Tag: Copywriting

How to Get Started on Fiverr as a Freelance Writer

Posted on by Alanna Higdon
Photo by Min An on Pexels.com

So, you want to start your journey as a Freelance writer on Fiverr, but you have mixed emotions about it. You might have heard that Fiverr is a great platform to utilize as a Freelancer and earn some extra money on the side, or you may have heard the downsides of Fiverr. They take 20% of your earnings, they’re known to attract bargain hunting clients, and the platform has practically become a meme among popular YouTubers at this point.

I can’t tell you if Fiverr is the best platform for you and the specific services that you offer, but I can give my honest opinion after being a seller on the platform for a few months. In this article I will discuss the pros & cons of Fiverr for freelance writers, and I will give you some tips on how to get started if you choose to starting selling on Fiverr.

The good part about Fiverr.

In my opinion, there’s no shame in getting started on Fiverr. Use it as an experiment. Before I started Fiverr I had no clue what niche I wanted to write for. After running one Gig that’s gotten 1K impressions and 10 5-star reviews (I’m a little picky about the clients I agree to work for), I’ve noticed what industries I am attracting to my gigs and what topics I enjoy writing about. I have created content for realtors, construction companies, lifestyle blogs, dating websites, and more! I would have never known that I enjoy these niches, had I not had a platform to explore this. It’s a learning process!

Earn money to reinvest into your business.

Another reason to use Fiverr when you first get started as a Freelancer, is to earn some money that you can reinvest into your business! We hear it time and time again. “Just stop buying that cup of coffee every morning.” “Quit ordering takeout.” “Skip a night out in order to save money.” There’s always this assumption that we secretly have money hidden away to invest in a brand new freelancing business, but the truth is, sometimes you just don’t have the money to spare! You don’t have to stop purchasing the little things that bring you joy, and some of us (especially the parents out there) need every cent of our current income for living expenses and necessities. So the best part about getting started on Fiverr? Once you start making money, you can use these funds to invest in your business further.

Some other pros about Fiverr is that they have a resolution center you can utilize, the platform allows you to easily make custom orders, you set your own prices, and (this is a big one) you are guaranteed to get paid if you deliver work to your client. One of the biggest challenges of being a freelancer is trying to chase down payments and make sure that you aren’t being scammed. Fiverr eliminates this worry since they collect the payment. Customers have to put down their credit card information before they place an order with you, so as long as everything works out and the order eventually gets marked as complete, you will get paid!

Finally, one last pro of this platform is that customers can tip you! After you have delivered an order, and your client marks it as complete, they have the option to review and tip you! This tip money will be paid to you on top of whatever they paid you for the Gig, but keep in mind that just like everything else, Fiverr will take a percentage of this tip. (If you have a positive experience with a Fiverr seller, and it’s financially feasible, please remember to tip!)

I used my first deposit from Fiverr to buy a P.O. box for 6 months so that I can start an Email list (Legally you have to provide an address at the bottom of your Email newsletter), where I mail out a weekly newsletter to small business owners. This helps me find future clients and meet other business owners! I couldn’t have afforded this in the beginning without that money from Fiverr. You may want to invest in a Canva subscription, buy office supplies, purchase video editing software, or use the additional income to start running advertisements on social media to promote your business. The point is, you can take this money from Fiverr and use it as seed money to market yourself on other platforms. Fiverr can (and probably should) be a stepping stone, not the final destination.

The downsides of using Fiverr.

Now it’s time for us to discuss the cons. What’s the biggest downside of Fiverr? They take 20% of your earnings when you first start out. That’s a lot. The benefit to Fiverr is that you don’t have to have previous experience or published work in order to use their platform. This is why they seem to attract brand new freelance writers more than any other freelance platform. The downside of this, is they take more of your earned income than other freelance platforms.

Another con is that Fiverr is a bargain hunting platform. This means that most clients on there are looking for the lowest price possible, but they still have extremely high expectations. This is the main reason that Fiverr is a stepping stone and not the final destination. Just remember to prioritize other avenues of income, and maybe offer low word count articles, that way you don’t spend a long time working on orders that won’t help you pay the bills.

The clients you meet on Fiverr stay on Fiverr.

Fiverr has a very strict policy that you cannot contact clients outside of Fiverr. So if you get an awesome repeat client on Fiverr, you can’t contact them on social media outside of Fiverr, set up a Zoom meeting (Fiverr does have it’s own video chat feature available for some clients), or fully market to them. If you decide to leave Fiverr, then you leave all of the contacts you have made on the platform, otherwise you violate the platform’s policy. It’s definitely not ideal but the positive side to that is that Fiverr will do the marketing for you and push your gig out to potential clients. This means that sometimes you will have had a gig running for months and one day randomly a brand new client will place an order with you, and you haven’t even been marketing your gig!

This is an incredible thing and also a potentially stressful thing. This is the biggest mistake I made in the beginning. Make sure you are consistently checking your Email notifications from Fiverr or logging onto Fiverr itself to see if any clients have messaged you or placed an order with you recently. Fiverr really cares about your average response time, so you want to respond to messages as quickly as possible! Remember that even if you haven’t had an order placed with you in awhile, it could happen randomly while you’re out on a Friday night, completely unaware. The last thing you want is for a client to pay for a gig that you put a 10 hour timer on, while you’re out for the night and away from your phone.

Luckily, Fiverr does have a few features in place to help you with this. Fiverr allows you to put a cap on your orders. For example, for my most popular gig I have changed my settings so that I can only have 3 active orders going on for that Gig at the same time. (I learned the hard way that 4 orders at once can be a bit overwhelming for me personally!) You can always pause your Gig, be careful with this though, it can potentially mess with your Gig’s ranking. You can also set your availability on your profile. This means if you have a week when you are going out of town, you can tell Fiverr not to let anyone place an order with you that week. You can still message with clients while you are not accepting orders, in order to touch base and keep them in the loop. Finally, as a last resort, if someone placed an order with you and you either don’t have enough information or you just don’t have the time, you can cancel the order. This will definitely negatively impact your Gig’s ranking, but sometimes you just don’t have another choice so remember that this option is available to you.

Tips for getting started on Fiverr.

We have discussed the pros and cons of being a Freelance writer on Fiverr. What are some tips for brand new Freelance writers who are going to get started on Fiverr?

It’s not “quick” money.

When you first get started, please understand it’s not “quick” money and there’s a lot of waiting around that comes with Fiverr. When you first sign up for Fiverr (if you are located in the United States) you will have to fill out a W-9 form. You’ll have to know your social security number and be comfortable with sharing it in order to complete this form. You cannot be a seller on the platform without completing this form. It took a few days for my form to get reviewed and approved, then I could finally start getting my actual Fiverr shop up and running.

Then it came to my first payment. Fiverr is totally transparent about how getting paid works and they even discuss this further in some of the free learning courses that they offer. However….I didn’t pay attention to that part. At first it seemed so hopeless that I would ever get a Gig because wow, it felt like forever until someone finally placed an order with me. It took almost two months. However, when I finally did get that first order I wasn’t prepared for how long it would take to get paid.

Here’s a breakdown of how the order process on Fiverr works. Someone places an order with you. Before your timer runs out, you deliver the work to your buyer. Depending on how many revisions you’ve offered, your buyer can either request a revision or mark the order as complete. If they don’t do either of these actions, the order will automatically be marked as complete in 3 days. Once you have delivered your revisions and your buyer is satisfied, they will mark the Gig as complete. Then you have to wait 2 weeks until your funds are out of pending and are available for you to withdraw. On top of this, if you opt for direct deposit, you have to wait until your information gets approved and then your first payment can take up to 7 days to be deposited into your account. My funds were deposited right away but still, after all of the waiting I had to do for every other step I was starting to get nervous.

I’m not intending to criticize the platform for this waiting time but I do find it important to mention. If you’re planning on using your Fiverr earnings to pay a time sensitive bill, please be aware of the waiting time that comes with withdrawing your earnings!

Run multiple Gigs.

The best advice I can give to a beginner on Fiverr for any job or niche, is to make sure you are running multiple Gigs. Change them all up so that there is something different about each one. Running multiple gigs and giving it a little time (This could be anywhere from 1 month to 10 months!) will eventually lead you to getting your first client.

For example, my main job is producing blog content but I also create social media templates, social media calendars, and have consulting services to help business owners review their social media accounts. I ran a Gig for each of the skills I had. I experimented with different cover images, prices, targeting specific industries, etc. Also, do not upload multiple Gigs at the same exact time on the same exact day. It sounds crazy but I swear it matters! Sometimes one Gig will perform better than another just because it was uploaded at a time when more people were online. I can’t tell you what time you should aim for, but definitely make sure to mix it up.

A lot of people will try to tell you that you need to lower your prices, but the truth is, you might just have to give it time. Buyers have a hard time taking a chance on a brand new seller with 0 reviews when they could instead place an order with a seller whose had multiple clients and has multiple glowing reviews.

I decided to make my prices extremely low when I first started out in order to be competitive with experienced sellers, and it worked! However…it came at a cost. I have undervalued my work. I’m not even joking I had a client message me to tell me that I lowballed myself and that the work I delivered exceeded all of their expectations so I should raise my prices. On the one hand, I was super excited to deliver quality work that they enjoyed! On the other hand…ouch…I spent 3 hours on a job I got paid $30 for. It’s not the worst thing in the world but I definitely could be doing better.

Be careful when you lower your prices to stay competitive. Don’t do so at your own expense and remember, that after you get a few positive reviews, it’s okay to start raising your prices!

You should be offering sample work.

Even if you have never ever had a paid gig as a writer, you should still have sample work. Let me explain. Buyers don’t want to take a chance on a brand new seller without some sort of social proof, so…offer them social proof! Stand out from other beginners by putting in your Gig’s description and creating an FAQ for all of your Gigs that lets potential buyers know that you are happy to offer sample work to anyone who requests it.

You can either identify the niche you want to write for and pick 3 topics you think people in that niche would find valuable, then write sample articles about these topics. Or, if you don’t have the slightest clue what niche you want to write for, that’s fine too! I went on Indeed and looked at topics that employers wanted freelance writer applicants to write about and I wrote about those topics. I keep a folder saved on my laptop of all of my sample work. That way when someone requests it, I can give them work that I think relates best to what topic they want me to write about.

Buyer Requests.

Last but certainly not least, buyer requests. If you’ve already ran multiple gigs and offered sample work and you feel like you want to scream because you still haven’t gotten a gig, there’s one more thing you can do! When you’re on your selling profile (make sure you didn’t accidentally switch your profile to “buying”), go to the top menu and select the “more” button. Then select “Buyer Requests.” Buyers will post requests like “looking for someone to write an SEO-friendly blog article for my construction website” and you have the ability to send them a custom offer! If they like your prices and like what you’re offering, then they might become your first client! The longer you have Fiverr opened on your computer the more Buyer Requests you will be able to see. Check it multiple times throughout the day and don’t be alarmed if at times it says there are 0 requests. I promise it won’t be 0 forever. You can send up to 10 offers a day this way.

So, are you thinking of trying Fiverr? let me know in the comments below!

P.S. time for a shameless self plug, but I am currently running a new Gig on Fiverr where I write blog content for small businesses. If you’re interested send me a message on Fiverr, I’d love to chat!

https://www.fiverr.com/share/47GBEy

How Do I Become A Freelance Writer?

Posted on by Alanna Higdon

Hey guys! Just like last week, I wanted to have this week’s Podcast episode available both on audio and in a blog post so that everyone has access. This week’s topic is a bit more technical. I have just started this journey of learning to become a Freelance writer and so I wanted to give other people some advice on where to begin your Freelance writing journey. Some of this stuff I have already done, I’m in the process of doing, or I haven’t even started it yet. Keep in mind I’m still in the beginning stages so I have so much more to learn but I have been building my knowledge in digital marketing for about a year now, so I definitely have a few tips I can share. I currently have a couple gigs where I get paid for my writing and I noticed when I was brand new to this job, I couldn’t find any resources that really taught me how to get started.

I wanted to give you some simple straightforward tips on where to start. So, let’s begin. The first tip I would give is to pick a niche. Some examples of niches you can pick are travel, fitness, CBD, cooking, or real estate. I’m a bit of a hypocrite. I haven’t committed to a niche yet. Real Estate is my “back-up” niche because it’s what I have the most experience in but I’m not sure if it’s what I want to commit to yet. Don’t panic if you don’t have a niche right away. I’ve actually been using Fiverr to eliminate niches that I’m finding aren’t a good fit. So far I’ve ruled out the tech, science, and medical world from my area of expertise since I don’t know nearly as much about these subjects as I do about other subjects.

Next you should set up a website or a blog. You can do this for free on plenty of platforms like Wix or WordPress. I will say I have made a free website on Wix before and this blog I’m currently using is a paid WordPress blog. Wix has some insanely fun themes and it’s very user-friendly but it doesn’t have nearly as much SEO as my paid WordPress blog. If you are a blogger, even if you are using the free option, I will recommend WordPress over any other platform every time. The research I did before I bought this blog all pointed to the same conclusion as well. A feature to note that doesn’t get talked about enough is WordPress reader. I follow at least 100 blogs on WordPress, so when I click the WordPress reader button it creates a feed of recent blog posts from everyone I follow and I’m able to like/comment on all of their posts. It’s like a social media platform but only for people with WordPress blogs. Here I have been able to gradually increase my followers and likes each month. I get a lot more guaranteed views now because I utilize this feature and I get to find new blogs that I want to follow which gives me tons of inspiration to keep posting!

The next tip I have is to get your sample work prepared ASAP. This is actually kind of a controversial topic among Freelance writers. Seasoned writers often have the expectation that they will be paid when asked to provide a sample. I think it’s important to note that some experienced copy writers/freelance writers have been doing this job for 10+ years, so the expectations they have will differ from some of the expectations a beginner should have. The truth is you haven’t proved yourself yet in the eye’s of a potential client. It’s normal to be asked for samples of published work you’ve written for other people. Here’s a hack I used when I first started. I would go on Indeed and search up “Freelance Writer” jobs and “remote” for the location. I would scroll through several job descriptions all giving prompts for what sample work they wanted. I would write these samples and save them on a folder on my laptop without actually applying to these jobs. You don’t have to be published in order to have sample work and also your website or blog that you’ve built can serve as a portfolio. There are tons of options for beginners to provide sample work. I suggest creating sample work for the clients you want to attract. So for example, if I want to work for a Real Estate agent, I’ll send them a sample writing titled “How to buy a home in a seller’s market.”

However, there’s a reason sample work is such a sensitive topic among freelance writers. Writers get screwed over. Like a lot. This happens in many different ways. One, you might see a job post on a platform telling people to submit a sample writing with their application on a topic the company has chosen and if they hire you, they will pay you for your work. The issue with that is obvious. Only one person is going to be hired, so apply to positions like this at your own risk and don’t invest too much time into it if you have other money-making opportunities available. Now, what happens if you write sample work about a specific prompt a company has given you and they don’t have such great integrity? Meaning, they take your post, don’t hire you, don’t credit you, don’t pay you for your work, and then publish your post. It’s disgusting but it happens! It might not even be legal but when you’re a small business or independent contractor going up against a multi-million dollar company in some cases, most of the time you’ll have to end up accepting your losses and moving on. I want to make sure I haven’t scared you. Being asked to provide sample work is fine and you shouldn’t act above it. However, go with your gut or ask for advice on Freelance Writing Facebook groups you’re a part of when you get in situations where you feel like you’re being exploited. It happens! I just want to make sure anyone reading this is aware and prepared for the possibilities.

Next we get to a tip that I call selling in the DM’s. I’m mostly going to be talking about Instagram and Email for this part, since these are my primary platforms that I use. So, this is really where you’re going to find your clients when it comes to freelance writing. Start by going to your search bar on Instagram and looking up a hashtag that your ideal client uses. For example, if you want to work for a realtor you’ll look up something like #realtorsofinstagram. Then you’ll scroll through posts and click on the person’s profile. Scroll through their page and ask yourself a series of questions. Do they consistently post content? Does any information in their highlights or on their bio seem outdated? What’s their following like? How much engagement do they get on each post? Do they post professional content or just personal content? These questions are great if you would like to be hired to write social media content for people. If you would like to be hired to write blog content for people, try following these steps. Click on their link in bio and go to their website. If they have a blog on their website ask yourself how often they blog and if they’re blogging valuable information. A realtor in this example who has a low following, outdated posts, and no clear social media strategy could be an amazing potential client!

This is where the selling in the DM’s starts. Number one, please don’t follow the steps I give without adding in your own additional steps or tweaking my advice to fit your specific niche. Beginners have a bad habit of wanting a script or fool-proof formula for being successful. I am only here to provide a general outline as I am still learning myself. Also, do not use a set script for each potential client you message. As someone who runs an Instagram account for Real Estate agents I can tell you that they get multiple DM’s a week from photographers, digital marketers, etc. all who seemed to go to the same class and end up with the same exact copy & paste script. It feels disingenuous and spammy. Some of this advice might sound harsh but I really want each of you to be successful, so I always want to be brutally honest. Once again, having a general outline is perfectly acceptable but don’t take a rigid approach by using a set script that can hinder your ability to individualize your pitches.

Now, here’s what to do next. The most important thing is to show that you have done a little research about the business you’re approaching. This means that you’re mentioning specific details you have seen on their page. For example, “I see that you have 200 followers and your last post was two months ago.” This way they know you’re not DM’ing them just another copy & paste script. However, I’m getting ahead of myself. Your first message to someone should be a warm greeting that genuinely expresses interest in their profile or content. Sometimes we get so excited about gaining a new client and growing professionally, that we forget to simply enjoy a conversation. This is also a great way to see if they even respond to you in the first place. Now, once you have sent them a message detailing what services you provide and why you think you can help them, think about where you want to direct them next. End your message with a call-to-action.

If they engage with you and seem interested in the services you’re offering, maybe offer to set up a Zoom meeting. Make sure if this is the case, you are prepared and everything is ready to go on your end so if they agree to setting up a Zoom meeting, you already have an account set up and know exactly how to send them a link. You can send these pitches either through DM’s on Instagram or send it to whatever Email they provide in their bio (not everyone will provide an email address).

Lastly, I would recommend looking at job boards like Indeed. I’ll discuss this very briefly. Like I mentioned earlier, you can search for remote, freelance writing jobs on Indeed. I’ve had incredible luck with this method. I am a freelance writer who also has an interest in digital marketing so I use this platform to find jobs for both of these fields. This is a great place to start, especially if you aren’t comfortable DM’ing people yet. We should all eventually be prepared to pitch ourselves but if you’re just starting out, you don’t have to stress about that right away. Just take a deep breath and start by applying for freelance jobs on a job board. It’s less intimidating and an excellent resume builder.

There are also job boards built for freelancers to sell their services, like Upwork or Fiverr. I have zero experience using Upwork so I can’t say too much about it. Some people are able to make a full-time income using Upwork. You’ll probably have to have some work already published before you get accepted and it has a better reputation than Fiverr when it comes to scoring high-paying jobs. If this platform works for you and you can get verified, I say go for it! I’m mostly going to talk about Fiverr since that’s what I have the most experience with. I’m not the biggest fan of Fiverr, however I definitely want to do some more experimenting before I call it quits!

I’ve ran about 3 or 4 gigs so far. My most recent gig easily got the most traffic, but if there’s one thing I regret it’s making the gig so general. I opened up the gig to any niche, so when people contacted me asking me to write a blog about the tech or medical industry I couldn’t deliver. This was a big learning lesson when it came to niches that I could officially rule out so that was helpful! I’ll leave you with a few key takeaways for Fiverr. Number one, getting your first client is the hardest part. Don’t be alarmed if you have to run multiple gigs before you finally get a message, that’s normal! Try making something different about each gig so you can run them at the same time and see which one performs the best. Lastly if you’re still struggling to understand Fiverr’s features or how to get your first client, who better to teach you then Fiverr themselves? They provide educational videos teaching you about the different features and they even give you tips on how to successfully get a client.

When it comes to promoting your business to a mass audience for the lowest price, what’s the best way to go about it? That’s right, social media! In this Podcast episode, I told you guys that I boosted a Facebook post promoting my Podcast for $10 and I shared the results with you. The post I boosted was a picture of my Podcast cover art with a lengthy caption detailing who my Podcast is for and what I talk about on there. Full disclaimer, if I were to re-do this I would completely change the caption, mostly the hook. I would have an attention grabbing sentence, calling to other freelance writers. My hook was a complete fail! So the results I’m sharing with you today is by no means the fault of Facebook, there are some major changes I would make on my end for the next time, because there will definitely be another ad experiment soon. My post ran for 5 days and the goal I selected was to get more website visitors. Total I received 8 link clicks and reached 1,667 people. There was a $1.25 cost per link click. Honestly the cost wasn’t worth the results, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see an increase in my Podcast viewer stats because I definitely have! Once again, I also take full ownership for not choosing the best caption to boost. I thought this might be helpful for you guys to have a realistic understanding of how boosting a post works and to see if it seems like a feature you would want to utilize. Ads are a fantastic way to gain new traffic to your website but it’s definitely a step to consider after you’ve set yourself up for success by completing the other steps we’ve talked about first.

Finally my last talking point during this episode was explaining how the new iOS update affects Facebook ads. So Apple has released a new update that allows users to choose whether they want to disable tracking. This means that people can choose whether they want to see Facebook Ads or not. Obviously, this will result in Facebook losing some money. However, I’m not sure if you know much about Facebook but…they’re not exactly hurting for money. This change by no means will be detrimental to their current income. Android users still can’t disable tracking and besides some Apple users with the iOS update are still choosing to allow Facebook to show them ads. However, the fear here is that Facebook will increase their prices when it comes to running ads in order to make up for this loss in income. That hasn’t happened yet and Facebook has not stated that will be happening. For now, it’s important to keep calm and just ride the wave. I think it can be a great thing that one of the most successful social media platforms of all time is being forced to adapt to what their users now want. Facebook is by far one of the most affordable platforms to run advertisements on so trust me, I understand the panic especially if you’re used to running ads on a daily or weekly basis. Just something to keep in mind, you will have around 20-30% less reported conversions if you do choose to run Facebook ads because of the changes. Just take note of this and don’t feel discouraged if you feel like your conversion rate has been decreasing.

Alright, that about wraps it up for this week’s Podcast episode! If you have any questions about any of the information I shared or you want to suggest a topic for next week’s episode, comment down below! Otherwise, I will see you guys in next week’s episode!