If you are looking to start a blog but aren’t quite sure what the first steps are you need to take, here are my five top tips:

1. Choose a subject

• What are you an expert on?
• Who are you targeting?
• What do they want to learn?
• What need do they have that you can fulfil?
• How will your blog make a difference to them?
• What will make them want to read it?
• Where can you provide most value – what can you add to the blogosphere?

2. Ascertain demand

• How many blogs already exist on your chosen subject? (There’s obviously room for several blogs on the same topic in the blogosphere but don’t try and enter a hugely competitive area)
• Take a note of what do these blogs cover exactly – try and make your blog come from a slightly different angle
• Sign up to these blogs and read them regularly
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In my part of the world, the whole country seems to come to a grinding halt between Christmas Eve and New Year. For us freelancers, it’s a great time to go on holiday, as no clients are around. (If you’ve got the dosh to go away, in these straitened times.)

If you’re not one of the lucky few who can afford a festive vacation, it’s still a great time to take a break and put your feet up. Sweep aside invoices, marketing plans and timesheets. Instead, watch old movies, catch up with friends and go for walks.

For me, I’ll be seeing friends who will be over from the US, friends who now live in the country, as well as my sister and her family. And I’ll be sure to have my nose in a novel or two. I also like playing tourist in my own city so I’ll be going to Winter Wonderland in Hyde Park, visiting the new Scandinavian Christmas market in south west London and catching up on one or two art exhibitions.

When I started up my copywriting business, I had no marketing budget to play with. Over a year later, I still don’t: not because I can’t afford one, but because I don’t need one. Right back in the beginning, I was talked into using Twitter in a personal capacity by friends and family, who had got there way ahead of me.

But once I saw how other people were successfully using Twitter as a free tool to market their businesses, I started to apply their approach to my own company. Since then, my biggest contracts have come through Twitter and I use it every day to build my business and win more clients. Most of my business now comes from word-of-mouth recommendations – and that’s really what Twitter is all about.

Twitter training

Everyone I speak to seems to have a blog these days. And there’s a very good reason for this. Well, I can actually think of at least ten good reasons. Here are my thoughts on why a blog can help your freelance business.

1. The content in your posts will position you as an expert. You will be seen as the ‘go to’ person (assuming you write valuable content, of course).

2. If you link your blog to your website, it will help drive more traffic to your site.

3. Your blog can be a source of income. You can sign up to affiliate deals and run adverts (eg: Google Adsense). They’re free to sign up to and every time someone clicks on an advert or buys an item through your affiliate link, you earn money. You can also sell your own products on your blog, such as ebooks, online courses, apps etc.

Here are my 14 tips on how to write a successful blog:

1. Be clear why you are doing a blog. Is it:

• to drive traffic to your site?
• to position yourself as an expert?
• to raise your profile?
• to sell stuff (eg: e-books)?
• to air your views?
• all of these?

2. Use WordPress – it’s free and easy to use. There are lots of free plug-ins and free templates. (This is a WordPress blog – although I got a designer to customise it for me so it doesn’t look like an off-the-shelf template.)

3. Use keywords in the headline text, links, browser title, page description and alt tags. That way, you’ll get picked up by the search engines.

A crucial part of your marketing plan is working out what kind of clients you want to attract. So here are three important questions you’ll want to ask yourself:

Q1: Who is my target audience?

Think hard about exactly who you want to aim at. Don’t be vague with statements such as ‘women’ or ‘SMEs’ or ‘design agencies’.

Instead, refine it down to something like:

• ‘Working mothers aged 30-45 who want to improve their cooking skills.’
• ‘Technology businesses in the Thames Valley with a turnover of £1-£5 million.’
• ‘Web design agencies with between 5-20 staff located in the London postcodes of SW and W.’
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