Ghostblogging is a great way to get paid to write. As I’ve said before, blogging is how I got my own start in freelance writing and a good portion of my income today comes from blog writing, posting, and the marketing of client’s blogs. People and companies pay writers to write for their blogs and these writing gigs are much more informal than many other types of writing jobs, which is what some ghostbloggers enjoy most about it. You can get paid to blog for others in many different niches, offering you a great opportunity to make money doing something that could be a lot of fun. It’s most fun when you have an endless supply of things to blog about and make it as interactive as possible.
Blogs need to be focused for them to be effective. A lot goes into the successful ones and if you’re blogging for someone who is using their blog as a platform to increase their brand, improve their SEO, sell something specific, and / or improve customer relationships you’ll want to: write about things that are interesting to readers, utilise good blog optimisation practises, and if you’re doing it regularly, you’ll want to find a way to keep great ideas coming. Here are some of the ways you can do all of that so that you’ll get results for your customers, resulting in their wanting to keep paying you to write for them:
- Industry research. Stay on top of the industry you’re writing about. Subscribe to other blogs in that niche and set a Google Alert for topic-related phrases. Google will send you links, save you research time, and could supply you with endless blog post ideas. I love checking Google Blogs Search and Google News with keyword phrases when I need help.
- Find out which keywords your client should rank for. Keyword optimisation isn’t everything but keeping it in mind will definitely help you help your customer rank for words and phrases that will get them the results they want. Pepper the blog posts with these phrases, especially in the title, subheadings, anchor text, and image tags. I also look to see who is currently ranking for those words and work to help my client look better in the search engine results than the existing top spots.
- Interact. Interact with the blog readers. Try to inspire conversation in the comments with your text and get involved in conversations that get started as a result of your posts. Comments are good for the client’s search engine rankings and conversations attract crowds (which is always a good thing in the blogosphere).
- Social media. Suggest to your client that social marketing and bookmarking services are part of what you’ll do for the blog. This provides you with additional invoicing opportunities, increases the blog’s exposure, and participating in discussions about the topic as part of your project will provide you with further ideas for future blog posts.
- Linking. Take opportunities to link internally to other posts. This will keep the reader on the site longer and benefits the site from a search engine optimisation perspective. Don’t hesitate to link to authority sites in that niche as well as interesting news articles and other blogs. The readers and authors of those blogs may follow track backs back to your customer’s site. Talk to your client about your strategy to ensure they’re on board but when you do link in and out of the blog, it will benefit the reader and the blog itself.
I love blogging. I have about a dozen of my own blogs and regularly blog for other sites as well as ghostblog for clients.
Oh, and…if you want to learn more about getting started in blogging, Sharon Hurley Hall has just released Getting Started in Blogging for the Kindle.
Article by Dana Prince
Dana Prince is a writer, web marketing consultant, and prolific blogger. She’s so prolific that she’s actively seeking a 12-step program for blogoholics. (Really, she's only pretending to seek such a program. Mostly, she just likes to talk about her addiction.)
Dana has written 43 awesome articles for us at Get Paid to Write Online
Twitter: @danaprince | Facebook
{ 10 comments }
It is a decent way to earn some income as a blogger, and something I did in the early days. But I found it was really difficult changing my writing “voice” for each client, and trying to inject some passion into writing about things I wasn’t actually that interested in.
In the end I changed tack, and started charging businesses a consultancy fee to teach their staff how to write their blogs. It has been much more effective for them as their people are passionate on the subject!
Twitter: shurleyhall
June 14, 2010 at 09:03
That’s an interesting approach, Mike, and is certainly worth considering.
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Ive been trying to ghostblog for a little while now, and I have to agree with Mike CJ about finding it hard to change voice for each client. Every time I write for a client, its the same as the last one whether it be about the same general topic or not. I dont really see any way to change this, so I guess Im gonna have to just keep doing things the same way. I will start taking more advantage of the tips you posted, especially #2. Im going to start checking to see who is in the top spot for a keyword and try to improve my clients blog to be better than the top ranked one.
I believe Mike CJ has a great point…finding the right voice and conveying that in your blogging for your clients is probably the hardest part.
I’m a Ghostwriter, and I write tons of content for my clients to use on their blogs or in article marketing, and I have found that once you get a real feel for your clients, the voice seems to come out naturally for me. However, it does not always flow that easily for writers and sometimes I struggle with it too.
Loved this post and thanks for sharing your knowledge! Not many people know about GhostBlogging. Make it a great day!
Deb Lamb
Freelance Ghostwriter
http://www.youreverythingservices.com
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Twitter: tammikibler
June 14, 2010 at 09:26
Dana – These are great tips. I especially like the idea of including a social media upsell with my ghostblogging package.
Mike – I think yours is also a great idea. Many of the business owners I speak with want to keep the blog in house and are looking for guidance. Thanks for the suggestion of consulting.
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I would also say that an easy way to get started is to just submit articles to other websites and blogs to build a portfolio. There are a lot of great sites out there that accept submissions.
Twitter: GeorgeAngus
June 15, 2010 at 13:18
Hi Dana,
It is very hard for me to change my voice for a blogging client. I naturally revert to my natural voice. No complaints from clients though. I’ve got a few ghostblogging clients and I love it.
George
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Great tips! Well shared. I just wrote an article highlighting some of the tough challenges involved in being a professional writer…being a good writer just isn’t enough and there are many things you have to do to make the leap from writing for fun and writing for cash!
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Great tips Dana.
I would say interacting with the readers is a big part of being a netter ghost writer. Every blogger loves to see lots of conversation and comment on their blog.
The comment section is on of the most interesting parts of the post from the readers point of view. They read other people’s comments and if you the author are active i it just may encourage other people to chime in and voice their opinion.
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Twitter: danaprince
September 18, 2011 at 19:17
Hi @ Satrap,
Thanks! I totally agree. I’ve seen blogs go hundreds of comments long and I’ve started a blog with one opinion and through comment section conversations have actually changed my stance on topics.
Seeing the interactive nature of blogs is what helped me fall in love with blogging. It’s especially great for those who work as solo professionals as the blogosphere definitely helps take away some of the isolation.
Cheers
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