Leveraging Your Blog to Promote Your Services
If you’re like many creative freelancers, you have a blog. And being the diligent type that you are, it’s updated at least once a week.
But here’s the bad news: There are a lot of other blogs out there. Which means that you’ll have to work hard to make yours stand out.
Oh, no. Those two four-letter words: w-o-r-k h-a-r-d.
They beg the question, what should you be hard at work on? Here are six suggestions:
1. Don’t just create a blog post and let it sit there. Tell the person/people involved in about it. I like to send a short e-mail with the header, “You have been blogged.” The body of the message includes a clickable link to the blog post.
In some cases, I don’t hear anything back. But, in other cases, the response is quite warm. There are plenty of people and organizations who love being blogged about. And, I’ve found, if I ask them nicely, they’ll link to me.
2. Being included in someone else’s blog post can also be an opportunity. Not long ago, I noticed that a local political blog used my photo of a city council member marching in a July 4th parade.
Now, a lot of photographers will tell you that you’re supposed to get all hot and bothered, that you should send them huffy e-mails mentioning lawyers and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, and that they’d better remove that photo right now.
I just wasn’t in the mood for that sort of thing.
Instead, I e-mailed the owner of the site, which gets quite a bit of traffic, and asked for a link. Wish granted.
3. If you have an e-mail newsletter, make sure that your best blog posts are included in each issue. Month after month, I’ve found that my “Best o’ the Blog” feature has been my e-mail newsletter’s most popular.
4. Does your blog have an RSS feed? Make sure that the feed icon is prominently featured in your blog’s theme – say, up at the top of the page. And, for those who don’t know what RSS is, offer e-mail subscriptions to your blog. FeedBlitz and FeedBurner are the heavyweights in this field.
5. Do you also have a website? Make sure that your blog links to it, and vice versa. And, if your website doesn’t have an e-mail newsletter subscription form, why not offer e-mail subscriptions to your blog? This will help you stay in touch with your visitors. Over time, some of them could become clients.
6. What do you want people to do after they’ve read your latest blog post? I don’t know about you, but I’m interested in money, honey! That’s why I include a short pitch for assignments after the posts that relate to the areas in which I’d like to get assignments. For the areas in which I’d like to sell stock photography, well, let’s just say that I’m in the process of building a stock selling site, and when it’s done, my blog will link to it.
Putting These Suggestions in a Larger Context
My first two suggestions allude to something that the search engine experts call “link popularity.” The idea is that the more links you have, the better your ranking will be. Just be sure that the links you’re seeking are with the kind of Internet company you’d like to keep.
The next three suggestions involve your ongoing efforts to stay in touch with your clients and blog visitors. Face it, a lot of them will hit your blog briefly, then they’re gone. Inviting e-mail and RSS signups will enable you to bring your content to them. Over time, this can help you build relationships that turn into sales.
Which brings us to the final suggestion. None of us are blogging for the sheer love of blogging. We’re freelancers who are in business to make money. But first, let’s not forget to ask for the sale.
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Good insight. I find it hard to blog for myself. Because I’m only a part time freelancer on the side of a busy social and school life, my biggest issue is trying to come up with topics that I can talk about.
I’m curious to know how people come up with the topics that they do. I realize that they will relate to the skills that one has, but when that’s even slightly limited, what can I do to build up and work on my blog and keep it active?
I do design and photography.
The best thing for me (in finding topics to blog about) is to set up an RSS reader and read, read, read a lot of other blogs in your niche. I always have a reaction to what others in my industry are writing and many times I have another spin I can put on the same topic.
Great post! I have been trying to find some tips like this to incorporate on my own blog. I have been having minor success lately but hopefully these tips will help to increase the awareness of my blog and my services. Thanks and keep up the awesome work!
Although, I don’t have the option on my site currently, I plan to also allow users to subscribe to my content via email. While newsletters are great, some people still don’t want to bother with RSS, and I’ve heard a lot of people still subscribe to content via email.
Feedburner can help with that.
I also love that you start out with the most important point – blogging consistently and qualitatively is HARD. It really takes will power and tenacity to make it work for you.
great post. I have a few blogs, to be honest – in amongst all my web developing I struggle to update them frequently enough. But it’s definitely good to ping people when you blog about them. You may not get instant results, I often get no response at all, but even a thanks feels good.
In my experience, people remember you, and your blog and will eventually reciprocate, even if it’s just with a comment on your post.
Good article.
Hi
Nice reminder about using blogging. Of course the good-old issue of content arises. Try to make it geared for your clients and not your peers. What do your clients want to know? What tips can you give them?
Juliet
Orienting your blog to your clients and not your peers is a good point that I hadn’t thought of. If I use my blog to hopefully generate jobs, talking horizontally to people I’m friends with but won’t send me business doesn’t do my business any good.
Networking is important, but maybe Microblogging like Twitter is better for that.
I think some peer-review can be helpful though… that’s why I enjoy “Illustration Friday” – it keeps the pencils sharp and us in the process of ‘group critique’ – something easy to forget about when we’re solitary freelancers and art school has long passed.
Excellent blog post.
I love blogging and am using my blog to help build my author’s profile. (I have co-authored 2 books, have my own book coming out in March and am working on another one.)
So every post I do is with the intent to build my credibility and notoriety as a talented writer and published author.
I applaud you for being one of those who isn’t ill-tempered by someone’s use of your photography…rather than potentially contributing to your traffic and popularity, so many are just ready to sue sue sue!…sheesh..
This is an EXCELLENT posting. I use my blog to show recent projects. I was reminded about creating an e-newsletter to keep my clients up to date on what I’ve been up to. I need to get back on that.
Emails and Email Newsletters and Tweets are a great way to generate traffic to your site/blog, which in turn reminds clients how awesome you are and that they have a project in the wings that you’d be great at!
Thanks again for this excellent article. I love FreelanceSwitch for this great content… and the podcast. When’s the next one coming, btw?
I think blogging is a great way for freelancers to get online exposure, display our expertise, and connect with other bloggers online.
On the other hand, blogging can be a lot of work. Consistency is key, so if you can’t post with some regularity (Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com says once a month is the absolute minimum), you probably shouldn’t even get started.
Lexi
I was reading yesterday about “why companies hould no longer blog” can’t remember where, anyway your view echos this idea that if you cant commit the time to do it, dont bother.
I personally think its great, now there are only about 30 – 35 blogs worth reading, a few years ago it was impossible to keep up with so many!
Excellent post. I have used most of these in my blogging in one form or another. I do have a few blogs for different niches and I am a freelance writer and consultant and love to write.
The one option I see here that I really push is the email newsletter. You can get someone to come to your blog but unless you capture that lead, you could possibly not get anything out of them consistently. Email newsletters are a great communication tool to keep your clients informed as well as driving traffic and sales.
Thanks you for this post!
Thamk you. Wery usefull.
Great post! I need to get some of these tips applied to my blog.
These tips are really new to me. And I will use them. Thank you.
Good post. Remember, too, to set aside certain times that you think will be better to blog and try to stick too it. Sometimes having a blog backlog of posts helps as well.
Nice article! I just watched the biography of “the Google boys” yesterday, and it also mentioned that the more Link your website has, the more rank you will be. Thanks for showing some directions, I will be flexing my web page now, hehe..
I run a couple of smaller design and type related blogs (wordpress).
Anyway, the blogs are slowly growing, and I want to get more traffic to my folio.
But, I do want to promote my folio right – ie. not spam my readers… Time is always a key factor but the suggestions you have mentioned are simple, intelligent and efficient ways of going about it.
On a related note, I’ve always used WordPress rss feeds, but recently I moved over to Feedburner. The move has been both quick and painless for myself and my subscribers.
Cheers,
Cam
,..] freelanceswitch.com is another must read source of information on this subject,..]
,..] freelanceswitch.com is other nice source on this topic,..]
Don’t forget to mention that including your blog directly on your company’s website can allow you to leverage it as a source of authority and authenticity (as well as traffic!). Blogs are not only great for establishing a resourceful connection with your readers, but for SEO as well!
Thanks for the great tips. I’m new to the whole blogging community so all tips and information concerning blogging is greatly appreciated! I’m definitely going to implement some of them into my blog for now on.
I established an excellent personal blog using free blogger tools, but when it has come time to do a business blog, which I host with wordpress tools, I get too hung up on the theme to even get started with content. Your suggestion for RSS and email subscription are top on my theme list, but what else is critical before content, or is content king?
Martha,
Thanks for the article. I think your first two points are incredibly powerful. Social investment in your blogging community is a must. And the last point, if you want to encourage your readers to do anything after reading, I would suggest points 3 and 4 to my readers, as long as I don’t have something else to promote.
blogs are such powerful tools to promote well, anything! great tips!
Great post! I have been trying to find some tips like this to incorporate on my own blog.These tips are helpful for me!
Hi, I’m new I would like to welcome all…
Traffic is always welcomed on the net
I must say that I found this article helpful even for a non-freelancer, blogging-for-the-joy-of-sharing kind of person
.