The Dark Art of Product Pricing

This post was written by the Web Marketing Ninja — a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger. Curious? So are we!

One of the most common questions I get asked is how much I’d charge for a given product. I guess the reason I’m asked this so much is it’s one of the hardest questions to answer, but the importance of price should never be underestimated.

Here’s the process I go through when I’m trying to arrive at a product price.

1. Your existing readers

It doesn’t matter if it’s your first product, or your tenth. If you know your audience, you should have a feel for their propensity to pay for things—and to what degree. If you’re unsure about this, look at the sorts of affiliate campaigns that are more successful with your readers. Do low-cost/high-volume campaigns deliver your highest revenue? Or do high-cost/low-volume promotions boost your bottom line the most?

Outcome: My existing customers have a propensity to buy cheap/expensive products.

2. Market perceptions

The general public has trouble valuing things—and brands have been exploiting that for years. But what you need to determine for your specific product is this: is there a market-based status quo when it comes to the price people expect to pay? If you’re selling music, or books, ask if there’s generally an accepted price range for these products.

Outcome: The community perception is that my type of product will be priced between $____ and $____

3. Where it fits in your product/customer life cycle

If this is your one and only product, then this perhaps doesn’t have much of an impact, but typically, products fit into three key life-cycle categories: entry level, standard, and premium. Once you’ve slotted this new product into your product life cycle, you want to apply one simple rule: make the step from entry level to standard small, and the step from standard to premium high. For example, you might offer an ebook as your entry-level product, a webinar series as your standard product, and one-on-one consulting as your premium offering. An example price structure might look like this:

• ebook $19.95
• webinar: $49.95
• consulting: $5000

Outcome: This product is my Entry / Standard / Premium offering in my product portfolio.

4. Competitive market research

When building a competitive profile, aside from the prices my competitors charge, I document five key items:

1. Influence of the brand (High, Medium, Low)
2. Perception of the product (reviews, sales volumes)
3. Core problem the product is solving
4. History of discounting
5. My product’s key point of difference from the competition

What I’m attempting to find with this research is where there is an under or over representation in terms of high/low value and high/low price. You’ll also get a good understanding of the caliber of your opponents’ products in the particular subsection of the market you choose to enter.

Outcome: My product has (high/medium/low) value and a (low/medium/high) price, and my closest competitor is…

5. Defining the real cost of the product

Bloggers often fail to figure out the cost of selling the product. You need to factor in things like transaction fees, the likely overhead of affiliate payments, and, if you’re selling a physical product, delivery, storage and other costs. While you may be likely to sell electronic products, you’re still going to have to pay money for every sale that’s made. How much?

Outcome: On average, my product costs $____ to sell.

6. Correlating feature relevance with customer value

Things can get tricky at this step. You need to make a realistic assessment of how relevant your #1 feature is to the customer problem that your product solves. Don’t get caught adding up the ten different features your product might have—focus on the top one. Then, make a call about the value people put on the solving this problem.

Outcome: My product has a (low / medium / high) relevance to solving the customer problem (___________) and people are willing to pay (a little / some / a lot) to solve it.

Other considerations

Okay so that’s the first stage done. Since you’ve answered some critical questions, you should now have a feel for what the market expects to pay for this type of product, and where yours fits into that spectrum. Now there are just a few more considerations to keep in mind as you choose a price.

Don’t be the cheapest.

It’s easy to start a pricing war by offering the cheapest item, and if you’re after a short term windfall, then it’s and option. But rarely does the cheapest win when if comes to competition.

For me this was summed up when I heard a five-year-old kid say to his mother, “We need to get that one, it’s more expensive, so it must be better”. The innocence of youth — saying what we all think!

Discounting is dangerous.

Lately, many successful product launches have initially offered a special introductory price that’s discounted. That’s fine, but try to avoid any ongoing discounts. It’s actually more advantageous to offer outrageous 50-60% discounts than smaller 10-20% amounts, as the customers’ perceptions of returning value on higher discounts are a lot greater. But if you can, avoid discounting at all.

The smaller the price, the more important it is to get it right.

If you decide on a low-priced product, keep things in proportion! The difference between $5 and $10 is 100%. So if you price your product at $5 you’ll need to sell twice as many to earn the same amount of income as you would if you sold the product for $10. Worse, a product you sell for $5 needs to sell four times as much as it would if it was priced at $20. When working with small numbers, finding the sweet spot is extremely important.

Don’t get stuck in middle.

Those irrelevant middle prices do nothing but cost you money—especially at the high end of the market. If you’re thinking of an $800 price tag, and your product has a unique selling point, charge $999. For a $325 product, go for $399 or $499. Your competition might seem to drive your price downwards, however I’d be working the other way. If you’re competitor is $999 try $1499—as long as you can prove why your product is better.

Throwing caution to the wind

As this post’s title attests, pricing is an art. Pricing can be so hard that sometimes you just need go with your gut, pluck a number, throw it out there and see what happens. Remember though, that it’s easier to drop the price of something than to increase it.

What techniques have you used to price your products? Have you had any pricing disasters?

Stay tuned from most posts by the secretive Web Marketing Ninja — a professional online marketer for a major web brand, who’s sharing his tips undercover here at ProBlogger.

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How Personal Experience Helps Me Blog Better

This guest post is by Kiesha of WeBlogBetter.

Have you ever wondered how some bloggers never seem to run out of post ideas? They always manage to escape the dreaded writer’s block unscathed; they’re always full of inspiration. Ideas overflow and pour onto the page as they type feverishly. They’ve tapped into a mystical stream of never-ending stories.

What if I told you that you could tap into the same power?

Everything you’ve already learned and experienced can be used to create infinite and original ideas for your blog. If you can turn on the analytical and creative juices in your brain, you’ll never run out of ideas.

Almost anything you’ve learned in school, on the job—even life’s lessons in general—can be turned into useful analogies or comparisons. Music, television shows, movies, or videos can also be used as fuel for unique and engaging blog posts.

There are almost no limits to this technique. In fact, the more unlikely and unusual the comparisons you make, the better.

Using my personal experience to blog better

Whenever something evokes an “Aha!” moment for me, I immediately think about how I can use that principle for blogging.

For example, late one night, I was watching The Karate Kid. At the point when young Dre finally realizes that all those days and weeks spent picking up his jacket had really been preparing and strengthening him, my mind immediately connected that experience to blogging.

When Mr. Han said, “Kung Fu lives in everything we do … Everything is Kung Fu”, I jumped up like a hot coal had landed in my lap. I grabbed a pen and wrote:

“Blogging lives in everything we do … Everything is blogging! Every experience is potential blogging material!”

My husband thought I was going mad as I frantically scribbled this on an already over-filled piece of paper. It was a major “Aha!” moment!

Yes, everything in my life — even those experiences that I thought were useless wastes of time — had been preparing me for blogging.

You might not be able to see the similarities between blogging and manicuring nails, but what I learned years ago as a nail technician helps me blog better today. I was known for my creative airbrush designs and 3D nail art. I had more customers than I had time. It sounds like I should be rich by now, right?

Here’s the problem: I loved the design/art part of the process, but I hated the chemical aspects of the job. I also hate feet, which wasn’t the best of news for customers who wanted their toes to match their fingers. I suffer from the exact opposite of a “foot fetish.” Would that be a foot phobia? What I learned is that no amount of money justifies doing (or smelling) things you hate.

How does that translate to blogging?

Nothing, not even money, should be the reason for blogging about something you’re not passionate about.

I can see many parallels between applying acrylic nails and blogging.

They both require preparation

When applying acrylic nails, the surface must be adequately prepared. Skimping on this step creates the prime condition for the growth of fungus or other harmful pathogens that, if left untreated, could create medical problems for the customer.

With blogging, if you don’t take adequate time to prepare with research and fact checking, you could potentially steer a reader in the wrong direction. They may not be physically harmed, but advice you offer on your blog could harm a person’s business or their blogging efforts—and maybe even adversely impact their finances.

They Both Require Good Design

If I tried to put a beautiful design on a malformed nail, it only made the malformation more apparent. On the other hand, a well-formed nail with an ugly or bland design would be a waste of sculpting efforts. In other words, the nail had to be both well formed and display a beautiful design.

The same is true for a blog. You can have the most beautiful blog design, but if your site lacks valuable content, no one’s going to want to return. You need both good design and great content.

So you see, yes there is much to learn about blogging from doing nails. There is much to learn about blogging from everything—from all of your experiences.

Over to you

Have you ever thought about how your own abundance of personal experiences relates to your own niche? And how you can use that to create a blog unlike any other?

1. Start by listing some of the most vivid experiences you’ve had, or lessons you’ve learned over the years.
2. Then instead of thinking about how different they are from blogging, think about how similar they are.
3. Use those points of intersection to highlight those similarities.
4. Then mesh those ideas together to create something new.

What you’ll get is something totally unpredictable and extremely insightful.

Which pieces of your personal experience and life lessons could you use to create an interesting analogy or comparison in a blog post? Which could you use to help you improve your blogging in general?

Kiesha blogs at WeBlogBetter, offering blogging tips and tricks. She’s a technical writer, writing instructor, and blog consultant for small business owners. Connect with her on Twitter @weblogbetter.

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The Goal Post: Why Goals Matter More than Ever

Image by Iguana Jo.

Overheard in Vegas at BlogWorld Expo:

“I just started a blog and I’m excited to see where it will lead me.”

Have you ever said something like that? When I started out, it was certainly something I remember telling a friend. Nobody really knew where the medium of blogging would lead—we were all quite happy to let thing evolve and see where we ended up.

There was actually some sense in this approach: blogging was still evolving, and because the space wasn’t overly crowded or competitive, many bloggers were swept almost accidentally into amazing opportunities.

The problem that today’s beginning bloggers face is that the see-where-it-will-lead approach doesn’t always work. There are many millions of blogs, mainstream media is investing serious cash into the space, and some of the everybody-wins style of collaboration that used to go on in the blogosphere has disappeared.

While good things still come when you let your blog evolve, and luck still plays a part, many of the more successful bloggers that I meet today are strategic about what they’re doing.

One of the themes I taught at BlogWorld Expo this year focused on goals.

Knowing what you want to achieve and where you want to end up will make you more likely to end up achieving those things.

Conversely, setting out on a path with no idea of what you want to achieve leaves your destination purely up to chance. It could end up being good—or it could end up quite the opposite.

“If you don’t know where you are going, how can you expect to get there?” – Basil S Walsh

The blogger who didn’t set goals

I told this story at BWE last week.

A number of years ago, a young blogger burst onto the scene in one of the niches I wrote in. They got noticed faster than almost any blogger I’d seen before: within weeks, their blog was getting hundreds of comments and being talked about on many other blogs.

The reason they were noticed so quickly was that almost every post they wrote took a pot-shot at another blogger in their niche. Posts on the blog were critiques, rants, and personal attacks on other key people in the niche (including me). And as a result, the blogger got noticed very, very quickly.

The blog grew over the coming months, largely based upon this snarky philosophy. Other bloggers saw the strategy working and new snarky blogs sprung up. The niche wasn’t a particularly pleasant one to be a part of for a while there.

I always thought it was a pity—the blogger was actually a smart person and when they wanted to, they had good things to say. But the blog always seemed to be seasoned with a toxic edge which detracted from what I thought could have been achieved.

One day, the blog that started it all stopped publishing. The blog went silent.

A few months later, the blog disappeared altogether. All traces of it vanished (although I’m sure it still lives in those Internet archiving sites).

I always wondered what happened to the blogger, until a few months ago, I found myself in a chat room listening to a webinar and recognized their name as one of the other participants.

I managed to get the blogger to jump on Skype with me and asked what had happened. Why had they stopped blogging?

The story the person told me was that they’d started blogging with one very vague goal: to get noticed. Beyond getting noticed, they didn’t really know what they wanted to achieve. It was only after they’d gotten noticed that they realized their ultimate goal was to be an authoritative voice in the niche. The blogger wanted to be someone that people looked to with respect. They wanted to be someone who’d be asked to speak and write books on the topic.

The problem was that the way they’d initially gone about their blogging had actually taken them away from their belatedly identified goals. They’d burned bridges and become known as the snarky blogger, rather than the authority blogger.

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.” – Fitzhugh Dodson

I don’t have goals!?

I’m very aware that many bloggers start blogs without hard and fast goals. They take the I’ll-see-where-it-leads approach. This was my approach, too—and good things did come from it.

However, the reality is that as vague as they were, I did have goals even back when I started eight years back.

They certainly weren’t long-term or far-reaching grand goals about where I’d be today. Rather, they were goals about the next steps—where I’d be in the coming days and weeks.

Over time, I achieved some of what I set out to do. I abandoned other goals and set new ones—some of them for the longer term. The key was to identify a direction to head in, and start moving.

You don’t always need the ultimate destination in mind, but if you can identify some next steps to work towards, at least you’ll be heading somewhere with intention.

“Progress has little to do with speed, but much to do with direction” – Unknown

Do you have goals for your blogging or are you seeing where blogging will lead you?

Further reading

• 9 First Step Goals for New Bloggers
• How to Achieve Your Goals – Hint #1
• Strategic Blogging – Vision and Goals

Thanks to @pushingsocial and @kennyhyder for help on Twitter with the title of this post.

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Does Your Site Hold Up to the Window Shopping Test?

Window shopping can be a disillusioning experience. A beautiful display can pull you in, only to lead to a shop with a bad selection and lousy customer service. Which makes it less fun to pop back onto the street to continue the search.

Online businesses have window displays too — or at least a good counterpart. If you’re doing business online, you may be surprised to know that your window display could be making promises that your store doesn’t deliver on.

Follow along with me and my daughter as we shop for new rain boots, and you’ll discover what works and what doesn’t when you’re creating an online “window display” to entice your customers to buy.

We were looking for the same things most people do when they shop: good selection, quality products, an enjoyable shopping experience, excellent customer service, and a price point we could afford.

Lots of window displays seemed to promise those things. Like that one over there. Are those the boots we’re looking for?

We ventured into the store.

Store 1: Anybody home?

As our eyes adjusted to the store, we noticed it was dark and a little hard to make out what they were selling. The place seemed abandoned, and no one came forward to help us. We had seen a pair of boots in the window, but now that we were inside, we weren’t sure they even carried boots.

They had shoes, but there was no order to how they were presented. They didn’t seem to be organized by men’s and women’s shoes. They weren’t displayed by size or style. They were just placed around the store randomly, and there was nobody around to help us find what we were looking for.

We backed away and kept looking.

Store 2: Accosted by a hustler

A few steps beyond the first store, we saw another window display. The window display was full of light, and the boots were organized by men’s and women’s styles. It was easy to see they had plenty of inventory.

We headed inside.

This store looked much better at first glance. But the loud music playing in the background was really hard to take. The store’s walls were painted with florescent colors. It was distracting, and hard to focus.

A salesperson approached. He strained to speak over the music, and loudly asked what we were looking for.

We said we were looking for rain boots, and he steered us over to a display of leather boots with 5” stiletto heels. He tried to convince me that these boots would hold up great in the rain, and besides that, my daughter’s legs would look longer.

I noticed the boots were $485.00, and wondered if that had something to do with his recommendation.

I pretended to need to make an urgent phone call, and we hustled out in a hurry.

Store 3: Our luck turns

At this point, we were a little frustrated. The first two stores we visited had made a promise with their window displays. We went inside expecting to find what caught our eyes in the window. Once inside, though, the shopping experience fell apart.

We were getting a little tired at this point, but we kept going, hoping to see another display that caught our attention. And this time, we finally got lucky.

The window display looked organized and appealing. The boots were grouped together, divided into men’s and women’s styles, and organized by color.

A spacious, soothing atmosphere greeted us when we walked inside. There was plenty of room to wander the aisles and look at products more closely. We scanned the merchandise and found the boots section right away.

As we moved to that part of the store, a salesperson appeared. He let us know that all their boots were marked down 50% this week, and that he could help us find what we were looking for. We started to feel lucky we picked this week to wander into this particular store looking for boots.

We found the style she liked, but they didn’t have them in red. My daughter had her heart set on red rain boots.

We asked the salesperson what we could do, and he had a great answer for us. They could special order the boots in her size, in red. They would deliver them at no charge, and she would have them the next day.

We happily handed over the credit card. Victory!

Which store is yours?

If you think this is a lesson in e-commerce sites like eToys or Zappo’s, think again.

Every site gives its readers an experience. And it’s up to you to make sure your site, particularly your homepage, delivers what they want.

When people arrive at your site’s homepage, which of these stores reflects their experience? Is it uninviting and disorganized? Is it bright, loud, and not terribly helpful?

Or does it make your offerings easy to skim, and enticing to sign up for or purchase? Do you have help systems like FAQ pages and contact forms to make it simple for your customer to get their questions answered?

Have you made it easy to find great content that gives them exactly what they’re looking for? Is everything on the page geared to making sure they find just what they want?

Do you track what your customer is looking for so that you can be sure you’re displaying what they’re in the market to purchase?

Your home page makes a promise, just like a window display does. If it’s set up right, customers will click to enter and find out more.

Once they’ve found you, will they buy your boots?

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Foursquare or Whrrl – Where do you Check-In?

I am a check-in junkie. I’ve tried Gowalla, Foursquare, Whrrl, Facebook Places and WeReward. I’m sure there are some other ones too and everyone has their favorite or hates them completely. There is the argument that you post your location then bad things will happen to yourself or your unprotected home. You just can’t go living your life in fear, that is ridiculous and my mind completely shuts off when someone comes up with that argument. Bad things happen whether you check in or not. That aside lets talk about the different check in options.

Foursquare is fun for a quick little check in and you can become mayor of things like your bathroom or something. You get funny badges for accomplishing little feats. You can check in to the same place with other people and talk about your experience. Foursquare is quick and the info you can share is pretty much text based. I’ve always wanted to be able to post photos to Foursquare but that isn’t happening.

Whrrl however is like Foursquare on steroids. You can check in and leave some comments about where you are. You can join check ins from other people and together you can share recommendations, photos and tips. During BlogWorld Expo a couple of weeks ago I primarily used Whrrl so that I could share more of my experience with my friends and followers. People can comment on any of the photos, comments or recommendations. You as a blogger can take that check in experience and add it to your blog easily. For example.

More check-ins at Perkins Family Restaurant & Bakery

Powered by Whrrl

Each of those photos can be tweeted or not. Whrrl also incorporates hashtags so you can search on a hashtag and join the conversation around that topic. You can even join specific societies, groups built around a common purpose, and talk with other bloggers. And you can do this all on your phone. There are apps for the DROID, Blackberry and the iPhone

One really cool thing that Whrrl did at BWE was it set up a custom prize option for the Seagate Booth. When people checked in at that location at BWE they had the opportunity to win some great Seagate swag. I haven’t seen much like that from the other check in services.

If you have not tried Whrrl give it a … Well, you know.

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Tim Gunn’s Top 5 Tips for More Stylish Content

A little over a year ago, Brian Clark gave us a What Not to Wear guide to blogging.

Brian laid the groundwork for the inherent value in talking about what’s not working. And if you haven’t read the post, clickity-click and get on that — and here’s why:

We don’t change a damn thing when we’re right.

Being “right” makes us do exactly the same thing, time and time again until it become rote. Habit.

But being wrong … ah — dawning recognition.

When we’re wrong, we can change things.

We can change our direction, our strategy.

Or in the case of Tim Gunn, our clothes.

If you don’t know Gunn, he’s the critical eye behind “Project Runway” and “Tim Gunn’s Guide to Style.” He knows what works, and just as important, he knows what doesn’t.

We have to learn to “make it work.”

So in the interests of learning and building a better blog, here are five things that, if I were to channel Tim Gunn (and that would be a fabulous and incredibly stylish stunt), you might be doing wrong with your blog.

1. SEO is not the new black

I’m a huge fan of the Scribe plugin to optimize content, and I use it often on client blogs. It’s a powerful tool that combines SEO and blogging in a single, easy-to-digest package, and it’s a no-brainer for anyone with a blog.

But you don’t optimize every piece of content you create.

If you fill your entire closet with black, you have no versatility and you kinda screw yourself when you’re in a mood for a splash of color.

Don’t limit the incredibly powerful tool you have in blogging by binding yourself 24/7 to a keyword-based strategy.

Yes, have an SEO strategy. Yes, create terrific content that’s optimized for search. That’s just smart.

But going on to add to that with something of your own — something that’s not so easily optimizable — is even smarter.

People share great content, not great keywords. If you’ve got a great idea for a post but it doesn’t lend itself to SEO optimization, don’t hold back. This is one case when less isn’t more.

2. Conversation never goes out of style

It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

If you’re going to wear those four-inch purple metallic platform shoes with the mustard yellow tights, you need to be aware that you’re going to cause some buzz.

The blogging equivalent is taking on a juicy topic — and getting some major attention (not necessarily positive) in return.

In the blogging world, buzz mainly finds you in your blog comments. When you hit a hot button, that’s where you first find out.

When you look at great blogs, it’s not uncommon to find that the comments become even better than the post itself — so let them.

If you’ve written something that’s whipping up controversy, don’t hide from your comments.

Embrace the buzz, both positive and negative. Learn from it. Dive in and chat. Your readers will thank you (and become even more loyal on account of it).

3. Engagement is the key to style

Tim Gunn once said,

Perhaps the real secret to style is filling yourself to the absolute brim with engagement.

Engaging isn’t just about asking for retweets and responding to comments.

Engagement is about getting out there and understanding the true lay of the land. Attending conferences, making connections, reading other blogs, building relationships.

Start going through your comments and clicking through to your commenters’ blogs. Read them. Get to know your fans and your opponents. If you’re not doing this now, make it a to-do item a couple times a week.

Showing genuine interest is the least you can do to reciprocate a reader for showing an interest in you.

Engage. It’s the most stylish thing you can do in the blogosphere.

4. Make it accessible

One of Tim’s most famous quotes is from a critique of a Project Runway contestant’s design:

It looks like pterodactyl from a gay Jurassic Park!

While I almost fell on the floor when I heard that one, it reminded me of a simple fact: if no one can figure out what you’re trying to do with your content, you fail.

When you invite readers to spend some time reading your content, make sure you’re actually making sense.

That doesn’t mean being trite or going face-first into cliché. It means using examples, situations, and metaphors that people can relate to.

If people have to work too hard to “get” your content, they’re going to stop trying.

(And if you can’t live without the occasional cliché, try this cool cliché finder. Because the truth is, sometimes the right cliché is the perfect way to get your idea across.)

Don’t be predictable … but try accessible on for size.

5. Carry on!

Great blogs don’t just happen — they’re built.

A fantastic blog is crafted, just like a fashion collection that shows up on the runways. Designers and artisans spend hours painstakingly creating each piece that makes up the collection, and they all work together.

It amazes me that Tim Gunn isn’t a blogger, because he truly knows how to make it work. So if you’re looking to build a blogging empire (or simply one that makes you proud of what you’ve built), remember that it’s all about community and critics.

Your community needs to be built and nurtured. Your content needs to be shaped around their interests and desires. They’re the ones who will buy your stuff and wear it proudly.

Your critics will give you things to think about and ways you can improve. While some will be full of hot air and in love with the sound of their own voice, if you listen hard enough, there will be some pearls of wisdom worth stringing together.

And pearls go with everything.

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Inside the Life of the Other Kind of ProBlogger

This guest post is by Paul Cunningham, blogger, internet marketer, and author of How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger,

I bet that you could easily name at least a dozen blogs that dispense blogging tips to other bloggers. The so-called “blogging blogs” vary in many different ways, but they all tend to give out the same basic advice: start a blog, build your audience, monetize, and maybe one day you’ll reach that six-figure income that defines you as a “problogger”.

But what about the other kind of problogger, the one who gets paid simply to write blog posts? You might think of them as freelance bloggers, or staff writers, or maybe you’ve never actually thought about them at all.

Consider this: while you work hard to build up your own blog, writing post after post and trying to find the traffic and monetization strategies that will work for you, those freelance bloggers are out there getting paid for every blog post they write.

So, is it really that easy for freelance bloggers to make money while most other bloggers make nothing? Let’s take a look inside the life of these other probloggers.

Skills and experience

A freelance blogger isn’t all that different from someone who publishes their own blog. The freelancer is a regular person who knows how to use WordPress to write and edit blog posts, just like any of you reading this that have used WordPress before.

They certainly don’t need to be a WordPress expert, because someone else is responsible for all of the technical stuff that goes on behind the scenes of the blogs they write for. Installing plugins, dealing with comment spam, and performing upgrades are things that don’t eat up the freelancer’s time and energy. They’re free to concentrate on the writing.

The freelancer also either has strong experience in the topic they’re writing about, or uses simple research techniques to write with authority on almost any topic they wish.

This is more common than most people realize. After all, the biggest audience for most blogs is the beginner level, so freelance bloggers only need to be at intermediate level—or be able to fill in their knowledge gaps with research—to be able to write about the topic.

Discipline and time management

Make no mistake: that image you have in your head of a freelance blogger sitting in their pyjamas at home or relaxing at the local coffee shop while they work is true in a lot of cases. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t professionals too.

Freelancer blogging is a business, and has to be treated as one. The clients that you write for depend on quality blog posts being submitted on time. A freelancer can’t just spontaneously take the day off when they’ve got a deadline to meet. If they did, their reputation would take a hit, and reputation is one of the biggest assets a freelance blogger has.

Because most freelancers work from home, there are numerous distractions throughout the day that can easily harm their productivity. Successful freelance bloggers develop excellent time management skills and create routines that have them writing at their most productive times of day.

Money, money, money!

By now you might be wondering just how much money a freelance blogger makes, compared to the typical problogger. Naturally, this depends on a few different factors.

The ability to find and win good paying work is the first challenge. Freelance blogging opportunities are in plentiful supply at the moment (just take a look at the action on the ProBlogger job board as one example), and the trend seems to be towards more work rather than less.

Now that blogging has become mainstream, it plays a big part in the web strategies of a huge variety of media companies. The top blogs in the world tend to be high-volume, multi-author sites using a mix of staff writers and freelance bloggers to turn out the amount of content they need to compete in their niche.

All of this means that freelancers who are able to present a good portfolio of work, and have the discipline and professionalism to do the job, can virtually pick and choose exactly how much work they want to do each week. This puts the earning potential of a freelance blogger almost entirely within their own control.

It’s no surprise, then, to find that freelance bloggers can be anything from hobbyists who do it one or two nights a week for a bit of side income, all the way to full-time freelancers running their own six-figure business writing for multiple clients.

My experience in freelance blogging

I’ve spent the last two years freelance blogging. For me it was a side income — some extra money that I could reinvest into my own blogs as I was building them. It meant that I didn’t need to dip into our family savings to pay for the WordPress themes, plugins, ebooks, and other products that have helped me along the way.

While I was blogging, I met numerous bloggers who spend most of their time doing paid freelance work. A lot of them also run their own blogs for fun, and some make good money from those blogs too, but for most of them the attraction of freelance blogging is that it gives them a steadier income and almost instant return for their effort.

What about you? As you work to build your own profitable blogs, would a freelance blogging income help you get there faster?

Paul Cunningham is a blogger, internet marketer, and the author of How to Become a Successful Freelance Blogger, the ebook that teaches you how to turn your knowledge and passion into a real income stream. Follow Paul on Twitter.

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