If you’re an academic editor and you want to increase your online visibility and attract more clients, have you tried blogging?
Writing short, helpful articles and posting them on your website (among other places… see below) is a powerful way to showcase your expertise, build trust with potential clients, and drive traffic to your website (and your project calendar!).
What Should I Write About?
The key here is to provide VALUE.
Your blog posts should answer pressing questions that your ideal client has. Before you start writing, ask yourself:
- Who is my ideal client?
- What questions do they really want to know the answers to?
- What knowledge do I have that will be most helpful to them in their writing, research, and publishing?
Blog topics can include general writing tips (e.g., common grammar mistakes, explanations of formatting tools), advice on how to describe particular research methods and results (e.g., using APA style), or suggestions for scholars in a certain subfield you specialize in or who want to publish in a particular type of outlet (journal, book, etc.).
By writing about these questions (and their answers), you demonstrate to people who find you that you’re an expert, you communicate clearly, and you can truly help them achieve their publishing goals.
How Editors Can Increase the Visibility of Their Blog Posts
Remember to optimize your blog posts for search engines by using relevant keywords throughout your content, especially in the title and in subheadings throughout the article (note that I’ve followed my own advice while writing THIS article you’re reading now!). Think of the phrasing someone would use to do a Google search for their particular question:
- How to publish in an academic journal
- How to write an academic book
- How to turn your dissertation into a book
- Can PhD students get published?
These are examples off the top of my head, but you get the point. Using these types of questions and keywords will improve your SEO (search engine optimization). That means that your blog posts will be more likely to rank higher in the list of results from a Google (or other) search.
However, it’s VERY difficult to influence Google search results with only a few articles, so you have to be consistent. And it takes a LONG time for your efforts to start showing up in SEO, which requires patience. It’s taken about a year since I started blogging for me to start getting more website visitors who come from a Google search, and most of those are searching for my name or business name, specifically–I assume because they discovered me somewhere else.
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Increase Your Reach by Sharing on Social Media
This brings me to the importance of promoting your blog posts on social media and on platforms like Medium and Reddit. Once you create a free account on Medium, it takes about 5 minutes to copy and paste your article from your website to your Medium account. While subscribing to Medium can help extend your reach, I don’t think it’s necessary. The idea here is to get your writing (and your name) to show up in more places on the internet. This way, when someone Googles their question, they’re more likely to see YOUR blog post show up in the list of results (i.e., because it’s published on your website, on Medium, and in other places).
Related to this is the value of Reddit. In the past, I only used Reddit to find answers to questions like “Which laptop should I buy?” and “Why is my furnace not heating?” Now, however, I find it VERY helpful to be active in subreddits like “academia” and “copyediting.” Redditors are notoriously opposed to people advertising or engaging in self-promotion on the platform, but if you see someone asking a question and you have a blog post that answers that question, definitely post a link to your blog!
The image above displays (for the last year) the number of views of my website by “referrer,” that is, the website someone was on that sent them to my site. You can see that most of my traffic comes from Facebook (more on that in a sec), but 424 views came from Reddit. When I dug deeper into the stats, I learned that half of those views came directly from a comment I left where I linked to an article I wrote about hiring an editor.
During this time frame, I’ve been hired by about ten clients who found me through Reddit. Not bad! And the best part of this is that that one post (which took me about an hour to write and then 5 minutes to leave the comment on Reddit) will exist on the internet forever (or at least as long as Reddit does). So that small effort to write and share the post continues to pay off for years.
Finally, I highly recommend being active on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. The strategy I suggested with Reddit applies for these sites as well. Be a lurker (not in a creepy way!). Hang out in Facebook groups where your ideal clients spend their time. Join PhD and other groups for scholars/faculty. Join groups for writers/authors. Join editor groups.
On LinkedIn, send connection requests to scholars in the subfields you specialize in. Comment on their posts. Make your own posts (that link to your blog articles!) and that offer snippets of advice. You can create several such posts by repurposing content from your blog articles, just in smaller chunks.
On Instagram, search for accounts with “dr” or “professor” or “phd” in their name and follow them. Look up relevant hashtags and start following the people who post about them. When someone posts about their frustration with their dissertation or publishing, leave a comment with some helpful advice and a link to your website. It’s not weird, it’s networking! 🙂
Get Comfortable with Being Uncomfortable
Look, I know that putting yourself out there like this can feel strange. Maybe you’re also afraid of rejection. But remember: you are a talented person who has so much knowledge and many skills to share with people who NEED your help.
The thing is, they can’t hire you (and you can’t help them) unless they KNOW YOU EXIST! And they WON’T know you exist unless you consistently stick your name and website and lovely photo and helpful advice in front of them where they can see it.
People have questions that they desperately need answered, and they’re always on the lookout for someone who can answer those questions and help them get published as quickly and easily as possible. So why shouldn’t YOU be that person?
Happy writing,
P.S. If you find this article helpful, grab my free video series on becoming an academic editor. You can also check out my podcast, Leaving Academia: Becoming a Freelance Editor. It’s published weekly on YouTube and on your favorite podcast apps.