Should freelance commercial writers have blogs? When they do, do those blogs actually attract new clients? Are they even worth the effort?
Two experienced pros share differing thoughts on blogging as a means of marketing and reaching new clients.
Can Writing a Blog Help Generate More Commercial Writing Business?
The following question was asked of Peter Bowerman. As a long-time professional blogger who uses blogs to drive business for myself and my clients, I’ve (Jenn Mattern) updated this with some additional insight below.
Do you have a blog for your copywriting clients? Have you or anyone you’ve known successfully leveraged a blog to position him/her as an expert to the point of it generating business? I recently tabled my website replacing it with a blog because I thought the regular entries would show readers 1) expertise and 2) that I was current, rather than a website that can go forever without activity. I figure there is a reason why you blog and send newsletters to other freelancers, but not to your clients.
Has the percentage of copywriting clients vs. freelance writer clients changed for you over the years as you’ve become well known by both?
Peter Bowerman on Blogging for Clients
Here’s the thing, and I hadn’t really thought about this before you asked, but I do my blog for writers because, a) there are far more of them than clients, and more importantly, 2) by definition, I can consistently come up with relevant content for this audience far more easily than I ever could for very savvy successful businesses that span the spectrum (i.e., my clients), because we’re all in the same business.
What could I write about for my clients that would engage them all enough to have it be of value consistently?
I’m sure there’s probably something, but I’m not willing to work that hard to figure it out with no guarantee it’ll go anywhere. There are far too many blogs and ezines already. Am I really able to come up with something so new and so different and so great? Not sure I can.
But with my FLCW audience, any experience I have in the course of my business that I learn something from becomes potential fodder for either or both. Not true for my clients…
Jenn Mattern on Blogging as a Marketing Tool
I’ve been a professional blogger for many years. That’s because blogs are excellent marketing and PR tools. I’ve run well over 100 blogs of my own (some still active, some retired, others sold). I’ve managed client blogs, and routinely ghostwrite for business owners who don’t have time to write blog posts on their own.
And while it isn’t necessary to have a client-focused blog as a freelance commercial writer, I very strongly recommend it.
You can see from Peter’s experience that it isn’t necessary. But Peter also focuses heavily on direct marketing. If you’re making cold calls and sending pitches, you can certainly fill your freelance schedule without a blog.
But there are at least two cases where I’d consider having a professional blog important:
- You want to focus more on inbound marketing and PR (including content marketing).
- You’re a relative newcomer (you didn’t start your career or start building client relationships before the height of SEO).
First, back to the specific scenario in this writer’s question.
I would never recommend replacing a professional website with a blog (which is simply a website where content is published in reverse chronological order — there’s nothing more “special” about blogs than that).
If anything, you would typically add a blog to your existing professional website. Your blog posts would give you the opportunity to share timely stories, offer tips, and more. But your site would also have standard copy on traditional pages visitors expect to find: a services page, an about page, a contact page, etc.
How a Professional Blog Increases Visibility
A blog designed to attract clients should:
- Benefit potential clients (not focus on other writers, be a personal blog, etc.).
- Focus on building visibility.
Any page, or blog post, on your site has the potential to land you a new client. That comes down to the individual pieces of content, their purpose, your CTAs, and what groups you’re targeting.
But blog posts offer an added boost to visibility when it comes to SEO. It’s not only about having recent and relevant content. Each post gives you another avenue through which prospects can find you via search.
There are only so many pages that make sense to add to your professional site. But there’s no limit to the number of blog posts you can add. Every one of them can work for you, both by being additional entry pages to your site and by giving you more opportunities to build internal links to your most important, and highest-converting, pages.
To make that work though, you need to make sure your new blog posts are indexed (you can submit them for indexing through Google’s Search Console to speed it up a bit).
And they need to be properly optimized for keywords and search intent (what your ideal clients are hoping to find when they search for the queries that lead them to your blog posts).
I’ll schedule in some future posts to go over this more in-depth, from the types of posts that work well on client-focused blogs to optimizing those posts for better search visibility. I’ll link them here when they’re published.
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