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You have a professional site, and now you’re trying to make it work for you. Yesterday you started to promote that site by adding a few initial links to let your existing network know about it. Today I want you to take that a step further. We’re going to look at how you can use blogs to subtly get targeted attention for your services.

Background

When it comes to marketing your freelance writing services, you can take a hard sell approach (think pushy “Buy now! Buy now! sales copy) or a soft sell approach (more quietly building a reputation and visibility that has clients coming to you for projects (think giving away a free industry report or running a blog to position yourself as a thought leader in your niche or industry). Both can work, but the query-free freelancing style favors the soft sell — something that hopefully more readers will be comfortable with, as I know not all writers are comfortable with the idea of “selling themselves.”

Blogs are an excellent tool when it comes to the soft sell. You can run your own (and some of you will be). You can link from your blog posts to other blogs in the niche (you’ll often get trackback links on their blog, and those bloggers become aware of your own blog when they check their links). You can also comment on other relevant blogs, leaving a link to your own (with your name; don’t spam by adding it to the body of your comment). Today we’re going to work on the latter two.

Exercises

1. Today I want you to identify at least ten blogs run, or frequented, by members of your target market. Don’t worry. It shouldn’t be too difficult. For example, if you want to target magazine editors look for editors who are running blogs either on the publisher’s site or independently (plenty are these days). You could even look for blogs that target publishing professionals — blogs those editors might read. If you’re targeting executives with business writing services, look for company blogs they contribute to. If you want to write SEO Web content, then look for blogs run by SEO firms (great middle men clients in that niche). Make a list. At least ten. If you can come up with more, write them down too, because you’ll come back to them later.
2. Now I want you to visit those ten blogs. Find a recent post you’re genuinely interested in. Leave a comment on it. Most blogs will let you include a link with your name (and always use your actual name – don’t stuff keywords in the comment author field — it reeks of spam and does little to help your personal branding which is important when selling freelance writing services). Don’t leave garbage comments like “I agree,” or “Great post.” Also don’t do anything at all directly in those comments to promote yourself, your site, or your services. Your link is passive promotion, and that is enough. The idea is to leave a quality comment that truly adds to the conversation. When you do that you increase your chances of having those professionals notice you. You want them to notice you and want to learn more about you. To do that, they’ll click your link and visit your site. Don’t worry if it doesn’t happen immediately. Keep doing this anyway. Sometimes it takes a while for them to notice the comments, and they won’t always check out your site to learn more. It’s okay to comment on more than one post, but don’t do anything spammy. Take it easy, and keep more commenting for their future posts. Subscribe to their RSS feed if it’s easier for you to stay on top of comment-worthy / discussion-worthy posts that way.
3. If you run your own blog, you have another exercise. I want you to write one of your posts for this week. I also want you to do a blog search (Technorati or Google Blog Search are fine) to find other recent blog posts on the topic. At the end of your post include a list of links (call it “Related Resources,” “Recommended Reading,” etc.). Link to those related posts. Again, you’ll get trackback links for some of them, and you can get the attention of other bloggers in the niche (who might link to you, write about you, become readers of your blog, or become active members of your professional network). Do the same thing with every future blog post. You can see an example on one of my NakedPR.com posts – Are Your Comment Policies Hurting Your Conversations?

That wasn’t too bad, now was it? These kinds of comments will be included in many of our future bootcamp days so you won’t forget. But do it daily if you want to. Just be sure you’re actually adding value with what you have to say and not posting crap just to get a link back.

Related posts:

1. 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp for Freelance Writers – Day 19
2. 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp for Freelance Writers – Day 9
3. 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp for Freelance Writers – Day 17
4. 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp for Freelance Writers – Day 11
5. 30 Day Marketing Bootcamp for Freelance Writers – Day 7

About the Author: Jennifer Mattern

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Jenn is a professional blogger and freelance business writer. She has worked as a freelance writer since 1999, and has been an active business and niche blogger since 2004. She owns All Freelance Writing as well as several other sites and blogs covering PR, small business, and related topic areas. She is also currently writing a nonfiction book for freelance writers called The Query-Free Freelancer, and is the author of the Web Writer's Guide e-book series.

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