Freelance blogging is back. How many clients have you won in the past six months? In January, Tim, a hardworking freelancer and former student, told me he’d signed up six new clients in ten days.
Sadly, the virus turmoil has affected many freelancers’ clients. With their businesses closed, clients have cancelled contracts.
Tim’s concerned about lost clients, but he’s using the unexpected free time to rethink his business model. “I’m keen to expand my freelance blogging services when we all get back to work.”
Freelance blogging: with blog gigs plentiful, be selective
Tim says he’s surprised at how quickly his blogging services became popular. “I took on everything I could get for months. That was a mistake. When we’re back to normal and I start a new marketing push, I’ll target a specific niche,” he said.
He’s rethinking his blog writing process too. “I’m hiring a virtual assistant—I’ve been spending more time on business chores than on writing. I also want to speed up my writing because I charge by the project, not by the hour.”
Are you in the same situation? If you’ve got freelance blogging clients, let’s look at how you can streamline your services.
1. Plan and batch: plan/ research, draft, write
If you’re blogging for ten clients, you’ll be writing a lot.
Content planning becomes essential. You need a pipeline of blog posts, time for research, as well as “post production” time after you’ve published the posts.
What post-production time, you’re wondering? This the time you need to promote your clients’ posts to others in the industry, as well as on social media. If required, you need time to respond to comments and questions from readers as well.
If you’re working as a sub-contractor for an agency, an account manager from the agency will almost certainly do this work. On the other hand, if you acquired the client yourself, then you’ll need to do it… (Big tip: ensure that you’re charging for your time!)
Apropos of which…
2. Charge for competition and keyword research
When mentoring bloggers, I’ve found that few offer competition and keyword research. Those who do, don’t charge appropriately for this service.
You’d be shocked at how much agencies charge for these services. Here’s why: these services require a lot of expertise and industry research, as well as subscriptions to expensive services. (You won’t get much change from $100 a month when you subscribe to companies offering competitor/ SEO research services.)
3. Promote your blog posts while you’re writing
You want your clients to get value from the blogging services you provide. Therefore, you need to make sure that you do your part.
This can involve:
- Partnering with other websites/ bloggers to promote your posts;
- Creating social media content;
- Responding to readers’ comments…
Freelance blogging can be more than simple blogging
As with most freelance services, it’s up to you what you provide to your clients. If you merely provide blog writing services, that’s fine. However, you risk that you’ll be undercut by other freelancers.
The easiest way to avoid this is to offer more.
Tailor your offering to each client, and be prepared to do a little education as well, so that your clients understand what you’re providing. Few of your clients understand blogging and how it works as a marketing tool.
This is a BIG opportunity for you. Offer the freelance blogging services that others can’t offer, and reap the rewards.
By the way, if you’ve lost clients because of the current global turmoil, use the time you have. Like Tim, you may want to streamline the services you offer, so that when things get back to normal, you’re ready and raring to go.
Onward, dear blogger. 🙂
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Copywriter and marketing pro Angela Booth maintains a busy copywriting and ghostwriting practice. Fascinated by online marketing, she wrote one of the first business books for internet marketing, published by Allen & Unwin. She’s been an enthusiastic blogger since the late 1990s.
