What is a freelance writer? A writer who writes to sell. Freelance writers make a living off of the work they create. Finding an offline market, or place to sell your work can be challenging enough. Once you have found that perfect place to sell to though there are things to considerer if you want the piece to be accepted.
The main thing to consider is your audience. Who are your readers? What people does the market you have chosen draw in? Once you know who your readers will be, and what they expect of the market you are submitting to it will be easier to choose a topic that those readers will grab on to.
For example, if you were submitting to “Field and Stream” magazine you would want to write about fishing, etc., right? Well, if you submitted a piece on rock climbing it just wouldn’t be what the market or audience was looking for. If your audience is the general population, such as when writing online content, the topics you choose don’t have to be market specific. However, all sites have guidelines.
Each individual site offers articles to a wide variety of readers on a wide variety of topics. Topics are often categorized on the site. If you write about a topic that just doesn’t fit into any of the categories the article you have written will not sell. When freelance writers choose to write for online writing sites they have to really be careful of topic choice, even when the topic fits into the categories of the site. The reason for the is key words.
Most writing sites decide to buy and pay depending on if the article is on a topic that is highly searched for but seldom found online. What does that mean? Well, you want to write about the things that everyone is searching for online. What the common person is typing into their search engine is what the common person wants to learn more about. Readers are searching for things to read. What things are going to be relevant to your readers? Now, you take relevant topics and put a twist on them.
Tons of people are searching for information on cancer, for example. However, an article on cancer is going to be very common. If you put a twist on the topic of cancer and write your piece with a slant such as chemotherapy side effects the article will be much less common and more likely to be accepted.
When writing your article keep in mind that the more times you use your keywords throughout your text the more likely the article will come up in a search when your reader enters in those key words. The best topics to write about are those that apply to everyone. Home, family, parent, pregnancy, health and wellness, nutrition, diet and exercise, spirituality, décor, home improvement, finances, and making money are things everyone has in common.
Combine your chosen topic with a subtopic to create a slant that makes your work less common and it will sell fast!