If you’re wondering, how can I become a freelance writer and make steady money online because you love writing? Or you are pondering on the best strategy you can apply as a freelancer and get stable writing jobs to increase your income flow. I have some excellent tips for you, — when applied properly, they will surely elevate your freelance career and boost your income.
Freelance writing can be a great side hustle or even a full-time job if you approach it strategically. But how do you get started? Well, for starters, you can take a look at some of the best freelance writing jobs for beginners and how you can get started with your new writing profession even if you have no prior experience.
This content is for those looking for tips and strategies to boost their freelance writing careers and increase their income.
But before we progress, hope you have got your working tools. Which is your laptop or desktop, a stable internet connection, and of course don’t forget your pen and notebook — Sometimes they come in handy if you are working on a technical project or guides.
As a newbie, embarking on a new career and taking on a freelance writing adventure can be intimidating at first. And its success is not something that happens overnight.
Even with my years of experience as a writer, it took me a while before I could break into the steady and stable income of writing and become a successful writer. This is why I decided to document some of the tips that worked best for me. Once you apply these tips, you too can become a successful writer.
The Strategy
Before I share this with you, please note that success with this strategy is not guaranteed. It worked for me because I had to work it out. Reading about this is just a part, the other part is implementation and doing the work. Now let’s get started.
You Must Pick a Niche
The first thing you need to do is to pick a niche. Remember, I said you must pick a niche. So, it’s a must. You can’t be a jack of all trades. That will take you NOWHERE. If you don’t have a niche in mind, you can check out my Top 10 Freelance Writing jobs for beginners, I have handpicked the best writing areas you can venture into and become successful.
So, to be a successful writer, you must pick a niche and identify the writing specialty for which you have the most passion.
Producing high-quality content that your clients will love will be challenging without passion and expertise.
Once you have chosen a niche, you should try and narrow it down to just a few topics or areas of concentration. For example, if you love blog writing, you may want to concentrate on just health and wellness blog content. This will help you build authority in your niche.
Once you become an authority in one or two highly lucrative niches, your business will be more successful.
Create a Portfolio with Sample Content
As a beginner, no one will notice you, even if you sign up on freelance writing sites like Fiverr or Upwork, and people see your gigs, they won’t trust you.
This is where your sample portfolio comes in handy. This portfolio is one of the most important aspects of your writing career as a newbie. It showcases your skills and also proofs to intending clients that you can deliver the job perfectly well. It is your gateway to building trust with clients who are looking to hire you.
There are several portfolio-building sites you can use to create your own portfolio. A simple Google search will present you with lots of choices. But to make it easy for you, I will recommend using Contently to create your portfolio and showcase your work. You can check out the samples of my portfolio at Contently as well.
Use Contently to provide samples of your work. Make sure you are putting out the best, something that will align with what your potential clients are looking for. If you don’t have good content yet.
Try creating some content for your friends, or even family members. Look for those around you with blogs or websites, pick a topic that suits your niche, write extensively, and upload it on their website.
You could even create your own website in addition to a portfolio site, to which you would regularly post blog content. While you post regularly on your blog, you can use the portfolio site to update projects done for other clients and enrich your portfolio.
Your blog is a great tool in helping you start putting the foundation for your own company. It might also serve as your portfolio for proposals on future projects. Make sure you have a “Work with Me” page on your website so that potential customers and referrals can get in touch with you.
As a writer in your niche, blogging will help you develop credibility and authority. However, make sure to consistently publish new content.
If you want to start your own blog and don’t know how to go about it, you can check out my post on starting a blog step by step and becoming successful.
Also, if you are new and don’t have the cash to invest in blogging, you can check out this my top 6 free blogging platforms for beginners
Start Connecting and Getting Your Name Out There
Creating a blog or setting up your portfolio is the second step in becoming a successful freelance writer. The next thing you should do is to create connections and start promoting yourself.
If you don’t connect with people and promote yourself, you will hardly be noticed. It’s like opening a shop without telling people where your shop is.
To do this, you need to look for where freelance writers converge, join freelance writing communities on social media like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, and also add yourself to directories. This will enable search engines to pop up results about you or your work whenever someone types keywords related to your niche.
Pro Tip: Make sure you put out a concise, detailed, and brief about yourself on your social handles that tell people about your profession. This is not the time for jokes and memes.
Below are some freelance writing directories to add yourself on:
- All Freelance Writing Directory
- AWAI Directory of Professional Freelance Writers
- Society of Professional Journalists Directory
- Writerfolio Freelance Writer Directory
Staying Active on Social Media
A good way to connect with people and make them trust you is by staying active on social media. When you are active on social media, you make it easier for people to discover you, this way, you can start building your brand and marketing yourself to intending clients.
So go ahead and create social media accounts on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. Use them to build your audience and make them an essential tool for gaining clients.
Once you have created your social media accounts, ensure you stay active by posting regular content, such as educative, informative, guides, and tips that will be relevant to your clients. Also, use the comment sessions to leave valuable comments on people’s posts.
By doing this, you will establish your brand and authority as a writer in your niche. Make sure you share industry-related content in your niche. This will help demonstrate that you network in the field, and you are active in keeping up with the latest information.
Collaborate and Network with Other Writers
One of the most beneficial things you can do as a freelance writer is to network and collaborate with other writers. There are writers in several niches. You need to identify them and network with them, as they can help you by referring clients who seek your kind of article.
Building a supporting group is critical to being relevant in a competitive market. Especially the content writer market. There are lots of writers out there, — making it highly competitive. One way to stay ahead is by building good networks and collaborations. These networks could also provide good writing tips and tactics that will generally boost your career.
If you have previously networked with someone, and they have writing jobs that are not within their area of specialty, or they have lots of work at hand and don’t have the capacity to take on extra work, they are more likely to refer you.
I have this article on the 41 Lucrative Side Hustles You Can Start Right Now, You can also check it out if you want more side hustle jobs to improve your income
Write Guest Posts for Other Blogs
Part of building your portfolio and building your network will be to write some guest posts. Although this may not be very important, it sure has a way of boosting your reputation as a freelance writer.
You should look out for blogs in your niche, reach out to them and offer to write a guest post for them. Make sure the content is of high quality and also optimized.
This will help you showcase your writing, and you can also put it as part of your resume. With this, you can easily attract new clients. Sometimes, even the site owner will be more than willing to recommend you to a friend, — if your writing is good.
Another good thing that comes with guest posting is that it allows you to get build up your writing experience and provide more ways to promote your work as writing samples.
Acquire Some Skills in SEO
As a freelance writer, part of being exceptional in your content is having knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO). It is one of the most crucial skills to possess if you want to rank articles that rank on the first pages of search engines like Google and Bing.
As a writer, I have written hundreds of articles that ranked on the first pages of Google and Bing. You can see some of the search terms my articles ranks for below. My clients love my work because I make it easy for their content to get seen easily on search engines.
Now, as a writer with knowledge of SEO, it will be easy for you to write for your clients and make them rank on search engines. Clients love to see their articles on search results when they enter their keywords.
This will tremendously boost the number of clients you will receive once they know you are good at writing high-quality articles that rank on search engines.
To learn about search engine optimization and how to implement it in your content for search engines, I will recommend you take an SEO course on Udemy. Once your content starts generating more conversions and results, you will become more marketable to customers.
Start Applying to Freelance Writing Jobs
Now that you have all the necessary tips and strategies to brand and market yourself, the next point is to start applying for freelance writing jobs.
To do this, you need to register with freelance sites such as Fiverr, Upwork, People Per Hour, Flex Jobs, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc. There are several other sites and a simple Google search will give you the full list of freelance sites.
You can also make use of your social handles and blog to get jobs. It is important to note that when using your social account or blog, you should beware of scammers. People who would want to use you without paying for your work.
I have been a victim of this and don’t want you to experience it.
To avoid this, always use an escrow payment portal or request an upfront part payment if you are engaging with a client directly from your blog, referrer, or social media.
Continue Building Your Portfolio and Looking for Writing Jobs
Continue writing and improving to gain more experience and improve your portfolio once you land your first writing job. With more experience, you’ll be able to find higher-paying freelance writing positions, and customers could even approach you directly.
Final Note
Writing is a great career choice. You don’t need extraordinary skills like developers or designers do to become a writer, and you can earn a high income from writing good content.
All you need to get started is your laptop, internet connection, and good English skill. The SEO part comes in later as you improve your writing career.
So, what are you waiting for, go out there, look through the various categories in writing jobs and pick a niche for yourself and start building a career around it.
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