Why Clients Buy Articles

My bread and butter as a freelance writer has been writing groups of articles for clients. These clients don’t want blog posts or sales pages to describe products they’re selling. They just want articles, and since they aren’t good writers, they’re willing to pay me (or maybe you!) to write these articles.

But why? Certainly, you can simply do the job, no questions asked, but aren’t you curious as to why clients want multiple pages on their websites?

Clients hire writers for article work for two reasons:

1. They want to add valuable information to their website. For example, here on after graduation, the articles (hopefully) help new writers get started. Let’s say this was a gardening website instead, that I wasn’t a writer. I could hire someone to write gardening articles for me so that this website would have an increased value to readers.
2. They want to pull in more traffic through search engines. Many times, clients will ask you to write articles including certain keyword phrases. For my theoretical gardening website, for example, a keyword phrase might be something like “types of flowers.” If you write an article that includes this phrase, someone who searches for “types of flowers” on a search engine is more likely to find your website.

What it comes down to, in both cases, is sales. Hobby websites might have useful information or even try to attract some search engine traffic, but very rarely do these sites hire writers. The people who do hire writers are entrepreneurs attempting to make money from their website. They can do this through selling products (either their own or affiliate products), running advertisements, asking people to sign up for membership sections of their website, or promoting services they offer.

Most clients want a combination of value and search engine optimization. The best websites take both into consideration, and as a freelance writer, working for the best websites means more money in your pocket. After all, if a website is successful, they’re more likely to hire you again to do more work.