Hi guys. I was just thinking, if you ran a successful blog (and I'm talking about very successful, probably with a couple of thousand UVs per day), do you think that would be a good thing to mention in your sales pitch? I mean, I know people will go 'oohh' and 'aahhh' when you tell them, but will the successful blog (and fact people obviously like your writing) get you more clients? Discuss
I guess it can easily be used to showcase your writing, and might be useful to some buyers for the reasons you give. Blogging though is very different from having satisfied customers who are prepared to give you a reference that you satisfied their requirements, and a buyer might have the mindset that your blog is only a sales tool used by you to promote your writing services, in which case I imagine they may ignore your blog in the same way they wouldn't consider a sales brochure part of your portfolio.
Just to throw a monkey wrench into your talk -- I KNOW that my little ol' blog is getting nowhere near a thousand UVs a day -- and it has helped me get writing gigs. When you are hired for a writing gig, they look at your writing. But a successful BLOG might help you get a blog gig where you help to manage the blog in a more active role. I've seen some blog writing gigs where they want someone who really knows how to drive traffic. Check out Problogger.net's Job Board and look at the gigs available for bloggers. I would bet that someone with that type of blogging experience would stand out much better than someone with just good writing experience or even subject knowledge. ps -- what's your secret to a thousand UVs a day? C'mon....share with the group!!!!
Tajo, yeah, I see what you mean there, and I guess I wasn't very clear in my original post, but I actually meant if you ran a successful blog, is it likely to convert into sales? Also, in reply to the reference bit, I suppose if you can show them the blog and they like your writing style then they're bound to be more inclined to hire you. EspressoChick, sorry, I don't even have a blog at the moment (server problems ), let alone one with 1k UVs/day, although I'm hoping when I get my new blog up I will be hitting a decent amount as I have a couple of cunning tricks I want to try out (sorry, not revealing them until I've tried them, and, no, don't worry, I'm not going to turn it into one of those crappy ebooks ). In regards to your post, I agree about the successful blog being good for blogging gigs, but I think a lot of the gigs I get are based around my writing style as well as the quality, and I suppose a blog is one of the best ways to broadcast your style because you can really be yourself, if you get what I mean?
Success in terms of page views is definitely worth mentioning. You're hinting that you could get your client that many readers, too. I've give links to the posts with the most page views, if you have that data. If you don't have a notable number of page views, I wouldn't mention traffic at all. Instead, I'd say something to the effect of "Here's a blog I run that's full of samples of my writing." Then, I'd link to my best posts.
I'd say your content is far more important than your pageviews which, unless a HUGE quantity, will mean nothing to most buyers. Why? Because there's more to it than your content (your marketing - which you won't be doing for most freelance writing clients), and because pageviews can be manipulated. A lot of StumbleUpon pageviews means nothing for instance in terms of blog quality because of how it's gamed with trades and such, whereas completely natural traffic in good numbers because people can't help but link to your content and mention it on their own sites is completely different and far more valuable. The only exception would be if you're writing seo content, and you want to show that you can handle seo writing by showing off search engine traffic statistics for highly competitive keyword phrases you've targeted.
Not necessarily. Shoemoney gets a bad reputation for not being the best speller, and even worse at going over his copy for grammar/punctuation errors. He's famous, and I wouldn't buy his copy for anything. I actually got a webmaster's magazine subscription in which he had a typographical error in a magazine article he wrote. I was fairly amused to say the least.
Zac, I suppose everyone can make mistakes and, yes, you will rightfully get penalised if you're trying to showcase your writing ability through articles that are riddled with errors, but if it's just a misplaced letter in one article of the whole blog, then it'd be a bit harsh to criticise a writer for that. Jenn, I see what you're saying, but at the same time if you get lots of visitors, then you're likely to get lots of subscribers, and if you get lots of subcribers then your writing is obviously quite good.
If that's the case, you should be talking to them about your subscriber numbers; not your traffic numbers. The only reason to do otherwise would be if your subscriber numbers really weren't that impressive afterall. Still though, most prospective clients won't care. Again, it's about your marketing as much as (if not more than) your actual writing, and that's not something you'll generally be doing for the client when they hire you as a writer. Just because you can market your content well doesn't mean your clients will be able to (especially if it's ghostwritten).
In my case, the answer is yes. My main blog is not about writing (it's scary right wing politics!) and sure as heck isn't warm and fuzzy, but over the past few years I have gained about 1000 regular readers (probably more, but those are the ones who read daily and/or subscribe) in all different countries. Given that not all of them hate me, the blog has been a wonderful networking venue. People like the way I write, and they give me work. I ♥ my readers very much, and without them I probably never would have made the leap to freelance writing as a career.
Yes, it really does depend on the content. I put in my blogs too for reference in my resume and it always gives a good impression especially when you're applying for a writing job. Be careful in disclosing your private and very personal blogs though as exposure can do more harm than good. And besides, most companies or employers nowadays check an applicant's online background and one of the things that would pop up under close scrutiny would be the blog since it says a lot about the applicant's character.
If you're doing 2k+ UVs/day, you should be focusing on growing your audience further and monetizing that traffic. You'll make far more doing that then you will taking writing jobs.
Yes, because if you have highly targeted traffic, your potential for monetization is huge. But it depends on what you want to do and who your clients are.