I’m a freelance business writer, who just happens to focus on Web writing. It has its perks - perks I’ve seen echoed by quite a few other freelance writers in the same boat. But first:

What are “Business Clients?”

When I talk about business clients (sometimes “corporate clients” depending on your target market), I basically mean any client that’s not a “publisher client.” A publishing-focused client generally contracts articles for a content-based website, online magazine, etc., where they’ll earn through ad revenue or some other means (they may pay writers revenue share, by pageviews, flat fees, per-word rates, etc.).

Business clients, on the other hand, have another purpose in hiring writers - you’re hired to help them reach a business goal with more direct results in mind.

For example, business clients may hire you to write press releases with the purpose of getting them media or blog coverage. They might hire you write white papers for online distribution to attract their own clients. Perhaps they’ll hire you to write sales or marketing copy to directly help sell their own product or service.

Who Cares What Kind of Client They Are?

OK. Publishing clients are a little different than business or corporate clients, but why should you care? I mean, writing is writing, and as long as you get paid what’s the difference, right?

The big differences are these:

1. Business writing generally brings in more money, and
2. Far more companies need some form of business writing at one time or another than those looking simply for content.

The Perks

Obviously getting paid more is a nice perk, right? Here’s an example, using my own most common form of writing - Even someone charging on the low end in press release writing can often bring in $.10 - .20 per word, where I see the low end of Web content writing more along the lines of less than $.05 per word. On the high end, I know press release writers charging well over $1.00 per word. Personally, I charge a flat fee, but it often works out to the $.50 - .60 per word range for that type of writing. Not too shabby, given that I still charge modestly in that particular specialty.

I also mentioned the strong demand. When it comes to focusing on Web content, you’re limited to Web publishers for most of your client work. However, when you focus on business clients for your Web writing, you’ll find that nearly all companies have some type of Web presence (or want to create one), and managing that often involves a need for strong Web writers.

These types of clients also don’t have long lead times, like some larger Web publishers do, which can be nice.

You’ll also often be asked to consult on the direction of the project before you begin, which allows you to essentially serve the role of consultant in addition to writing (meaning more income if you charge extra for that by the hour).

In many cases, I’ve found far more freedom in business writing than Web content writing as well - this goes back to taking on that consultant role. You’ll often be hired for being a specialist by these types of clients, so they’re turning to you for your expertise, and they’ll often give you plenty of room to work creatively (although that obviously depends on the client).

If these perks appeal to you, what kind of writing can you actually do for these business clients?

Types of Business Writing on the Web

• Web Copy - General (such as the basic copy on a company’s site, like their homepage copy)
• Advertising Copy (like that used in a pay-per-click campaign)
• Sales Letters (anything from software to e-books can be sold through online sales letters)
• Press Releases (many companies these days are looking to distribute news releases online)
• White Papers (it’s quite common for white papers to be distributed on the Web in .pdf format)
• Product Descriptions (if a company is selling products online, someone has to write the descriptions to help make the sale)

Web writing also goes beyond actual websites. For example, you may be asked to handle email newsletters or internal communication distributed electronically. Increasingly popular is corporate blogging as well - you’ll blog about company or industry news on the client’s behalf.

As you can see, working with business clients doesn’t even necessarily mean you won’t be writing Web content - there’s simply more at stake than the actual publishing common to so many clients in the webmaster group advertising for Web writers.

Give this client type a try, and I’m rather confident you won’t be disappointed.

It may feel a bit early yet to think about 2009. However, this is the perfect time of year to evaluate your current state in the freelancing business, set some goals, and figure out how your going to make them a reality in the new year.

If you’re brand new to freelance Web writing, and 2009 will be when you finally take the plunge and begin working for yourself, consider picking up my latest Web Writer’s Guide e-book for worksheets, templates, and advice to help you in the planning process.

If you’ve been working as a freelance Web writer for a while now, look back to last year’s goals and resolutions? Did you make them all happen? (That could mean you didn’t shoot high enough, and should consider tougher, or more, goals this year.) Did you miss your mark on all, or most, of those goals? Try to figure out why, so you can form more realistic expectations in 2009.

By the time next weekend rolls around, try to have a list at least started. What do you want to do next year? Do you need more clients? Do you want to raise your rates? Do you want to move from generalization to specialization? Do you want to write your own e-book? Launch your first blog?

When you have some ideas, I’d love it if you would share them here in the comments. Here are a few of my writing-related goals already set for next year, to get things started:

• I would love to have my own sites, blogs, and products be my primary income source, with client work being simply part-time. It may very well happen, but I know there’s a chance it won’t - this is my “big” goal.
• I want to have at least one of my three outlined novels finished up and sent out to agents and / or publishers for consideration.
• I want to create at least five new websites - these will be static sites (not updated regularly like a blog). I want to let them “age” for about three months, and then either flip them or keep them if the income reaches $200 per month or more in that period (which I’ve done a few times before, so it could happen - by going the static route, it’s literally passive income with this type of site).
• I want to launch a minimum of two new e-books in the Web Writer’s Guide series. (Ideally I’d like 4 - 5 new titles out, but that may be pushing it since the next one on marketing will be a pretty big one).

One bit of advice I see commonly given to new Web writers (or any type of writers) is that they have to either do free projects for normally-paying clients or take on work at ridiculously low rates (like $5.00 per article) when they’re new just to build a portfolio or get references.

That’s a load of garbage.

If you’re really cut out to be a freelance Web writer (where portfolios come more into play than full-time employment), you’re going to spend time building credentials and properly targeting your market long before you actually start offering services. When you finally get to that point, there’s no good reason for you to not already have at least a handful of portfolio pieces showcasing your Web writing abilities within your niche or specialty form of writing.

Is Non-Paying Work Ever OK?

Am I saying you should never do non-paying work, when building your portfolio (or after)? No. What I am saying is that you should never take on a non-paying freelance Web writing gig solely for portfolio pieces. It should be paying you in other ways - and I mean more than saying “well this person might give me a referral.”

Why doesn’t it matter that the person receiving the free content might refer you to others? Because people do ask what their friends or colleagues paid, and if you’re going to charge $25 per article, but they know you did a piece for their friend for free, you’ve now set yourself up to be low-balled in your referral base - not smart.

When is a non-paying gig worthwhile? When you’re getting more out of it than you’re losing by not charging. That might be a marketing benefit, exposure, or some kind of contribution to your image. We’ll look more at that below with specific ways to build a writing portfolio with no paid experience under your belt.

Ways to Build Portfolio Pieces with No Experience

• Blogs and Content Sites - If your specialty is Web content writing in the personal finance niche, an excellent way to start building a portfolio is to launch your own blog on personal finance. This not only lets you showcase your best work (you can send a link to the blog or specific articles to prospective clients), but can also serve as an income stream through advertising (and I’ll tell you from experience that if you keep working at it, your blogs can earn you decent money).
• Article Marketing - This is one of those situations where it’s not a bad idea to write for free. The key is getting the most marketing value out of your articles written for this purpose. For example, many writers submit articles to large article directories. I’d suggest against it. They lend little credibility. Instead, send free articles to niche article sites or even to blogs in your specialty area that may accept them as a guest post. For example, if I want to get more exposure in a specific business niche, I may write a free article for Work.com because they carry more credibility with a built-in business audience than article directories do. Again, you can link prospective clients to these articles. Since most are non-exclusive though, if you do go with an article directory instead of targeted options, I would suggest forgetting the link, and instead publishing it directly to your own portfolio site.
• Write for Non-Profits - This is one other area where I’d say it’s OK to write for free (or simply at a discount) early on. What does this offer you that free articles for a profit-based client can’t? It’s an image-builder. Non-profit involvement is often a good PR move. And let’s face it - what looks better? A reference from a branch of a large and respectable non-profit agency, or a reference from a random webmaster no one has heard of, wanting free or $5.00 articles? Take a wild guess. If it doesn’t lend something to your credibility or image, don’t do it for free.
• Write Mock Pieces - This is my least favorite option for portfolio-building if you have no actual experience. To put it simply, you create a “fake” piece. This doesn’t really work for articles (there’s no such thing as a “fake” article really). It works well for marketing copy and similar things though. For example, if you plan to write business plans, you may want to write a fake one for a non-existent company similar to those in your target market. The benefit here is that you can later use them as a template to speed up the process on future projects, and you’ll have more creative freedom. In addition to using mock pieces when you’re new, they can work well if you can’t share full actual samples (again using the business plan as an example - clients won’t want you sharing their private business and financial data enclosed in them with other prospective clients).

Using the Sale to Build Your Portfolio

Here’s something else to consider - run a sale. This can work when you’re new, or more experienced. Let’s cover sales for the new, inexperienced writers here.

The key is this: Don’t go around saying something like, “since I’m new, I’m going to write articles for a while at $5.00 per article, and then raise my rates later.”

Instead, try something like this (again based on relatively low rates for easy example purposes): “My regular rate is $20.00 per 500-word article. I’m currently offering a 50% discount on first orders from new clients only.”

Why is the second route better, using the numbers in the examples?

1. You’re not emphasizing your “fault” (in this case that you’re new) - you’re going to let the quality or your credentials in the niche or specialty speak for themselves.
2. You’re putting a limit on the low rates up front (only first orders, and only for new clients).
3. People like discounts. Saving $10.00 on an article can be even more attractive than paying only $5.00 for one if you “sell it” well with your marketing copy in your sales announcement.
4. You’re not immediately starting off by trying to compete with lower-tier writers (once you start feeling like you have to compete with them, you may always view them as your competition - they’re not). What’s worse is that trying to compete with them, even temporarily, can permanently put you in the same league as those lower-quality writers in the eyes of your target clients. Once you create a certain image with buyers, it can be very difficult to break out of it.
5. You’re letting prospective clients know up front that you place a certain value on your work (your regular rates). This helps to ensure that you’ll attract clients willing to pay those rates if they continue with you past that first order.
6. If you’ve taken the time to properly set your writing rates to begin with (again to get those regular fees), you’ll know how many lower-rate clients you can afford to take on and still get by. Most Web writers who simply start off very low because they’re told they should don’t honestly know what they need to begin with - they’re trying to market solely on price rather than running a responsible business (and that’s what being a freelance Web writer essentially is).

Start Building Your Portfolio

Now that you have a few ideas to get you started on portfolio pieces, get to work on building a portfolio that will attract clients, increase your credibility, and demonstrate what you feel your writing is really worth.

I’d love to see how other writers are keeping their portfolios online (for those with public portfolios). If you would like to leave a link to yours, please feel free to do so in the comments. While both of mine (my copywriting pieces are on my PR site) are soon going under construction for a site move and a site overhaul, you can currently find them at http://jhmattern.com/portfolio and http://firstratecontent.com/portfolio.htm.

After you’ve decided what type of Web writer you want to be (as in specialties and / or niches), you need to decide if you’d like to freelance in Web writing or look for a more permanent full-time Web writing job. Here are some of the benefits of each to help you decide what’s right for you:

Benefits of Full-Time Web Writing

• You’ll receive a consistent paycheck.
• You’ll have more security in your work (you don’t have to constantly search for new clients).
• You may have access to an editor or other supervisor who can help you grow in your Web writing work.
• You will most likely work on-site with your employer, which means you’ll have colleagues to associate with on a regular basis (a more social environment).
• You may receive benefits (such as paid vacations and health insurance).
• You don’t have to worry about keeping accounting records, and your taxes are withheld from your paycheck for you.
• You don’t have to pay extra taxes in the self-employment tax paid by freelancers (because your employer pays a portion of your Medicare and social security taxes, so you’re not paying for it all by yourself).

Benefits of Freelance Web Writing

• You set your own working hours (ideal if you have to work around kids’ schedules or if you simply know you’re a more productive writer during non-traditional business hours).
• You have more freedom in the types of Web writing projects you accept or decline, or the types of clients you choose to work with.
• If you lose one gig, you’ll likely have others to fill in the gaps (unlike losing your sole full-time Web writing job).
• You can build more exposure for yourself and your name as a professional, because you’ll be actively and aggressively marketing your services and showcasing your best work (or at least you should be).
• You decide when you want to earn more money by raising your rates or targeting different markets / clients, instead of waiting on an employer to agree to give you the raise you want.
• You can sometimes be paid more quickly for your work (you decide if you get paid up front or after the work is complete).
• You get to control your work environment to make sure you can work as productively as possible (from the layout to the lighting).
• If you need extra money, you can take on more clients without having to worry about getting things like overtime approved by your boss.
• There’s no one looking over your shoulder while you work.

If you’re already experienced as a Web writer, either full-time or on a freelance basis, what are some other benefits (or even drawbacks) of each that you might want to alert new Web writers to?