Although it would be great to simply start making money writing online, it’s not going to just happen unless you do some preparation first. I recommend that writers preparing to make money writing online should first do or improve or check the following things:

Have a fairly fast Internet connection and be able to frequently go online

Have an email address – you could get a free gmail email address

Be at least a little Internet savvy (getting around easily on Facebook and knowing how to search for information on Google should be a good enough start).

Have Microsoft Word or some other software on your computer that possibly has spellcheck and grammar check on it, and that you would use when writing your articles or stories – or use a free online grammar checker.

Have a good command of the English language, with good spelling and grammar skills.

Have a bank account;

Have or get a PayPal account – many online places use only PayPal to make payments to their writers or workers;

Link your PayPal account to your bank account – ask your bank to help you with this – or South Africans can read this post on our site: How to Link Your PayPal Account with Your Online FNB Account

Have some nicely prepared and named folders ready on your computer so that when you need something or need to save something, everything is easy to find, or neat, tidy and organized. Perhaps one main folder called writing, and then sub folders in that folder named perhaps whatever the name of the different sites are that you are adding your writing to (where you will keep articles you wrote for that site, and anything else to do with that site).

Some of those folders names on your computer may be the names of your own sites, and maybe the sites HubPages, or Constant Content, maybe the freelance job site Upwork, or any site that you add your writing to or that you get writing work through.

Save anything to do with your writing online into your writing folder, even loose in that writing folder without putting it into a sub folder, then only if you end up with enough of one particular sort of files that you are saving, make a sub folder for them and move those loose files to that new sub folder

In addition to writing on online writing sites, get a free Blogger blog, or pay for domain and hosting and get your own CMS (Content Management System website, where you can add your own pages of content, images etc and not have to know website design coding) so you can have a totally unique and more professional sounding domain name. You can offer writing services on your blog or website. (Describe the writing you do, and invite visitors to your site to contact you to discuss their writing project).

You can make money from your own site in a variety of ways.

You can write about writing on your site, or you can write on any topic you choose to on your site, you can monetize your site with ads and you can detail and offer your freelance writing services on it too.

If you’re falling short in any of the above areas, for example hardly knowing where to find what on Facebook, or not knowing how to attach images to an email you’re sending out, or not having good English writing skills, try and improve your knowledge and skills related to those items first.

Exploring Facebook in more detail can help; finding sites that have articles about basic grammar skills or about how to improve your grammar can help too.

Get all of the above out of the way first, and get organized before you start trying to make money writing online.

© Copyright Teresa Schultz 2014