5 Tips For Bloggers

I started blogging for personal reasons: to keep in touch with long distant friends and relatives. Then I added a Q&A blog (http://thedabblingmum.blogspot.com) for my magazine (http://thedabblingmum.com) to host interviews I conduct with authors and entrepreneurs. Now I get paid to ghostwrite for blogs and you can too!

Tip #1

Understand the industry you want to be paid to blog for.

Lets assume you enjoy health and nutrition and have read up on this topic for years. In fact, you know many facts and insider secrets by heart and often share this information with friends, relatives, and strangers in your local health food store. Thats a topic you could easily be paid to write about. Because of your vast knowledge, the posts will come easy and when they dont youre magazine subscriptions will offer plenty of food for thought.

Tip #2

Never accept a non-compete contract.

As a blog writer, you will make your living writing for various blogs. A non-compete clause will prevent you from writing about the same topic on another blog and thats not good for business.

As a health and nutrition specialist, you may write for a vegetarian blog, a holistic treatment blog, a vitamin companys blog, and even a diet blog. Theres no competition there, right? And no conflict of interest, correct? The non-compete clause wont even apply.

But what if youre asked to write for another vegetarian blog? Thats when the non-compete clause kicks in and prevents you from earning a better living. Is there really a conflict of interest? Not if you dont post the same information on both blogs. You can write for five different vegetarian blogs and still not show a conflict of interest. Its all about choosing a different angle on the same idea and writing about it.

Tip #3

Never rely on revenue sharing as your sole source of income.

Youre job as a blog writer is to write about topics relevant to the blogs theme and interact with commenters. Your job isnt to market and advertise the blog. Thats the companys job. If the company isnt pulling its weight, the ad revenue will not exist and if the ad revenue doesnt exist, neither does your salary. Its best to be paid a flat fee, but if the company you truly want to work for only pays in ad revenue, negotiate a monthly stipend plus a percentage of the ad revenues.

If youre going to get paid based on ad revenue or clicks, and youre job is to also promote and market the blog, you should start your own blog. That way, you get to keep all the income you earn and dont have to share the revenues with a company who isnt doing anything to help promote the blogaside from hosting (which you can get for as little as $7 a month and free if you stick to blog networks.)

Tip #4

Get paid in advance.

Negotiate a contract to get paid at the beginning of the month for that months blogging. That way, you will never be out money for a project youve completed. And remember, if the company can pay the web host, the electricity bill, the web designer, the internet provider, and so forth, the company can afford to pay you!

Tip #5

When writers block hits, to a search online.

Sometimes bloggers get whats known as writers block. Writers block simply means youve run out of ideas to write about. It happens to the best of us, but it doesnt have to hurt your career as a blogger for hire. When writers block occurs, get online and search for blogs, websites, and forums related to your blogs topic. After a half hour to an hour of reading, youll have plenty of ideas to write about.

Alyice Edrich is the editor of The Dabbling Mum, a free parenting publication, and the author of several work from home e-books designed to help parents earn extra cash while spending more time with their children. To learn more, visit her at http://thedabblingmum.com/ebookstore Anderea Blog18683
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