6 Ways to Use Your Blog to Attract High-Value Freelance Clients

You’ve been freelancing for months—maybe even years. From having a well-crafted resume and portfolio, to subscribing on every freelance job portal, sending multiple cold emails each day and networking across social media channels, it’s easy to feel like you’re doing it all. 

In spite of doing a lot of the things you should be, something is often still amiss. Most freelancers have yet to land a coveted high-paying client with brand name recognition, who can help truly grow their freelance business to the next level.

If this sounds anything like where you are today, the chances are high that you’re overlooking one of the most effective tools at your disposal for attracting high quality potential clients—your own blog. 

Most people decide to start a blog simply for fun, without realizing that blogging has the potential to be so much more than just an outlet to share your life updates. Apart from perfecting your own writing skills, expressing yourself, building your personal brand and showcasing your expertise—a well-written (and promoted) blog can also help you expand your freelance business in dramatic ways.

Over the past six years, that’s exactly what I’ve done. I’ve turned my blog into a source of more than six-figures in freelance income, outside of my full-time job. And every single one of the clients who’ve hired me, did so because of my blog.

Based on my own experiences and real-life application, here are six proven ways you can use your blog to land high-paying freelance clients this year.  

1. Clearly Define the Niche You’ll Be Blogging About

“I want to write about a lot of topics, so do I really need a niche for my blog?”

The answer here is a resounding yes, you need to pick a niche to blog about because that’s the only way to develop a content strategy that’ll position your freelance business for long-term success. 

Don’t look at your blog as a personal diary. In order to use it for boosting your freelance career, you need to pick a niche of content topics that you’re both personally interested in—and will give you good cause to reach out to the kinds of companies you want to land projects with.

Start by making a list of topics that would clearly be interesting to your prospective clients—consider the types of challenges they’re facing in their businesses, the terms they’re typing into Google and where that overlaps with topics you’d genuinely like writing about. 

You then need to assess whether there’s enough of an audience for the niche before diving in. A good way to find that out is by doing a keyword research using a free tool like Twinword Ideas. This’ll give you the monthly search volume of the keywords you’re considering blogging about, and also offer suggestions based on other terms your prospects are searching for. 

Choosing a blog niche is a crucial step, because it lays the foundation for what your blog will become, and the kind of freelance clients you’ll be reaching out to.

Once you’ve narrowed down on a niche, it’s time to make sure your blog is designed to convert.

2. Create a Compelling Work With Me Page

If you want prospective clients to reach out, you need to make it easy for them to do so—and creating a prominent Work with Me page serves that purpose most directly. 

The best part? Your Work with Me page doesn’t need to be overly fancy, complex or packed with visuals. Take for example freelance writer Elise Dopson’s services page that explains her B2B freelance writing process:

Elise’s introduction entertainingly walks through who her ideal clients are, what their challenges are, how her strengths are positioned for those types of businesses—and as you scroll down the page, you’re presented with multiple relevant examples, testimonials and additional details about how to kick off a project with her. 

Don’t overthink your Work with Me page. This is where your goal is to show your expertise in your niche, build credibility, thoughtfully market your services and illustrate to prospective clients how you can add value to their business. You should also showcase any milestones you’ve achieved along the way, serving to further build confidence with your prospects.

Then, make sure to wrap this page up by inserting a clear, actionable call-to-action button that triggers an email—or a simple contact form to make it extremely easy for prospects to get in touch with you. 

Here’s a screenshot of my Work with Me page that shows how I’ve not only strived to build credibility & trust on the page, but how I’ve also made it extremely clear who my ideal clients are based on three important criteria—monthly budget, engagement duration and timeline to starting a new project. 

Below this, there’s a one-click button for sending me a direct email and starting a conversation. 

Having a clear (single) call-to-action you want prospects to take is crucial at this stage. If they’re sold on the idea of hiring you, then it’s time to jump straight into discussing the details—rather than adding more hoops to jump through before reaching you.

You can even go above and beyond just having a simple Work with Me page by developing a more compelling presentation deck that actually walks through more specifics of your service offerings. Take care to pitch specific packages and break down real life case studies for your prospects, so that they’ll more easily connect the dots between your work and their future success.

3. Brainstorm Content That’s Relevant to Prospective Clients 

When you get to the stage of brainstorming relevant blog post ideas your prospects are searching for, the key is to work backwards to land on the right angle that’ll actually encourage them to click through and read along. 

You’ve already done your keyword research. So now, start by identifying the most pressing pain points your prospects have within those umbrella topics you’ve determined there’s demand for. 

Here’s an example—let’s say you run a marketing blog and offer your digital marketing services as contract help to established tech startups. Think of the challenges marketers and startup growth teams are facing. Which articles are they most interested in reading?

Use this powerful combination of keyword research, smart SEO tools and Google own search autofill feature to understand commonly asked questions that are related to your niche. 

At the end of the day, you need to write content that’s relevant to the clients you want to attract. 

By executing on this from your own blog, this allows you to portray yourself as an expert in the field, establishes credibility, gives them clear work samples to reference and encourages them to instil more trust in your services compared to other freelancers that don’t have as much of a digital presence. 

4. Publish High-Quality Content (That Mentions Your Prospective Clients)

Nothing can beat the dramatic impact of high-quality content that provides genuine value—and this is a non-negotiable element when it comes to using your blog as a tool to generate leads for your freelance business.

First and foremost, it’s important to publish content that you’re truly proud of and can stand behind. Think of your blog content as examples of what clients can hire you to create for them, and that’ll incentivize you to utilize your blog for showcasing your best work.

Apart from optimizing blog posts for SEO by crafting compelling headlines, checking keyword density, using long-tail keywords and inserting internal links, you also need to ensure your posts are in-depth, offer actionable advice and answer all of the most crucial questions related to the topic at hand. 

It’s important to look for natural ways you can mention (and link to) prospective clients you’d like to land gigs with, so that you then have a compelling reason to reach out and connect after the article is published. 

5. Reach Out to the Prospects You Mention on Your Blog

As I’ve already alluded to, one of the best ways to grow your business development pipeline and grab a potential client’s attention, is to mention them in your blog content. After all, who doesn’t love a shoutout?

You can cleverly mention them in a post that shares industry examples, featuring them prominently as brands who are winning in their space. That’s not all, once the article is published, reach out to them and share the article link while introducing yourself. 

In fact, this is the exact approach that’s helped me grow multiple relationships that blossomed into five-figure contracts for my freelance writing services. Here’s the email template I use to notify prospects after I feature them on my blog:

Hey {First Name},

Just wanted to reach out and give you a heads up that I featured you of my recent articles this morning about {topic/link} over on my blog and it’s starting to pick up some serious momentum already.

I’ve been a reader of {their blog name} for years now and I’m a big fan of the content you’ve been producing, so I wanted to return the favor by highlighting the work you’ve been doing 🙂

{My Name}

Notice that there’s no sales pitch in this initial outreach email? That’s intentional. 

When these conversations start by providing value first without any strings attached, you’re in a much more powerful position to soon make a win-win ask—because you’ve already delivered something positive to their business.

Only after I’ve first opened up a dialogue with my prospects and gauged their interest, will I make a pitch of hiring my services if there seems to be a mutual fit.

You can also share your recently published article on your social media channels, tag the prospective client and ask a bunch of friends for a retweet that’ll give it some momentum. For all you know, they might share your article and reach out to you first. 

6. Promote Your Content (Make it Successful)

The 80/20 rule applies to content promotion in a major way. You need to spend 20% of your time creating content and 80% on promoting it. As a relatively new blogger, you need to do everything you can to drive qualified traffic to your blog from sources outside of just search engines and your own personal email outreach.

Here are a few other ways to promote your blog content and bring prospects to you:

• Share your content on the social channels your prospects actually spend time on
• Publish quote roundups that feature decision-makers at your prospective client companies (to get them interested and invested in your content)
• Write guest posts for other relevant blogs and mention your prospective clients
• Capture email addresses from your own blog and build an email newsletter
• Land a publication column in a well-respected industry publication to boost credibility and drive traffic back to your own website

Let’s not forget, that in order to impress your prospective clients, you also need to make your blog look like it represents a successful freelancer in your space. 

How do you do that? Ensure your blog is visually appealing, easily scannable and matches the way you’re positioning yourself as a freelancer. 

It’s also a great idea to use the right tools and plugins that’ll encourage readers to share your articles and leave comments that’ll reaffirm your content is performing well—another reflection of your expertise within your industry. 

Final Thoughts on Blogging to Attract Freelance Clients

As a freelancer that wants to attract higher-paying contracts, you need to put yourself in your clients’ shoes and think from their perspective about how they’ll feel when landing on your blog—whether from an organic Google search or from an outreach email. 

While you should continue to look for work on high quality marketplace websites like Fiverr, it’s equally important to take matters into your own hands by using your blog to create broader awareness and market yourself as a top freelancer in your space. 

The goal is to adopt a smart blogging strategy that enhances your personal brand, attracts the right clients and helps you grow your freelance business.