Make money from home writing online.

If you want to write from home, this is your century.

By Michelle Preston Stout for Work-from-Home.org

It's an attractive work from home job, writing online. If you have ever wanted to make money while sitting at home on the computer, the Internet has opened a welcome floodgate of opportunities. Speaking as someone who only started looking for online work about two years ago, I can tell you that there are more jobs out there than there are writers to take them.

Frankly, I’m not talking about writing the great American novel or your most heartfelt poetry. However, if you’re willing to learn a skill or two and write on a variety of topics, there are a lot of people in the online community ready to pay you for those skills.

Where Are the Online Writing Jobs?

So where should you start? Some of the best venues that I’ve found while looking for writing jobs include:

· Paid services like MoneyFromHome.net and Elance.com

· Free freelance job sites

· Forums, writer’s sites and blogs

Whether you are completely new to writing, or have some experience behind you, these venues include jobs in all price ranges. While some sites charge a fee, Craigslist and other sites post writing jobs at no charge. If you’re just starting out the free options can be a good way to start to build a portfolio of samples that will net you future jobs.

Who Hires Writers Online?

Writers are hired over the Internet for everything from major marketing campaigns to daily blogs. Of course, with the explosion of online services the demand for writers from Internet marketers is huge.

Internet marketers need writers for:

· Website content

· Blogs

· Product descritions

· Articles

· eBooks

· Press releases

· Sales letters and more…

SEO/keyword writing from home

One of the very easy to learn and highly marketable online writing skills is SEO or Search engine optimization writing. Why? Well, anyone with a website needs a steady flow of traffic to that site.

One of the best ways to drive traffic and raise rankings in Google and other search engines is to have content that exactly matches the keywords that people type in when looking for products, information or services. These keywords are incredibly powerful tools, and marketers need people to create written copy with these words.

SEO writing is used for website content, blogs, articles submitted to article directories, and articles posted on the sites themselves. Keyword copy usually involves including a certain word or phrase a certain number of times, or in precise places in the copy. Not so hard, right?

Work from home writing marketing material online

Things like sales letters and press releases require a bit more copywriting skill than keyword articles. Luckily, there are a plethora of resources and classes online to help a new writer learn these skills.

You should also realize that no matter your skill level or experience, there is someone out there willing to pay you for it.

If your writing experience is minimal, you can consider starting by writing blog entries on a topic you really like. Look for jobs on Craigslist or writer’s sites that post numerous jobs.

While a great portfolio of samples never hurts, most people who hire writers are looking for someone who meets the criteria listed above. If you can establish yourself as a reliable writer who really wants to please your customers, you’ll find yourself with more work than you can handle.

Michelle Preston-Strout is the owner of an online writing service that specializes in SEO content for Internet marketers. Visit www.webfriendlywriters.com for more information on the service or writing opportunities.