Predominantly, you’re going to find that blog writing gigs don’t pay very well. From what I see of the market, if you want to have great chance of earning $10 per post or more, you’re going to have to have your own website where you offer your writing services, and a client base that is not made up of the average crowd of blog content buyers.

There are some real problems that face blog writing gigs, though, especially for new writers:

1. A large percentage of blog writing gigs require that you already have an established blog yourself. In other words, quite a few of these gigs require you to post content on your own blog.
2. Many times, you’ll have to do extra work for blogging jobs — meaning that you’ll not only have to write the blog post, but you’ll have to post it on your clients blog(s), if they don’t request that you post their work on your own blog.
3. In the majority of cases, by taking on a blogging job means that you must be familiar with SEO copywriting. However, as most website owners are exceptionally ignorant, and trust the false SEO advice that prevails online, they probably want you to write content using a pre-determined keyword a bunch of times, not true SEO Copywriting. While repeating a keyword phrase within content is not difficult in the least, you still must know how to do it without messing up the readability of the content.

It’s not likely that you’re going to find blog post writing jobs that require a conversational tone, and no additional work, though, they are out there.

So, even with all of this additional work that you’re likely going to need to preform, blog writing gigs generally do not pay well, especially for new-to-the-game freelance writers. Realistically, you’re probably going to earn between $3 per blog post to $6 per blog post, depending on the client and the length of the content that they need. However, as blog content is well-known for being shorter than for-the-web articles, you probably won’t have to write out 400 words — in fact, 250-350 words is generally the max word count that many of these blog owners are looking for.

In my opinion, the reason that these rates are so low are as follows:

1. There are so many freelance writers online undercutting each others’ prices, that the prices for writing services have dropped in certain markets.
2. Blog post writing is quite easy, and arguably easier than writing a 400-word article.

I’m going to stretch my hypothesis a bit further here by saying that the lower rates also have to do with the lowered word count, both directly (as mentioned above), and indirectly. See, when you have non-native English speaking writers, you can usually tell with a longer article — even at 350-500 words, it can become very apparent. However, with 200-word “blurbs”, not really articles, there is a chance that a mediocre, non-native English speaking writer may be able to adequately perform these low-word count jobs. And, because they might charge $0.50 – $1.00 for 200 words, this can really drive the prices down in the low-to-mid range markets. Another thought is that because the prices are so low, buyers are willing to spend the $0.50 – $1 and spend 30 seconds tweaking the content.

These are really opinions on my part, but I see the trends — blog post writing, in the biggest market for it, predominantly pays $3 – $6 per post. It’s not something that you can get rich on, but with the right gig, you can make a few bucks to tide you over until you find something that pays better.

If you want to earn more money writing, and want to learn how to find a ton of freelance writing jobs, check out the Daily Writing Jobs Membership. I offer a getting started guide for new writers, and updated writing job-finding guide, and a daily writing job desktop notification system (some features coming in June, 2009).

• Why do online freelancers earn so little?
• Getting Established as a Freelance Writer
• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• When clients try to take advantage of writers
• Importance of revising and proofing your writing projects (get more clients)

Reason #1 – qualifications

In a lot of cases, when you take on a writing job online — you don’t really need a writing background.  Sure, some jobs will require it, but in many (many) cases — you just need to know how to write and need to be able to demonstrate that.  Maybe you’re an 18-year old kid, fresh out of high school, or a 65-year old, never-finished-high-school retiree just looking for a few extra bucks… when you’re looking to freelance as a writer on the ‘net, it largely doesn’t matter.

Reason #2 – publishing location

If you look at the whole of the writing jobs available today, they are predominantly projects for  Joe AverageGuy and Jane AverageGal — not some city-wide, state-wide, or nation-wide publication.  Jane and Joe don’t have a lot of money, and because the freelance writing rates have been driven down over the years, they really don’t need a lot of money, even to hire a college-educated writer, unfortunately.  If you’re writing for a startup, especially if the startup is backed by a $5-per-month web hosting account and a couple of domain names — these people can’t pay a lot for writing services.

Reason #3 – huge competition

This kind of ties into the first point, and affects the second point, but competition is a huge factor in pricing for freelance writing services.   Quite literally, you have “writers” who should be paying you to take their work advertising their services alongside 20-year writing veterans, trying to compete for the same $5-per-article job.  If you’ve looked over the main website, you’ll stumble upon this little blurb (unless I change the sales page):

You do not have to be a great writer to get paid, you don’t even have to be a good writer – if you can write at an eighth grade level or better, you can make money online as a freelance writer

This is probably an understatement, too. You have people who have no business pretending to be a writer, who are soliciting writing gigs and clogging up the system because just about anybody can get paid to write content on the internet.  Now, I’m in no way speaking about writers who are  a bit rough around the edges (the ‘no business’ part), I’m talking about the writers who produce content that looks like it was written by picking random words out of an 18th-century dictionary.  And then mixed up a bit for good measure.

Yes, there is a huge gap between print writing rates and web-content writing rates, or at least there can be.  Web-content writers can make a lot of money, even those who have no writing background.  On the other hand, college-educated writers can earn $3-$5 per article just as easily.  Not all online writing gigs are low-pay, but they certainly are out there.

If you want to learn how to make more money as a freelance writer, I highly suggest that you check out the Daily Writing Jobs report.  Right now, the report is less than $9.  However, very (very) soon, I’m going to be adding some new content to it, adding a couple of videos, and a whole slew of stuff for those who want to make money online in the freelance writing field.  If you purchase today, you are guaranteed access to the upgrades, even after the price increases.

• How much do blogging gigs pay?
• When clients try to take advantage of writers
• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• Yes, you can get paid to write online – but here’s your problem
• Last Call for Free Freelance Writer Support

Today’s content publishers, especially of the online variety (website owners, online business owners) don’t have the tools, the time or the resources to find a “qualified” content writer. Now, this may not be true for large online companies or corporations that hire writers – but it’s overwhelmingly true in situations with average Joe or Jane, sole proprietor type businesses.  In the majority of cases – they don’t care how much training you have; they don’t care where you went to school, they don’t care if you’re a stay-at-home parent or a full-time professional – they just want the content that will help them for their purposes.

This tidbit of information really is good news for the budding writers amongst us, especially if that’s you.  Now, it’s unrealistic to think that a no-experience writer will get $20 per article straight out the gate, even with offline writing experience or training – but it’s certainly not unheard of.  Really, how much money you make as a writer starting out depends more on where you find your writing jobs than your qualifications.  Even if you’re a mediocre writer, you can make that ever-coveted $20 per 400 word article if you market your services to the right people.

Bottom line – you don’t need a lot of experience as a writer to get paid to write online content.  If you head on over and pickup your own copy of the Daily Writing Jobs report, you’ll find a ton of resources that will help you to find writing jobs in no time flat, regardless of your current experience level.

• If you can write, you can get paid
• Open for Business
• Get paid to write articles
• Getting Established as a Freelance Writer
• Can I Write Full-Time Online?

Really, a writers’ wages can be affected by a lot of different variables, such as:

• How much experience a writer has.
• How well the writer can write.
• How well a writer has branded their name and maintained their reputation.

However – In my personal opinion a writer’s wages are affected primarily by who they are catering to. I’ve seen pay scales for online writers from the USA from .01 per word (that’s $5 for a 500 word article) to .60 per word ($300 per 500 word article). Sure, in most cases the quality for a $300 article is better than the quality of a $5 article, as it should be, but I’ve seen $300 content writing that was outperformed by work from a $40 article writer.

As far as averages go, though – for new writers in industrialized countries (USA, Canada, UK, Australia, etc) the pay scale seems pretty steady around $8-$12 per 400ish word article. Some new writers can get around $15 per article, though.

For established writers the averages go up a bit – starting at around $20 per 400ish word article up to $35 per article.

Now, something should be stated here – an established writer is not necessarily a ‘qualified’ writer when it comes to online content writing. There are a number of freelance writers who don’t hold a writing degree or an extensive background that can, time and time again, demand $20+ per article and people will pay for it without hesitation. But, I think this goes back to who a writer is targeting.

Freelancing online as a writer is an easy gig – you can get paid regardless of your experience and it wouldn’t be all that difficult to make $15/hour or more even with limited typing/writing skills.

If you are currently a freelance writer or a future freelancer, I suggest you check out my report on how to find writing jobs online, it’ll give you all the information you need to make a full time living as an online freelance writer.

• Get Paid with No Writing Experience
• You’re stubborn, and that’s why you’re broke
• Can I Write Full-Time Online?
• How much do blogging gigs pay?
• Why do online freelancers earn so little?