The Word Wrangler

I was recently checking out a fellow writer’s blog and marveling over the amount of traffic he seemed to be getting. I admit, that I was a little jealous.

And then it occurred to me as I read through some of the comments: These readers are all other writers.

Why is that significant?

Because, while getting tons of traffic from other writers is great, it doesn’t do much for your business, unless they’re going to hire you as a potential outsourcing option. It’s really traffic that leads nowhere. If you’re serious about making money as a professional copywriter, you have to attract people who are looking for that service, and a blog aimed at other writers isn’t the best tool to accomplish that.

Okay, I know about the advertising angle, but here’s the dirty little secret that the advertisers don’t know yet: The ads don’t work.

So, it’s only a matter of time before advertisers figure out what smart people already know, and you can quit blogging for ad revenue.

Your other option as a professional writer is to blog for potential clients, and to build rankings based on what customers are looking for. Getting traffic from people who are looking for copywriters and online marketing experts makes better business sense than writing to entertain other writers.

Writing a blog that’s geared toward getting clients requires writing in a different tone or genre. For more information about this check out Dina’s post on the subject.

If you’re currently writing a blog that’s getting a lot of traffic from other like-minded folks, there’s no good reason to switch style and tone to start attracting customers. Instead, try setting up another blog that’s a showcase for your particular expertise.

Most of us have a business side and a fun side. There’s no reason that you shouldn’t apply that same approach in the blogging arena.

Also, check out this post at Problogger on how pages versus posts impact your blog.