Creating a blog is like breathing for you?
What about the content?
And here comes a client who needs a website/blog.
Almost always somebody who needs a website/blog will have some special know-how in a niche. He/She is a specialist for a content niche (let’s say plumbing) but has no web development and (!) no writing skills (but maybe thinks so).
Artem is writing in Have Profession – Will Be Paid for Writing:
If you have skills in pretty much any area, you can easily earn extra $5-20 an hour by freelance writing in a relevant niche blog – the writer’s skills are not important.
His perspective is good and a specialist able to write can make some extra freelance money from his know-how. I always experience it the other way round 🙂
How I make long term money from content development…
Look for specialists and convert them to long term clients
I know many people who do web design or web development. In most cases it is project work meaning that work is done when the website/blog is going live. In my case I always try to convert clients asking for a website into long term clients by offering not only technical skills but by offering content development.
A typical web 2.0 content development scenario
- A specialist wants a website and/or a blog.
- Training him to write properly and regularly almost always fails and in the end I am writing the articles, add content, link out and publish as a ghostwriter.
- This is really good money if your are paid on hourly base and not on a freelance writer fare 🙂
Important is the 2nd point: The client fails in updating the content on a regular base. No client pushing needed. Just patience, experience and a good web development follow-up strategy.
Creating new rich content is a lot of work and many clients will realize pretty soon that their key competences won’t transfer automatically into written words.
Example for short content development reference paragraph
Now somebody who knows his CMS platforms and is able to offer/create a good blog format, a good article structure, writing capabilities, desktop research, an editorial calendar and last not least some SEO/SEM know-how will be of huge help.
Some Branches where I had success up to now (watch the diversity):
- Photo agency
- Painter
- Record studio
- Lawyer
The specialists know-how is needed for creating the new article ideas and the ‘what’s hot’ objectives. The supplier at arm’s length for content development can offer the specialized content development resources.
Key factors
- The key for acquisition is a) having one or more nice dynamic websites/blogs yourself and b) content development references.
- The key for good maintainability to keep away from the technicals aspects (and the client complaining about support costs) is a) to know your tools and b) to cut down the technical solution to a minimum.
- The key for success is showing how nicely the clients pages pop up in Google a couple of days later.
Where are your specialists willing to hand out money for your content skills?