Blogging for Consultants: Pros and Cons
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A blog might be a fantastic way to promote your consulting services … or it might be a big waste of time.
How do you decide if it’s right for you?
In this article, I’ll run through some of the pros and cons. These are based on my own experience of blogging to promote my website design services, and from working with clients like you.
Pros of blogging for your consulting business
1. It shows your thought leadership
Where better than your own platform to share your ideas, discuss the topics that you think are important, and when necessary, go against conventional wisdom? Blogging is an excellent way to demonstrate thought leadership and to give potential clients a taste of how you think.
2. Blogging helps to build trust
Similarly, by giving your clients more ways to interact with your work, and another way to showcase your methods, blogging can help build trust.
3. You can address real problems that your clients have
Naturally, you’re not going to break confidentiality here. But you can use real client situations and real questions you’ve been asked, as material or inspiration for what to blog about. Not only does this help you know that your article actually matters, but chances are, this topic or question will come up again. In future, you’ll have an easy place to send people to read more.
Think about questions that you’re asked a lot, or queries that come to your inbox where you’ve written detailed replies. These are excellent sources for blog topics.
4. It can help new clients find you through search engines
If you write and publish consistently on a fairly niche topic, blogging can significantly boost your chances of showing up in search engine results. SEO is now the most common way that my website design clients find me, and it’s especially satisfying when you reach the point of knowing you are giving valuable information, that also grows your business.
However, this is not a fast and easy route to finding ideal consulting clients. See the cons section, below, for more context.
5. You’ll have a bank of content that you can share on LinkedIn and other channels
Wondering what to post on LinkedIn? Build a decent body of blog posts and you’ll have an excellent bank of material that you can pull from. Sometimes, you might just link to the whole article. Other times, you can highlight a piece or idea, as your discussion point.
In any case, you’ll then be driving traffic to your own website to learn more about you and take the next step in working with you. This is far more robust than building your house on the “borrowed land” of a social media platform. And the web traffic will help your search engine rankings, too.
Unlike some other marketing tactics that have a short shelf life, blog posts can continue to attract and engage potential clients for years if they remain relevant and evergreen.
Cons of blogging to promote your consulting business
But even with all of those advantages, I don’t always recommend that everyone jumps into blogging as a method of business promotion. Here are some of the drawbacks.
1. It takes time and effort to blog consistently
Assuming you’re writing thoughtful articles that are more than just a few high level paragraphs, it takes time to produce and publish a good blog post. I used to “bash out” a blog post in less than an hour: these pieces were fairly conversational, usually addressing what was on my mind with no particular business strategy behind them.
These days, allowing for keyword research, topic research, finding and linking to other relevant information on my website, and so on, I can easily spend 2-3 hours. (Even longer, if I’m recording a how-to video with Squarespace tips.)
So you’ll need the bandwidth to write your articles. But more than time, you’ll also need enthusiasm. If you love to write, for example, if you often like to send long, nuanced, thoughtful emails, you’ll be fine. But if you’d prefer to talk about your work, or even appear on video to show what you do, other channels like a podcast or YouTube will suit you better.
You can, of course, outsource your blog writing. That’s another topic, and I’d argue you’ll lose some of the advantages of showing your audience your zone of genius.
2. Search Engine Optimization is a long, niche game
Not only does SEO take significant work (no, you can’t just change a few headlines on your website on a Sunday and have new clients lining up on Monday!), but you’ll see best results if you are writing about a niche topic.
For example, leadership tips shows 483,000 results in Google. Narrow that to leadership tips for managers and you’re in less competitive territory, about 9,000 results. If you’re a new blogger, you’d probably do better to go narrower still: leadership tips for new managers shows about 2,200 results. That means there’s a better chance that your article will actually show up and attract clieks.
And this all assumes your ideal client is even visiting Google to look for your expertise. If your perfect client is asking colleagues and their network for recommendations instead, then you may find you attract a lot of website traffic visitors who, realistically, are never going to hire you.
Related resources:
And I recommend this great article on how long does SEO take?
When I plan, design, and build your consulting website for you, we decide during the early, strategic phase of our project together whether you want to pursue blogging as an SEO strategy. If so, I will prioritize SEO at every layer of the work I do.
3. You’ll still need to share your work in other places
Until you reach the point where Google is bringing plenty of high quality website traffic, your blog is not a silver bullet for getting discovered. Whether this means sharing your articles on a rotating basis on LinkedIn, booking speaking appearances, or collaborating with others to get in front of your ideal client, you’ll still need to put the work in to get noticed.
4. Blogging in itself does not generate revenue
Unless you have a large, enthusiastic audience that is willing to pay to receive articles and content from you, your writing, blogging does not generate direct revenue. Instead, it's a tool for lead generation and relationship building. The actual conversion of leads into paying clients comes later.
Is Squarespace a good platform for blogging?
I specialize in custom Squarespace websites. For most consultants, building your blog on Squarespace is an excellent choice. (I wouldn’t recommend it if your entire business model is blogging, where you’d publish multiple articles each day, build massive web traffic, and monetize your site through ads and affiliate income.)
But as a consultant, that’s not what you’re doing. You’re posting a thoughtful article perhaps weekly or monthly, and you’re using your blog to showcase your expertise and lead to getting hired for client projects. Squarespace will be perfect for these needs.
Related resources:
How to remove blog dates in Squarespace (I warmly recommend this, if your content is evergreen and you’re not posting as often as you’d like.)
Save 10% off your first subscription of a Squarespace website by using the code PAULINE10.
By the way, you’re reading a Squarespace blog right now :)
Your website and blog can be a powerful lead nurturing tools
Your buyers are sophisticated, and require a high degree of trust that you can help them get the results they want.
You work hard to meet great prospects, and you can magnify the result of those conversations by sending new contacts to your website and blog to demonstrate your expertise and how you think. When approached strategically, this online presence can pay you back many times over.
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Other resources for a strong consulting website
And you can also get your free Consulting Website Workbook here.