Proofreading and editing is a legitimate profession that you can earn a regular wage from. In order to take it up as a career, you will need at least a degree in English, and the more degrees you get in that area the better off you will be. As a proofreader and editor there are a few strategies you can use to earn money with proofreading and editing jobs. Here are a few tips to help you on your way.
Target your audience
You are not going to get work from a wide variety of people and companies. If you wish to be successful in the long term, then you are going to have to work on perfecting a certain side of your proofreading and editing skills. This means you should pick an area and target the people in that area.
You may decide to pick scientific academic or research texts. In that case, you should work to build a track record in that area. Ideally, you want to be able to approach and target people in the industry and honestly claim that you have a lot of experience in that area. You may even be able to add some of your previous clients to your CV to improve your chances of getting further work in that area.
Plan your strategy
Go into every situation with a plan. Work on a plan that takes you from where you are now to where you want to be. Make sure you impose a final deadline for the goal, and that you impose smaller deadlines that you are going to use as checkpoints as you climb towards your goal.
Plan your strategy such as what you are going to do every month to improve your skills. What you are going to do on a weekly basis to improve your online reputation, and what you are going to do weekly to promote your services. What are you going to do in case of emergencies and how are you going to schedule work so you get it all done? These are the basics when it comes to planning a working strategy, and if you do not have a strategy and a plan, then you are simply being washed around by luck and fate, and nobody can live on luck forever.
Advertise your services online
There are a lot of ways to advertise online, which is why this section had to be bullet pointed. Here are the ways you should advertise your editing and proofreading services on the Internet. There are more ways, so do not consider this an exhaustive list.
Affiliate advertising
This is where you place adverts for your services on search engines and on other people’s websites.
Posts on article websites
This is easy on article websites. Simply create a relevant article, post it on an article site and link to your website.
Guest posts on blogs
This is where you create a guest post and have another blogger put it on his or her blog in return for a link.
Paying for links in directories
This may cost you a bit of money, but can be profitable, especially if your competition use the same directories.
Create your own website that is search engine friendly
If Google ranks it on their first search engine results page then you stand a chance of attracting new buyers.
Create a blog full of content that interests your target audience
This may not be as easy as you imagine, but is a very good way of attracting repeat traffic to your website and products.
Promote your services on social media
Lots of companies do it so you should throw in your hat and do the same thing too.
Pay social media influencers to send traffic to your website
These are the people that can get legions of fans to look at your website if you pay the influencers.
Reciprocally link with websites of Interest to your target audience
This means arranging so that they link to you and your link to them.
Pay website owners to add links to your website
You can pay website owners to add links from their website to your website if you pay them to.
Advertise your services offline
There are a few ways you can sell your services and advertise yourself offline. Here is a short list detailing some of the more popular methods.
Printed media
Posters where your target audience visit
Donate prizes to competitions your target audience visit
College and University bars are a good place to leave leaflets
Solicit college and University dorms
Put up signs and posters in local shops
Advertise in gyms
Improve your advertising as time goes by
This is a very important point to consider. If you want to earn money in the long term, then you really need to invest your time and effort into constantly improving your marketing. Keep updating and testing your advertising as time goes by so that it gets better, more productive, more cost effective and more efficient.