Ghost Blogging: Quick Tips to Find Success
"More and more businesses are realizing the importance of having a blog because it’s a fantastic way to drive traffic to their website and score new clients."
Content is king on the Internet, and companies are rapidly realizing that. One of my own side-hustles involves work for a company that helps businesses understand the importance of content marketing. A digital marketing course I'm in the middle of taking keeps circling back to the same point: that if you want attention, you need to generate content that is actually useful to people.
The world of marketing is a rapidly changing environment, because ultimately, no one actually knows why anyone buys anything. A blog can do a lot for you, but they take a lot of work before you can turn them into anything that resembles an income. That doesn't mean, however, that you shouldn't work on building your blog-writing skills.
As companies realize that they need to incorporate content into their marketing strategies, they need people to create that content. In my book, A Life in Art, I go over some marketplaces where you can find this kind of work. If you do think ghost-blogging could be a side-hustle for you, then read on for three quick tips on finding success.
Work Hard at Your Writing
Writing comes naturally to some people, and for others it is a decidedly learned skill. Regardless of which category you fall into, you can't let yourself rest on your laurels. The marketplace for high paid content jobs is a tough one, and if you are creating subpar content, you'll never be able to raise your rates to a place that will actually help you pay your bills.
Search engines are getting smarter about the kind of content that they are pushing to their users, and as such, it is tougher and tougher to rank articles. Ranking articles is the way content marketing pays off, so if you aren't able to provide the kinds of articles that will be SEO optimized, then you won't have much value to companies.
As you start booking jobs, keep working on your writing. It is the only way you'll build your portfolio and reputation in the ghost-blogging marketplaces.
Maintain Strong Client Relationships
Your clients are going to be your bread and butter. If you can build repeat business with a client, then you're going to have an easier time building your income. It takes time to take on a new client (if you want to do it the right way), so the more work that comes from that initial investment of time the better.
With each client, really take the time to understand the voice they are going for with their blog. Just because you're writing it doesn't mean you can say it exactly as you'd like to say it. If that's how you'd like to proceed, then you're better off starting your own blog. The client is hiring you so that it appears they are writing great blog posts. Do everything you can to make them look good.
Stop Writing Blog Posts
"With the ongoing efforts of Google to exclude mass-content sites from its search results, the forecast is for less blogging-for-hire work in future. Most of the cheap, SEO-keyword driven, short-post assignments are drying up.
It’s a dying niche because semi-literate, half-baked posts you dash off in 15 minutes for search robots to index don’t work any more. They don’t drive traffic because they’re not turning up in search results. So businesses are not going to pay even $5 for them in future."
- Carol Tice, Make a Living Writing
This goes back to what I was saying earlier. Content is king, but it is only content that is useful and informative to the audience. Simply putting a bunch of keywords together isn't going to cut it anymore in terms of SEO or in driving sales. Both search engines and readers are more discerning than that, and click through and shares come from articles that actually help.
Conclusion
If you have a passion for writing and a passion for learning, ghost-blogging could be a great side-hustle for you. Be prepared to spend some time getting started, and prep yourself for the learning curve. Earnings will be small in the beginning, but if you commit yourself to getting better, then those earnings can really grow. Content is king on the Internet, and in terms of side-hustles that are truly portable, this is decidedly one of them.
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