Be a Freelance Blogger

Learn to make REAL money blogging for hire

  • Blog
  • About
    • About You and Me
    • Write for Us
    • Get in Touch
  • Training & Coaching
  • Get the Book
  • Need a Blogger?

By Kirsty Stuart 15 Comments

How to Earn More as a Freelance Blogger by “Providing Value”

How to Earn More as a Freelance Blogger by “Providing Value”

(Important note: While you read this, give the phrase “providing value” the most childishly sarcastic tone you can muster.)

If you’re looking for ways to earn more as a freelance blogger, the phrase “providing value” is one that you may hear a lot. I don’t know about you, but it’s one that I tend to skim over a lot too.

It’s not that I don’t want to learn ways to provide more value to my freelance writing clients. I do. It’s just, well, the term doesn’t really mean anything on its own, does it?

The irony is, I’ve learned that I’m already providing plenty of this value people speak of, and it’s causing me to earn more. It’s just that I call it something else.

“Provide value” simply means:

Give more to somebody than you ask from them in return.

Permission to delve deeper into what that looks like?

Great. Here goes:

An accidental income boost

How to Earn More as a Freelance Blogger by "Providing More Value" | Be a Freelance Blogger
Give your clients higher value, not lower prices

As a freelance writer online, I’ve been “providing value” according to the above definition for years.

Not in any altruistic way, you understand. I didn’t decide to adopt this method out of any sense of charitable duty to mankind.

While I like to think my charitable duty is alive and well, and I’m inclined to go the extra mile for people, I only stumbled across this give-more-than-you-take strategy by accident.

And I quickly realised one thing about applying this to my freelance writing career:

It was making me richer.

As I saw my earnings increase, I naturally continued to use this method as my default approach to my work.

Well, wouldn’t you?

How to use it for your blogging business

First, know how much to charge for your freelance writing services. Read Here’s How Much to Charge Your Freelance Writing Clients if you haven’t worked this out yet, or download The Be a Freelance Blogger Rate Guide for blogging-specific rates. Know your rate and never dip below it, or you’ll get into all sorts of trouble when applying this principle.

Next, always give more in usefulness and value to your client than you ask from them in monetary terms.

If your rate is particularly high, that’s some pretty high value you’ve got to deliver… Hang on! No, don’t drop your rate. Simply add more value instead.

This is what this looks like in the real world:

Say you bag yourself a new freelance writing client. They’re a small company with not much of an online presence and they need your help.

You immediately go about writing your first blog post for them. You work hard on researching and perfecting the post, and are proud of it. You realise when you’re finished that your own social media network would benefit from something like this.

You send your first blog post to your new client and tell them just that. You convince them of the benefits of spreading the message of the post across your social media networks. You explain that while you’d normally charge extra for this sort of thing, you’ll do this for free just this one time so that they can see the results for themselves.

The post is a hit and along with the shout out to your social media network, readers and potential customers are flowing your client’s way. Your new client now thinks you’re some sort of Dumbledore of the online world and asks if you’d be interested in looking after their social media accounts on top of your regular blogging gig.

The benefits of this increased exposure for your new client’s company are obvious, but it also benefits the people within your social media networks too. (It’s important to note that this example wouldn’t work if this was not the case.)

How you earn more money

This example illustrates that what we’re looking at is a simple case of cause and effect. Everybody’s situations, talents, ideas and resources are different so you need to ask yourself what sort of extra value you can legitimately offer.

In this example, you may have charged, say, $60 for that one blog post for your new client, but in terms of how many potential customers you sent their way, you gave them much more than this in terms of value.

So perhaps that new client doesn’t need anybody to manage their social media – maybe they just hired somebody to take care of it. Perhaps it’s something as simple as being so pleased with your work that they keep you on as their regular writer.

Maybe the client offers you absolutely nothing extra in return at all. But the next time they have a big project they need help with, or know anybody else who needs a skilled freelance writer slash online marketing wizard, who do you suppose they’ll think of first?

Giving more value than you could ever charge for — no matter how high your rates — almost guarantees more work and more money. Why? Because that’s the way the universe works. You get out what you put in.

Plus, it just feels kinda nice.

Think you’ve got nothing of value to add?

Here are a few examples of ways you can add value, and in the process create opportunities for higher earnings:

  • Always deliver your work on time (or earlier than deadline) and complete it to an impeccably high standard.
    Put the whole of your heart and the height of your energy into every piece of work. This is such a ridiculously simple yet effective concept to apply to your freelance blogging business. It leads to happy clients who think about you first and without hesitation when more work comes up (or they’re recommending a freelance writer to others).
  • Offer to distribute your clients’ press releases online.
    This gives your clients’ brand more exposure, but in an affordable way that saves them time. It gives you more writing work (the press releases have to be written before they can be distributed) and potentially an extra service to charge for.
  • Offer to manage clients’ social media accounts.
    Be certain your clients see the benefits of this and why you’re the right person for the job. (See the main example above.)

Some cautions and observations

I’m going to go ahead and state the obvious here: it’s probably unwise to approach your work, or any area of your life, with the aim of giving only to receive. That is not the purpose of this post.

The message of this post is quite the opposite — give more than you expect to receive, and then go about your business as usual. Opportunities to earn more will arise as a result of this approach. Your job then is simply to recognise these opportunities when they present themselves.

Giving more in value than you ask for in cold, hard cash will only ever lead to good things. It creates happy clients and can help you earn more as a freelance blogger.

And what if it doesn’t? At least the world will be a slightly happier place to work and play.

Share this:

  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Related

Filed Under: Guest Posts, Level Up

Yours Free: $13,355 in Blogging Gigs

If you're keen to make money blogging, you'll love the Ultimate List of Better-Paid Blogging Gigs -- it gives you details of 75 blogs that pay $50 to $2000 per post. Enter your email and I'll send you a free copy, plus my money-making toolkit and other useful stuff.

About Kirsty Stuart

Kirsty Stuart is a freelance writer from London who quit her day job in 2012 in order to write, travel and live life on her own terms. She’s offering Be a Freelance Blogger readers a huge discount on her Udemy video course, How I Became a Freelance Writer Online – and Quit My Day Job, which includes everything from pitching templates to proven methods on how to join the highest-earning freelance bloggers online today. Use the coupon code: BAFB47 or click here now.

Comments

  1. Patrick Icasas says

    June 14, 2014 at 1:28 am

    This post is absolutely true. I did this for one of my freelance blogging clients, adding value nearly two years of blogging with them. Imagine my surprise when my current liked me enough to actually offer me a full time job!

    Reply
    • Sophie Lizard says

      June 14, 2014 at 9:06 am

      Yay, Patrick! Always good to see the principle in action. 🙂

      Reply
      • Jeff Hayford says

        July 4, 2014 at 1:18 am

        Such a cool result! I primarily write for the music industry and was hired by a company with a new product I knew was really useless. Trying to find good things to say about something you know sucks is tough and made me feel like a slut – finally had to give it up and even return some money. Congrats to you Patrick! Thanks Sophie for yet again being so astute about this industry, bringing up a very relevant aspect and being so helpful and inspirational to all of us! Be Well – Jeff

        Reply
    • Kirsty Stuart says

      June 15, 2014 at 10:26 am

      Good for you Patrick. It does work!

      Reply
  2. Edward Beaman says

    June 14, 2014 at 10:31 am

    It’s a great message to take into all areas of life but definitely beneficial when it comes to online business.

    When reading I was reminded of something Anne Frank said, “No one has ever become poor by giving”.

    Whether this is giving all you’ve got to create a fantastic post, giving some extra benefits you’d otherwise charge for, or just helping someone in the street, this ‘give-more-than-you-take’ philosophy enriches everyone.

    You’ve certainly given me a great reminder Kirsty, thank you! You can never be reminded enough I think.

    Reply
  3. Diana Marinova says

    June 15, 2014 at 8:48 am

    I second Edward’s comment – this is a great approach not only for your freelance business (blogging or not) but for every other aspect of your life.

    In the context of freelancing though, beware not to be taken for a ride. Not all clients are created equal and there certainly are those who’d abuse your generosity and mistaken your good will with desire to work more for less.

    But if you have good mechanisms in place to spot bad clients, that shouldn’t worry you – adding value is the best way to stand apart and get noticed.

    Thanks for the nice read, Kirsty and Sophie 😀

    Reply
    • Kirsty Stuart says

      June 15, 2014 at 7:15 pm

      You’re welcome Diana. 🙂 You make a great point too. Sometimes you can do everything to ensure all your clients fall into the ‘good guys’ category but still find yourself with a bad apple who takes advantage.

      I say add value but stay vigilant!

      Reply
  4. Kirsty Stuart says

    June 15, 2014 at 10:30 am

    Absolutely Edward. It’s certainly not a bad way to live your life and it comes with added perks!

    Reply
  5. Bree Brouwer says

    June 16, 2014 at 2:00 am

    Kirsty, this is just what I needed to read today! I’d like to hear more about how you communicate such value to your clients, though. Your one line of “I normally charge for this, but I really think this would hep you” is great! Do you have more ideas like that which work to communicate value?

    Reply
    • Kirsty Stuart says

      June 16, 2014 at 11:30 am

      Hi Bree. Glad you enjoyed the post and found it useful.

      As Diana points out above, it’s important to be clear with setting boundaries with this sort of thing as some clients could take advantage. That’s exactly why I’d include a phrase like “I would normally charge for this” so that everybody knows where they stand.

      With that in mind, it depends on what sort of work you’re doing and for what type of client. Another personal example of this type of thing is where I offered to use my PR contacts for a new travel client to personally pitch to some national (UK) travel journalists. I was writing monthly press releases for them and distributing them online (as agreed) and I knew that one press release in particular could be something the print press might pick up on. It took around 15 minutes to write an email pitch to a few journalists I had contact details for, and my new client was pretty impressed with my initiative after that! I made it clear is was a one-off and she even recommended me to another lucrative travel client.

      You can think of and execute these sorts of things quite quickly, but of course I had to have the mindset of adding more value to come up with the idea in the first place.

      Hope that helps and thanks for contributing to the post!

      Reply
  6. Danny Rosenberg says

    June 17, 2014 at 3:01 pm

    Hi Kristy, I enjoyed your post. It’s easy for clients to tell when you give them the bare minimum, and that does not reflect well.

    I like that you offer ideas for ‘giving more’ to your clients. On that note, could you be more specific about the process involved with ‘distributing press releases online’?

    Reply
    • Kirsty Stuart says

      June 17, 2014 at 3:47 pm

      Glad you enjoyed the post Danny.

      It’s quite simple to distribute press releases online. You’ve likely heard of PR Web and similar companies. If you sign up for an account with one of these companies you can upload press releases to their system (for a fee) and they distribute it to a large number of online publications and journalists. They usually broadcast it on their social media sites too.

      I negotiated a reduced cost for a certain number of press releases per month with a reputable UK press release company. This saved me money when it came to sending out press releases on behalf of my clients. (Sometimes you might see fit to pass this saving on to your clients.)

      Some say this blanket approach to sending out press releases is dead, but they’re usually referring to using this strategy for ‘backlinks’, which I don’t personally get into. I only use the service to build my clients’ visibility and brands online (and sometimes even offline). My clients are happy and I’m happy!

      I hope this helps Danny. It’s difficult to cover all the details here. I feel a blog post coming on…

      Reply
  7. Alex Taylor says

    June 25, 2014 at 7:02 am

    Hey Kirsty,
    Great Informative post.
    All the points which you have covered in this post are contributing as a valuable source to structure about any small service business. These are compact business development techniques.
    Thankyou.

    Reply
    • Lauren Tharp, BAFB Community Manager says

      July 4, 2014 at 10:55 am

      Glad you enjoyed it, Alex! Kirsty clearly has a knack for adding value to her writing while being sarcastic about “adding value.” 😉

      Reply
      • Kirsty Stuart says

        July 4, 2014 at 11:07 am

        Hehe! Thanks guys. 😉

        Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

What Do You Want to Do?

  • Get Started
  • Get Hired
  • Get Paid
  • Blog Better
  • Level Up
  • Stay Sane
  • Work with Sophie

Stay in Touch

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Learn from My Teachers [Affiliate Links]

Free webinar: Content Marketing Certification

Grow Your Writing Income: Learn How

How to Grow a Blog From 0 to $1,000 a Month of Passive Income

Get the Book

How to Pitch a Blog Post book cover

Read Our Top Posts

Avoid Getting Played By Your Clients: 5 Lessons to Keep You Safe from Rip-Offs and Fee-Dodgers

7 Ways to Take Charge of Your Freelance Blogging Career

What to Do When Your Freelance Blogging Career Is Going Nowhere

Creative Blogging Jobs: Get Paid to Write for Art, Design, Photography, Audio, & Video Blogs

How to Cheat and Steal Your Way to Endless Blog Post Ideas

Why You Should Step the F*ck Up to Be a Freelance Blogger

All Killer, No Filler: 6 Simple Tips for Concise Writing

  • Get Started
  • Get Hired
  • Get Paid
  • Blog Better
  • Level Up
  • Stay Sane
  • Work with Sophie

Copyright © 2021 · Generate Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.