Do Freelancers Need to Have a Blog?

Guest Post: Michael Martine is the world’s #1 ranked blog consultant. In addition to the tons of free content at Remarkablogger, you can also take a free course valued at $49 on how to grow your blog traffic. You’ll find Michael on Twitter a lot (probably too much).

In a word, yes.

But of course, you want to know why freelancers need to blog. Blogging is a serious commitment of time and a little money (for a good design if you’re not a blog designer already). Freelancers need to blog for the same reasons any business does: to market their services. Can this be done without a blog? Yes, but not very well. All the other freelancers with blogs are going to clobber you: they will get more qualified traffic than you to their sites, they will rank higher in search than you, and their prospects will be more likely to trust and want to do business with them.

The truth is, it’s become something of an arms race. You’ve got to have a blog simply to play on par with your competition. But the reason this arms race began is because is blogs confer real advantages, and more and more freelancers (the web developers and designers first) wanted to have those advantages for themselves. Myself personally, I don’t know of a single successful freelancer who does not have a blog, period.

What Can a Blog do for Freelancers?

What advantages can blogging give the freelancer? Many, and they’re interrelated and they compound each other for even greater “emergent” or network effects.

• Blogs serve as living portfolios for your work. If you’re a writer, blog posts are mostly writing. If you’re an illustrator or developer, blog posts can showcase your latest creations and experiments. Because blog posts are frequent and recent, prospective clients know you’re active and that they’re seeing your very latest work.
• Blogs convey your personality to prospective clients far better than “normal” websites do. Blog posts are usually written in a casual voice. We write blog posts like how we talk, not like academic papers. It’s been shown in sales situations over the decades that people like to do business with those they like and who they perceive as being like them. This leads to trust, and trust leads to freelance gigs that pay the bills. This is why it’s perfectly fine to let a little bit of the “real you” out on your blog. Regular websites just don’t have this dynamic: they’re lifeless, and blogs are full of life.
• Blogs help clients find you. In a very basic, brute-force sort of way, the more content about a particular subject there is on a website, the better that site ranks in search for its topic keywords. Keywords are what people type into the search box at Google or Bing. The more blog posts you write, the more of a “search magnet” your blog becomes. A blog vs. a non-blog site is no contest in this regard, because the blog dwarfs a “normal” website with the volume of its content. And more gets created every week. Not only that, but from a technical standpoint, blogs provide better search engine optimization right “out of the box.” The very built-in features and structure of the blog give it better SEO than a “regular” website.
• Blogs make it easier for prospective clients to hire you. How? In two ways: one, by being technically easy to work with. A WordPress blog allows you add functionality in the form of plugins, which can provide you with contact forms for your clients to get in touch with you. You can create your services pages and portfolio pages easily. The second way has to do with the conversational nature of blogs. Blogs are a dialogue, not a monologue. Prospective clients can ask questions and interact with you easily, allowing you to handle objections, answer questions, and build up trust which precedes hiring.
• Blogs are easy to use. I’ve been able to teach the most technophobic old writers how to blog, and if they can learn it, anyone can. Writing a blog post is hardly any different (technically) than writing an email. Instead of a subject line, you have a headline. Instead of an email message body, you have the post content. Instead of a bunch of replies, you have blog comments. Instead of attaching a file, you upload a picture (if you want your post to have a picture). That part is easy-peasy.

A Word of Warning

The benefits listed above are very real and are enjoyed by countless successful freelancers. However, we’re not operating under any illusions, here. There are some warnings you should heed.

• If you’re not clear on your freelancing business, your blog won’t be clear, either. It’s not good enough these days to “just” be a writer or an illustrator. You have to specialize, and your particular client base needs to recognize instantly that you’re the person for them when they hit your site. But if you’re vague about what you do and who you serve, potential clients will just bounce right off you because they don’t see anything that speaks directly to them and their needs.
• Getting your blog set up right requires an investment. Whatever it is you don’t do, you’ll need to hire out for your blog. If you’re not a professional blog designer (and notice I said blog designer, not web designer), you need to hire someone who is to design and set up your blog for you correctly. Professional blogs nowadays are self-hosted WordPress blogs, not free blogs on Blogger or free blogs hosted on WordPress.com.
• A blog that’s never updated is worse than no blog at all. Nothing screams “I’m lazy and don’t care” like a blog that hasn’t been updated in months. Maybe you were swamped with client work, but that’s not what prospective clients are going to think when they hit your ghost town. They’re going to wonder if anybody’s home.
• Don’t fall into the trap of writing for your peers. The people most likely to leave comments on your blog won’t be prospective clients, it will be your peers. It’s great to have strong relationships with others in your field, don’t get me wrong. But those people are not your customers and they’re not going to give you any money to heat your house and feed your family. Remember who you’re writing to, and why: you are writing to appeal to your target market so they will want to do business with you.