If you want to earn more in less time, find your niche. Finding your niche as a freelance writer is a powerful way to focus your efforts and accelerate your growth as a small business owner. Over time you’ll get better clients, make more money, and find greater satisfaction in your work.
This article outlines the 21 most profitable freelance writing niches as well as how to find, test, and develop yours.
What is a freelance writing niche?
Your niche is your specialty. It’s the topic, industry, or type of content you focus on as a freelance writer. Your niche will be an area that you have experience in, domain knowledge on, or are simply passionate about.
Writing niches can be broad, such as finance or marketing, or narrow, such as investments or email marketing. It’s common to start with a broader niche that you eventually narrow as you gain experience.
Freelance writing niches can be focused by industry or content type. Examples of industry niches include health, education, travel, eCommerce, finance, and real estate. Examples of content type niches include ghostwriting, case studies, white papers, email marketing, and SEO writing.
Why is it important to have a niche?
Having a niche helps you build a profitable freelance writing business faster. Having a niche helps you focus, and focus leads to sustainable profit. With an established niche you’ll be able to market yourself with confidence, build domain authority, and get quality client referrals.
Market yourself clearly and confidently
It’s easier to pitch your services and attract leads when you can clearly articulate what you do and who you do it for. When you’re a newbie freelancer, it’s tempting to say that you do all types of writing for any type of client. While there’s a lot of value in experimenting and being open to opportunities, you’ll need to start niching down eventually. Remember that you can always change your writing niche as you gain more experience and your skills or interests evolve.
Having your specialty on your website and in your social media bios lets people quickly understand what you do and if you can help them. Companies usually want to hire freelancers who specialize in what they’re looking for. Specialization signals expertise, and expertise is what allows you to charge more for your services.
Build domain authority
When you write about the same topic or produce the same type of content repeatedly you develop your skills and expertise more quickly. You will also become known for a certain kind and quality of work. The goal of having a niche is to become the go-to for a specific type of writing. If an eCommerce company is looking for an email marketing specialist that’s known for their high conversion rates, and that’s your niche, you want to be one of the first names that come to mind.
Having a writing niche helps you work towards becoming a sought-after specialist in your chosen field.
Get quality client referrals
Referrals are a major source of business for most freelancers. But people can’t recommend you if they don’t know how to sum up what you do. By having a writing niche, your clients will be able to easily recommend you to other companies in their network who need similar services. High-quality clients—clients that are strong communicators, respectful of your boundaries, and pay on time—tend to associate with similar types of people.
How do I find my freelance writing niche?
Finding your niche can feel overwhelming. You don’t have to do this perfectly, especially at the beginning of your freelance writing career. Start with an educated guess and remember that everyone has to start somewhere. You can always adjust and pivot as you go—everyone does!
Consider these four things to find your freelance writing niche.
1. What are your areas of expertise?
Your personal and professional experience offers a wealth of knowledge and skills. Jobs, education, personal experience, and hobbies can all be turned into topics you write about. People want to learn about parenting from other parents, and get financial advice from financial experts. If you have professional certifications that can help you charge a premium for your expertise.
Your domain knowledge is valuable. Learning to write well will help you capitalize on that knowledge.
2. What are you passionate about?
What are you interested in? What do you find yourself naturally reading, learning, and talking about? The answers to these questions could point to your writing niche. Following a current interest helps ensure a niche is sustainable for you. While it’s tempting to follow the money, picking a writing niche solely because it’s profitable can lead to misalignment and burnout.
For some people more than others, writing about something they’re passionate about or that aligns with their values is incredibly important.
3. What industries are profitable?
You need to pick an industry with a healthy marketing budget. These are industries where brands and companies rely on written content to drive sales. Because it’s such an important part of their marketing strategy, they are willing and able to put money toward it. Not every industry or company has the budget or profit margins to pay freelance writers. Choose wisely.
The industries where it’s been proven that you can spend money this way to make money are the ones that will have healthy marketing budgets for freelance writers.
You must be logged in to post a comment.