Why You Should Add Blogging to Your Freelance Writing Portfolio

By Misti Sandefur

Boost Your Freelance Writing Income

By adding blog writing to your freelance writing portfolio, you’ll increase your freelance writing income. Blog writing consists of writing short blog posts for potential clients. When I say short, I mean anywhere from 200 to 400 words, and if you know the topic well enough, it shouldn’t take no more than an hour to write the post.

When I began offering blog writing services, my freelance writing income increased by $100, and that was with only one client who wanted me to write one blog post each week. So not only did I increase my freelance writing income, but the freelance writing job didn’t take up too much of my time – just one day a week.

Gain Expertise on a New Topic

Are you wanting to write on a new topic that you have a passion to learn more about but don’t have writing clips on the new topic you want to pursue? Explore the blogging jobs FWJ reveals through the daily freelance writing job listings. Then, when you discover someone looking to hire a blogger on the topic you’re trying to gain expertise in, send your letter of interest detailing your writing, blogging and social media experience. Do this for each blogging job you run across, and it won’t be long until you have the expertise and writing clips you’re seeking.

Achieve Extra Exposure

Many blogs written by more than one person usually receive large amounts of traffic. For instance, Freelance Folder, Freelance Switch and ReadWriteWeb are multi-authored blogs with over 3,000 RSS subscribers. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if over half of those readers followed you? Chances are they would if you create quality blog posts they’ll enjoy.

Maximize Your Chances of Landing New Clients

You probably gain new clients through pitches, referrals and your writing services website, but if you add blogging to your services section, you could have clients knocking on your virtual door more often.

Bloggers visit other blogs related to theirs, and if they find the content you’re writing compelling enough, odds are they’ll contact you to see if you can write content for their blog as well. To ensure they can contact you, include a way for them to reach you in your bio. After all, it would be nice to have potential clients contact you rather than you hunting them down and hoping your pitch entices them enough to respond, wouldn’t it?

Have you increased your freelance writing income with blogging gigs? If so, please tell us how long you’ve been blogging for others and how it has been beneficial to your freelance writing career.

To discover more about Misti Sandefur and keep up with her latest accomplishments, visit her at her official website. To learn from her writing experience, view weekly telecommute writing jobs and discover how she uses her Christian values to get through the rough patches, visit her Life of a Writer blog.

Link information:
Coffee Break for Writers.
Misti’s Official Website.
Life of a Writer blog.


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Comments

4 responses
  1. Ann G. Avatar
    Ann G.

    I find with blogging that you need to be very careful when selecting jobs. Twice I’ve tried paid blogging and both times have been burned. The first time was with a then new company who promised monthly pay to all writers at a rate that I was happy earning. A month after starting, they changed the contract to state writers would get a percentage of the site income only, those who didn’t like the change were welcome to leave. I didn’t try blogging again for a couple years after that.

    Many have heard of the Today.com deal. People were hired to write posts for $5 each, one paid post per day, payments made once a month after you’d reached $50. I managed to get my topic approved and it was taking me no more than 30 minutes to create a post. Two weeks later, they emailed many saying they’d renegotiated rates to $1 per post and that those who were not happy needed to work harder to boost their readership. I’d only had a little over two weeks and my readership was already climbing, but $1 per post was not incentive to stay. I stopped posting, but revenues from my posts grew. I did get the first payment of $50, but the next month’s statements showed I had $15 in remaining blog postings and other revenues. After a month passed, they deleted my blog citing inactivity and I’ll never see that other $15.

    That’s twice that blogging hasn’t worked out. I admit, I should have studied the screen that had the disclaimers for Today.com more closely. With the other job, I had a clear contract and they changed the terms. I find blogging for pay isn’t worthwhile and plan to stick to my own blogs now where I control everything.

  2. #12 Avatar

    I’ve been asked to do professional blogs before, but I rarely jump at the offer. Blogging, to me, is still a personal outlet, and the blog jobs I’ve been asked to do have been little more than a company asking me to toot their horn for them. I’ll write a smash-em-up-fantastic website, banner ad, brochure, email, newsletter, etc., but I’ll pass if I feel like I’m being asked to be fake sincere. I’ve just had to face the fact that I’ll sell my soul to sell a product… but I balk at selling my face and opinions to get someone else face time.

  3. Candidate #1 Avatar
    Candidate #1

    @Ann G: I’m sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience with blogging jobs. And I agree when you say you have to be careful when selecting blogging jobs, but the same also applies for any freelance writing job.

    I read Today.com’s call for writers when they were paying $5 per post, but I didn’t apply, because I only blog for $10 or more per post. However, after I read their job listing on Craigslist, it wasn’t long until I started reading on writing blogs about the way they suddenly changed writing rates. Even though I didn’t respond to their ad and wasn’t a part of their writing team, I was outraged when I read what they had done to the writers they hired — outraged for the writers who chose to work for them.

    I wish you the best with all your writing endeavors.

  4. hana Avatar

    My experiences have been hit-or-miss. On one hand, I found my dream blogging job from this site (thanks Jodee!). I had another blogging gig with a blogging network, and they just shut down yesterday. I’m a bit bummed about that.

    As with everything in life, your experiences will vary.

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