Websites That Offer Freelance Writing Jobs

Want more options for finding work? Here’s what you need to know about websites where you can find freelance SEO writing jobs.

(Video transcript is below, in case you prefer reading to watching video.)

Hey. It’s Avery. This week’s question is about freelancing websites. A lot of people email me asking me for lists of websites that are hiring writers, a list of websites that will pay you to write SEO articles, but the thing is I actually recommend that for 99.9% of you, you’re better off going another route, and here’s why.

2 problems you need to know about

The thing is that generally speaking, whenever I tend to look into these types of websites (commonly referred to as article mills), I find an endless stream of websites that pay peanuts for your work and give you very little opportunity to move up in the world, so to speak, in terms of how much pay you get.

Another problem with these kind of websites is a lot of them have a system whereby they have more than one editor that might be looking at your work. Here’s why that’s a problem. Say you write an article, you submit it in good faith, and you think you did a good job. Yet it’s rejected. It’s sent back to you, and an editor tells you, “Sorry. This one isn’t good enough.” If you’re lucky, they’ll actually give you a reason and tell you why they rejected it. If you’re unlucky and it’s not so hot of a website to work for, they’re not even going to give you a reason. They’re just going to reject it.

So you go ahead, being the hard worker that you are, and you rewrite the article or you adjust it, and you try to improve it to make it even better. You send it back. Then, what happens? Another editor sees it, and you have bad luck because this other editor has completely different tastes than the first editor who saw it, and your article ends up getting rejected again, but for different reasons this time. Now, the problem I see with that is for all you know, if it had gone back to editor number one in its improved version, they might have accepted the article, and you’d both have gone on your merry ways quite happily.

Instead, if it gets sent to more than one editor along the way, and it’s not the same editor deciding whether or not the article’s approved every step of the way, well, you could end up in this vicious circle of fixing one thing to please editor number one. Editor number two has a little bit different taste or style, so rejects it for a different reason. Now, you go and fix it to try to improve it for that editor only to have it go on to editor one again or maybe editor three, a brand new one all over again. Those are the kind of issues that make me really leery about writing for many of the article writing websites that you will find online, the type of websites that hire writers to do blog posts or SEO articles that they, then, go on and provide for their own clients.

The better option for beginners looking for freelance writing work

Instead, what I recommend that most people do, like 99.9% of you, is go to a freelancing website like Upwork or Freelancer.com or Guru.com. Those kinds of websites let you work one on one with the client rather than working for some third party middleman that can get in the way of you figuring out what you need to know to write really good articles that clients really like. My experience with these freelancing websites is all on Upwork, so that’s why most of my videos are all about that platform – I’ve had a good experience with them and it was a great way for me to get started. I felt like I earned some decent money on there given my lack of experience and lack of credentials  – all those obstacles that I had when I was starting out – so I’m a huge fan of Upwork.

If, for some reason, Upwork isn’t your cup of tea, by all means try somewhere like Freelancer.com or Guru.com. Freelancer.com and Guru.com, those websites, they tend to run similarly to Upwork. Again, there’s going to be changes here and there, little things that are different, but the principles and main ideas remain the same. So that’s my advice to you. If you’re looking for a list of websites that are hiring writers, I would say forget that idea entirely and go to a site like Upwork.com and start off getting work there. Build up your experience. Build up your skills. Improve your writing while you’re getting paid to do it, and once you’ve got more experience under your belt, you’ve improved your writing skills, you’ve got some practice with negotiating rates with clients and that kind of thing, you’ll be in a much better position to move off a platform like Upwork and cold email clients directly on your own. These clients are ones you might find via a Google search, for example.

Again, don’t worry about finding a big list of writing websites that are hiring writers. Don’t worry about that. I really do think that your best bet is likely a site like Upwork, and I do have experience with that one. I know it works, and that’s what I suggest to you.

Summing up

With that, I’m going to say goodbye for this week, and I look forward to chatting with you guys again next week. If you have any questions that you want to see answered in these weekly Q and A videos, please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email. You can either use the contact form on my website, or if you found this video via my email list that you’re on, just hit the reply button, and I will file away your response and add it to my collection of questions to answer in future videos. Another option is you could leave a comment below this video, and I read every single one. If you leave a question there, I’ll be sure to add it to my list of ideas to talk about in the next video.

That’s it. I hope you guys have a great week. Find something to do to move your SEO writing business forward, whatever it is, however small a step you can take. Something is better than nothing, so just take some action this week. Do something. Move your business forward, and I can’t wait to see you again next week. Bye.