What knowledge is needed for a beginning copywriter? Step-by-step instructions for beginner copywriters who don’t want to vegetate on content exchanges for pennies

Hello everyone, my name is Andrey! I want to tell you about how to work as a copywriter and what you need for this. In order to understand what it is to work as a copywriter, you will need to study a lot, and I cannot tell you everything in this article alone. Therefore, I will divide my copywriting training into several articles and present them to you in the form of lessons. Upon completion of reading all my lessons, you will learn what copywriting is, what rewriting is, where copywriters work and earn money, and much more that is related to the world of copywriting. I don’t promise you that you will know everything, but the most important thing is that you will definitely learn and understand the essence of a copywriter’s work.

What I would like to note. You must understand that working as a copywriter is distant work, for which money is paid. You will not need to leave home, go somewhere to the other end of the city; to work as a copywriter you will need a PC or laptop and the Internet. But, it is worth considering that working as a copywriter is a job for which money is paid and which needs to be done. Here, as in any other job, you need to work and the more you work, the more you will earn. I don’t promise you millions, but for many, several thousand rubles, several tens of thousands of rubles, this is not only good part time job, but also the main income.

My first monthly income from copywriting was 14,600 rubles. To be honest, in my first month of working as a copywriter, I devoted a lot of time to this type of income. I managed to find a regular customer, even two.

Having a regular customer is very important for a copywriter; a regular customer means stable income, plus familiar topics and understandable tasks. The copywriter knows exactly what the customer needs, and the customer knows what the copywriter is capable of. The result is cooperation that is beneficial for both parties.

Finding a regular customer is not difficult, but at the same time you need to try. You need to do your work efficiently, and there will definitely be customers, both temporary and permanent.

At the beginning of your journey as a copywriter, you need to have patience and not be lazy to work regularly. It will be difficult at the very beginning, but over time it will even be interesting. The initial earnings will be small, but in the future it will grow. It all depends on you, how easily and quickly you can master the work of a copywriter.

On the Internet you can find a lot of information about how to make money from copywriting or how to learn how to work as a copywriter. Many offer training courses, video courses on copywriting, books teaching how to work as a copywriter, audio and other copywriting manuals. Some offer to buy useful materials from them for money, this is their right. If I have spent my time, effort and created a training video course, then it is my right to sell it.

My version of learning copywriting may be inferior to some manuals or video trainings that are sold for money, but the essence is the same everywhere, and I will try to explain it to you through my articles on copywriting. Moreover, they are based on personal experience, because I still make money from copywriting to this day. I also share information that I have learned from other training courses and successfully apply in my work.

Let's get down to business, what is what is the essence of a copywriter's job?

Copywriters write and edit articles on a daily basis. different topics, they are looking for new customers and orders. Copywriters work on copywriting exchanges, where they look for their new customers and fulfill orders. Articles can be:

• write to order;
• sell finished articles.

It’s more convenient to do all this on special content exchanges, such as Etxt And Advego. You can search for customers on freelance exchanges, for example Work-zila.

Working directly with the customer is much more practical than waiting for someone to buy your article. But if a copywriter has a sufficient number of articles for sale, then they will sell regularly. You can start writing articles and putting them up for sale right away, without even finishing reading this lesson; it won’t be difficult for anyone to register on the exchange and upload a couple of articles there. It seems that it is more difficult to find a customer and complete an order for him. But this is only at first glance more complicated. There are always hundreds, or even thousands of customers on the exchange who are looking for copywriters, and it doesn’t matter at all whether you have experience or not. The most important thing is the ability to write competently and interestingly on a particular topic. But it’s not that difficult.

It’s not difficult to find your first customer, the point here is that while you don’t have experience, you shouldn’t inflate the prices for your services, don’t be afraid of orders for small payment. Experienced copywriters with high ratings will not take cheap orders, so they are created just for beginners.

Choose for yourself several inexpensive orders on a topic that suits you. Yes, you may be rejected, but don’t despair, apply until someone accepts. After that, calm down your fears and start completing your first order. During work, pay attention to fulfilling all the conditions specified in the order. Don’t be afraid to ask questions to customers - those who work with beginners will always answer questions - they are also interested in a good result.

With each completed order, your rating will increase, and you will be able to apply for more expensive orders. Many beginners at the beginning of their copywriting journey work for literally pennies until they gain experience. In the future, you will increase the cost of your services and, accordingly, increase your income level.

The question is often asked: why are these copywriters needed and for whom do they write articles?

There are a lot of sites on the Internet that require updating every day; there are such a huge number of sites that site owners themselves do not have time to fill their resources with content, and most often they do not do this. Therefore, they turn to copywriters for their services. Even when paying copywriters good money for their services, webmasters (website owners, etc.) do not remain at a loss. Website owners do their job, and copywriters do theirs. For a purchased article, the customer pays about 1,000 rubles, and receives several times more by posting it on the site, which helps to increase the weight of the site. I won’t tell you now how the sites work. There are other options for customers who simply sell articles, but that’s a separate conversation.

There is very simple circuit, where the copywriter (that's you) writes, edits and sells articles, and the customer buys these articles.

1. Copywriter - writes
2. The customer pays

All calculations take place on the copywriting exchange, but there are other options, I will definitely tell you about all of this. This concludes the first lesson on the work of a copywriter; do not miss the second lesson, in which I will talk about the terms in the work of copywriters.

How to become good copywriter? Many Internet users are thinking about this today. A motivated person who devotes 2-3 hours of time every day to studying this craft can become a successful article author.

What services do copywriters provide?

Copywriter (English copywriter from copy - text; writer - author) is a specialist who knows how to create competent texts to solve various problems.

The main goal of copywriting is to motivate the reader to action. In addition to writing selling and informational articles, copywriters perform the following types of work:

• copywriting, rewriting;
• editing and proofreading;
• creating SEO-optimized texts;
• naming – preparation of headlines and slogans;
• publication of articles on the website, design, selection of images.

Simple rewriting is the presentation of a text while preserving its meaning based on the finished source material. Deep rewriting involves serious work with the text. The writer studies several information sources and writes a higher-quality article than on competitor sites.

Copywriting – this is the creation of original content without elements of rewriting, for example, articles in highly specialized areas. SEO copywriting involves optimizing texts for key user queries. Thanks to “keywords”, an article can get to the first positions in search engine results.

Selling articles are tools for promoting goods and services. They require special knowledge in the field of creating such texts. The copywriter, using knowledge of psychology, marketing, etc., encourages the reader to make a transaction or offers a solution to a problem.

What are the requirements for articles?

In-demand copywriters write competent, interesting, understandable articles that are read to the end. The texts reflect the specifics of remote sales of a particular company, bring in thousands of buyers, create a desire to purchase the product and benefit the readers. Any text must meet several requirements.

General requirements

Technical indicators

informativeness (availability of useful information, facts, absence of clichés); readability is the simplicity and accessibility of presentation; consistency - the presence of connections between thoughts; brevity; meeting the needs of the audience.

98-100% uniqueness is a mandatory requirement for website promotion (checked by special services); the spam indicator reflects the semantic load of the text (the copywriter uses the optimal number of keywords and replaces them with synonyms); nausea – number of times each word is used; water content - the percentage of words and phrases that do not carry a semantic load, for example, prepositions, introductory words.

There are other criteria. Customers indicate specific requirements in the technical specifications (specifications) for the contractor.

How to become a copywriter from scratch? Step-by-step instruction

Experienced copywriters recommend that beginners start their career step by step individual plan. There are no bosses in the freelancing industry, so you will have to independently motivate yourself to “upgrade” your skills, find clients and manage them. Professional development will take years.

A beginner can use the following plan as a basis.

Introduction to the theoretical basis

The following recommendations will help you take your first steps in the profession:

1. studying terminology, areas of copywriting, types and examples of good articles;
2. increase in printing speed;
3. increasing literacy, improving stylistics and speech culture;
4. registration of subscriptions to blogs of experienced copywriters (Petr Panda, Dmitry Kot, Denis Shardakov and others);
5. training at trainings (Staff-online, 1PS, Yulia Volkodav, Netology);
6. reading useful literature on copywriting, marketing, psychology (there are dozens of free books on this topic on the Internet).

Gaining practical skills

• maintaining your own blog, website, preparing articles for selling your goods and services;
• independent access to customers through forums, projects, specialized sites;
• employment in a copywriting agency;
• registration on freelance and copywriting exchanges, for example, Etxt, Advego, Text, Freelance, Kwork.

It is easy for beginners to get started with copywriting exchanges, but the disadvantage of resources is dumping. Payment for services is low, it is necessary to gradually raise the price bar.

Creating a portfolio

Portfolio is used for demonstration best works and their professional capabilities to customers. It demonstrates the level of literacy, understanding of the topic, the author’s style, and the ability to work with technical specifications.

Articles can be presented on a blog, website, personal exchange page, cloud, etc. The performer chooses the form of a text document, presentation, e-book, or screenshot for the portfolio. In the process of negotiations with customers and when submitting applications, it is necessary to supplement, demonstrate the portfolio, and provide a link to it.

Direct access to customers

Many writers linger on exchanges and work for years for low pay. If a beginner plans to increase his income, then he will have to constantly improve his professionalism and independently look for expensive customers. To expand the client base, active and passive methods are used:

• direct offers to webmasters, copywriting studios, SEO specialists (this will allow you to work at prices of up to 150 rubles per 1000 characters, contacts must be sought on specialized forums);
• sending out “cold” commercial offers (the least effective method);
• contacting businessmen and specialists in the information business (contacts are on forums and social networks), to work at this level you will have to create your own website, register an individual entrepreneur, and labor prices will rise 10 times;
• preparation of “warm” commercial offers (sending letters to project managers to obtain contact information of site owners, calls to found contacts);
• using “selling criticism”, for example, saying expert opinion about texts in sections for criticism on forums. A copywriter can find low-quality texts, then call customers, offer to correct errors, and increase conversion.

Meetings of businessmen, trainings, seminars are great way to find customers. For this you will need flyers, business cards, and a portfolio. The second option is to search for sites with mediocre texts from shops, organizations and businessmen in your city, and organize personal meetings with company executives.

Prospects

If a copywriter doesn’t know where to start or doesn’t plan to continue working on content exchanges, then he can find himself in related professions:

1. copywriting in the advertising field (setting up advertising campaigns creation of slogans, promotion of goods and services);
2. Internet marketing, selection of quality content, social media marketing;
3. working with texts, preparing newsletters, articles for blogs, creating texts for social networks;
4. editorial work (drawing technical specifications for copywriters and organizing other specialists working on websites);
5. opening your own studio, information business, training, promoting your own books and courses, conducting trainings.

Beginning specialists get jobs in online magazines, copywriting agencies, training centers, news portals, author’s blogs, communities on social networks.

Irina Davydova

Reading time: 12 minutes

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The word “copywriter” is familiar to each of us. True, not everyone knows about its meaning, and many completely confuse copywriting (creating original texts for specific purposes to order) with copyright (the copyright symbol, known to everyone - ©). What is the essence of the work of a copywriter, is it possible to become one, and where to look for work?

Let's figure it out...

Is being a copywriter right for you – its pros and cons

Copywriters are most in demand today among owners of Internet resources and customers of unique content for the development of their websites. Although, this same work can be attributed creation of advertising articles, news, etc. .

Moreover, this work, as a rule, remote . And its popularity is growing daily, thanks to certain advantages.

Positive points:

1. Remote work. That is, you can write while lying on your cozy sofa or even under a palm tree on the beach. If only there was Internet access, a laptop and customers.
2. Free schedule. It all depends on you (and customer requirements, of course). You can work for an hour a day with tea and buns, and devote the rest of the time to relaxation, or write texts around the clock. Copywriting (if it is remote) can easily be combined with the main job, shifted to “later”, postponed for a couple of days when you urgently need to go fishing. If the order “does not work” and you have not been given clear deadlines, everything is in your hands.
3. Saves nerves. No one stands over your soul, your bosses don’t call you on the carpet, and your colleagues don’t gossip behind your back. Because you only have customers with whom you, in most cases, work remotely. And there is no need to think, or an arrogant boss.
4. There is no need for a solid diploma. And you don’t need to have any special qualities either. A desire to write, a well-spoken speech, the ability to clearly and correctly express thoughts, and literacy are enough. That is, you must be a “humanist.” It’s another matter if you get a salary job as a copywriter in any company - you will need both a diploma and your all-round talents.
5. Convenience for those who cannot “go” to work. For example, for people with disabilities, for students or pensioners.
6. The salary depends on you. If you work an hour a day, you will receive pocket money. If you work 8-9 hours a day, you can live quite decently (if, of course, your typing speed is at least at the “good” level).
7. Saving money. On what? First of all, on public transport and lunches. Because you don’t need to travel far - you get out of bed and are already at work. And instead of snacks - a full meal from the refrigerator. You're at home.
8. Save time. On average, every statistical Russian takes 1-1.5 hours to get to work there and the same amount back. This is if there are no traffic jams. That is, 2-3 (or even 4) hours of life are wasted. By working from home, you spend that time improving your well-being.
9. Development and expansion of horizons. As a rule, a copywriter receives orders in a variety of areas of life - from psychology and sports to medicine and mechanical engineering. Of course, you have a choice - what to write and what orders to take, but that comes later - when it’s not you looking for customers, but them looking for you. In the meantime, you are a beginner - you grab onto any job, sometimes studying areas of life that you didn’t even know about. Yes, here your personal “rating” also has great importance. The more competent, responsible and efficient you are, the more you are appreciated.
10. If you don’t want to look for orders and write what they require, you can write what you like. And then put these texts up for sale on the appropriate exchanges. But it’s not a fact that they will be bought. Analyze demand and only then prepare offers.

Flaws

Every activity has a beginning. It is usually associated with a lot of questions, doubts, misunderstandings, dreams and torment. Copywriting is no exception in this regard. Many aspiring copywriters scour the Internet looking for practical advice and collect them bit by bit. Today’s article is dedicated to those who have embarked on the path of copywriting and intend to go through all the stages from beginner to professional, but do not know where to start. This article suggests tips for a beginner copywriter, which will help you make a successful start on the path of creating texts.

1. Initial preparation

Many copywriters believe that in order to get started, you need to immediately run and register on various exchanges, sending applications to potential customers with a minimum price. This is a possible, but not the most effective option.

Start- this is the base. How better person prepared, the more effective his work. Therefore, before you begin, it is worth preparing. To avoid getting into unpleasant situations, decide on all organizational questions, such as:

1. Are you interested in writing texts?
2. How much time are you willing to devote to copywriting?
3. Do you have other sources of income?
4. What topics do you feel most comfortable in?
5. Which areas of copywriting do you like best?

Also, make it a rule write everything down. Thoughts, ideas, comments, tasks - everything. For such purposes, it will not be superfluous to keep a notebook. This way you kill two birds with one stone:

1. If you come across a good idea, you will write it down and can use it for an article.
2. You will become more organized, which will save you a lot of time.

So, the beginning has been made, the preparatory stage is completed. It's time to get down to business.

2. Prevention of grammatical errors

It’s worth mentioning right away: grammatical errors– these are very undesirable companions for a novice copywriter. To avoid them, use a simple tip: type the material in a text editor that supports spelling rules, for example, MS Word.

If you still have doubts about the spelling of certain words or punctuation marks, there are help portals Russian language, for example, Gramota.ru, which allows you to check the correct spelling of words, and also gives Russian language rules for checking punctuation.

3. First active actions

A joint project– this is also an adventurous event, which may immediately require a lot of effort from you, and it is not a fact that it will immediately come back to haunt you in monetary terms. Like blogging, joint projects are appropriate when you have other sources of income in addition to copywriting.

Find customer can be done in different ways:

• Acquaintance
• Announcement
• Recommendations, etc.

Since most of the interaction between a copywriter and a customer occurs through correspondence, try to avoid the most common mistakes and produce good impression to the customer. You can read more about this in the articles “” and “”.

Finally, if you choose the option with copywriting exchange, then below are recommendations that will allow you to quickly “strengthen yourself” and find new customers. And customers can then develop into regular customers.

4. Copywriting exchanges

Now there are a lot of copywriting exchanges that act as a meeting place for customers and copywriters, and also perform the functions guarantors transactions.

There is a lot of competition on exchanges, but with due patience and the right approach, this ceases to be a problem.

On the copywriting exchanges you are faced with choice:

1. Or take on orders, working with the customer directly
2. Or write articles and put them up for sale
3. Or combine both options

The first option is noteworthy in that the customer with whom you will work and whom you will impress can cooperate with you on an ongoing basis.

The problem is that there are a lot of people willing to fulfill the order. One of gross mistakes for novice copywriters is that, in order to receive an order, they set a minimum price (up to tens of cents per 1000 characters). This only causes a negative reaction, both from other copywriters on the exchange (due to dumping) and from the customer himself (as a result of loss of respect).

To solve this problem, surpass competitors and look decent in the eyes of the employer, offer him to complete the order for free, but for positive feedback by writing to him Personal letter. An example of such a letter, as well as other benefits of free copywriting, can be found in the article “”.

As for writing texts for sale, at the beginning creative path It’s better to write about what you understand. If the topic does not play a fundamental role, then it would not be superfluous to pay attention to a few features:

• Texts on topics in which people invest on the Internet are most readily purchased big money: auto, medicine, beauty, sex and others.
• The buyer will be more willing to give preference to your text if he has effective headline, which immediately attracts attention.
• People will be more likely to buy your work if it is optimized for a specific key query (you can read more about SEO copywriting in the article “SEO copywriting: key points when publishing texts on the Internet”)

5. Workflow

When you complete the order, it is possible that the customer will send you your text for revision with comments and notes. There is no need to be alarmed by this; this is a normal workflow. Of course, customers are different and criticism is also different.

By correcting your mistakes or shortcomings, you learn much more than if you were immediately accepted unconditionally for the job. Of course, the absence of criticism is always more pleasant than its presence, but you should not worry too much about this. This is a normal workflow.

6. Maneuvers in the labor market

Please note that the cost of a copywriter’s services depends not so much on his professional qualities how much from his fame name. You can be a tenth generation professional with seven spans in his forehead, but as long as no one knows about it, no customer will pay you as much for your work as they pay “promoted” specialists.

On the other side, lack of fame, especially if you are a beginner and inexperienced copywriter, can only be to your advantage: no one knows you, and you have a huge space for maneuver. You can decide on the topics and areas in which you are interested in writing.

For example, define What is closer to you: write large articles or small notes, conduct your own analysis or remake other people’s texts. When you have no reputation, you are not afraid to lose face, you are not afraid to disgrace yourself, you are free and can experiment with your professional course.

As a result of your experiments, you receive invaluable experience, become flexible and can soberly assess your strengths.

If you don't like some directions, you can experiment with specialization. For example, choose the directions of naming (coming up with names) and rewriting. If you succeed in these areas and adequately show your work in your portfolio, customers who need fresh names for brands and customers who need rewriting. In general, people like to work with professionals, and a highly specialized specialist always inspires more confidence.

Summary: Before you start working as a copywriter, determine your resources: the time you are willing to devote to copywriting, your preferences, interests, employment, etc. Always write everything down so you don't lose sight of little things. Immediately at the initial stages, get rid of grammatical errors using a text editor and special services Russian language.

Determine your field of activity and source of potential income. When offering your services, do not reduce the cost of work to a minimum. Offer the customer a deal: quality work for your positive feedback. Don't forget about ways to impress the customer.

When selling an article, use every opportunity to increase its competitiveness. Handle criticism skillfully. Remember that a name is not earned overnight. Experiment and chart your own course. These basic tips for a novice copywriter will allow you to start your career and positively establish yourself in the labor market.

Literally every few days they knock on my pm strangers and ask you to tell us in more detail about what copywriting is, where a beginner can start, whether it’s really possible to make money on it, where to get orders, and so on. A variety of questions are asked. Therefore, the idea came to write detailed guide for those who are really interested in how to become a good copywriter. Next there will be a lot of letters. Go!

I would like to immediately convey to the readers main idea articles: copywriting is a job. A full-time job that requires certain skills, diligence and responsibility. If you think that such activity is not serious, that you can take an order and forget about it or make a mistake, urgently change your mind or close the page and do not read further.

Copywriter – who is it and what does he do?

The job of a copywriter is to write advertising and promotional information texts for Internet pages, presentations, printed publications. Web writers are called performers who specialize in preparing primarily informational articles, notes, descriptions, reviews, etc.

Copywriting is writing unique material from scratch.

Beginners sometimes believe that it is enough to copy text from another site or combine borrowed fragments (according to the principle of “copywriting” = “copy”). This is wrong! The work of copying materials - copy-paste - is practically not in demand, and if it is ordered, it costs several times less than a text written independently.

We found out who a copywriter is and what he does. Now it’s worth highlighting several formats of work - each of them has its own characteristics.

• Copywriter on staff of the company ( office work) – reports to the manager who issues orders. As a rule, the load is constant and uniform with a set minimum volume per day/week/month. The fee is a fixed monthly salary. There may be surcharges for exceeding the volume and fines for failure to comply.
• Remote in-house copywriter– works outside the office, reports to one manager, fulfills a set volume of orders. Receives a fixed salary, the amount of which may fluctuate depending on the number of texts or characters written.
• Freelance copywriter– does not report to anyone, is not registered in the company’s staff, independently looks for clients and negotiates cooperation. Earnings depend entirely on the number of orders and their cost.
• Copywriter-entrepreneur- a person who has organized his own company, through which he receives orders from clients. Often work is performed under a contract. May have a team of employees subordinate to him, including a manager, full-time assistants, and specialists in related fields.

Depending on the format of the work, the responsibilities of a copywriter differ. Office and remote staff employees, as a rule, only need to prepare the text according to the provided technical specifications.

In order to receive a larger fee, freelancers often take on additional responsibilities: collecting keywords for a page, searching for images and videos on a topic, preparing prototypes, posting text on a website, etc.

Entrepreneurs often offer clients not only the writing of texts of all types, regardless of volume, but also a number of related services: semantics collection, layout, design, and even turnkey website creation.

Of course, any text must be written in accordance with the technical specifications and/or brief and sent to the customer within the agreed time frame. If this happens, you must contact the client, otherwise there is a risk of losing him and being left without payment.

What kind of texts are there?

Before you decide where to start learning the profession as a copywriter, it’s worth understanding what types of texts are most in demand.

• Informational articles. They are posted in information sections of websites and in thematic blogs. They contain maximum useful data for readers on the relevant topic. The main purpose is to increase website traffic and improve its position in search results. A sample informational article is the text that is now in front of you.
• Product descriptions (product cards). From the name it is clear that such texts are placed on product pages in online stores. Their purpose is to give the visitor information about the product and its features. Example.
• Texts for the main pages of the site. They are published, respectively, on the main page, in the sections “about the company”, “partners”, “questions and answers”, on service pages, etc. The task of such texts is to build trust in the brand among readers and convince them to contact the company. The sample can be viewed on almost any corporate website, for example.
• Selling texts. Used to attract users’ attention to the product and interest potential clients. Such materials are published not only on websites. Based on selling texts, they are compiled commercial offers, brochures, leaflets, email newsletters, etc. Example.

There are other categories of texts that you will probably become familiar with if copywriting becomes a serious job for you. For example, texts for landing pages, marketing kits, technical, advertising, image (PR) texts, etc.

In addition to dividing by purpose, texts can be classified by type of work. This allows you to clearly understand how copywriting differs from rewriting and web writing.

1. Copywriting– preparation of advertising texts based on previously conducted marketing analysis. The result of the work is material written for a specific client, taking into account the characteristics of his business. Such content a priori cannot be rewritten.
2. Rating and web writing– writing unique informational texts for printed publications (writing) and websites (web writing). The result of the work is original articles, reviews, methods presented on the basis of one’s own knowledge and experience.
3. Rewriting– writing unique texts (mainly articles, descriptions) based on information taken from open sources: other sites, magazines, books, etc.
4. SEO-writing– texts for websites written using keywords. Keywords- these are queries that users enter into the Google and Yandex search bar. Both articles and commercial texts can be SEO optimized.

How to learn copywriting

One of the most common questions is how to learn how to write articles as a copywriter? It would seem that problems should not arise, because at school everyone wrote summaries and essays. But in reality it is not so simple.

1. Start with rewriting. Just take any text and rewrite it in your own words so as to convey the author’s main idea.
2. Use the Internet as a source of information. Take someone else’s article, read it and try to write a new text based on it, adding additional data on the topic. Take them from other sites or use your own knowledge.
3. Write about what you are good at. When preparing an article, be guided by your own knowledge of the topic. Remember that approximately 80% of the content on the Internet is written by incompetent authors, which means that such text may contain factual errors.
4. Use reputable sources for guidance. These may include websites of product manufacturers, technical documentation, current SNIPs, GOSTs, laws, regulations, etc.
5. Structure your text. Use subheadings and lists, break the text into small paragraphs (no more than 5-6 lines), and do not write too long or convoluted sentences. The article should not look like a continuous canvas.
6. Check technical uniqueness. Texts for websites must be highly unique. Customers usually ask for 85 to 98%. I recommend learning how to work with the Advego Plagiatus program. Many people don’t like her, but, as they say, it’s hard to learn, but it’s easy to fight. Try to get rid of the fragments highlighted in yellow: paraphrase, rearrange words, etc.
7. Re-read your texts the next day. This helps to spot typos, correct lexical inaccuracies, and get rid of punctuation, spelling and other errors.
8. Read fiction. Books are subject to strict editing before printing, so they are usually free of any errors. Reading helps to enrich the vocabulary and improve literacy. Try to pay attention to the placement of punctuation marks in complex sentences, find out the meanings of unfamiliar words, write out metaphors - all this will later become the basis for creating beautiful texts.
9. Read articles and literature on the profession. If you want to learn copywriting from scratch, this article alone will not be enough. The profession requires constant learning, so get ready to regularly visit the blogs of successful colleagues and gain knowledge from their publications and books.

Write several articles on topics that interest you. Read them. Well, do you like it? Give it to your friends, relatives, and acquaintances to read. Do not be offended in any way if a barrage of criticism follows in response - on the contrary, try to catch and take into account every word that you hear from your readers. Don't give up. Each subsequent text of yours will probably be better than the previous one. Practice.

Useful sites and literature for a beginner copywriter

I offer several sites that will help beginner freelancers delve into the profession and understand copywriting.

• https://shard-copywriting.ru – blog of Daniil Shardakov. It will be useful both for beginners and for those who have already settled into writing and want to move to more high level– start writing selling texts. The site has a lot of useful articles and training videos.
• http://textis.ru/stati-o-kopiraytinge/ – Pyotr Panda’s project “Panda-Copywriting”. Beginning copywriters love this blog not only because useful information by profession, but also for the portion of motivation that the author adds to each article.
• http://www.blog-kaplunoff.ru – Denis Kaplunov’s project “Copywriting from A to Yu”. The blog is aimed at more experienced professionals, but there is also a section for beginners. Also, if you decide to get serious about copywriting, this site will be a great help.
• http://web-copywriting.ru – School of selling texts by Sergei Troubadour. It will be useful for those who want to start with promotional materials. The trainings are paid, but the website has an information section with articles from which you can glean a lot of useful information.
• http://free-writing.ru – Academy of Correct Copywriters. The main direction is teaching copywriting. Some materials can be obtained for free. An extensive blog with articles is also available.

Of course, these are not all copywriting sites for beginners that are worth visiting to understand the profession and learn how to write good texts. In the process of work, you yourself will find resources that will seem useful and interesting in terms of self-education.

• “The Living and the Dead Word”, Nora Gal;
• 50 Writing Techniques by Roy Peter Clark;
• “Write, shorten. How to create a strong text”, M. Ilyakhov;
• "The Art of Marketing Messages" by Joseph Sugarman;
• "Ogilvy on Advertising", David Ogilvy;
• “How not to eat a dog”, D. Kot;
• "Textbook quick reading", Tony Buzan.

The first three books teach you to write concisely and beautifully, to avoid bureaucracy and verbal cliches. This is useful for texts of any format. The next three books are devoted to the creation of advertising and selling texts, talk about how to correctly offer a product and manage the opinions of the target audience. And finally, the last book, almost in a playful way, teaches you to quickly absorb information by training your memory and thinking.

How to start working as a copywriter for a beginner

So, you have found out what the job of a copywriter is, familiarized yourself with the basic materials on the profession and realized that you want to do this. What's next?

1. Decide on a direction future activities: writing (articles) or copywriting (advertising texts).
2. Select 1–2 topics that you are well versed in (for writing).
3. Prepare a portfolio.
4. Create a copywriter profile.
5. Compose a short text with which you will contact customers.

And now, in order.

Web writing or copywriting?

Despite the fact that selling texts are paid more than informational ones, the vast majority of beginners start with web writing. Why? Writing articles is easier than writing advertising texts. It makes sense to start with copywriting if you are well versed in marketing, have been involved in sales and know how to influence a person so that he becomes a client. Otherwise, choose writing first.

Specialization

As in any other profession, there are different niches in web writing - topics. Here are some arguments in favor of choosing a specialization:

• Preparing articles on a familiar topic takes less time;
• you can offer expert content that customers are chasing;
• articles from a specialist are valued not only by clients, but also by readers;
• you are doing your part to improve the overall quality of content on the Internet.

Write on any topic or go into your own niche - the choice is yours. In the second case, you lose some potential clients, but gain customers who, as a rule, become permanent.

Copywriting also has specializations: commercial proposals, letters for email newsletters, texts for landing pages and others. If you are a beginner, the best option is not to spread yourself thin. Choose one niche and try to master it to the maximum.

Portfolio

Making money as a copywriter on the Internet is almost impossible without a portfolio. Customers prefer to cooperate with those who already have experience. In addition, example texts allow you to understand what results you can expect.

Where can a beginner copywriter get a portfolio? Write some texts and use them as examples. Try to make them as attractive as possible for the reader: structure them, check for errors, including factual ones, get rid of fragments that can be interpreted incorrectly.

Under no circumstances show clients texts that you did not write as a portfolio. The deception will be revealed as soon as the client receives the first article prepared by you. If her style and/or quality does not match the example, the work will most likely not be paid. In addition, you risk earning a bad reputation this way.

Copywriter Profile

Whatever page on the Internet you use as a business card, be it a profile in social network or on a specialized freelance website, you need to register it. The task is to make the account attractive to potential clients; it should be associated with real person and inspire trust. Otherwise, it will be difficult to get good orders. So, what are we looking at:

1. Name or nickname. Better to use given name, under which the client can find you on the Internet. There is no need to use diminutive forms - it looks undignified. If you are Tatyana Ivanova, indicate so in your profile. No Tanyushka, Tanya4ka, Tatyanka and other word forms. You can also use a pseudonym to work. But in this case, make sure that it appears on all work-related resources. The nickname should be easy to read and well remembered. Again, avoid common nicknames - your name should be associated with a serious person.
2. Avatar. It is advisable to install your own photo. It should be of high quality and made in a more or less austere environment, and not in the midst of a feast, not on the beach or against the backdrop of grandma’s carpet. If you absolutely don’t want to show your face, you can use neutral pictures. Avoid too bright colors, provocative elements, images of celebrities.
3. personal information. This is your mini-presentation. Every potential customer who visits the page sees it. The decision whether to work with you or not will depend partly on what you write about yourself. Try to indicate information that may be of interest to future clients: education, experience (not only work, but also everyday), hobbies. Don’t forget to write why the customer should cooperate with you. From mentioning family details, age, personal preferences and other personal information It's better to abstain.

If you will use a social network page for work, make sure that it is similar to the current one. Fill out the basic fields of personal information, add photos (it’s better if these are your photos, not pictures), friends, and entries on the “wall”, subscribe to various public pages, including those dedicated to copywriting.

The ideal option is to use this page. Change your account settings so that every registered social media user can write you a personal message. network, and the profile was available for viewing by everyone without exception.

Where to look for orders for copywriters

So, you have decided to take up copywriting, have mastered the basics of this profession and have thoroughly prepared for the job. Now all that’s left to do is find clients. The Internet is full of places where you can meet potential customers. Here are the most common:

Attention! Work for a novice copywriter is offered not only by real customers, but also by scammers whose goal is to get texts for free. Be carefull! Negotiate with the client about an advance, work through an intermediary site, or write no more than one article without payment.

Read about what schemes exist to deceive copywriters and how to avoid becoming a victim of a scammer.

How a copywriter communicates with a customer

To make earning money from articles and copywriting enjoyable, it is important to maintain communication with clients in the right way. It would seem, what problems could there be? However, even experienced freelancers sometimes make mistakes, which puts them under the client’s thumb.

Remember, the client is not your boss. You provide services on mutually beneficial terms. The customer is as interested in your texts as you are in his money. Support partnerships, but don't let the client treat you like a subordinate. This is true for all freelance copywriters.

Communicate with the customer respectfully and tactfully, but do not curry favor with him and certainly do not put yourself below your partner. The phrase “the customer is always right” is not relevant in all cases.

But what to do if the customer behaves like a boss (orders, puts pressure, allows himself to communicate incorrectly)? In this case, there are three solutions:

1. Refuse to cooperate at your own loss - without waiting for payment or returning the advance.
2. Refuse to cooperate by completing the current work.
3. Continue cooperation if such communication does not hurt your feelings.

Of course, if you refuse a job, you need to inform the client. If the situation has not turned into an open conflict, it is best to refer to employment or other reasons. Simply stopping responding to messages or adding the customer's contact to the blacklist is unacceptable!

No matter how your relationship with the client develops, always communicate extremely politely and correctly - this will preserve your reputation.

How to fulfill orders and what to do with ready-made texts

So, you have found a client and agreed on cooperation with him: we discussed the task, payment, conditions, deadlines and other details of the project. Now it's up to you. Let's assume that you have been ordered information copywriting, how to start working?

• Read the assignment carefully and make sure everything is clear to you. Find out the meanings of unfamiliar terms. If you have any questions, ask the client.
• Find out from the customer which website the article will be posted on. Review previously published texts to have an idea of ​​the format in which you will be writing, unless otherwise specified in the assignment.
• Get into the subject. If your own knowledge is not enough to reveal it, find authoritative sources and read them.
• Outline your future article.
• Expand each point of the plan. When writing, be specific and avoid verbal constructions that do not carry meaning. Don't go too far off topic.

If the task is to prepare a selling text, read about how to do this.

You can write in any text editor. Convenient to register finished work tools MS Word or its analogues. Make sure your document is saved automatically. In Word 2007, 2010 and 2016, you can configure this function by running the following command: File → Options → Saving, check the box next to “Auto Save” and specify the time (I recommend 1 or 2 minutes).

Google Docs tools, which visually differ little from Word, are also popular. Their advantage is that the file cannot be lost or accidentally closed without saving - everything is in your Google account. In addition, you can access documents from any device, i.e. you are not tied to your work PC.

The finished text must be formatted before submission. Break it into small paragraphs, highlight lists and headings using the appropriate MS Word tools. In an SEO article, highlight the keys with a colored marker, unless otherwise specified in the assignment.

Make the text attractive to read - the client will like it.

How much can you earn from copywriting per month?

This is perhaps the first most popular question asked by beginners. It is very difficult to answer this question unambiguously, because the financial result depends not only on the potential capabilities of the copywriter, but also on the actual working conditions, in particular:

• prices for services;
• number of orders;
• personal performance;
• number of working hours.

Theoretically, earnings from copywriting on the Internet can amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. To see this, just look at the price lists of famous copywriters. For example, at the time of writing this guide, Dmitry Kot charges 8,000 rubles for one selling text, Denis Kaplunov - from $100 to $250, Sergey Troubadour - 6,000 rubles. These are eminent personalities whose professionalism is beyond doubt. Less popular copywriters have more modest prices.

If we talk about working part-time as a copywriter at home by writing articles and non-commercial texts (web writing), then the prices here are much lower. The amount of 400–500 rubles per 1000 characters is considered quite high. However, for example, the Internet marketing agency TexTerra pays its writers from 5,000 rubles per article. Naturally, the quality of such work and the author’s expertise in the topic should be at its best.

I hope I motivated you? Because now we will talk about the real prospects of a newcomer.

Unfortunately, you can’t come into copywriting without experience and immediately raise prices to the level of a pro. Or rather, it is possible, but it will be extremely difficult for a person without a name and reputation to find clients with such conditions. Therefore, your main task is to initial stage– gain experience, improve professionalism and establish yourself as a specialist.

What price should you tell your clients? At first, until you are sure that your texts are really good, 30–50 rubles. for 1000 characters it will be optimal price. As your professional level increases, raise the cost of services. But don't stay long in the low price range.

How to accept payment

Before you start working as a copywriter on the Internet, take care of how you accept payments. Clients should not have any difficulty transferring money to your accounts. It is also worth considering that customers may be located abroad.

Here are the main calculation methods:

• translation to bank card(in the Russian Federation the most popular cards are from Sberbank, in Ukraine – from PrivatBank);
• translation to online wallet: Yandex.Money, QIWI, WebMoney;
• instant money transfers: Unistream, Anelik, Western Union, etc.

Make at least one Visa or MasterCard bank card to accept payments in your name, create and identify electronic wallets in all popular payment systems. The more ways you have to get paid for your work, the more less problems will arise in the future.