Getting clients. Meeting deadlines.
These are the things that actually matter to freelancers, especially freelance writers. Almost every freelancer has worried about growing their writing revenue at one point in their career.
The truth is that if you have taken some time to build your writing skills, it is only normal for you to look forward to getting the revenue that matches your skills.
As a writer, the best way to grow your writing revenue is by attracting high-paying clients that are ready to pay for your high-value content. While this is great, it takes some time to achieve.
If you are a new freelance writer, it may not be easy for you to attract high-paying clients because most high-paying clients want to work with experienced freelance writers.
Even if you are a new freelance writer, you can grow your writing revenue even with the few clients that you are working with. Growing your freelance writing business is an intentional process.
What do I mean?
I mean it is not something that just happens, it is something that you have to be deliberate about. Alright, let me make it clear; it is about the goals that you want to achieve.
Everyone is different and so is our goal. So, your goal will most likely affect the strategy that you would use to grow your freelance writing revenue.
You can grow your freelance writing revenue regardless of the number of clients that you have at the moment. The number one strategy to achieving this is IMPRESSING YOUR CLIENTS.
Impressing your client is the biggest strategy for growing your freelance writing revenue even if you are yet to work with high-paying clients. There are a lot of benefits that come with impressing your clients:
a. An impressed client will most likely come back.
b. An impressed client will recommend you to other clients (even bigger clients).
c. An impressed client may pay more than the agreed rates.
d. An impressed client will most likely give you a positive review. This helps you to build trust with potential clients
In this article, I will show you the strategies that I used to impress my previous employer and the strategies that I use to impress clients.
Are you ready? Let’s go
I Do My Best to Understand My Clients
This is the first thing that I do now. Although, this used to be a different story for me in the early years of my career. In the early days of my career, I used to focus on how creative the article that I am writing will appear.
Guess what I discovered?
I discovered that after putting in my best to show my creative prowess (lol), my employer wasn’t quite impressed. I remembered feeling really troubled and disturbed.
Later I discovered that he wasn’t impressed because I wasn’t meeting his expectations.
This is why it is important to understand your client’s needs right before you begin with research or even writing. You should start writing when you have a good understanding of what your client wants.
Understanding your client is very important.
If you understand your clients and your client’s business, then you are more likely to create high-quality content that your client will absolutely love.
Learning about your client’s business just doesn’t help you write high-quality content, but will help you:
a. Show the client that you are interested in the business.
b. Show the client that you are thorough and pay attention to details (especially when you ask questions).
It might take you a while to understand your clients and the business, but in the end, the effort will be worth it. You will struggle less with making ideas flow when you start writing.
Understand the Quality of Content that Your Clients Want
While many freelance writers struggle with low-paying clients, many others are making hundreds and thousands of dollars from writing the same length of the article as you.
The truth is that there are many clients that understand the value of high-quality articles. These kinds of clients are ready to pay a fortune to get these kinds of articles on their blogs.
If you finally land a high-paying client that is ready to pay any rate as long as you produce a great article, then you need to keep that client.
How do you keep this kind of client?
The best way to keep this kind of client is to impress them. You first start your journey of impressing them by understanding the quality of content that your client wants.
The best way to do this is by doing the following:
a. Read the content brief over and over till you clearly understand what your client wants to achieve.
b. Ask questions about aspects of the brief that you do not understand.
c. Read the brand guide to understand the tone that you should work with when you start writing.
d. Do a lot of research to see how other people feel about the subject. This will help you with your thought.
e. Go over your finished work to see areas that you need to improve on.
Following these steps will help you write articles that will match industry standards.
I Produce Top-Notch Content that My Client will Love
The number one secret to impressing your clients is by producing top-notch content that your clients will absolutely love.
The truth is that everyone loves something that is good. When you produce top-notch content for your client even if the effort may not match the pay, you will have a lot to gain.
If you are a new freelancer ensuring that you give your clients the kind of content that is beyond what they pay can make them take the following actions:
a. Give you a tip in addition to the agreed rate.
b. Reach out to you for more collaborations.
Asides from influencing the client to take action that will favour you, it also provides a basis for you to increase your rates. When a client knows that they actually got more than what they paid for, it is easy for them to pay more if you request to be paid more.
Sometimes, it can sound ambiguous when you say create high-quality content. I understand that there is no switch that you will flip that will help you create high-quality content.
Creating high-quality is work, but it becomes easier when you take it one step at a time.
Let me show you how I used to create high-quality content for my employer and how I create high-quality content for my clients.
a. I do a great deal of research on the topic that I am going to work on
I spend a lot of time researching to get a strong understanding of the subject matter way before I start to write. When I talk about researching, I don’t mean simply doing a quick Google search and opening related articles in new tabs.
When I talk about researching the topic, I mean:
a. Searching for related articles to have an idea of the writer’s take on the subject.
b. Researching experts’ theories and views on the topic. This will guide me on the side that you need to take to favour your client’s business or service.
c. Getting access to statistics and studies that others have done on the topic that will prove my point.
d. Researching my target audience’s pain points and solutions that they wish to get (I like to use Reddit for this or other communities depending on your reach or audience).
These are just some of the few things that I do when I research. You can do even more.
When you do a great job with your research, you give the best answers to people searching for the kind of answers that you are giving in your article.
b. I make sure my writing is simple and easy to understand
I am very conscious of the fact that I am writing for people that don’t have the time to read. So I make sure that article is scannable, it is easy for you to get the answers that you are looking for without necessarily reading in between the lines.
How do I achieve this?
I achieve it by doing the following:
a. Putting my sub-headings in H2 and H3 tags respectively. This helps readers to pick the areas that they are interested in. Tables of content are a great way for you to achieve this too.
b. I use bullets or numbers to list important points.
c. I use italics and bold fonts to note important points that I think would interest my readers.
d. I make sure my sentences are short and precise.
e. I use a lot of paragraphs.
f. I make sure that I do not have more than 3 sentences in a paragraph.
These tips improve the readability of my articles.
c. I carry my readers along with me on a journey to make them take an action
When you are writing for a client, you are not going to be writing for writing’s sake. Your writing is supposed to lead your readers to take an action (make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, drop a comment, etc.)
To achieve this, you have to learn to carefully take your readers on a journey that will finally make them take the desired action willingly.
How do I achieve this?
I achieve this by writing just the way I would be talking to my reader if we were in the same location. I have learned to write like I am having a conversation.
That way, it is more like you are just gisting with the reader. They will also trust you easily because you have shown that you understand their frustration and you know the way out.
This is why it is important for you to understand your buyer persona. This is where research comes in.
Different tones are appropriate for different kinds of people. The more you understand your audience, the better conversations you would have with them.
d. I make sure I give out all the needed information
You have to learn not to hoard information however priced if you want to create top-notch content. If you have developed a strategy that works, do well to share. This is what will help you stand out amongst other writers.
When you give out useful information that your audience may not easily find anywhere, then you are building trust and loyalty. It will also be easy for you to sell to this audience in the future.
Why? Because they are sure they get quality.
You should also note that you may not be able to give all the information that your prospective reader will need in a few words. The more words you are willing to write, the more value you will give.
I Keep My Client’s Business Visibility (SEO) in mind
The importance of SEO cannot be over-emphasized in the world of freelance writing or writing in general.
Gone are the days when being creative was all that was required from a writer. Now, the narrative has changed. Employers and businesses are interested in freelancers that can write SEO-friendly articles.
Whether you own a blog or you write for businesses, you want to make sure the article that you are writing gets seen by the people that need it.
The era of post and pray is far gone. If you want your article to be discovered, then you have to learn how to write SEO-friendly articles.
When it comes to creating visibility for your articles, then you need to start practising on-page SEO. On-page SEO will not be a difficult thing for you to do if you are already a writer.
Do you want to learn more about on-page SEO? Click here to view my detailed article on-page SEO
I Make Sure My Communication is Top-Notch
Communication is another secret to impressing your clients and growing your writing revenue.
Many freelance writers are concerned about the gigs, but don’t care much about understanding and managing client’s expectations. Before you say yes to any job, make sure you:
a. Understand what the client wants to achieve.
b. Understand what the clients consider as successful.
c. If you can meet up with the client’s expectations.
Once you have established these things, it will be easy for you to impress the client. It also helps you to understand the kind of projects that you should accept and the ones that you should reject.
Communicating with your client is important. Building strong communication with your clients will help you:
a. Ask useful questions that will give you the information that you need.
b. Send feedback to your clients when you achieve a milestone to make sure you are both on the same page.
c. Take corrections from clients. This will give you the ideas you need to move forward with the project.
Communication is key to impressing your client because it helps the client feel like you are a part of the project and not just a freelancer working to get money.
I Always Respect Deadlines
Time is an extremely important factor in the world of content writing. Your client would want the article to be up as soon as possible.
You know how they say that you never know when your searchers are searching for the answers that you have.
With this in mind, you would understand that your client meant it when they fixed a deadline for the article. Respecting the deadlines is respecting your client’s business.
If you would not be able to meet your client’s deadline for one reason or the other, then you make them know this in time.
These are the strategies that I use to impress my clients. The biggest strategy to impress your client is PRODUCING TOP-NOTCH CONTENT.
Even while you are yet to land high-paying clients, do well to create top-notch content for the clients that you have now. What if you are yet to get a client?
If you are yet to get a client, still put in the work to create top-notch content on your websites or social media accounts. As a writer, it is important for you to have a portfolio.
You never know the sample work that will make a client choose you over other writers.
Do you have any questions? Let me know in the comment box below.