The Bureau of Labor Statistics notes that the market for writing work is expected to grow by 8 percent through 2026. And while fiction and other forms of the written word are still going strong, content marketing has a lot to do with the opportunities available to those who put fingers to keyboards for a living.
If you want to get ahead with your freelance writing business in 2019, it pays to keep up with trends. Here’s a look at six types of freelance writing jobs that are in high demand this year. Read up on them, and ensure you can prep your portfolios to support pitches to potential clients in 2019.
1. City Pages
City pages or local pages are landing pages that integrate marketing copy about goods or services with information and terms relevant to local users. They can be written with an entire city in mind, but as local marketing becomes more important, many brands are choosing to publish pages at a neighborhood level.
This type of content continues to be important because local search is a driving force for all types of businesses. According to Google, around a third of all searches have local intent, and Wordstream notes that 72 percent of local searches visit a business within five miles of their location.
Local businesses can’t afford to ignore this content marketing need, and freelance writers can’t afford to avoid learning to write local content.
Examples of city or local pages:
2. eCommerce Content
Product descriptions, category pages and buying guides — any copy meant to educate buyers who are well into the sales funnel and might be looking to make a purchase — are examples of eCommerce content. It usually employs strong marketing copy that entices the reader by pairing features of the products with benefits to the user in ways that help the person imagine owning the items or using the services themselves.
eCommerce content isn’t a new star in 2019, but as consumers repeatedly turn to the search engines to start their buying journey, it remains a critical component of any website. That’s true whether a brand makes sales online, in physical stores or both.
And since marketing copy has to be constantly refreshed to be competitive, freelancers who know how to write it can keep themselves in work all year.
Examples of eCommerce Content
3. Long-Form Content
Long-form content can be divided into two basic camps.
First, the long blog post or article — typically a few thousand words or so — that delves deeply into a topic or gives a comprehensive high-level overview. Sometimes these are called pillar posts, and brands create offshoot posts on more specific topics and link from the pillar post to these shorter articles.
Another type of long-form content is often used for lead generation purposes — ebooks, white papers and case studies are all examples. Businesses tend to gate these informative pieces of content and trade them for an email address or newsletter signup to build their marketing lists.
Again, these aren’t new formats for 2019, but online content does continue to get longer. One reason is that Google is placing increasing emphasis on expertise and quality; it wants to serve up links to companies that can and will help the user most, and long-form content is a good way to capture Google’s attention. Plus, if the content is engaging, it causes users to spend more time on the page. That can drive up a site’s RankBrain score, which in turn can help the page’s search rankings.
Freelance writers interested in the long-form content game should start in industries where they have hands-on expertise or long-term writing experience. Often, companies want high-level or thought-leadership content for these pieces.
Examples of long-form content:
4. SEO Content
Freelance writers may notice that increasing numbers of clients are more concerned with quality and less concerned with playing whack-a-mole with keywords. But that doesn’t mean SEO is down for the count. In fact, to be a successful freelance content creator in 2019, you have to know more about SEO than ever.
You need to know:
- The differences between primary, secondary and semantic keywords and how to incorporate them into content in natural ways (by using common sense and stop words, for example)
- How to write meta descriptions and title tags to go with any content you deliver
- How to write SEO-optimized content for all search types, including searches from desktops, mobile devices and voice
- How to create feature snippets, which are short answers to specific questions that are friendly for display on Google or being read by a voice assistant
Want to prepare to please SEO clients in 2019? Check out all the SEO tips and tricks on the Crowd Content blog.
5. Social updates
Short and sassy. Short and sweet. Short and any other alliterative adjective a brand wants to throw at you — just know that social updates are not a short-lived form of content. Continuing throughout 2019, social posts will put brands ahead of the competition, and freelance writers who know how to turn a clever phrase while maintaining brand voice can land high-paying work that’s fast and fun.
Social posts include:
- Facebook posts
- Twitter posts
- LinkedIn posts
- Google My Business Posts
Snapchat, Instagram and Pinterest are also big players in social marketing, but they tend to create less work for the freelance writer as they’re so image heavy.
Examples of social posts:
6. Advertorials
An advertorial is a cross between an advertisement and editorial content. Specifically, it’s an ad that parades as native content on a blog or even the site of a publisher such as the New York Times.
Successful advertorials look and feel like real content, though. They say something valuable the reader will engage in. The benefits of advertorials in 2019 is that they let brands get in front of new users or target users who read specific websites or publications.
Companies that can form lasting partnerships with publishers so they can present regular advertorials do well with this type of content. Freelancers who can write the kind of pieces that publishers want and slip some advertising in on the side will become favorites of these brands.
Examples of advertorials:
Interested in writing any of this type of content for clients in 2019? Make sure you’re signed up as a freelance writer with Crowd Content. Our growing client list needs all these types of content to succeed in 2019.
