Having a focus area [writing niche] can give you a huge edge over other freelance writers. It helps you stand out and attract clients specifically seeking your expertise.
Here are a few reasons why niching down is great for new freelance writers:
- You stand out from the general writers
- You get to create a brand
- It is easier to target clients because you know exactly what they need
- You can charge more for your services
How Do I Choose a Freelance Writing Niche?
Many people get stuck in choosing a writing niche and never start their freelance writing business.
I hope the steps below will help you find a profitable niche:
- Identify topics you’re interested in
- Check market demand
- Is this writing niche profitable?
- Tie in your skills and experience
- Do competition analysis
- Understand the target audience
Identify Topics You’re Interested In
Choose a few topics that you like or are interested in. Writing becomes more enjoyable and less time-consuming when you like the subject.
Your enthusiasm for the job will reflect in your work either in a good or bad way… So make sure to choose topics you want to learn about and won’t get bored with over time.
Check Market Demand
To ensure a steady flow of clients, check for where there’s a need for content in your writing niche and a target audience willing to consume it.
As for software, usually, people will first read blog post after blog post learning about the benefits of the product before deciding to invest in it, so this would be a lucrative niche.
Browse popular job boards like Upwork, Freelancer, or Indeed and check what writing jobs are available. You’ll be able to see which niches are popular, which indicates the demand for writers in those fields.
You can also look at industry reports and market studies related to your niche. They often provide insights into the growth and demand within specific sectors.
Is this Writing Niche Profitable?
Some niches may pay better than others, so consider the financial aspect when making your decision.
Some clients will allocate high budgets for content creation. Higher budgets often indicate a more profitable niche.
You can spot high-paying clients by going onto their websites and finding a regularly updated blog and multiple opt-ins. If you sign up to their email list you’ll get weekly emails.
Also, find out what are the writer rates of other freelancers in that niche. You should get at least $100 per 1000-word blog post.
Explore if there are significant affiliate marketing opportunities within the niche. High-paying affiliate programs often align with profitable markets.
Examine the pricing of products or services within the niche. If it’s a high-ticket industry like SAAS, businesses may be willing to invest more in quality content.
Tie In Your Skills and Experience
Not having a degree or experience is not a big deal! You don’t need a degree to become a freelance writer.
But if you do have existing knowledge and expertise in a topic, and you decide to become a writer for that topic, it could give you an edge over others.
If you were a web developer decided to become a writer and specialize in writing easy-to-read tutorials on WordPress. Putting your degree or experience on your pitch will build trust with prospects and you can charge higher.
Do Competition Analysis
While a competitive niche indicates demand, you have to find a way to break into it.
Find your competitors using Google or social media and see what pops up. Identify what makes them stand out and look for areas where you can bring a fresh perspective or address unmet needs.
Check out who they’re targeting and try to identify a gap in the market.
For example, if most pet writers are targeting pet food brands. A new pet writer can maybe target pet groomers or companies that make pet toys or devices.
Or if most beauty writers are writing informative articles for cosmetic brands, a new writer could stand out by writing ‘Review’ blog posts for these brands.
Check client reviews of your competitors if available. Positive reviews can indicate areas where they excel, while negative reviews highlight potential areas for improvement.
Understand the Target Audience
Identify who you want to serve. This can be the difference between building a sustainable business or becoming a freelancer who’s just scraping by. Because even if you pick a profitable niche, it’s the clients you choose that determine how much money you make.
By understanding the needs and preferences of your target clients, you can tailor your unique value proposition (UVP) and cold pitches to resonate with them.
For example, if you’re targeting small businesses in the beauty space, you need to be specific and know their pain points.
Check out these two UVPs, which do you think understands a small business’s needs better:
UVP1
Health and wellness blog post copywriter for small businesses.
UVP2
Health copywriter helping start-up skincare brands build their network with b2b email marketing.
Although the first one is good as it tells your niche and who you are, the second one hits on the pain points of a new business.
~UVP2 shows that you’re helping small businesses in the beauty industry to get collaborations with others like influencers or other businesses so they can get their name out there.
Many startups have to find influencers and other companies to work with to get traction, since blogging takes time to give results it might not be what they need right now!
What Should a Freelance Writer Write?
There are so many things you can do as a freelance writer, and there’s no need to get a degree to know how to write these types of copy:
- Blog posts
- Emails
- Landing pages
- Sales pages
- Reports
- Whitepapers
- Web content
- ebooks
- Video scripts
- Social media copy
How Competitive Is Freelance Writing?
Freelance writing bidding sites always seem like countless writers are vying for attention from low-paying clients, and making pennies per word. So how do you navigate this highly competitive industry?
Don’t take the same approach as every other freelancer unless you want to write for bidding sites that suck the soul out of you and make you question your rates constantly.
Is There a Demand for Freelance Writers?
With many businesses going online, content marketing is needed more than ever before. Businesses and marketers recognize that there is an increased demand for quality content.
In the past, companies might have been okay with publishing generic, low-quality content.
But consumers are more discerning now and expect to find content that provides real value and speaks to their needs, before making a buying decision.
As a result, there’s a surge in demand for freelance writers who can produce high-quality, accurate, and engaging content for these businesses.
What Is the Most in Demand Writing Niche in Freelancing?
There are a few niches that provide a lucrative income for freelance writers, such as:
- Software as a service (SaaS)
- Fintech
- Mental health
- Personal Finance
- Elearning
- Parenting
Does Content Writing Have a Future?
Yes! The future of content writing is promising. The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics predicts that the content writing industry will achieve 4% growth from 2021 to 2031.
What’s more, Google’s helpful content update “reward[s] content where visitors feel they’ve had a satisfying experience, while content that doesn’t meet a visitor’s expectations won’t perform as well.”
Specifically, they want to boost content written by humans to answer human questions.
With artificial intelligence writing tools still in their early stages, businesses still need real writers to create content for them.
What Type of Content Writers Are in Demand?
Some of the most in-demand content writers out there right now are:
Blog Writers
Blog writers turn research into easily digestible content for readers. This type of content is usually educational but less complex than technical writing.
Blog posts put information in layperson’s terms and the tone is typically more fun or personable than technical articles.
Technical Writers
Technical writers typically write manuals, how-to guides, tutorials, and FAQ sections for a company’s website.
Technical writers get into the highly technical details of the product or process they’re writing about and turn it into easy-to-understand content.
Social Media Writers
According to Statista, over 4.26 billion people around the world used social media in 2021, and that number is expected to grow to almost 6 billion by 2027. Making social media writers in high demand.
Social media writers create posts and comments that encourage followers to engage with a business. These writers have to master the business brand voice and keep up with trends to be successful in this role.
SEO Writers
Having content optimized is the only way to get it in front of a business’s target readers, organically.
SEO writers are in demand because they help get content ranked in search results.
What Does a Content Writer Do?
A content writer creates content such as blogs, video scripts, and eBooks to attract potential customers to a business. The content engages a business’s target audience by explaining the value of the offers and encouraging readers to take some sort of action.
Such actions could be: scheduling a demo or discovery call, signing up for emails, browsing through catalogs, and much more.
Before content writers publish their content, they also have to make sure it’s SEO-friendly, edited, and revised to ensure everything is the best it can be.
Which Content Writing Pays the Most?
Case studies and whitepapers are both high-paying gigs so it’s worth including them as services in your business.
Case studies are the best form of social proof, which makes them high in demand. Case studies tell the story of how a client had a problem, and what the company did to solve it.
Because case studies are lengthy and require interviews, you can reasonably earn between $800 and $1,800 per case study.
Whitepapers are priced even higher at between $3,000 and $8,000. A whitepaper is a persuasive, authoritative, in-depth report on a specific topic that presents a problem and provides a solution.
Why are whitepapers so expensive? Usually, whitepapers are used by B2B companies to educate their audience about a particular issue or explain and promote a particular methodology.
FAQs
What Is the Best Freelance Writing Niche?
Technology is a hot and booming niche right now. The tech industry evolves rapidly. This constant change creates a need for updated content, making it a dynamic and exciting niche.
According to a survey by Freelancer.com, tech-related skills consistently rank among the most sought-after in the freelance job market.
Tech clients often understand the value of quality content and are willing to invest more, that’s why freelance writers in this field earn more.
Is It Hard to Find Work as a Freelance Writer?
It all depends on how you brand yourself and who you are targeting with your services.
So if you appear as a generalist writer with no authority and target low-paying clients who end up pushing your boundaries and treating you like crap, then it’ll be hard to build a sustainable freelance writing business.
You’ll need to find a way to differentiate your writing services by picking a niche and coming up with a unique value proposition to stand out from the crowd.
To find work as a new freelance writer, your best bet is to find remote job ads and use LinkedIn and Indeed.
How Profitable Is Freelance Writing?
Freelance writing is profitable if you’re willing to go all in. You can’t write half-heartedly and expect to build a profitable business out of it.
More businesses are going online and require content marketing to get in front of their audience. As long as you put yourself out there you can start
How Do I Find My Profitable Niche?
But first, you have to pick a few niches that interest you, it’s hopeless to find a profitable niche that you’re not happy to write in.
So if I am interested in Mental health, Fintech, and Nootropics I’ll compare these niches on Google Trends…
As you can see, mental health is a hot niche. Now I’ll build a list of target clients and also see what their websites look like.
To build your list. Type “best [niche]” on Google and see what comes up in the autofill, I got “best mental health apps free” And I thought the companies who make these apps will need content to promote their apps.
This search brought up listicles of mental health apps, review these listicles, choose brands you want to work with and create your dream client list from that.
You can also go onto LinkedIn to find these companies, and filter by company size. Usually, companies with many employees will be profitable to target because they can pay you.
Should a Freelance Writer Have a Blog?
Definitely. There are so many reasons why you should consider blogging for your freelancing business, from establishing yourself as an expert writer in your niche to benefitting from SEO and setting organic traffic to your site so you get clients without doing any outreach.
Blog posts can be seen as additional writing samples, and it’s a great way to put your name out there and build a brand, another source of income as a freelancer, passive by affiliate marketing.