Recently I got a question on LinkedIn that inspired this blog post:
“I've been thinking about the kinds of services I can offer, and kinda seem to be stuck on writing. Any tips for starting from zero?” – Jeremy from LinkedIn
Well, Jeremy! Let’s just dive right in…
What is freelance writing?
When it comes down to it, most freelance writing services you’ll offer are simply persuasive writing. Here are some of the most popular services among freelancers that you might want to learn and/or offer:
Experience is essential
The only way to know which services you want to offer is through experience. You’ll learn the majority of your skills from actually writing for clients – you can only really glean 10% of it from reading about it.
While it might be a bit intimidating right now, you’ll learn at least one, if not many, of these types of writing throughout your freelance career. You probably won’t be doing the same service your entire freelance writing career.
As with your niche, don’t be afraid to pivot and change if something isn’t working for you.
3 factors that influence your service offerings
Here are some things to consider when choosing your service offerings.
- Ease - How easy is it for you to produce this writing? If you dread logging on to do this type of writing, maybe try a different kind.
- Time consumption - How much time does this type of writing take you to produce? Is there a service that would be more efficient to offer?
- Enjoyment - Do you like doing this type of writing? If it’s boring or tedious, try something different! Do you enjoy creativity in your writing or would you prefer formulaic or technical writing?
Learn more
Are you willing to learn more about it and take criticism of your work?
In general, you need to constantly be open to learning new things and accepting feedback when it comes to freelancing. When it comes down to it, your service needs to satisfy your client and achieve the objective (usually a marketing objective) that you were hired to help reach.
What services do most freelance writers offer?
Here are the top 10 services typically offered by freelance writers. You could offer just one of these or even more. I’ve done 6 of these so far in my 7 year career!
- SEO CONTENT WRITING: Search engine optimized blog posts. These should be 1,000+ words.
- SCRIPT WRITING: Writing scripts for YouTube, TikTok, and other video content.
- WEBSITE COPYWRITING: Write the copy you'd find on a home, about, product, sales, or services page of a website. ~500 words. Try mocking it up with a free trial of a website builder!
- PAID ADVERTISEMENT COPY: Write copy for paid ads on Google, Instagram, Facebook, and other tailored ad service platforms.
- EMAIL COPYWRITING: Write welcome, sales, newsletter, product roundups, onboarding, or email challenge emails. ~250 words each - try mocking it up in an ESP free trial!
- SALES PAGES: One-page websites that sell a course, product, or service through long form copy. Usually broken up into 5-20 sections (often 16).
- PRODUCT DESCRIPTIONS: Can be 50-500 words depending on how technical the item is.
- LEAD GEN COPY: Whitepages, reports, E-books, PDF Guides, and other downloads designed to provide value in order to generate new leads.
- SOCIAL MEDIA COPY: Instagram captions, tweets, or Youtube video captions - length determined by platform.
- UX WRITING: The copy that appears on buttons, menus, instructional pages, and more within apps and websites to enhance user experience.
How can I learn more to get really unstuck?
I’d recommend going through the Services Workbook (that’s where the image above came from!). It includes a quiz, planning portion, and suggested services to help you choose.
I’ll also be sharing Getting Started Freelancing (formerly Camp Moxie) for FREE over on YouTube. There’s a video about this exact topic. Subscribe so you don’t miss it!