Recap: My Content Writer Business – 1 Year On

August 8, 2009 marks exactly one year since I officially started working full time for myself as an SEO Web Copywriter (on the auspicious date of 08/08/08). Yes, it’s my ‘business birthday’! 🙂

I’m very happy to report that it’s been a huge success! I’ve been consistently busy with a steady stream of new projects and clients, particularly since January this year.

Some of my achievements over the past year

Between 08/08/08 and 08/08/09 I have:

• worked on hundreds of projects for 56 different clients in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, China, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada (see some examples of my content writing, copywriting, SEO and web design projects in my portfolio);
• secured repeat business from 19 of these clients;
• been (and still am) the ongoing freelance webmaster for up to 10 different websites, updating the content whenever required;
• written and rewritten many hundreds of pages of professional and search engine optimised website content that made my clients very happy (see testimonials);
• created 5 complete websites (web design, SEO and content writing) – with 3 more under development at the moment (see portfolio);
• carried out website evaluations and written reports regarding design, usability, accessibility, content and SEO;
• written marketing copy for about a dozen brochures and flyers;
• written an entire 8-page newspaper supplement with 16 stories as a freelance journalist (see PDF of this Airport Supplement);
• written stories for a number of local and regional magazines (including Coffs Harbour Airport Magazine, RedInflight Magazine);
• become a part-time online tutor for Search Engine College;
• joined Twitter – after resisting for some time – and staying up to date with industry news and connecting with interesting SEOs, writers and web designers (but I’m still trying not to spend too much time on it!);
• turned down at least around 20 potential clients because the project was too vague, would have demanded too much of my time or didn’t really fit in with my focus (e.g. I don’t do book editing or design complex websites with huge product databases);
• ignored or sent very brief replies to what feels like hundreds of emails from budding content writers and SEO specialists from around the world (well, yes… mostly India) who wanted me to outsource work to them (I don’t do this. Ever. Not even to those who are good);
• increased my rates by 20% in May (but they’re still very reasonable compared to big-city/big-company copywriters, SEO specialists and web designers);
• NOT spent ANY money on marketing or advertising of any kind – clients have always found me via search engines (yes, my SEO for my own website is good!) or word of mouth;
• and given many of my clients free advice regarding their website, content, design, layout, usability, SEO or marketing strategy, which they all seemed to appreciate very much.

OK, there you have it. I’m sure I’ve done more but that’s really the gist of it. And that was in the middle of an economic downturn (or even more dramatically, the Global Financial Crisis) – so I can’t wait to see what the 2nd year will turn out to be like!

The good thing – I’m doing something that I really like and I’m good at. The only downside – all the free time that I had hoped to have once I started working for myself, from home… yeah, that hasn’t happened. Maybe in the first couple of months but not anymore. Oh well. I suppose that’s a good thing!

Check out my Content Writer website if you want to read more about me and what I do.