Small Business Copywriter
Copywriting solutions for small businesses and non-profits
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A large chunk of my promotion – more than social networking sites, which I find tedious – is done on online discussion forums. I highly recommend forums as a useful source of free marketing.
I concentrate my efforts of three categories – small business and non profit forums for my copywriting business, writers forums for my writers ebooks, and subculture forums for my wedding business. I have a list of around 30 forums I post in regularly, stored in a favourites folder in my bookmark list. I don’t visit them all every day, but I make the rounds at least once a week.
Continue reading Marketing Your Business on Discussion Forums
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I love Etsy.com. If you haven’t heard about Etsy, you must have been living under a rock in the internet world for the last few years.
Etsy is an online shopping network for handcrafted and vintage products and supplies. Sellers and set up shops for a small listing fee and sell their items and network with other sellers on the Etsy forums. Buyer can find their products using searches, tags, categories, and featured listings. You can also request speical items made using Etsy Alchemy.
Selling on Etsy can be a profitable venture for craft businesses. Many sellers support their family with their Etsy Business. But succeeding at Etsy is not easy – the site has many rules and tricks and involves a significant time investment to run. If you’re thinking of opening an Etsy store, or you’re an Etsy Seller whose store isn’t doing as well as you thought, you might appreciate some of my tips:
Continue reading 5 Tips for Etsy Business Success
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It’s tax time again. My favourite time of the year (kidding).
If you’re a freelancer, you might be in the same situation – working out all your income and deducting your expenses. Sometimes, you don’t realise how many different expenses you can deduct, and adding those extra deductions could save you hundreds on your end of year tax bill.
Save your reciepts, because as long as you’ve got the correct documentation, you can write off all the following as deductions:
Continue reading 10 Tax Deductions For Freelance Writers
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I’ve caused a slight stir on a couple of discussion forums recently by suggesting that businesses and non profits wanting to save money on their copy should NOT be looking to outsourcing sites like elance, or buying PLR to rewrite themselves, but should instead look to Australia and New Zealand copywriters for high quality web and print content?
Why do I say this?
First of all, yes, I’m a New Zealand copywriter, so I’m partly motivated by a desire to promote my own copywriting services. However, my staple of regular clients keep me busy and well-fed, and although I’m itching for some new challenges, I’m not desperate for work.
However, I am passionate about seeing businesses succeed and survive the recession. I think businesses trying to cut the costs of their copywriting budgets are looking in the wrong places. With the exchange rate in it’s current position, you’d be foolish not to take advantage of the NZ and Australian dollar for business needs.
If a New Zealand copywriter charge $50 an hour, and a US copywriter charges $50 an hour - and both copywriters have the same experience and high quality work - than you’re actually paying $25 an hour in US dollars for the New Zealand copywriter. You’ve just halved your copy budget without having to hire someone with questionable english skills.
What I would prefer you do is to look first to US copywriters, because they’re your locals and you should always look after your home team. Inject your cash into the local economy if at all possible. But if you’re forced to look elsewhere for cheaper prices, I suggest hiring an Australian or New Zealand copywriter.
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Today I walked to work as part of New Zealand’s national Walk2Work day. I walk to work normally anyway – the days I go in to an office to print my braille stuff – but today I got a free breakfast and the chance to win some organic sneakers for my trouble.
Walking in the city really reconnects you with the vibrant life that pulses around you. We’re so cloistered in air conditioned buildings, cars and buses, sometimes we can go days without interacting with another human being. When I walk, I feel like I’m interacting with the city itself, on a deeply personal level.
I think it’s extremely important for each individual to be acutely aware of their impact on the enviromment. I think it’s even more important to consider the impact the enviromment has on you.
My husband never realised how driving to work every morning made him tense and grumpy until he stopped. The extra fifteen minutes spent walking have improved his health and his mood.
Both of us never realised how eating takeout food made us feel yucky until we stopped. Over the last few months we’ve been actively trying to decrease our impact on the enviroment by producing less trash. Taking stock of our rubbish bin forced us to realise how much processed, packaged food we ate.
I never realised how much I loved baking until I started doing it every few days. Now I bake my own bread and make all our lunches and dinners – from scratch. No bread-maker, no pre-packaged sauces. We’re eating healthy, producing less waste, and feeling great.
When we first started doing this, we both felt a real sense of deprivation – we were ‘giving up’ this, and ‘cutting back’ on that. But it’s not deprviation at all. We spend more time together, we relax – all the tension has gone from my shoulders, we enjoy our own labours. I don’t miss fast food, or driving, or packaged museli bars.
I’m not saying you need to turn into a tofu-loving hippy. I’m simply suggesting that the relationship you have with the environment is a two-way exchange. Looking after her means she looks after you. And the benefits far outway the salty, plasticly taste of Burger King. Trust me.
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With the economy in turmoil and the charity dollar stretched to breaking, non profits the world over are assessing their services models and looking for ways to bring in more donations to fund their efforts. Many turn to the internet as a source of informed, socially-responsible donors.
The key to succeeding as a non profit online is your website. Perhaps your organization already has an online presence, but you’re not recieving much interest. Maybe you’re considering creating your first non profit website. Either way, I offer five tips for creating a non profit website that will attract more browsers, and turn those browsers into donors.
To succeed in the online world, your non profit website needs:
Continue reading 5 Things Every non profit website needs
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As you might know, alongside my copywriting and accessibility business I also sell ebooks online through the Small Business Ebook Shop and Wedding Skulls. How can I do this? Answer: the joy of e-commerce.
I love selling online. It’s always a thrill opening up your webmail in the morning and finding out who’s brought from you overnight 
Many businesses are interested in selling online but don’t know where to begin. For those out of the e-commerce loop, I’ve compiled this short post about selling your goods online.
Continue reading E-commerce 101
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Following on from yesterdays post on writing PLR articles, we talk about the best methods for selling your PLR articles online. By now you should have written your ten PLR articles. What are your next steps?
Continue reading How do I sell PLR articles?
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After reading about how businesses use PLR and weighing up the pros and cons of writing PLR articles, you’ve decided to give PLR article writing a go. Good for you. Over the next few days I’ll continue my series on PLR with a few posts on how you write and sell PLR as part of a profitable freelance business.
First, lets tackle writing PLR. Being a successful PLR article writer means churning out short articles at breakneck pace. Below I’ve included a short tutorial covering my technique for writing articles at speed.
Continue reading How do I write PLR Articles?
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Every freelance writer asks this questions at least once: “Could I make money selling PLR article bundles?” The simple answer is yes, PLR articles sell well online, and every writer has the potential to make money from PLR.
But the question you should be asking is “Should I sell PLR articles?”
Debate rages among professional copywriters about the quality and ethical nature of PLR. Just read the comment thread of this Ink Thinker blog post by Hope Wilbanks, a freelance PLR writer.
Continue reading Should I write PLR articles?