Writing for blogs...
 

For the past several months I've been writing posts for other webmasters. I thought it was a passing fad but it's grown and I've made quite a good sum doing it and learning about blogging.

For you all who write or hire, what do you look for? The ups and downs of this side of the biz?

I write my own posts.

But I do have a friend that hires writers quite a bit and his problems have been finding people who can write good and proper english grammer.

If that helps you any.

It always cracks me up when people do this - the word is 'grammar' :D:D

I meant to do that, as a perfect example..:)

Dang, and I usually pay attention to firefox, my spelling buddy.

English should be capitalized.
|couch|

Any one else?


:)

Sure, always glad to help. :)
Well...either your friend has one problem, finding people who can do what he needs, in which case "problems" should be singular, or he has more than one problem, which would call into question if you really meant "write well" instead of "write good" and if you left out the word "use" between "and" and "proper."

But I really don't want to nitprick, or I'd be mentioning that "anyone" is one word.

:D



(yes, I know)

I had to ask.....


:)

Clearly he has two problems - one is finding people who can write 'good' , and the other is his own problem with English grammar.

Why he has a problem finding people who can write good is beyond me, it's only four letters g o o d |bananna|

If somebody's friend is having problems finding writers, I do quite a bit of professional copywriting and ghost writing.... happy to earn a bit on the side.

After seeing my hihg quality "grammer" skills and my super duper grasp of the eNGLISH language he made me an ofer I couldn't refuse. He see I write goode and knew I was a real wienner he could do without.

To answer the first post, I've gotten hired for being a native English speaker and having some strategic sense of placing messages and audiences (that's in the B2B world). For others, the factors have included being dependable, good turnaround times, journalistic experience and knowing when to go with something.

Sometimes a client wants something which is simply not realistic or doable. I usually try to keep some bit of what they were aiming for and persuade them that they can reach their goal using another way. At least once I've said "if you're so smart, you firgure it out and do it yourself" and have walked away. (I may soon be doing that again.) Inevitably, they will blame you, spend six months trying to do it themselves and then either give up or find someone else to try to fix it.... and who'll end up being blamed another six months after that.

A good way to get creative ideas is to read a variety of publications on topics that are unrelated to one another. You may see patterns or writing tricks that you can then use yourself.

Don't know if that helps, but it's my experience.

So, to continue the discussion, what's a good way to pick up a little passing work in blogs?

In all seriousness, my first question would be, what is the price? I really don't know for blog posts. Might be nice to out source some work.

Another big question for me, will the writer have the proper keyword research resources and the knowledge how to use keywords properly.

The other thing, I usually don't know what I am going to post about ahead of time, I decide while I working on a blog, which sponsor, the they keyword I am going after, ect. Might be tough coming up with all of that before hand to hand off.

Does any one else do it differently?

Just my thoughts.

Way back when I actually wrote blog posts...I would come up with the posts topic first and then pick a niche and sponsor I could easily morph that into. But then again I like to think that I wrote interesting posts that just happened to end with a little porn and not sales text.

Once I get back from my last fuck up I plan on getting back to doing that again.