Today’s guest post is by Nick Usborne of AskNickUsborne.com, originally part of his excellent newsletter and shared here with permission. Nick coaches freelance writers, and you’ll see that the article focuses on writing, but I think you’ll find it equally valuable regardless of your particular expertise. After all, every one of us needs to set ourselves apart to succeed at freelancing.

I often receive questions from freelance copywriters asking me to help them find the “right niche”.

That’s a reasonable request.

Finding the right niche for your freelance copywriting or writing business will help bring some focus to your marketing, and will help your prospects identify you as an expert in that area.

For instance, if you choose to become a specialist in the insurance industry, prospective clients within that industry will be reassured that you know their business and speak their language.

However, there are more ways to “niche” yourself than simply by choosing a particular industry or industry sector as your area of specialty.

You can also create a name for yourself as being the specialist in a particular medium. You can focus just on print, or just on web writing for instance.

Choosing a niche either by industry or medium is often as far as freelancers will go in terms of separating themselves from their competition.

But you can go further than that.

Instead of just thinking about a “niche” to focus on, sit back and ask yourself a broader question…

“What is the best way to position my skills and services in a way that differentiates me from other writers or copywriters?”

Here are a few examples of ways in which you might position yourself:

• The 24-Hour Copywriter (For those super urgent jobs)
• Multilingual Copywriting (English, Spanish and French, for instance)
• Y-Gen Copywriting (We know the 16-24 age group)
• Web-Ready-Copy (Copy plus design plus code)
• Fixed-Price Copy (We stand by our price list. No surprises.)
• Fast Content Writing (Fast content creation for web sites)

The list is potentially endless.

Think about it a little, particularly if your own freelance website simply presents you as a “freelance copywriter” or “freelance writer”.

Unless you’re some kind of celebrity in the industry, it’s not enough just to describe your baseline skill…writing or copywriting.

You have to work harder than that.

Maybe find yourself a niche, by industry or medium.

Or find some other way to position yourself and your services.

But whatever you do, be sure to find a way to differentiate yourself from your competitors.

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