Blogging and Writers: Avoid This Huge Mistake

I love blogging. You know that I encourage you to blog, because it’s a hugely powerful tool. I’ve been blogging for over a decade, long before most writers had any idea of what blogging involved.

There’s one huge mistake I see writers making when they choose a topic for their blog.

In this article, I shared this pitfall. Copywriting Blog: Three Hot Money-Making Secrets | Angela Booth’s Fab Freelance Writing Blog:

“Write About Copywriting? No!

Usually, writing about copy is a mistake. Although you’ll get lots of traffic to the blog because “copywriting” is a popular keyword, getting paying clients from that traffic is a hit and miss affair.

Unless there’s a special reason for you to create a blog about your own profession, create a blog which will appeal to your target audience. For example, if you write for many real estate clients, it makes sense to create a real estate blog.

Similarly, if all your clients live in your local area, developing a blog about your local city or state is a great idea.

When you target your primary audience, or location, you can use your blog as a writing sample to let your clients know that you’re an expert. This is very appealing to clients, and you’ll be able to charge more.”

Blogging about writing huge mistake if writers are not your primary audience. Writers write about writing on their blogs, and then expect to get clients.

Think about it. You’re an article writer, a copywriter, or a Web content writer. You blog about what you do.

Fair enough. You’ll get some traffic. A tiny portion of your site visitors will indeed be looking for an article writer, et al.

Most won’t, and most of your effort is wasted.

Therefore, when you create a blog, think about the site visitors you’re trying to attract. Who are they? What do they want? Remember, your blog is a writing sample.

If you’re a health writer, and want to get commissions from health magazines and blogs, what would you blog about? Would you blog about writing, or the latest health news?

What if you’re an aspiring novelist?

If you’re writing a novel, what would you blog about? Would you blog about your journey to publication? Or would you blog about your characters?

In this instance, you could indeed blog about your journey to publication. I advise you to avoid that… Here’s why. It turns into whining.

Whining is mildly interesting if you’ve written one petulant post out of 100. Unfortunately, a novelist’s road to success tends to be long and bumpy. This means that over four or five years, you’ll have hundreds of whining posts…

A blog is forever, remember. So, when lightning strikes, and your life changes in an instant because you’ve sold a multi-book series for $400,000, you’ll want to take a blow torch to your blog. You can’t. It exists. You’ll need to do a lot of spade work to turn the blog of an aspiring writer into the platform of a bestselling author.

Writing for publication anywhere, even on your blog, is not meant to be therapeutic.

On your blog, you’re writing for readers.

Keep your readers in mind. If you want people to hire you when they land on your blog, remember that your blog is a writing sample.

Blog For Big Companies, And Make A Six-Figure Income — Starting Today

If you’re looking for writing gigs, you’ll have seen that many businesses advertise for bloggers. Unfortunately, the businesses which advertise are all doing so because they’re looking for cheap content.

You can do much better.

You can find clients who don’t advertise, but who pay well for blogging. Did you know that experienced professional bloggers charge their clients a minimum of $1000 per month, per blog? Consider that if a blogger’s working for 20 clients, that’s $20,000 a month.

You can blog for businesses too, if you’re prepared: Blogging Ace shows you how.