
A website is not enough. You need SEO, too. Busy areas have competitive SEO markets where you may need our services like a ghostwriter in NYC.
Last week, I wrote about how the best way to find a ghostwriter is to find a ghostwriter’s website. This week, I’m going to twist things around and address this column to those ghostwriters who have a website.
Having a website is half the battle. SEO is the other half.
You probably know what SEO, or search engine optimization, is. It’s the process of improving a website’s visibility in search engine results. If you want people to find you online and you don’t want to pay for ads, SEO is the way to go.
I don’t pretend to understand how it works. I just know it does. Here’s my story.
I knew from my networking days that I needed a website, and my designer knew that you needed SEO to reach a wider audience. So, we traded. He designed my website and provided me with SEO services, and I wrote his copy and updated the website with fresh content, which was something else he recommended.
Then came COVID, and I started doing more business online. The website and SEO continued to work and I got one ghostwriting job out of it. But I also knew I needed a new website, so I took my earnings from the ghostwriting job and invested in my current website as well as an SEO company that would do all the work. No longer would I have to update the website.
I had enough money to give the SEO company a year to find me that first job. “All I need is one ghostwriting job,” I told the CEO, and he confidently told me his company would come through.
At the same time, my business advisor and I targeted specific groups that might need ghostwriters, such as publishers, speakers, and adjunct professors. We scripted emails to reach out to them. Sometimes, I got nothing, sometimes I got responses, but nothing led to a job.
I didn’t like cold outreach, but I decided I would do it until that first ghostwriting job through SEO came in. Then my business advisor told me, “Show me a person with a lot of referral partners and I’ll show you somebody without a lot of clients.” This completely contradicted what he had originally taught me, but at the same time, it validated what I was noticing about my own business.
I just needed SEO to work. After eleven months, the SEO CEO admitted he was concerned, but the one job came in during the twelfth month. That was at the end of 2023. Since then, I’ve gotten two other ghostwriting jobs and several small speech writing jobs.
If it can work for me, it can work for any ghostwriter. Here’s why:
- SEO helps a ghostwriter rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential clients to discover their services.
- By optimizing for specific keywords like “business book ghostwriter” or “memoir ghostwriting,” you can attract clients actively searching for those services. You also can optimize for city-specific keywords, such as “ghostwriter Philadelphia” or “affordable ghostwriter in Los Angeles,” to attract specialized clients (I’ve started including the word nonfiction because I’ve been getting inquiries from people writing fiction, which I don’t do).
- A well-optimized website with quality content positions you as an expert in your niche, increasing trust among potential clients.
- SEO encourages better site design, faster load times, and mobile-friendliness, all of which make your site more appealing to visitors.
- An SEO-optimized site can attract clients any time of day, expanding your reach globally. I got a lead in early January, before many returned from winter vacations or restarted school.
- Effective SEO boosts the visibility of your blog posts, allowing prospects to see the quality of your work. In fact, the blog posts are the way I help my website rankings because those are the “fresh content.”
- SEO ensures that you attract the right audience—people actively looking for the exact ghostwriting services you offer—making them more likely to convert into paying clients.
Nothing is guaranteed, of course, but I wholeheartedly recommend an SEO company as part of your ghostwriting marketing strategy. Are you seeking a ghost writer in Philadelphia? Give Lee Barnathan a call.
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