Make Money Online By Freelancing
Posted on August 29, 2007 by
Adie 
General 
12 Comments
In your online business adventures, you’ve probably gained some skills you didn’t have before. Maybe you’ve become a quality writer. Maybe you’ve learned how to make good-looking designs through Photoshop. Maybe you’ve become a skilled php programmer. If you’re like me, you’ve grown leaps and bounds in your understanding of search marketing. Each of these skills (and many others) can be the foundation of a great freelancing career.
Think about your online skills. With a little bit of marketing, you can find webmasters that will pay for your expertise.
Why Freelance?
Freelancing…
- can be done in your spare time to increase cash flow.
- builds your online business contacts.
- gives you valuable experience.
- helps you become better in your field of discipline.
- can allow you to quit your day job.
Starting Out
If you’re just starting out, don’t expect to be able to charge a high rate. It takes time to build your reputation as a freelancer. But as you do good work for your clients, your reputation will grow and you’ll be able to charge higher rates.
Marketing
Start a blog.
Even if you post once a week, your blog will help presell for your services. Here are five other reasons to start a blog.
- Grow your network
- Showcase your expertise
- Generate a side revenue
- Test drive new projects
- Become visible in Google
Go to popular webmaster and internet marketing forums.
Forums like Digital Point are great places to network and find clients. In many of these forums, you can post your services. However, don’t just do that. Participate in the forum community by interacting with other forum members and posting useful information.
Scour job boards.
Check out this massive job board list.
Where To Get More Help
Here are two blogs that give great advice to freelancers.
Freelance Switch
Freelance Folder
Update: My friend just started Freelancing Tips.
Feedback
Any freelancers reading this? How have you grown your freelance online business?
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The one strategy that has worked the best for me is to advertise my services on Craigslist and other classified ads, but especially Craigslist. I have found it to be a treasure trove for freelancers, and I’ve grown my freelancing business exclusively on craigslist. While webmaster forums are great too, you reach a larger demographic on places like craigslist, and by creating ads and responding to ads you can create a good stream of clients.
Regardless of the source, I think the single most important thing for a freelancer is to do good quality work from the beginning for every client, because word of mouth and client referrals can be a powerful marketing tool. I stopped putting ads up on craigslist months ago because my return clients and the referrals they send me keep me so busy that at the moment I have no time for new clients. During down times I occasionally pick up gigs on webmaster forums, but Craigslist has definitely been the backbone of my freelancing.
Thanks for the tips. I’ll have to look into Craigslist.
I have started freelancing about 3 month ago. I write articles and blog as a freelancer and I love it. I have a regular gig to staff blog for a well known marketer in Asia. And in the last 2 days I found two paid jobs via webmaster forums. Life as a freelancer couldn’t be better right now. :-)
I’m also in the process of building my brand name including my domain, so in the future this will enable me to send interested clients to my site to get some samples.
Monika :-)
The branding and website idea is a good one because it gives clients and potential clients a landing page and adds to your “unforgetability.” I did the same thing at some point during my freelancing. I decided on a “business name”, designed and built a simple website with just a few pages describing who I was, what I did, my skills, what modes of payment I accepted and how to contact me. I then contacted my former and current clients and asked them to write me referrals that I could put on my website, plus a link to their website. I then created a “client” page with those testimonials and a brief description of their website, hence giving them some free advertising too.
This has worked amazingly well for me, and I noticed a spike in my return client rate, probably because they bookmarked my website, and had a place to find me, as opposed to searching past emails, etc.
Good luck to you. :)
Excellent idea. You’ve got some great tips for freelancers. You should start a blog about freelancing :)
Plus, the freelancing niche seems to be a high demand and low supply niche.
Damn… you’re right about that!! I don’t know why I never thought of doing that before!! OK.. I’m off to find a domain name :). Thanks!
Good luck!
Whenever you have a couple of articles up, leave a comment here with your freelancing site URL and I’ll link to you on this blog post. :)
OK, it took me some time but I finally have the blog up. I’ve put some posts up and I plan to add more frequently. I appreciate the offer for a link :)
I just linked to you. Good luck on your site!
Thank you Dee!
I love this idea, with more blogs online now than you can shake a stick at, there is truly going to be a greater demand for writers to help keep all these blogs current.
This is an idea I will explore more for my marketing course. I think you have a valid point.
Dwayne Armstrong
MarketingAndPromoting.com
i have done some freelance work for elance. you do need to be a pretty quality writer or you wont last long.