Are you a business owner/marketer/SEO expert looking for a freelance writer to help implement your content marketing strategies? Or perhaps, you are a writer seeking to get some freelance writing gigs by signing up for a website promising high-quality content written by folks like you.
Either way, you are in the right place.
In this article, I'll list 5 websites that will get you access to some of the best freelance writing skills you'll find on the internet. If you are looking for writing jobs, consider contacting these content writing websites to offer your skills for paid writing gigs.
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Note: If you're a freelancer, you already know that you need a kick-ass portfolio showcasing all your skills in content creation to be noticed on a freelance platform. At the end of this article, I'll introduce you to a tool that helps you create such a portfolio with minimal effort. So, stick around if you are interested.
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TL;DR:
• If you're looking for writing jobs OR if you're an employer looking for a writer to fill a position (full-time or freelance), there are plenty of options online. However, certain options are good, and some others... not so much.
• In this article, you'll find resources appealing to writers looking for jobs as well as employers looking to hire writers. You'll find five websites — two of which are for employers and two for writers. The fifth one is for both writers and employers
• These sites are best known for producing excellent paid jobs as well as great content for clients who need it. The price range differs depending on the quality of content, additional features (editors, support team), and the ratings of individual writers. Freelancer writers have to pay based on how much access they want, and if they can choose verified clients, etc.
• Finally, I've given a quick dive into a tool that can help writers create an incredible writing portfolio in a few minutes — yes, minutes. The tool does 90% of the work for you. Check out the video on "How Authory works" — you enter the URL of the sites where your work is published, and Authory will import all your bylined work to its database. You can now look through all your pieces in a single location.
5 best freelance websites for writers & content creation services
Flexjobs.com — find writing jobs
FlexJobs is an excellent place to find full-time and freelance jobs, especially jobs around creating quality content. You can find jobs in close to 50 industries and categories, so you'll be covered as long as you can make the best content out there.
It's a paid site, but you can get started with content writing jobs for as little as $6.95. Their premium subscriptions include a money-back guarantee, as well as access to every job, alerts for new jobs, and the creation of a personalized portfolio for uploading work samples.
WriterAccess — find freelance writers
WriterAccess hires freelancers for its database from native countries, so you have access to the best content, depending on the language and expertise you expect from a freelance content writer. However, nothing comes without the requisite price, and services from this website will take up a bit of your budget..
Writers are ranked from 2 to 6, and the best content writers charge around 6 to 10 cents per word. Employers also need a monthly subscription to access the platform; plans from $39 per month to $499 per month. This certainly sounds steep, but you are guaranteed the delivery of professional content. If you are looking for high-quality content, give this site some serious consideration.
SEO Butler — find SEO & content services
SEO Butler is like a supermarket for SEO and marketing folks. You can go to the site and order any type of content — general articles, reviews, category descriptions, guides, etc. You can also order specifically optimized content, but it will be expensive (I've seen review sites mention something like $1.35 per word).
Employers don't need to scroll and find writers on a job board; they can just enter their requirements and receive finished pieces. All writers are native English speakers, and there is a customer support team as well as a team of editors that verifies every piece before delivery. You also get a money-back guarantee if the results are not satisfactory.
Review sites have mentioned that SEO Butler does not offer copywriting services and that the turnaround time is longer than most other sites. You also apparently cannot request the same writer across different projects. My suggestion is that, if you are looking for writers, have a chat with the customer service team and set out your requirements before making any monetary investment.
Upwork — find freelance work
One of the most well-known sites for finding work, Upwork, is where you go when you need a freelance writing job: STAT. If you create content and have a writing sample (or two or five), sign up for an Upwork account.
You have to create a profile, fill in requisite details (experience, chosen industry, types of content offered, etc.) and scroll through jobs. Clients can also find you based on the keywords used in your profile.
A major advantage of this platform is that you can find clients with verified payment methods. These are clients who will definitely pay, so you can set aside one of the common fears every freelancer lives with.
In terms of payment, Upwork takes a cut of your total earnings from each client. Depending on what they pay you, you'll give them between 5% and 20%. If you end up paying 20%, that usually means you just got paid very highly, so that tradeoff isn't that bad.
When starting out, however, you have to pay 20% of your first $500. After that, you pay 10% unless you make more than $10,000.
LinkedIn — find jobs & employees
I know this is a completely obvious option. But it is obvious for a reason. Not only is LinkedIn a networking site, but employers can find candidates for literally any job in the world (as long as it's legal). Among all the writing sites listed here, LinkedIn is easily the best known and very close to being the most effective of the lot.
Whether you are looking to have web pages designed or website content written from scratch, you'll find what you are looking for on LinkedIn. I've personally found more freelance clients on LinkedIn than I can count (after close to a decade in the industry), and a fair number of them actually reached out to me first.
Bonus Section for Writers: Create an industry-best writing portfolio in minutes with Authory
When you sign up for an Authory account (for free), you get the following:
A self-updating portfolio (no need to keep adding new work manually)
Authory will AUTOMATICALLY import a copy of every bylined piece from every site into its own database. You don't have to track down links to your published work (especially older pieces). As long as you remember the URL of the site where your work exists, Authory will collate all your content for you in one dashboard.
Automated backups (never lose your content, ever)
All the content that Authory imports from different sources is saved permanently. Even if the original website where it's published goes defunct for any reason, you'll always have a copy safely stored on Authory's server. All backups are in the original format — text and/or media. No screenshots.
Continued importing of past and future content (less effort for a 100% updated portfolio)
Once you enter a source, Authory won't just import your existing publications. Anything you publish on the same site (after you've fed its URL into Authory) in the future will also be imported automatically. In other words, Authory will import your past and future content.
Apart from these, you also get a slew of miscellaneous but necessary features:
- Ability to search through both your portfolio and your content database to find articles/audio/videos based on keywords. Prospective employers and hiring managers can use this to look for topics on your portfolio, and you can use it to find specific pieces within your Authory content bank.
- Ability to create a custom domain with a click.
- Get a custom domain and personalize your online writing portfolio even further.
- Multiple, low-effort options for customization to make your portfolio visually appealing and easy to navigate.
- In-built analytics that provides real numbers on content performance (engagement, readership) across the web and popular social media sites every 30 days.
Authory has been chosen by quite a few well-known names in my domain, people who could have picked any tool in the world. There's six-time Emmy award winner David Pogue, Steven Levy, Editor at Large at WIRED, and Brian Fung, a Technology Reporter at CNN, to name a few.
Get started with Authory for free and see for yourself what works for you!
