First, I want you to know that this isn’t about becoming a millionaire easily or making money just by mindlessly clicking on a website. If you're a job seeker, this is the real deal.
This free guide is about the best way you can get a freelancing job using knowledge you already have but don’t know how to use, yet. Its goal—and the goal of this blog—is to help the people who need extra money and don't know how or where to start. Also for the people who might be looking into getting an online job on the side but the whole thing seems a bit overwhelming to them (believe me it is sometimes). This post and the guide itself will make you see this all freelancing thing a bit clearer.
This free guide is about the best way you can get a freelancing job using knowledge you already have but don’t know how to use, yet. Its goal—and the goal of this blog—is to help the people who need extra money and don't know how or where to start. Also for the people who might be looking into getting an online job on the side but the whole thing seems a bit overwhelming to them (believe me it is sometimes). This post and the guide itself will make you see this all freelancing thing a bit clearer.
Now, let’s talk about freelancing.
FREELANCING
What is the best invention so far? No one has asked me this yet but if someone ever does, I know my answer already. The Internet. The world wide web. I know there are vaccines, the fire and stuff but if you stop yourself and think about the fact that someone from Singapore can easily communicate in real time with someone in Iceland, Internet starts to sound a bit like a sci-fi tale.
Thanks to this in-real-time connection with people all around the world, the possibility of you working for someone in Spain, Australia or the U.S exists.
To find a job online the first thing you should know about is, freelancing. This might be a new term for a few of you (I, personally, first found out about it in 2015), but it’s been around for quite a while and has made life easier for both clients and workers.
You probably know this already but I will still include it: freelancing is about paid work without an employment relationship.
The freelancer works for a specific client—which may well be another person or an organization— does the job, receives payment, and that’s the end of the story. Of course, there’s the case of freelancers that find clients which are, to some extent, fixed clients. This is people happy enough with your work for them to contact you every time they need you to do the same job or similar.
If you’re going to work online from the comfort of your home or personal office, you’ll most likely end up doing freelancing jobs.
THE STRATEGY
The first thing you should do is make a list with the things you're good at. It can be a list with only three things, like in my case, blogging, photoshop and translating, or it can be a really long one. What matters is that you're sure of what you can offer.
There are many ways to make money on the Internet, from absurd things like earning $0.0009 per click on different ads to getting yourself naked on camera. Believe me, there's work here for everyone.
But what will really change your working enthusiasm into real money won't be only your skills, but the way you advertise them.
So, you're a 24-year-old lawyer in your country–a degree pretty much useless overseas–and you speak English, like a lot of people nowadays. You're doing well in your career but you want to have an extra income so yo decide to make a profile as a copywriter. You want money as soon as possible so besides that you also offer your services as a translator. But it has been two months and you have yet to be contacted by a client.
You might be a really good writer, might type really fast, your English grammar might be almost at a native-level (or you might be a native) and your work ethic is impeccable but if you don't know how to advertise your services, believe me, that client won't consider your for the job as a writer, designer, programmer, translator or illustrator.
In the freelance world the competition is tough, there are millions of people just like you, in the same position and with the same skills. I don't say this to discourage you but to show you how important it is how you present yourself as freelancer. The better you advertise yourself, the more success you'll have.
Step 1. Work in English
Well, you're reading this now so I guess you won't have much problem with this. Working in English is your best option as this is the lingua franca and the freelance market is huge in comparison to other languages. So if you want to advertise yourself as a polyglot start writing your profile in English including your other skills and that you can speak multiple languages. Also, in my experience making that crossover from English to your native language is easier than the opposite. One of my best clients speaks Spanish just like me but he found me through my English profile.
Even though I put this as the first step, it's optional. You can stick to your language and test the waters but things might be slower than expected and the pay won't be too spectacular.
Step 2. Choose an area
With this I mean, choose a specific work area you want to work in. This is pretty obvious but it seems people don't take it seriously enough, and later get stuck in the same spot for months and months on end. Here is where you choose what you're going to offer from the list of things you're good at.
It's important that you do this, because you might be good at many things but clients don't care. Actually, they don't like it. There's a good saying for this, "jack of all trades, master of none" so that's pretty much what the client would think when looking at your profile.
Don't offer yourself to work as a translator, musical producer, illustrator, website designer, finance consultant, hand model, blogger and lyricist. Try not to look like a desperate job seeker. The clients won't only see you don't know what you're doing but the will also see you're desperate for money. And what will happen is that they won't take you seriously and if they do, will be only to offer you a ridiculous payment.
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| How you look when you say can do everything. Not a good look. |
So choose your area/activity and stick with it. However, there are jobs that go well together. If you're a copywriter and you offer the service both in English and your native language, it's practical and understandable that you also do translation. If you're a web programmer you can also offer other services relate to this. Same if you're an illustrator, photographer or graphic designer.
The point is, you have to be very clear with what you're going to work with if you choose to go the freelance route.
Step 3. Choose a niche
This step is one of the most important ones, and a very intimidating one as well.
When I first discovered freelancing three years ago, my profile on Elance (now Upwork) was pretty vague. I only had two clients there. I worked for one of them for two months or so but the pay was really low, like really low.
My problem back then was that, even though I chose translating and copywriting, I didn't choose a niche to work in. For that reason, my profile was very unattractive to clients, even when my pay rate was way below the average. I was a jack of all trades that didn't deserve any respect because I didn't know what I was doing.
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| Difficult but necessary. |
To choose a niche, you should look into what are your knowledges and what you do best. Maybe you only know how to write but you’re hobby is watching movies. Great! You can now advertise yourself as a TV & Movies writer.
Let me give you another example, this one is about a Computer Engineer student who speaks English and Spanish, and also is really good at writing. This guy signed up to all of the freelancing sites he could find, has a LinkedIn profile and really wants to look for a job.
If you were him, how would you introduce yourself for a job?
Option A: I’m a hard-working freelance writer with proficient ENG-SPA writing skills, willing to provide my clients with high-quality work delivered in time.
Option B: I’m a bilingual Computer Engineer student, specializing in writing in-depth IT content for online magazines, forums and blogs.
The first option is very general and vague. You’re saying you are capable of writing anything, from erotic fan-fiction to a Kylie Jenner’s Instagram caption, for both her fans in London and her fans in Buenos Aires. On the contrary, in the second one you’re more specific and you made very clear that you’re specialized in technology related subjects and that you write about it with a format (and tone) suitable for forums, magazines and blogs.
Now suppose this, I recently watched the Steve Jobs movie with Michael Fassbender and suddenly decided to set a website about IT. Articles, tutorials, news. Everything. I want it to have a great quality and I have the money for it. One of the first things I need is people to write that content for me. So I go to a freelancing site, put my job post and I receive lots of proposals. Within them I receive Option A and Option B.
Which one is going to get my attention? The one from the person who can write everything and anything? Or the one from the Computer Engineer student who specializes in IT?
Well, the client is always going to choose the writer who specializes in what they’re looking for, so I’d hire the writer from the Option B. In this case, it’s the same person advertising themselves in different ways, but imagine if the writer from the Option A were better, more efficient, smarter, faster than the one from the Option B. Still the latter would get jobs faster –and with a better pay– simply because they knew how to sell themselves.
If it seems or is unfair, it doesn’t matter. It’s how things work, not only in the freelance world but in life in general. You should take your time to process this and work according to it.
I know it looks discouraging but let me cheer you up a bit. When I got back into freelancing a few months ago, I only had knowledge about very few things and I was sure clients wouldn’t be very interested in any of them. My first job as a writer was reviewing online casinos.
I don’t particularly like gambling so as you can imagine I have never set foot in a casino, nor gamble online. But I took a weekend to do some research. A couple of months later, I was delivering eighteen 700-word articles per week.
Of course, in this case I wasn’t looking for this job. I never applied for the position as a writer but the opportunity came to me and I took it. But recently as I entered the freelancing world by myself I had to come up with a new strategy. Even though I’ve written about many things, even cars, I knew this approach wouldn’t take me very far so I took my own advice, the same I’m giving you and decide to focus myself on just one niche. I noticed that the projects I was more proud of were the ones about health and lifestyle so I decided to dedicate myself to write about that. Inside the writing world, there are many sub-classifications and I decided to stick to copywriting, choosing specifically the one about B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing strategies. So my profile now looks a bit like this:
Blogger | B2C Beauty, Health & Lifestyle Copywriter | ENG-SPA Translator
Thanks to this headline in 4 days I earned what I used to earn in 3 or 4 weeks. Most of my clients ask for articles with a very specific subject in mind. Believe me; I wouldn’t have made it this far by just putting Writer | Translator on my profile. And I said this with confidence because that’s exactly what happened when I started.
So my recommendation is to take a few days to research what niche interests you the most. Choose it and stick to it. If I have known this years ago, oh boy, who knows where I would be right now.
Step 4. Networking, networking, networking
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| My favorite so far. |
The next step is putting up your real name and a good photo of you (without an Instagram or Snapchat filter). Remember, all of this is about selling and your appearance might help you a lot. A simple smile can do wonders.
In the tagline or job title you can use the “template” I show you earlier. I would recommend something along these lines:
Creative Writer | Book Author
Graphic Designer | Illustrator
Computer Engineer | IT Copywriter | ENG-SPA Translator
Lawyer | Legal Transcription|ENG-SPA Translator
Once you’ve done that, fill in your academic formation and previous jobs. Allow LinkedIn to access your e-mail contacts so it’ll give you suggestions. Add whoever you like to have there, search on LinkedIn groups, add even more people, and accept other people’s connections. Take networking seriously. Don’t only add people within your niche; the wider your network, the better. Example, if you’re a writer—creative, editorial or copywriter—a smart move would be connecting with web programmers, graphic designers and others who more or less work with what you do.
This is very helpful because more often than not clients ask their freelancers if they know of or can recommend someone for other projects they have in mind. I’ve gotten jobs like this, because someone else recommended me.
And one last advice: speak about what you do. What I mean by this is, apply a real life version of word-of-mouth marketing, and speak about what you do not only with people within your area but with everyone.
As you can see, this isn’t about making easy money. There are a lot of things to think and figure out to do a good job. Nor is it about becoming a millionaire but we all want or need that little extra money when we are young (or not so young).
This is guide is a bit on the long side with a lot of information to process. However, this is only the beginning and because I know many of you still have a lot of questions I’m working on a e-book that will include:
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| COMING VERY SOON! |
- List of most profitable activities and niches.
- How to make your profile stand out on a freelancing site.
- How to identify good clients.
- Effective strategies to look for clients.
- Examples and templates to apply for jobs on freelancing sites.
- Examples and templates of e-mails for potential clients.
- Many more strategies, resources and advices.
Of course, everything that will be in this guide is approved and used by me.
You can find me here infogtfreelancing@gmail.com. I’d like to know your opinion and I’m open to answer any question you might have either there or here in the comments. Also, if you're interested on getting the e-book when is out please leave your e-mail down below. See you next time!
