Should You Get a Niche Freelance Writer for Your Budding Blog?

“One size fits all” – would that not solve so many problems? Not only in clothing, but in life, we lean towards the simple solution. The quick fix. The multi-tool that can do just about everything, except operate itself. Perhaps even why we eagerly anticipate robot servants who can clean, cook, and fix the roof.

When seeking employees, our wishlist of must-have skills is often similarly extreme. VA with project management experience, knowledge about marketing, and willing to clean up my inbox all for a low $10 an hour. Bookkeeper knowledgeable about tax law. SEO expert with graphic design skills. Maybe a niche freelance writer that can write about anything. The list goes on. (Courtesy of Upwork, where I have found many insane examples!)

Wanted: Unicorn

As a small business owner, I sit with this same conundrum. There’s so much to do, so many areas where I need expert help in growing the business, that it is easy to throw all those ‘needs’ into a box and hope for a miracle worker to come my way.

But just like the perfect man, such a miracle worker is a mere unicorn, and it is time for me (and you) to get real with what we need.

So how do we decide what help to ask for, what role to advertise, and what kind of person is going to help move our businesses forward the best?

Let’s look at our priorities to answer that question. If your foremost priority is to gain more clients – which pays the bills after all – then marketing should be at the top of your list.

Wanted: Unicorn with Blog Marketing Skills

Marketing and advertising covers an extensive field, everything from television, printed media through to social media, TikTok and potentially, billboards on Mars. All of these can be frightfully expensive. For that reason, blogging is a great and affordable marketing approach for therapists looking for clients.

Blog articles are the ideal way to attract organic traffic to your website, and organic traffic equals potential clients with the right ‘search intent.’

What that basically means is the difference between someone searching for ‘therapist near me’ versus someone searching ‘what do therapists earn.’ The first example is clearly someone with a search intent of finding a therapist, while the second is a career oriented search, not relevant to your budding practice.

Be Your Own Unicorn

For a start, writing your own blog posts is perfect. They include your personality, professionalism, and can build a close connection with your readers. Your readers get a feel for what kind of person you are, and your posts can build a good foundation for the day they sign up as clients. There is nothing as heart-warming as hearing:

I read your article about X and just knew I had to connect with you.

With that happy day in sight, it is imperative that you blog regularly. The more relevant blog posts you have, the more traffic you will encourage to your site.

Deciding what to write about depends on your strengths. What are your specialities? Do you focus on grief recovery, wellness, and positive psychology? Or are flourishing and self-leadership the areas in which you shine? Then that is exactly what you need to write about. Blog articles focused on your areas of expertise will attract clients that need help in these areas.

But why give away free advice?

By providing free content on your website in your areas of specialization, you are more likely to be found by someone doing an online search. You also illustrate that you are an expert. You build trust and you become the go-to person for advice.

Once you add blog articles to your website, several other factors come into play. Keywords, SEO, images, and blogging regularly. We’ve discussed some of these in other articles. Using the right keywords is crucial. It makes the difference between attracting the career researcher mentioned above versus the ‘therapist near me’ kind of search.

When researching the keywords people use, you will be amazed at the diversity and the range of topics you can write about. Make a list of potential blog topics, and be sure to cover each of your specialities.

Take a look at our article: What Should I Blog About as a Therapist for more inspirational ideas.

Wanted: Unicorn Writer?

At some point though, you realize you cannot keep up with writing all your blog posts yourself. You need help, and you need to decide what kind of help you need. There are plenty of amazing freelance writers out there, and many platforms where you can engage one quickly, for a reasonable price too.

But beware the pitfalls. Your carefully curated blog, filled with your personality and expertise, can turn into a quagmire if you appoint an unsuitable freelance writer. Take the time and attempt to find the right person, and don’t base your decision on the cheapest solution.

Beware the unicorn writer, that claims to be able to write about anything. Such a writer might be able to generate a superficially good article, but it won’t help you come across as an expert.

Wanted: Niche Freelance Writer

Your ideal writer will be a niche freelance writer, with expertise in the areas YOU specialize in. Impossible to find, you may think, but they are out there. Not in a one-size-fits-all package, mind you! But you should be able to find one writer for each area you specialize in. If you have three modalities you focus on, that might mean three writers.

With lots of search and adverts, you may have found your three ideal writers, and need to decide and or negotiate whether they should be ghostwriters or if you will offer them a byline. Let’s look at that.

Ghostwriting means they do all the hard work, but when you publish the article on your website, you show that you are the author. All good and well if you want to build expertise and be seen as an authority on the subject. But first ask your writers whether they are okay with that.

A byline means you acknowledge the writer as the author, and allow them to have a short bio about themselves and their expertise. There are many advantages to this. A well-known niche freelance writer can also attract traffic to your website. But the biggest advantage is that Google could rank your website higher.

How you wonder? 

Well, it all has to do with E-A-T. Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness. A niche freelance writer, that specialist you took so long to find, has their own ‘footprint’ on the world wide web. Past articles, a website and social media accounts, confirming their reputation. By providing a byline to your author, Google notes this authoritative writer and ‌sees your article (and website) in a better light too.

Noting Google’s preferences will do you well. Between understanding that you have a ‘Your Money or Your Life’ website, and that you should have a quality website with quality content to rank, E-A-T is another component that makes your site stand out from the rest.

Google is on a constant mission to improve search results. They want to give their customers – people like you and me searching for things – the best experience and trustworthy information. Imagine if you searched for ‘remedies for depression’ and two options came up. One, an article written by Aunty Jo, and another written by Dr. Jo. Which article would you trust?

For that reason, it is important to know whether you have a YMYL topic (read about it in our linked article) and if so, realize how important E-A-T is for your website to rank. Once Google has flagged your topic as something to do with health or money, it is under extra vigilance.

The quality of your site is now even more important and under more scrutiny, and the acronym E-A-T—Expertise, Authority and Trustworthiness indicates factors being assessed. If Google finds a Dr. Jo wrote your article, rather than Aunty Jo, they deem it as more trustworthy, and rank it higher than the article written by Aunty Jo.

Accredited writers, providing niche freelance writing, will clearly have a positive impact on your blog. Topic experts too can have similar advantages. Like influencers, they have a sizeable internet footprint, and having their byline on your blog is an easy way to improve the ranking of your site.

Conclusion: Should You Get a Niche Freelance Writer?

By now, I hope you are convinced that paying more for those certified writers and topic experts will be worth every cent. The traffic your blog generates will keep you so busy you won’t have time for writing.

After all, your dream has always been to help people, and being stuck behind a keyboard is not your really your cup of tea, right?

To grow your practice, marketing is your top priority. And when searching for those valuable people to help you grow, avoid the one-size-fits all solution. Don’t waste time looking for a unicorn either.

If you need help to find the right certified writers for your blog, or a freelance topic expert that understands your peculiar writing niche, we can help you.

Our writers are topic experts and are highly qualified to write healthcare and coaching related articles, having written for publications such as PositivePsychology.com and Quenza.com.

If you liked this post and think it might contain some gems that could help other people, please share and follow.

WebCare crafts quality content for healthcare blogs using our team of top AI optimization experts. If your YMYL blog needs E-E-A-T, our AI writers provide the authority and credibility your blog needs. Sign up to get Early Access to this service.