a free service for hosting or design, which leaves them with a site packed with adverts, hardly the measured, professional image that they want to project.

Others register a poor choice of domain name and wonder why they do not receive traffic, despite throwing their heart and soul into marketing and writing. I used a fantastic professional business website designer, Simple Website Service, and they guided me through the entire process.

Many freelance writers, keen to get started, decide to go for a free hosting service, such as Weebly or Wordpress. The problem with this is that they often stuff your site with adverts, damaging your image and potentially luring clients away: You worked hard to tempt people to your business website, and the only link that you want them to click is on the ‘Contact Me’ page.

The other problem with free sites is that they only give you subdomains, such as ‘yourname.weebly.com.’ With these names, your site will downgraded by the search engines and traffic will suffer. Some freelance writers claim that they want to ‘test the water’ first, but this is a poor excuse; top-level domain names, such as ‘yourname.com,’ cost a few dollars to buy and maintain.

Freelance writing is a very competitive field and you need to use any advantage you can think of. If you use a sub domain, all of your linking and marketing efforts will have been in vain when you eventually decide to buy a better name. Your backlinks won’t work and, if you have printed business cards, then you might as well have burned the money.

Free domain names also show potential clients that you are too cheap to pay a few dollars for a domain, and this contradicts the professional image you are seeking to cultivate.  Domains are not expensive and there is no excuse: If you cannot afford to pay a business website designer, that is no problem, but buy a top level domain before thinking about moving on to the business website design phase.

Many writers try to build a site entirely under their own name, but this will make your marketing muchj more difficult, unless you already happen to be a famous author of note. There is no harm in registering your own name and sitting on it, especially if you intend to write books, but this should not be the main thrust of your strategy. For your top-level domain, you want to find a name that contains keywords. As you can imagine, freelance-writing.com, freelancewriter.com, and other such variations are long gone.

However, play around with the GoDaddy domain checker – you could look at variations like Best-Freelance-Writer.com, or FreelanceWritingGuide.com. Geographical locations can be good, such as Freelance-Writer-NewYork.com, or BritishAcademicWriter.co.uk.

As long as it contains your keywords, all is well with the world. If you can, try to find a domain that you can include into articles fairly naturally; you will notice that many of my Hubs are built around the keyword Freelance Writer Editor, with anchor text links.

Ideally, you want a .com, for extra Google-love, and you are better playing around with those than going for .info or .me. If you want to target a country, then country specific domains, such as .co.uk and .gr are perfectly good, but may not work so well internationally

If you have good website design skills, you can skip over this part. Otherwise, read on. What you want to work towards is a custom designed site, with a unique business identity, because you have to put your professional head on and think ahead. Your business cards, letter headers, and electronic signatures will emulate this website design, so you want it to be slick, professional, and powerful.

As an example, I don’t include links to my site in every Hub, because I don’t want the HP slap for overpromotion. However, I include my banner in a lot of Hubs, tspreading the word in a burst of shameless self-publicity!

Hiring a professional website designer costs money, but Virginia at Simple Website Service did a great job, and the business website design has paid for itself already. If you are just starting out as a freelance writer, drafting articles for a few dollars a time, a professional business website design may be out of reach.

This really isn’t a problem and, unlike with the domain name, you can safely go for a cheaper option for now. You can always buy a template for a few dollars, or use a free Wordpress template. Many website hosts give you a nice, easy drag and drop template and you can use this for now, and look to upgrade once the site starts paying for itself.

Thinking of a marketing strategy is essential, as you have to let the world know that you are the best freelance writer that money can hire. This is a distinct weakness in my knowledge, which I am addressing with the 60 Day Challenge. The marketing strategy will be built around targeted Hubs, which you will use to drive traffic to your site.

That is a topic worthy of a Hub in itself and, rather than hack something together, I direct you to the experts, such as Sunforged, livewithrichard, Mark Knowles, RyanKett, and Darkside. Their Hubs will show you how to attract traffic to Hubpages and to your business website.

Even without this, you can still use traditional marketing and networking for your business. Many writers become so fixated with working online that they forget that local businesses also need freelance writers, and many of these would rather deal with a local writer than someone on the other side of the world.

Set yourself a small advertising budget; even 100 – 200 dollars is enough, and get yourself some business cards printed, for free if you wish. If you really want to go for it, order some printed postcards and drop them off at every business in town, this is where the advantage of using a professional graphic designer and website designer comes in – you can carry your website identity onto your printed material.

Many freelance writers will have already picked up the skills of writing website and sales copy. For the rest of you, they are useful skills to learn, because they are the way to close the deal. Your marketing attracts people to your website, and your work sells your abilities and converts clicks into contracts.

I am not going to go into the exact details of how to write sales copy or web copy, because that would take up a series of Hubs in its own right. Instead, I will give you a general outline of why they are useful.

Sales copy is used mainly for your Hubs and other articles, where you entice people to follow your link. A good article will start off luring people in, with a powerful opening paragraph, and make them want to read on and see what you have to offer. By the end of the page, you should have raised enough interest that they will be desperate to visit your site.

Your website copy is similar, but you are looking to sell your abilities as a freelance writer and editor. This is no time for false modesty – you are going to convince clients that they need to hire a professional writer, rather than use an amateur typist, or buy recycled content from the article mills. You then have to convince them that you are the best writer on earth: Whilst freelance writers are generally friendly and helpful, it is still a competition, and you must show clients that you are better than the rest. 

For those of you looking to establish an online presence and strike out as a pro-writer, I hope that this Hub has helped you to develop a strategy. Once these plans are in place, you can take the initiative and go for it. If you want to be paid like a professional, you have to act like a professional, and a good business website design for freelance writers will set you on your way.

Business Website Design Resources for Freelance Writers

Freelance Writer Editor is my business website design. Please feel free to visit.

Simple Website Service – Virginia is an experienced and talented business website designer, who talked me through the entire process of creating an online presence. I cannot recommend her services highly enough.

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