Content Writer Micky's Blog

Archive for the ‘My Business’ Category

I’ve spent a little time this morning making some improvements to my blog.

You’ll now find Bookmark/Share buttons at the bottom of each post, so you can easily share my blog posts on social bookmarking sites or place them in your favourites for easy access at a later date.

On the right, at the top of the sidebar, you’ll see an RSS button and Subscribe button. You can now subscribe to my feed using RSS or any other feed reader you prefer. This way, you don’t have to visit my website or blog all the time to see if there’s anything new, but can simply stay up to date via my feed.

Simply subscribe to my feed if you’re interested in my thoughts, views and experiences related to my SEO web copywriting business, or would like to read future posts about some of my work projects (think copywriting, web content writing, SEO, website usability and creating effective, user-friendly & search engine-friendly websites).

To those who sign up – thank you for your interest!

Apparently there are people out there willing to write articles or web content for peanuts. (Where, you ask? Mostly likely in India, the offshore bulk content capital of the world.)

Before I put a “rates” page on my website, I used to get a lot of emails with requests for quotes from people who were obviously looking to get the most content for the absolute cheapest price.

Since content has become king, you can almost divide website owners/managers into two categories:

1. People who run a serious website for their business or organisation and need high-quality copy that is unique, persuasive and professional. These people understand they need to hire a professional copywriter who may need to spend a few hours getting each web page absolutely right – which is a one-off investment that will definitely pay itself off very quickly.
2. People who want to quickly grow a low-quality website (or several very similar websites) with massive amounts of content for other purposes, such as having pages on which to put Google ads. These people don’t really care exactly what’s on the page, whether it’s written logically or in good English, or whether the content will actually have any value for readers. And these people just want to pay as little as possible for this “whatever” type of content.

On my web copywriting rates page, I have made it clear that I do not supply bulk amounts of almost random, copy-and-paste type of content. Please look elsewhere if that’s what you’re after.

I spend the necessary time to understand your business and your products or services and write professional, persuasive copy targeted exactly at your potential customers.

The explanation on my website seems to have stopped 90% of the bulk/cheap writing requests. Which is just as well, because I was really wasting my time responding to quote requests from people who had no intention of hiring a professional copywriter.

But sometimes I still get them. Some people must not bother reading a few paragraphs on a website before sending out a standard email that probably goes out to 50 others, just so they can pick the cheapest one.

I got another one yesterday, it said something like this: “I have 100+ SEO articles that need to be written. US$5 per article. Does that sound good to you?”

Well, NO, it doesn’t. Say as an absolute minimum, a professional copywriter spends 2 hours writing one article. That would be US$2.50 per hour. A 40-hr working week would make this person a grand total of US$100 in a week or US$400 in a month! Enough said.

13 October 2008:
The Australian dollar is sliding and I’ve decided to lower my US$ and Euro rates for overseas clients. This means for everyone in North and South America, Europe and Asia, my web copywriting services have suddenly become about 25% cheaper!

If you’re thinking of hiring a professional SEO web copywriter to write, rewrite or edit your website, hiring this Web Content Writer in Australia is very cost-efficient for your business right now.

With my international background, I am more than comfortable writing SEO web content for Australian, European, Asian or American target markets.

See my new, low web copywriting rates for international clients. And then contact me to discuss your project or get a cost estimate.

12 September 2008:
It’s been a month since my launch, so here’s a little update on how things are going… they’re going great!

I’ve been keeping busy with various copywriting jobs and doing on-site SEO for a couple of websites. One of them is Perfect Entertainment, a group of DJs for weddings and events in Newcastle and the Hunter Valley (NSW). We also revamped their website with a new design.

I wrote and edited copy for a new 100+ page compendium for Coffs Coast Conferences, to be published soon, which aims to attract conferences and business tourism to beautiful Coffs Harbour.

I will also soon start work on a website for Park Beach Physiotherapy who provide physiotherapy and Pilates in Coffs Harbour.

And yes, I am linking keywords in here, which is an accepted SEO technique…!

7 August 2008:
It’s almost 08/08/08… my very last day working for Coffs Harbour City Council and the official start of my new Content Writer business. Yes, I know I have been writing content and creating websites ‘on the side’ ever since I learned to hand-code HTML back in 1999. But this is the first time I’m going to be doing this officially as part of our own company (Triple W Communications) and fulltime!

Having spent 8 years in South-East Asia, I’m very aware that 08/08/08 is considered an incredibly auspicious date. So my business will be a great success! I am a positive person and I just know there will be enough work and I will love working from home and having more flexibility and time to enjoy beautiful, subtropical Coffs Harbour.

May 2008:
As there seems to be enough work ‘out there’ (in Coffs Harbour, Australia and around the world) and I am getting regular requests for quotes via my new website, I have decided it is time to quit the ‘day job’.

I have given my employer, Coffs Harbour City Council, notice of my intent to resign (with a long notice period). I have been the Council’s website administrator/content editor and second media officer since March 2005.

Time for a next, bold & exciting step in my career path!

I already had a few clients for whom I maintained the websites and updated their content on a regular basis, and this will also be one of the services I will offer to new clients.

December 2007:
I created the first version of my Content Writer website in December 2007 and put it online to ‘test the market’ and work on my search engine rankings.