How to Make Money Writing Online, From Home

In this article, we will talk about how to make money writing online from home.

Disclaimer: this post may contain affiliate links, which means I may receive a commission if you make a purchase using these links, at no additional cost for you.

The truth about writing online is that it offers several benefits.

One of the advantages is its income-making potential.

The unpopular opinion that writers die poor is nothing but a unfounded assumption.

As a writer, you can earn a fortune and stop building castles in the air.

Some writers have made great money with their skills either as a full-time job or side hustle; you can also be among those writers.

All you need to do is master the art of freelance writing.

How to Make Money Writing Online From Home

Writers need to understand that starting a freelance career may include uncertainty (a lot), being rejected and a lot of self-doubt at the beginning.

But that’s not enough to give up on the dream of making money doing what you love, writing.

Taking up less glamorous and a little underpaid jobs will go a long way in building a writer’s portfolio, at least.

A writer shouldn’t run away from these jobs – especially at the startup stage.

So, ground your dream in reality and watch the magic happen.

The question is, how can you make money writing?

Become A Freelance Writer

One of the most efficient ways to monetize your writing skills, is to choose the freelance path and writing for clients.

As a freelance writer, you can choose a niche, or you may decide to be a versatile writer.

Being a versatile writer creates multiple ways to earn as a freelance writer since you are not restricted to a particular niche.

The icing on the cake is that as a freelance writer, you can work not only for yourself, but also for the media industry, and for B2B and B2C companies.

For example, you can create social media content for them.

Most large companies often have a team that manages their social media (marketing) content.

However, small companies often don’t have the budget to employ a whole social media management team.

So they hire freelance writers.

As a freelance writer, you can apply as a content creator for small businesses. All you need to do is reach out to them or make yourself visible.

And you can make yourself visible through your own website, or on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork.

Another opportunity as a freelance writer is writing product descriptions.

Some companies pay incredibly well to get a perfect description of their product to provide clear and concise information to their client or prospects.

Keep your ears to the ground always; there is always a company looking for a product description writer.

Copywriting is another way to monetize your skill as a freelance writer. Copywriting basically means writing with the purpose to promote and advertise a product or service.

If you think it’s something that aligns with your skills, you can look for companies that hire freelance writers for this type of role.

Or, as we mentioned earlier, you can create a profile on freelance platforms like Upwork, Fiverr, Freelancer.

How to Make Money as a Writer on Upwork

Upwork, is a freelance platform where writers can thrive, and it is easy to make money from it (if you know what you’re doing).

The first step is to create a profile, which will register you as a member on Upwork.

Then proceed to set an hourly rate; you can charge as low as $10 or $20 per hour; you can subsequently give it a raise once your reviews start to increase.

My advice is to start with a low rate to attract your first few jobs, and then charge more.

Now you may ask, “How do I find jobs on Upwork?” So let’s cover this step first.

The easiest way is to enter keywords like “writing” or “writer” in the search bar, this way all the existing jobs related to those keywords will pop up; you can then choose the jobs you are good at and start sending proposals.

If you start to get hired for some jobs, don’t get too comfortable; keep applying for jobs you come across.

Earning reviews and popularity on the platform is the goal, (so that you can charge more) remember?

The next thing you need to ensure is to always provide high value in every single job you take; that way, you’ll not only start to attract new clients but also keep the old ones.

The good thing on Upwork is that you get ranked as a top-rated writer after earning $1k+, top-rated plus writer after earning $10k+, and once you have an incredible job success score (JSS) you don’t necessarily have to do a lot of bidding.

Clients will search for you – because your profile will attract them – and you will get invitations to submit proposals for writing gigs either at a fixed rate or hourly rate.

At this point you can also ask for a higher rate.

How to Make Money as a Writer on Fiverr

You can also make money as a writer on Fiverr.

Sign-up on the official website Fiverr.com and click on the join button.

The link will redirect you to a page that requires you to provide an email. Provide a valid email to access the verification code. Your account becomes valid once you verify your email address.

Also, make sure to convert your account to a seller account – your account is a buyer account at the initial stage.

Click on your profile, and select the “become a seller” option. The link will lead you to a bio page; fill it out, and don’t forget to add a professional and catchy description.

Explain to your potential clients what makes you unique.

Tell them about your past accomplishments. For example, are you a top writer on Medium? On Quora? How many views do you have on Medium, your blog, Newsbreak and Quora?

Include these numbers.

Did you write for large media outlets? Write that in your profile.

Also include all the niches you think you can work in.

The next step is to link your Fiverr account to your social media accounts – especially LinkedIn.

Then, set up your first gig. Describe in detail what you can do on the gig description, choose a language and most importantly, use relevant keywords so that your potential clients can easily find you.

See your gig as if it was an Amazon product listing. Explain to your potential clients why your service is unique and why they should choose you over your competitors on Fiverr.

This way, you will start to receive orders.

Also, make sure to charge a low rate at the beginning when you don’t have reviews.

This way you will start to attract your first clients and receive your first reviews. This is essential to get more visibility on the platform and start appearing more in the search results.

Build your gig gallery; you can do this by adding evidence from your previous writing jobs; this will help you build credibility.

To give you an example, in my Fiverr gig, I included one of my articles published on Entrepreneur.com and another one on Thrive Global.

Since these are large media outlets with a high authority, it gave me credibility and people started to placing orders.

Remember that you can also offer services related to writing, such as proofreading, beta reading, editing and translation.

How to Make Money Writing from Home? Start A Blog!

Who says you have to work for someone else to make money writing from home?

As a writer, you can make money by starting your own blog.

For example, this is what I did, and believe me, it was the best decision of my life.

Now you might ask: Is it even possible to make money as a new blogger?

Well, I’m here to tell you that I make money as a blogger and if I was able to do that, you definitely can too.

Although it’s something that doesn’t happen overnight, with hard work and consistency, it can eventually happen.

It will take a while for your blog to gain momentum and start to make money from it, but in the end, if you take the right steps, your blog will thrive.

To give you an idea, you should see the first results after six to eight months.

Picking a niche should be the first step to getting started.

You might want to choose a different niche from what all other bloggers write about. And you want to position yourself as an expert in that niche. Actually as the expert.

Doing this will make your readers stick around since little or no blogs write about your same topics.

Once you get more traffic you can start to monetize your blog with display ads, affiliate links, or your own products. That’s how you’ll start to make money writing from home (and it will start to feel easier).

But let’s get back to how to get started.

After choosing a niche, you can proceed to set up your website, design, and layout.

Make sure to choose the right host, theme, and plugins.

Regarding the hosting, a good place to start is definitely Bluehost (you can start a blog with as little as $2.95/month. That’s the price of a coffee.)

As per the theme, I definitely recommend Trellis and Generate Press.

Then, some plugins you will definitely need are Yoast (for SEO), WP Rocket (for site speed), and iThemes or Wordfence (for security).

Also, make sure to do some keyword research and write about topics people actually search for. A good tool you can use is Ubersuggest.

Also, make sure to choose keywords that are not too competitive, that is, that have a low or medium SEO Difficulty (SD). Here’s an example of a popular keyword with a medium SD:

how to make money writing from home — Screenshot provided by author

For keyword research you can also try the Ahrefs Free Keyword Generator.

And then publish content around those keywords. A lot.

In fact, always be publishing.

Put out engaging, unique content, and don’t be shy to promote your blog on social media platforms.

Recommended read: How to Start a Blog That Makes $2,394/Month

Start Affiliate Marketing

You can partner with companies as an affiliate and drive traffic to their websites. In return, they’ll pay you a commission for every sale made through your links.

I’ll use Amazon as an example.

Every time you find a link to an Amazon product on, say, a blog post or article, that includes a code like “ref=” in the URL, what that means is that blogger is in partnership with Amazon.

For every sale derived from that product link, the writer gets a small commission.

This is how it works. Imagine you write a blog post on camping; during the article, you may need to include some examples of camping products you use (and believe in).

And that’s the perfect situation to include an affiliate link.

Amazon tracks the links that bring leads and check how many sales are generated through each link. And they eventually generate a payout based on that.

With affiliate marketing, you can make money while you sleep; you just need to master the strategy of generating passive income while at it.

Self-Publish A Book

Publishing a book gives you a chance to make money.

You can decide to write a book either on academics or for pleasure, but be sure to choose a type of writing that will increase your odds of making money.

Publishing a book is easy. You need to validate your idea and focus on marketing your books as well, rather than just writing.

Using the Kindle direct publishing (KDP) platform you can earn royalties even years after publishing your book.

To begin, visit Amazon.com, then go to Kindle books, narrow it down to the niche, and then check for competitors in that niche.

Check out the similarities among your top-rated potential competitors; you can ingrain it in your work to gain visibility.

Package your work like a bestseller. Check out features that best-sellers use on their cover page and apply them in your book. Hire a graphic designer on any freelancing platform to give your book a befitting cover page.

Verify your publishing rights, upload your book on KDP and market it—you can do this by using Amazon ads.

Or by paying a YouTuber or social media influencer to review your book and advertise it.

This is to gain visibility and credibility, and attract clients that will buy your book.

Create Travel Content

If you are a writer and a travel enthusiast, then you can definitely monetize your skills by writing travel or lifestyle content.

You can choose to publish the content on your blog. Or on platform like Medium, Vocal and Newsbreak.

Or you can sell it to a travel magazine or a travel blog; you can even choose both.

Somehow, your content might just be what someone is looking for on Google.

You can travel over to destinations that interest people, research about the place and write about it. You can also take amazing pictures and sell them.

Or you can write content about your home town or your country for people who want to travel there – since you’re probably a local expert.

How to Make Money Writing Online from Home – Final Thoughts

Now that you know how to make money through writing from home, would you give it a shot?

You should definitely give it a try; no one will hire you unless you put yourself out there and try.

It might not make you a six-figure writer at the beginning, but consistency and dedication will take you places.

In any case, in everything you do, do not forget to work hard and be innovative. Quit self-doubt and watch your skills transform into a money-making venture.

Photo by Thought Catalog on Unsplash