Clients! That’s what you want!
You want to build your client base as a brand new freelance writer and you don’t know how.
Well, what if I told you I know the secret to growing a client base as a complete beginner?
This one thing has helped me land multiple clients, securing high-paying client base that I can tap into any month of the year.
And this meant in a couple short months I went from newbie writer to a booked writer with an amazing client base.
So, what is this secret that I’m talking about?
It’s blogging! Blogging yields blog clients and blog clients are recurring!
Before we get into this post, if you want to start a blog for your business, make sure to check out my handy tutorial and video!
Grow Your Client Base Online Easily By Blogging
Your clientbase online doesn’t have to take years to grow. With a blog you change the way to gaining writing jobs.
You have the business come to you instead of you hustling day and night to find them!
But, if you’re a new freelance writer, you may be wondering what to write on your blog or how to grow a blog. There’s basically three areas you can focus your blog on:
- Your freelance writing niche (ex: business, health, parenting)
- Passion niche (ex: parenting)
- Lifestyle niche (a variety of topics like beauty, cooking, motherhood, etc. which can also be your writing niche)
Although you may feel like writing about other things such as your day-to-day musings, if this is your professional blog, let’s keep it focused on providing actionable tips to your readers.
This means less diary-focussed writing and more helpful advice-type of writing.
By doing this way of blogging you will see your client base grow!
Let’s look at the three specific types of blogs you can start and how that can help you with landing freelance writing jobs.
1. Niche Specific Blog
If you decide to focus on a writing niche topic for your blog, this helps develop your credibility as an expert in your niche and can help you with growing your client base online.
How? Your niche blog can gain keywords and ranking potential easier than a multi-topic blog and this type of visibility helps clients find you.
It also helps new freelance writers build up their writing portfolio when they may not have any clips to showcase.
What better way to show prospective clients your expertise than in your blog posts? This can do well for two more reasons:
- When you develop a niche blog, you tend to really focus on your blog, essentially putting your blog first. For example, Michelle’s blog, Making Sense of Cents, is a financial blog. On it, she helps other people find ways to make more money, save money and budget, all the while working on her life to do the same. She isn’t a freelance writer, but because of her blog, she has ongoing freelance writing clients.
- You can turn your blog into a business by monetizing it. Running GoogleSense Ads, affiliate ads or even writing sponsor posts can help you earn a little cash when you find yourself without any client work.
2. Passion Niche
This type of blog is on a topic you adore and love learning about. But, the trick is to make sure it’s audience-driven.
I’ve visited other freelance writing blogs and they are too journal entryesque writing.
Prospective clients won’t want to read posts about your trip to your aunt’s farm. This won’t grow your client base at all.
Instead, they would like to read about things that can benefit the reader.
For example, on one of my blogs, Smart Mom Ideas, I provide pregnancy and new mom content to other moms.
But, I also provide helpful posts like my post on IVF.
Other parenting clients or even medical clients can view this post and contact me for that type of writing.
3. Lifestyle Niche
Finally, you can have a lifestyle blog. While this may not entirely help you grow client base online, it can show your expertise in writing online, growing a community and monetizing your blog.
My Twins Mommy blog has some lifestyle content like productivity tips and working from home as a mom.
An editor for a Twin magazine contacted me to write for them. I was ecstatic that my new blog landed a client quickly.
How to Get Clients & Grow Your Client Base
As your business client base grows and you suddenly have too much work on your plate, you may start to lose focus writing on your blog.
You must remember, though, as a freelance writer, even though you have enough work for this month, it doesn’t mean you’ll have the same amount of client work next month.
So, in order to get clients through your blog, follow these 4 rules:
1. Treat Your Blog Like a Client
Hold yourself accountable and schedule your blog in your agenda. You may want to create an editorial calendar. WordPress has an easy calendar to use and it’s free.
Or you can create your own editorial calendar in different ways.
2. Be Consistent and Regularly Update Your Blog
When clients and businesses see that you update your blog frequently, they can infer that if they hired you, you would do the same for them.
Surprise…by blogging you can get clients easily!
Lauren Thrap of Little Zotz Writing, landed a marketing gig on a TV mini-series because she consistently wrote on her blog.
And it was her personal blog, not her professional blog!
So it goes to show, not matter what you really write about, as long as you keep updating your blog and reach your target audience, people will notice and you will get clients and your ideal customer to help you grow your client base.
Having an online presence as you can see, is something you should start doing as a new freelance writer. And in no time you’ll see your marketing efforts pay off!
3. Write With Passion
Once you treat your blog like a client, start to add passion into your blog posts.
Writing for a living can be monotonous at times.
I mean if one of your clients is the owner of a refrigeration and packing company, your posts aren’t going to be all that exciting.
Having your own blog allows you to stretch your writing skills and write about what you truly want to write about. And when you have passion to fuel your writing, your blog posts will stand out to prospects pursuing your blog.
Adding vibrant images can connect to the audience in a relatable and engaging manner.
It also help convey what you are writing about. Prospective clients will recognize your passion and will seek you out to duplicate this on their blog or website and you’ll get clients and grow your client base online this way.
4. Inject Personality in Your Writing
Use stories when writing a blog post and make it personal. This is a great platform to be a little spunky, comical or whimsical when you write.
I recently had a local business contact me and said after reading a few related posts on my blog, their customer service team could tell I had a colorful and fresh take when I created content. I was flattered and hadn’t realized my blog posts generated that feeling.
I took it to heart and had used their description about my blog for my tagline when I began getting clients – “I add color to your content.”
But, what if you are just too busy, or what if you don’t think you need a blog to get clients and grow your client base?
If you are one of those freelance writers that neglects your blog, you’re going to want to change your perception about it.
As a freelance writer, you have the opportunity to use your blog to help you get a potential client. Not just any clients, but high paying clients.
I mean, this is free advertising right?
Your entire freelance writing website has to showcase your best writing and what better way to do this than with a blog that has consistent content?
The trick is to know what to write about and demonstrate how great of a freelance writer you are.
Keeping the Clients You Have
So, you use your blog to grow your client base and now you have a new client! Congrats!
Now the trick is to keep the clients you have.
An easy way to do this is to go above and beyond with clients with your customer service. I do this time and time again with each of my freelance writing jobs and it’s proven to be a great tactic.
I gain referral business from this strategy and I gain a name for myself as a high quality and easy-going freelance writer.
I would also make sure to use a freelance writing planner to keep your clients’ freelance writing projects organized.
It would be an embarrassing if you used the wrong name of your client or had the wrong deadline.
Actively Growing Client Base Online
Part of landing clients as a business owner is to continually work and hustle for more clients.
To ensure you are always growing in your business, make sure you use social media marketing strategies to help you grow.
Simply posting on a social media platform like your Instagram Feed friendly helpful advice to new customers or an existing customer based on your writing niche or service can be enough to grow your client base.
I always tell new freelance writers that in the beginning, your job to is to keep on hustling and finding jobs with your social network.
Maintaining Your Client Base
Finally, with the client base you have, it’s a good idea to maintain what you have and not lose clients over petty things like not knowing their brand message or the right person to contact for your submissions.
Having a project management system is important once you land a few clients.
Build Your Client Base Today
Having a blog is a great way to boost your business and develop loyal readers while at the same time growing your client base.
As a writer, your blog helps develop your niche and improves your writing.
People take notice when they see a well developed blog that is consistent with a freelance writer’s brand.
It doesn’t hurt either, to have sharing buttons and comments on your blog. This helps get clients and have them see that if your content is share worthy and highly engaging on your blog, then it will also be on their site (if they hire you).
Just remember one important aspect of using your blog to get clients: always be marketing.
At the end of each of blog posts, add an author bio detailing your services and the easiest way to contact you.
This makes it extremely easy for prospects to know what type of writing services you do and how to reach you should they want to collaborate with you.
So before you let your blog build cobwebs, give it a little TLC and use it as a marketing strategy for your success as a freelance writer to get clients.
Have you given your blog much attention lately? How do you get clients for a healthy client base?
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