Beginning and developing in content writing

Have any of you more experienced writers willing to share how you started in content writing and how you improve your articles? I'm hoping to learn how and where everyone "Started" and how to properly grow in both skills and demand.

Thanks

I'm actually looking to learn more about writing good content too. I still write all the content myself for my sites, so I was looking for some information about how to format the content and get it to "flow" better.


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Thread moved to the "Associated Content & Writing Articles" section.

"Wiz"

For me, as I write more and more articles, not only do I earn more because I also have learned a LOT. Before setting out to write an article especially for topics that are beyond my expertise, research helps a lot. Each article you write will give you a new lesson that you can use for other articles. When you've become familiar with a certain topic for example, it won't take you more than 30 minutes to finish a 500-word article.

Working as a technical writer and having others as colleagues really helps in the content creation and editing of my personal articles. There are many websites online where you can get crowd-sourced content development, or using BPOs from countries such as India & the Philippines. If you are truly interested in learning about content development, please PM me and I can point you towards information that can help you. Best of luck.

The only way to improve your articles is by writing articles! I started writing $1.00 blog posts on MTurks and now I'm writing on retainer for a very successful affiliate marketer who pays me very well for high-quality content. Just start writing and you will get better and things will fall into place.

Some tips I've come up with:
-Don't try to sound too smart. You'll turn off your clients and the readers. People want content that flows and is nice to read, not the words of some English major who is trying to impress with his overuse of the thesaurus.
-Be concise. If you haven't read "The Elements of Style" by William Strunk and EB White, you definitely should check it out! Writing is all about saying exactly what you want in as few words as possible. Readers are bored by superfluous words and roundabout ways of explaining things.
-Do your research. I said above to not try to sound too smart, but on the opposite end of that token you should also not sound like a complete idiot by writing about something you have no knowledge of. I made this mistake a while back when I was trying to pound out as many articles as I could in a day. I would skim the Wikipedia page of a subject and think I knew enough to write well about it. Do your research and don't state anything you aren't completely sure of.
-Be Creative. If a client asks you to complete X amount of article for a certain website, come up with ideas that you can't find in other blogs in the niche. Create a new take on the subject and your client will love you.
-Put yourself out there. Sign up for all the big guys: eLance, oDesk, iWriter, TextBroker, and Freelancer. Pound out proposals to gigs that you think you can do well. iWriter and TextBroker don't pay well at first, but if you build up your reputation you gain access to higher paying jobs.
-Create a running portfolio. As you get writing gigs, save them and add them to your portfolio for potential customers to view.
-Take out a paid thread. This is the best way to get clients. You'll want to build up a solid portfolio and skillset before doing this, and charge accordingly. Basically go to the marketplace section on any Internet Marketing forum and take out a sales thread. It costs anywhere from like $20 to $50. Not sure how much Warrior Forum, Digital Point or BHW are, but WickedFire is $37. Hype up your services and put a price either per 100 or 500 words. Make your sales thread completely legit: well-written, comprehensive and thorough. There are always people looking for high quality, native english content.

That's about all I can come up with for now! Good luck!

How does one improve their writing for these content sites?

I am making about $10-30 a week off of article writing, but I am wondering are there any legit resources out there that can help?

/\ Shelton provides some money tips right there. I have a very successful article writing service on this forum. Here are some of my tips.

• When it comes to content writing, you want to be able to type without breaks. To do that, you need a lot of information on your mind. I would highly recommend two monitors. One to keep your text editor open and the other to keep your research sources open.
• Spend a few minutes reading the sources and then structure the content in your mind. As you write, look for information in the research sources and blend them in. If you have to write a lot of content about a certain niche, it makes sense to even spend 1 or 2 hours just reading information sources. This will help your workflow later
• Don't hit the backspace key when you type. Ignore minor typos and just finish up. A few right clicks can clean up everything in a few seconds
• Always proof read. Never send out a document to a client without proof reading. When you are starting up, proof read everything twice. Another tip is to keep text zoomed in at about 200% when you proof read. It allows you to focus better
• Identify good sites to research from. Regardless of how well you write, your content is only going to be as good as the information you research. Obtain research content from authority sites. Authority sites are those that have a rather large user following in the form of forums, discussion boards or even just a very active commenting profile

Guys, Thank you so much for the responses!

Well, like it was said above - the best way to improve your writing is to practice. I always try to write like I would be writing a TV commercial. Find a context, and advertise any given product/service around it. It also helps to read a lot, and always try something new, cause if your articles will follow the same drift everytime, they'll soon start to sound too similar to each other.

Some tips that I've gotten from reading a book yesterday. These might help some of you guys too.

1. Create "swipe files"
With "swipe files", you basically collect little articles (coupon, magazine, etc) and keep them for your reference. By doing this you are gaining ideas to "swipe" and put on your article.
2. While writing your article, realize the fact that you do not have to be a genius or a Harvard student in order to get paid for writing.
3. As a writer, we have the power of knowing the product we are trying to sell to the customer. So while writing, it is good to have a notecard written on "What do we know about our product/customers?"

My advice for writing development would be to just read. Reading and writing are married so don't divorce them. Grammar is rather natural, and the only way to learn how to write better is through other humans.

Sure there is software that can help you write better, but what if the client spots this software? Software and stuff such as Grammarly is cool and such, but relying on it is not going to help you improve. Think of software as a calculator. Good to check, but terrible if used for everything. I could go for hours on this subject. But basically, read some books/blogs on writing. Your mind will thank you.

Keep reading and writing married and their kids "Article writing" "Copywriting" and other little bastards will grow up to make you money.

Now let me finish getting my writer level up

I started out about five years ago writing part-time for Associated Content. I mostly wrote about chess because I was really into it at the time (rated ~1700 USCF). I wrote on and off for a little extra money, and I didn't take it very seriously at all.

A couple of years ago, Associated Content (now Yahoo Voices) had drastically cut how much they were offering for articles, and this led me to TextBroker. I entered as a level four writer, and I started getting jobs on Internet Marketing forums as well.

I worked towards improving my writing so that I could offer a better product and make more money. This led to eventually getting up to level five at TextBroker and pulling in some regular clients through other means. Now I write full-time and make fairly decent money.