This is the most detailed beginner’s guide to freelance writing anywhere on the web. And it will answer every question you have about finding freelance writing jobs.
The lessons in this guide come from my own experiences and if you apply them, you will start making $5-$10K/month within a year ($60K-$100K per year, totally possible.)
Sadly, most people who read this won’t take action because it’s hard work.
I hope you’re one of those who commit to implementing these lessons and become a freelance writing success story.
Don’t read the whole guide in one sitting.
I’ve divided it into thirteen different chapters so that you can easily understand, digest, and apply everything I’ve shared.
If you read it till the end and still have questions, let me know in the comments section.
Let’s get started.
Steps To Making Money Online As A Freelance Writer
Chapter#1
Chapter#3
Chapter#4
Chapter#5
Chapter#6
Chapter#7
Chapter#8
Chapter#9
Chapter#10
Chapter#11
Chapter#13
Who Am I To Teach You Freelance Writing?
I felt as lost and confused as you back in 2012 when I was seriously exploring ways to make money with freelance writing.
I had no guidance and no one to look up to.
But thanks to a few friends, and my desperation to succeed, I somehow got through the initial struggle and learned how to make a living with freelance writing (good money, not pennies).
Today, I don’t even remember the last time I had to look for writing clients. My schedule is mostly packed with writing and consulting work, and I often have to turn away clients or make them wait to work with me.
I even got interviewed by several leading freelance writing sites (like this one)
I’ve worked for companies like HubSpot, Shopify, Fiverr, SEMrush, and so many others and have been quoted as an expert by influencers and bloggers I used to follow as a newbie.
I also became one of the top all-time contributors to several leading industry blogs.
Freelance writing has drastically improved my lifestyle as well.
It helped me go debt-free and earn several hundred thousand dollars over the years.
It has allowed me to build a financial security net for my family that gives me peace of mind.
All of this seemed like an impossible dream just a few years ago, especially for someone who’s not even a native English speaker.
If this sounds inspirational, let me assure you that this can happen very quickly to you as well.
I’m not saying all of this to brag or tell you how great I am (I’m just an ordinary guy).
I’m only trying to tell you that you don’t need to be extraordinary to succeed as a freelance writer.
It isn’t as complicated as people think.
And this is why I’m writing this guide so that I can share my experiences and help you prepare for the challenges you’ll face on your path to a successful freelance writing career.
Chapter 1
An Introduction To Freelance Writing
In this chapter, I’ll give you a basic introduction of freelance writing and discuss the following topics:
- Your core job as a freelance writer
- How much money do freelance writers usually make
- Why your writing services are so important for businesses
- Why the demand for freelance writing services is soaring
What Is Freelance Writing?
Freelance writing is any paid writing work that you do for small businesses, blogs, online magazines, agencies, entrepreneurs, or any other clients as an independent service provider.
You’re not their employee, and you don’t get a monthly salary. Instead, you work with them on a project-to-project basis and charge a fixed amount of money based on your contract.
Freelance writing is one of the best ways to make money online for beginners because you don’t need any prior credentials to get clients and can even make money on your first day.
This is why it’s among the most popular freelance categories in the world.
Source: Payoneer Freelancer Income Report 2020
When I started as a freelance writer in 2013, I made $1000 in my very first month without a website, without any prior experience, and without creating profiles on Upwork, Fiverr, or any other freelancing platform.
How did I find work?
I sent dozens of cold emails to different blogs in the marketing and freelancing niche, asking them if they needed my services.
Thankfully, 4 or 5 of them responded positively, and that was enough to get me started.
What do you do as a freelance writer?
You create content that usually helps your clients achieve one or more of the following objectives.
- Build credibility
- Generate leads
- Generate sales
- Nurture leads
- Improve search rankings
- Drive traffic
For example, a mattress company might hire you to 4 articles of 1000-words every month about topics related to sleep quality, insomnia, mattress types, the impact of sleep on work life, etc.
A law firm could hire you to create content for their website’s homepage, services/product pages, etc.
Or an entrepreneur could hire you to write the content for the sales page of their latest video course.
Once you deliver the project, and the client’s happy with your work, you get paid for it.
And that’s the end of your relationship with the client (unless they hire you again or you have a monthly contract).
How Much Money Can You Make As A Freelance Content Writer?
That’s the part you’ve been waiting for, right?
Look, when I started freelance writing, I thought it was a good part-time income source that could help me earn a few hundred dollars every month.
Because these are the kind of jobs I saw on Upwork (I don’t recommend using it to find freelance writing work).
But I quickly realized I was wrong.
Yes, most freelance writers struggle for high-paying work and hardly earn enough to pay their bills because most publicly listed writing jobs are a waste of time.
But that’s because they’re low-skilled generalists who’re willing to write about anything.
The moment you understand how to position yourself as a specialist and target the right clients, your earnings increase dramatically (I’m talking about high six-figures per year)
For example, look at this screenshot from a private Facebook Group discussion between two leading bloggers in the internet marketing space. Look at how much they’re paying for blog content.
I’ve worked with both of them on multiple projects, and I know they’re not lying. In fact, they’ve paid me much more than that for a single article.
Here’s another example to show you what’s possible.
Danny Margulies has made over 200K+ from Upwork in the last eight years. He initially offered article writing services to clients but then became a specialist landing page copywriter.
Think of the freelance writing industry as a multi-story building.
The ground floor is packed with all kinds of freelancers competing and fighting for generic work at abysmal rates since anyone can do it.
The first floor is less crowded because it only has specialized projects that only writers with a particular skill set can deliver. Naturally, the rates are higher, and the work is of higher quality.
The second floor is almost empty because it has projects that only need specialized freelancers who can also provide consultancy to the clients on how to execute it and help them achieve their broader marketing goals.
You don’t want to be on the ground floor because that’s where everyone calls themselves a writer and is ready to work for pennies.
The higher rates start from the first floor, which isn’t very hard to reach (as I’ll explain shortly).
Once you reach the second floor, you work less, earn a LOT more, and rarely have to look for new clients.
A recent survey by Clearvoice, a company that connects high-end content writers with B2B brands, shows the same thing.
As you can see, most beginner freelancers earn somewhere between 0.01 to 0.10 per word, which means $10 to $100 for 1000 words (most of them make less than $50/1000 words in my experience).
To earn $2000 per month, they’ll need to write almost 40K words (10K per week).
I don’t know, but that’s not my definition of a happy life.
And that’s not how successful writers work.
So how much can you earn as a freelance writer if you follow the right strategy (which I’ll share in this post)?
Anywhere between $60K-$100K (or even more) per year.
Trust me; those aren’t impossible numbers at all.
A LOT of writers are making MUCH more than that.
Why Freelance Content Writers Are So Valuable
Fair question.
Why should anyone give you $100, $200, $500, and even $1000 for a single article?
Why are you and your content so valuable to online businesses?
You need to understand this part so that you know your worth. When you’re clear about your role and how you’re adding value to a client’s business, you’ll be much more confident in demanding higher-rates.
Let’s start with this infographic by Demand Metric.
- 82% of consumers feel positive about a company after its blog content.
- 70% of consumers feel closer to a company as a result of their content
- 60% of consumers enjoy reading relevant content from brands
And most importantly, 70% of consumers would rather learn about a company through articles than advertisements.
Do you see why brands need your content and how important you are?
Consumers no longer trust advertisements and instead prefer buying from brands that clearly understand their problems through their blog content.
Brands, website owners, and marketers need freelance writers like you to create high-quality, actionable, and unique content that helps them drive traffic from search engines and position them as niche experts.
They can’t write it themselves because writing is a specialized skill that they don’t have.
Just look at the findings of this research study by the Content Marketing Institute.
Out of the top six B2B content marketing challenges, three are about content creation.
- 60 % of marketers struggle with producing engaging content
- 57% struggle to create it consistently
- 35% struggle to create different types of content
Can you believe it?
Content is the backbone of online marketing, yet most marketers suck at content creation.
84% of companies outsource content creation to freelancers, according to a joint study by the Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs.
This is where you need to cash in.
You’re the solution to their biggest problems.
You’re the expert they need who will allow them to focus on their core tasks while you take care of all their content needs.
You’re doing them a HUGE favor, and there’s no shame in charging premium rates for it.
There’s a reason why even small companies are investing more than $80K per year in content marketing.
Most of that money goes to freelance writers like you and me to help these businesses with content creation.
Why?
Because a 1000-1500 word article that you write for a company for just $250 or even $500 becomes a permanent asset of their blog and keeps driving traffic, converting leads, and driving sales for years.
This is why content marketing is among the most cost-effective marketing channels in the world.
For large companies, this investment is peanuts.
And this is why you should never be afraid to charge premium rates (as long as you’re working with the right clients, of course).
So the next time you feel unsure about charging $300-$500 for a 1000 word article, remember these stats and charge these rates knowing that you’re adding immense value to your client’s business.
Chapter 2
How To Become A Freelance Writer
- The skills you need to become a successful freelance writer
- How to become a more resourceful and valuable freelance writer
- How to develop skills that’ll help you charge higher rates for your writing services
The Minimum Requirements To Become A Freelance Writer
There’s no entry barrier to freelance writing, and anyone can become a freelance writer………..
……as long as they have at least the following skills.
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Basic English Writing Skills
What does “basic English writing skills” mean?
It means you understand the English language and can create grammatically correct content (even if you have a limited vocabulary).
Don’t worry, you don’t need to be perfect because there many tools to help you with spelling, grammar, sentence structure, etc. (especially Grammarly)
If you can converse with people in English and communicate your perspective clearly, you can become a freelance writer as well (you might need a little more practice, though).
You certainly don’t need a Master’s degree or even a college degree in English or any other subject to become a freelance writer.
Because most content writing projects require conversational content written in simple and plain English.
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The Ability To Research New Topics
The ability to research new topics, extract useful information, and use it to craft engaging content is vital for your success as a freelance writer.
Because even if you specialize in a well-defined niche, you will come across projects/topics that you don’t know a lot about.
This is where you will need to study the existing work on that topic to write about it.
I’m not talking about copying other people’s work.
You only need to learn from them, develop an understanding of the topic, and write about it in your own style.
Content research skills include finding scientific studies, tangible data evidence, and real-life case studies to back your arguments.
Clients are ready to pay premium rates for such content because it helps them acquire backlinks from high-authority sites.
According to a survey by Link-Assistant, 70% of SEO professionals think well-researched and data-heavy content is ideal for link building.
Content research requires time.
Sometimes, you might have to spend more time researching a topic than writing about it.
But as I said, the right clients will be happy to pay top dollar for such content.
This is why research is among the most valuable skills for a freelance writer.
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Basic Image Editing And Design Skills
Don’t be scared.
You don’t need to learn Photoshop or graphic design skills to be a writer.
But if you want your content to stand out and make your prospective clients take notice, you must include relevant images and screenshots in it.
Why? Because visual content because visually appealing content is easier to understand.
According to a study, people following directions with text and illustrations do 323% better than people following directions without illustrations.
Most writing clients won’t directly ask you for images or screenshots, but including them in your content has several advantages.
– It makes your content more visually appealing and engaging
– It gives your clients a better chance of getting backlinks
– It increases the perceived value of your content and allows you to charge clients higher rates.
So what kind of images am I talking about?
Stock images? No.
You need to use only two types of images in your content to make it super engaging and attractive for your clients – screenshots and infographic clippings.
Need examples?
Just look at the images I’ve used throughout this article.
All of them are either screenshots or cropped sections of infographics published on different sites.
I use Skitch and Greenshot for screenshots and add annotations where needed.
But when I need to create infographics or unique images for my clients, I use Canva and Visme, both drag & drop design tools anyone can use.
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Content Drafting In WordPress
If you want to become a full-time freelance writer, get familiar with WordPress.
It’s the world’s most popular CMS that powers nearly 35% of all websites globally, and it’s straightforward to use.
As a freelance content writer, you can offer to draft your content directly on your client’s WordPress website as an added service (for a fee, of course)
Or you can make it a part of your overall service package to create a more attractive offer (e.g., content+SEO+screenshots+drafting in WordPress).
You’ll be surprised how many clients are willing to pay for this service because it saves them a lot of time.
If you haven’t used WordPress before, I’ve written a detailed guide on starting a WordPress website and publishing new posts on it.
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A Basic Understanding Of On-Page SEO
If you want to become a highly paid writer, you need to learn how to create content that drives traffic from search engines (without sounding like a robot).
Because that’s the ultimate goal of most clients who hire writers to create content for them.
This is where Search Engine Optimization (SEO) comes in.
SEO is the process of optimizing your content for search engines to attract organic search traffic.
Most writers don’t understand SEO, so the content they create for clients needs to be optimized by an SEO professional before publication.
But if you have even a basic understanding of SEO (on-page SEO in particular), you instantly become a more valuable freelance writer and can charge much higher rates.
What is on-page SEO?
It’s a branch of SEO that focuses on optimizing a web page’s content for a set of closely related keywords.
These keywords represent a broader topic that your target audience is searching for on Google Search (and other search engines).
Here’s a bird’s eye view of everything involved in on-page SEO (you don’t need to know all of this, don’t worry).
It’s a vast topic on its own.
But as a writer, you only need to understand where to use your target keywords to create a well-optimized piece of content.
Here’s what you need to do.
Use your primary keyword in
– The page title (H1 tag)
– In the URL of your page.
– In the first 100-150 words of your article.
– At least a couple of sub-headings with H2 and H3 tags.
– In alt-text of all the images used in your article.
– The content body.
Those are just the basics, of course.
If you want to understand on-page SEO in more detail (which I strongly recommend), there’s no better resource than this on-page SEO guide.
Knowing SEO gives you a massive advantage as a writer because clients are always looking to hire writers who can optimize their content.
It’s an optional skill that you should learn if you want to land high-paying writing gigs consistently.
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Using The Right Tools
If you want your freelance writing business to grow fast, you need to use the right tools for finding clients, creating content, and managing your business.
You can find my favorite freelance writing tools here.
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Patience And Perseverance
Freelance writing will test your patience.
And patience, as you know, is more a character trait than a skill.
But you need to have lots of it because, in your early freelance writing day, you’ll face rejection, clients won’t answer your emails, you won’t get high-paying jobs.
But that’s ok, as long as you hang in there for the first few months.
Things will get better quickly once you have a few high-quality samples on your portfolio and a website to brand your services
Chapter 3
Types Of Freelance Writing Clients
- Specifically, we’ll talk about the following topics.
- What business types hire freelance writers
- How much different types of clients pay for freelance writing services
- Where to look for them
- Which client types should you work with
Freelance Writing Jobs: Who Hires Freelance Writers?
All kinds of businesses hire freelance content writers.
But if you want the best return on your time and effort, choose your clients wisely.
Because not all of them are ready to pay premium rates for your content.
Understanding different client types will also help you create the right marketing strategy for your freelance writing services.
But here’s the key thing to remember.
The more middlemen there are between you and the end customer, the less you’ll earn for your services.
To charge premium rates, try to get as close and direct with the end customer as possible.
Let me quickly describe the different customer types you’ll find while looking for freelance writing work (along with their pros and cons)
1. Digital Marketing/SEO/Content Agencies
- Average Pay Rate: Low (5 to 15 cents per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Blog posts, articles, landing pages
- Hiring Difficulty: Moderate
- Long-Term Option: No
- Where To Find Them: Freelance job boards, cold pitching
Agencies offering end-to-end digital marketing, SEO, or content marketing services are among the top employers of freelance writers.
They’re usually small to medium-sized companies (10-50, sometimes 100 employees) serving large brands and corporate customers.
High-quality content is crucial to their business model because it powers all their other services (SEO, link building, traffic generation, lead generation, etc.)
This is where you come in.
They hire freelance writers like you to produce thousands of articles, landing pages, emails, and other content pieces for their clients.
Landing a contract with the right agency can open up a regular income stream for you. However, their pay rates are usually on the lower side (usually 5 to 10 cents per word) because they take their cut before selling your content to the client.
PROS AND CONS OF WORKING WITH AN AGENCY FOR FREELANCE WRITERS
Let’s see the advantages first.
- You’ll get regular work because agencies have lots of demand for good content.
- You don’t have to look for clients yourself.
- Consistent income every month.
- You’ll get to work with clients in different niches, which means more exposure.
- Timely payments.
Now the disadvantages.
- Agencies keep their cut, so you’ll always get the leftovers (5 to 10 cents per word, 15 cents if you’re lucky).
- You’ll never get direct with the end clients, which means slow income growth.
- Your work is never published with your byline, so you can’t publicly claim credit for it.
- You can burn out quickly if the rates aren’t great.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR AGENCIES?
If you’re out of work, not getting responses from any companies, or want to experience how it feels to get paid for writing content, you can try working for an agency for a few months.
If you’re lucky, you might even find an agency that pays well consistently.
But in my experience, their low rates and lack of recognition for your work are major turn-offs that’ll never allow you to become financially independent as a freelance writer.
There are better options.
2. Content Mills
- Average Pay Rate: Very Low (1 to 3 cents per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Blog posts, articles, landing pages
- Hiring Difficulty: Low
- Long-Term Option: No
- Where To Find Them: Freelance job boards, their sites
Content mills are s source of cheap content for affiliate marketers, SEOs, and marketers running multiple websites.
They offer an unlimited supply of work but offer pathetically low rates (2 to 3 cents per word) to their writers.
Don’t bother working for them if you’re serious about building a career in content writing.
3. Authority Blogs/Online Magazines
- Average Pay Rate: Med-High (25 to 75 cents per word)
- Work Volume: Med
- Content Types: Informational blog posts, list posts, product reviews
- Hiring Difficulty: Med/High
- Long-Term Option: Yes
- Where To Find Them: Freelance job boards, cold pitching, referrals
Authority blogs, online magazines, and industry-specific online publications are among the biggest employers of freelance writers.
You’ll find them in every niche.
And they pay well.
Most of my early clients were different authority sites about digital marketing, SEO, affiliate marketing, content strategy, and other related topics.
These sites make money with affiliate marketing, product sales, memberships, and advertisements.
High-quality long-form content (2000+ words) drives their whole business model, which is why they spend heavily on hiring niche expert freelance writers.
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING FOR AN AUTHORITY SITE
Here are some of the main advantages of working authority sites.
- You get to work on topics you’re passionate about.
- Your work gets recognition which results in more clients.
- Their pay rates are pretty good.
- Being a part of a high-traffic site allows you to learn a lot about online publishing, blogging, and making money online in general.
Here are a few drawbacks
- They use strict hiring criteria.
- They rarely hire newbies and writers with no domain knowledge.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR AUTHORITY BLOGS/ONLINE MAGAZINES?
Definitely, yes.
If you have practical knowledge about an industry and can create actionable long-form content, authority sites can be a consistent source of high-paying freelance writing projects.
4. B2B SaaS/Tech Startups
- Average Pay Rate: Med-High (50 cents to $1 per word)
- Work Volume: Med
- Content Types: Informational posts, product tutorials, email sequences, landing pages
- Hiring Difficulty: Med/High
- Long-Term Option: Yes
- Where To Find Them: Cold pitching, LinkedIn, referrals
B2B Software As A Service (SaaS) is a niche on its own.
But they pay so well that writers from any industry should aim to work for them.
The same goes for established tech startups (not the ones still struggling for funding).
You’ll find tech startups in all industries now, so whether you’re a travel writer, a medical expert, or a technology enthusiast, you can get writing work from these companies.
Most of their content requires some technical knowledge, so complete beginners might find it hard to land gigs with them.
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING FOR B2B SAAS AND TECH STARTUPS
- They offer high-quality content projects that are often fun to create
- They pay well.
- You’ll get a steady stream of projects.
Here are some drawbacks
- Getting hired by a B2B SaaS or tech startup isn’t easy because of their technical requirements.
- You need to be a niche expert with a strong writing brand to get hired.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR SAAS?
Creating SaaS content is much more than just writing words. You’ll need to create product screenshots, find data references, quote experts, and write long-form content most of the time.
90% of my clients are SaaS companies because I enjoy creating such content (plus they pay really well).
5. Small Businesses/Local Service Providers
- Average Pay Rate: Med ( 25 to 50 cents per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Informational posts, list posts, email sequences
- Hiring Difficulty: Med
- Long-Term Option: Yes
- Where To Find Them: Cold pitching, referrals
Millions of small businesses and professional service providers offer a massive (and mostly untapped) opportunity for freelance writers.
These are offline businesses/service providers (brocks and mortar stores, service providers like plumbers, electricians, local event management companies, wedding photographers, wedding venues, etc.) with customers in a limited geographic location.
You won’t find them on job boards or any public forums because most of them don’t know they need content marketing services.
But if you can reach out to them via cold pitching and show them how content can drive crazy results and leads, they’ll happily sign you up for a regular writing gig.
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING SMALL BUSINESSES
- Service providers and businesses are all around you, so lots of opportunities to find work.
- They’re prepared to pay high rates if you can show them how you’ll drive results.
- This is a good option for new writers and bloggers as well.
Here are the drawbacks of targeting these businesses
- They aren’t familiar with content marketing, and some don’t even have websites, so it’s hard to convince them.
- They have limited marketing budgets, so you’ll need to target the businesses that are doing well.
- You’ll need to reach them via cold calls/emails or personal visits.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES?
They’re an excellent starting point if you’re a new writer still looking for your niche. But I never recommend depending solely on local brick-and-mortar businesses because they’re too dependant on the changing economic conditions and might not have the budgets to work with you in crunch situations.
6. Big Brands
- Average Pay Rate: High ( 75 cents to $2 per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Informational posts, product tutorials, email sequences
- Hiring Difficulty: High
- Long-Term Option: Yes
- Where To Find Them: Referrals, Formal Proposals, Job Sites, Cold Pitching, LinkedIn
These companies have million-dollar marketing budgets and pay top dollar for the best content.
Many of them have in-house content marketing teams but regularly hire expert freelance writers for help.
You’ll find them in most industries, especially in finance, healthcare, and tech niches.
However, getting inside is challenging because of their strict hiring criteria and complex hierarchies.
But you want to be working for them as a freelance writer because that’s where ultimate financial freedom comes from.
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING FOR BRANDS
- Brands offer consistent and high-paying work opportunities.
- You often get to work with cross-functional teams, which helps you grow as a professional.
- Working for well-known brands strengthens your portfolio and helps you acquire referral clients.
Here are some of the drawbacks.
- Landing gigs with large brands is hard for freelancers because of the competition from digital/content marketing agencies.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES?
Of course, you should.
But whether they want to work with you or not is the bigger question.
7. Affiliate Sites
- Average Pay Rate: Low-Med ( 3 cents to 20 cents per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Informational posts, product reviews, comparison posts
- Hiring Difficulty: Low
- Long-Term Option: No
- Where To Find Them: Job Sites, Cold Pitching
Affiliate marketing is the most popular way to make money online. There are multi-million dollar sites like Best Reviews, The Wire Cutter, NerdWallet, etc., that make 99% of their money by promoting different affiliate products.
But there are thousands of small affiliate sites in every niche that hire freelance writers to create product reviews and comparison posts.
Most affiliate sites promote Amazon products only, but due to Amazon’s low commission rates, marketers are turning to digital and SaaS affiliate programs as well.
Small niche sites often pay low rates (1-3 cents per word) and prefer hiring new writers to keep their budgets in check.
But many high-authority affiliate sites pay around 10-20 cents per word to writers with niche-specific experience.
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING FOR AFFILIATE SITES
- Affiliate sites offer consistent work and mostly publish product reviews, which is why creating content for them isn’t very hard either.
- There are countless work opportunities for writers with relevant niche experience.
Here are the drawbacks.
- Most affiliate sites have limited budgets and offer low rates.
- Repetitive and tedious work.
- No recognition because you’ll mostly be writing as a ghostwriter.
SHOULD FREELANCE WRITERS WORK FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES?
You’ll never be short of work with them but finding high-paying affiliate sites is challenging, especially for new writers.
8. eCommerce Businesses
- Average Pay Rate: Med-High ( 30 cents to $1 per word)
- Work Volume: High
- Content Types: Informational posts, list posts, product reviews, email sequences
- Hiring Difficulty: Med
- Long-Term Option: Yes
- Where To Find Them: Job Sites, Cold Pitching
Thanks to Shopify, WordPress, BigCommerce, and many other newbie-friendly eCommerce solutions, eCommerce is exploding worldwide.
Most eCommerce businesses focus on direct advertising channels like Facebook and Google and instant ROI strategies such as influencer marketing.
However, a growing number of online stores are also investing in content marketing, email list building, and SEO.
If you can target the right businesses, there’s an unlimited stream of high-paying work waiting for you.
ut you’ll need to position yourself as an eCommerce
PROS AND CONS OF WRITING FOR E-COMMERCE BUSINESSES
- eCommerce is a growing market which means more opportunities for writers.
- More eCommerce businesses are opting for long-term content and SEO strategies (more work for you).
Here are the drawbacks
- It’s common for eCommerce business owners to view content as a transaction rather than a long-term strategy.
Chapter 4
Types Of Freelance Writing Jobs
Specifically, we’ll talk about the following topics.
- The most popular types of freelance writing projects
- The earning potential of different writing jobs
- The expertise you need to take on a project type
9 Types Of Freelance Writing Jobs
There are dozens of sub-categories and project types in freelance writing.
Here’s a breakdown of the different types of freelance writing jobs according to a survey of 1200+ writers by ContentWonk.
Most non-writers think that a freelance writer does every kind of writing work under the sun.
That isn’t true for successful freelancers.
Highly-paid freelance writers aren’t generalists who’d take any work that comes their way. Instead, they often specialize in 2-3 types of freelance writing jobs.
What should you do as a beginner?
There is nothing wrong with trying out different writing projects to find the writing type you enjoy doing the most.
Gradually, you should narrow your focus to 2-3 closely related writing types and specialize in them.
Because specialists always charge a lot higher than generalists.
Plus, some writing types are more newbie-friendly as compared to others. For example, you can easily land a blog post-gig even if you’ve never done freelance writing before.
But not many clients are willing to outsource case studies or white papers to inexperienced writers.
Based on my experience, here are the types of writing projects you can get in your early days as a freelancer.
1. Freelance Blogging/Article Writing
- Est. Pay for a Beginner: $75-$150 for 850-1000 words
- Where to find work: Job boards, freelance portals, cold pitching
- Ideal Clients for Beginners: Established bloggers, corporate blogs, SaaS companies
For the first 2-3 years of my freelance writing career, I only worked with clients who wanted blog posts and articles for their sites.
And even today, these projects make up almost 50% of my total workload.
For example, here’s an article I wrote for one of my clients recently.
It’s easy to get freelance blogging projects even as a complete beginner for several reasons.
High Demand: Thousands of companies and brands are investing in content marketing, so there’s a consistent demand for blog posts and articles in every niche.
Content Style: Unlike whitepapers or case studies, blog posts are mostly written in a conversational tone. You don’t need exceptional writing skills to do these projects.
Lower Pay: Most organizations don’t spend more than $100-$200 on a blog post. This is why they’re prepared to outsource them to inexperienced writers a well as long as they can write error-free articles.
Does that mean you can’t earn a good income by writing blog posts and articles?
You certainly can.
I’ve already mentioned in this article how I’ve charged $500 and $1000+ for a single article. I know freelance bloggers whose min rate is $1200 for a 1000 word article.
Of course, to reach that stage, you need experience and specialization in a high-paying niche.
But, you can easily get $100-150 per blog post in your early days, which is still a good start.
2. Conversion Copywriting (Websites, Landing Pages, Email Sequences)
As a conversion copywriter, your job is to write persuasive copy for websites, short-form/long-form landing pages, email sequences, and any other content assets designed to convert visitors into leads leads into customers or customers into loyal fans.
Here’s an example of a 12000+ word landing page written by a freelance copywriter.
Similarly, the emails you get from different brands are all written by freelance copywriters.
Yes, they get paid to write those emails that you don’t even open (but many people do).
Conversion copywriting is one of the most lucrative writing types that’s always in demand.
How much can you earn as a freelance copywriter?
There are too many variables to quote a number, but it isn’t hard to make $25-30K in your first year. The more experienced copywriters routinely earn $100K+/year.
With the right positioning and work experience, you can reach that level in 2-3 years.
Your ideal clients?
Any business that sells online needs copywriting services.
But as a beginner, target small business websites because most of them use filler copy instead of content that’s well-researched and speaks to their target audience.
You can turn them into clients by convincing them that better copy will help their site fulfill its primary objective (which is to convert visitors into leads and customers)
3. Ghostwriting
- Est. Pay for a Beginner: $95-$200 for 850-1000 words.
- Where to find work: Job boards, freelance portals, cold pitching
- Ideal Clients for Beginners: Established bloggers, entrepreneurs, corporate blogs, SaaS companies
Ghostwriting means allowing your clients to publish your articles and blog posts in their name instead of yours.
Like freelance blogging, ghostwriting is also ideal for beginner freelance writers.
After you gain some experience, you can start charging higher for ghostwritten articles than the blog posts published with your byline.
4. eBook Writing
- Est. Pay for a Beginner: 5 to 10 cents per word.
- Where to find work: Job boards, freelance portals, cold pitching
- Ideal Clients for Beginners: Top selling Amazon authors, Top ClickBank affiliates, Top sellers on Gumroad and Udemy
There are hundreds of thousands of eBooks for sale on sites like Amazon, Gumroad, ClickBank, and many other platforms.
Most of them are ghostwritten by freelance writers who have prior experience and knowledge of those topics.
It’s not the best way to make money as a freelance writer because you’ll never get credit for your work.
But if you get hired by a company that sells eBooks on Amazon, ClickBank, or directly to their email lists, you can get a steady stream of work every month.
5. Whitepapers, Reports, Press Releases
If you have experience from a previous job in report writing or drafting press releases, you can make a lot of money for not much work.
I have never done any press releases or whitepapers, but I know writers who’ve positioned themselves as PR experts, and they have more work than they can handle.
Upwork and Freelancer.com are your best sources for such projects. Most of the press release projects on freelance portals are advertised by PR firms.
Their rates aren’t the best, but they usually have a ton of work in the pipeline.
Again, I don’t like doing such projects, but they can be a good income source for you in your early days as a freelance writer.
6. Podcast Scripts
The number of podcasts around the world has grown exponentially over the last few years.
Currently, there are more than 850K active podcasts with 30 million+ episodes online.
Nearly 32% of Americans listen to a podcast at least once a month.
Do you think your favorite podcast host speaks without any preparation or script?
Most podcast hosts read from a professionally written script.
And no, they don’t write the scripts themselves. They hire freelance writers like you to do it.
Writing podcast scripts is easy because you mainly have to do three things.
- Research interesting content about your topic.
- Find stats and research studies to back your points.
- Find some good examples to quote.
- And then put all of it together in a conversational script using simple everyday language.
How do you find such clients?
Look for active podcasts in your niche/topic o interest and reach out to them via cold emails to see if they need script writing services.
Freelance portals like Upwork and Fiverr are also good places to find such clients.
7. Podcast And Video Transcription
Brands, influencers, and content creators are creating more podcasts and videos than ever before.
But they still need a text version of their content to drive traffic from search engines.
This is where transcription services come in.
All you need to do is listen to a podcast or video and write everything in an article format.
Anyone who’s doing podcasts and videos is your potential client. Just look for them on Google and YouTube.
8. Affiliate Product Reviews
Perhaps the easiest way for a new freelance writer to start making money is by writing product reviews for affiliate sites.
You’ll find them in every niche imaginable.
Your primary target will be Amazon affiliate sites that review different Amazon products and make money by earning a commission on every sale.
Such sites are always on the lookout for new writers.
Most sites would also give you a review template or article structure that you need to follow. Plus, they’ll guide you to resources like other review sites or user reviews on Amazon to generate the bulk of your content.
Real money, however, is in reviewing technical SaaS products and software.
9. Freelance Guest Blogging
You won’t believe it, but even giant brands and software companies pay thousands of dollars every month to guest bloggers for link building and PR campaigns.
Experience doesn’t matter here.
If you can land guest posts on their target sites and build links for them, you’ll get paid for it.
One of my earliest clients was a big eCommerce brand that hired me for a guest blogging campaign.
My job was to get links for them through my guest posts on any marketing niche sites with a domain authority of more than 40.
I wrote around 55 guest posts for them in 6 months earning $150 for every guest post, if I remember correctly.
Back then, it was good fun for me because I made money from those guest posts and got featured on so many popular websites, which opened more opportunities for me later on.
How do you get such clients?
Apart from freelance writing portals and cold pitching, there are a couple of ways to find them.
- Start guest blogging on different sites in your niche, and brands will start approaching you with offers in a few weeks.
- Look for articles in your niche that feature brands and link to their homepages. Most of the time, these are paid links. You can reach out to such brands and offer them to manage their complete guest blogging campaigns
How To Start Freelance Writing With No Experience?
Now that you know all the essential stuff, let’s see how you can become a freelance writer even if you have no experience.
To make this easier to understand, I’ve broken down the process into smaller actionable steps.
CHAPTER 5
Step 1: Choose Your Writing Type
Before choosing a niche, starting a site, or finding clients, you need to have a clear service offer.
I’ve already discussed several popular writing types in the previous section.
Which one do you plan to offer?
If you find it hard to decide, think about the services that DON’T want to offer.
Let’s say you don’t want to offer any of these services.
- Press releases
- Guest blogging
- Podcast scripts
- Transcription
- eBook writing
This leaves us with
- Freelance blogging
- Conversion copywriting
- Ghostwriting
- Product Reviews for affiliate sites
Out of these services, you can group the following as one service.
- Freelance blogging + Ghostwriting + Product reviews = Content writing services
The other broad category is conversion copywriting which includes
- Website copy + email sequences + landing pages + ad copy
You can offer both these services in two separate headers on your site.
- Content Writing Services
- Copywriting Services
However, if you had to choose one, I’d say go for content writing services because they have a short learning curve, and it’s easier to get started with them.
But this just my opinion.
Choose any services you want but be clear about them because every writing type requires a different client generation strategy.
Chapter 6
Finding Your Freelance Writing Niche
In this chapter, I’ll tell you how to choose a freelance writing niche.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- What is a niche
- Why choosing a freelance writing niche is important
- The most profitable freelance writing niches
- Steps you should follow to discover your freelance writing niche
Let get into the details.
Find Your Writing Niche
Why does every keep talking about choosing a niche? Is it that important for freelance writers?
Let me answer this in detail.
What is a freelance writing niche?
A writing niche is a specialization area, a subject that you can write about with authority, and a topic you want to be known for as an expert.
Becoming a niche specialist allows you to attract clients with similar needs and problems. This helps you offer better services and charge much higher rates than generalists.
Here are a few examples of niche freelance writing titles.
- Long-form Content Specialist for B2B & SaaS Businesses
- Content Writer For Real Estate And Finance
- Email Copywriter For SaaS, eCommerce, and DTC
- Health And Wellness Content Writer
- Content Writer For Law Firms and Attornies
Why choose a freelance writing niche?
Focusing on a well-defined niche as a freelance writer gives you several advantages over being a generalist.
- It allows you to target businesses with similar needs and problems.
- You can target well-defined needs and create offers that are specifically designed for your audience (instead of creating generic offers)
- You can brand yourself as an expert in your niche and charge much higher rates than generalists.
- You can use your customer’s voice in your website copy and your marketing content like blog posts, videos, podcasts, and social media content.
Just ask yourself.
If you’re hiring a writer for your real estate blog, would you hire a generalist who writes for baby care product companies, legal firms, healthcare sites, and every other business under the sun?
Or a specialist real estate writer who has practical knowledge of this industry, has worked with the top real estate publications, and speaks the language of your customers?
Unless you have budget limitations, there’s no reason not to hire a specialist.
That’s how your clients think.
And this is why it makes complete business sense to brand yourself as an expert freelance writer in a well-defined niche.
What are the most popular freelance writing niches?
All kinds of businesses invest in content marketing, so there’s a need for your services in every niche.
However, businesses in the following niches generally have a better understanding of the importance of content marketing and are more likely to pay you higher rates.
- Finance/Personal Finance/Investing
- Travel and Holidays
- Software as a Service (SaaS)
- Digital Marketing/SEO/Content Marketing
- Technology Products
- Cryptocurrency/Blockchain
- eCommerce Marketing
- Make Money Online
- Healthcare/Mental Health
- Alternative Health/Fitness
- Real Estate
This is not an exhaustive list.
Many other less popular niches hire freelance writers regularly and pay high rates to the right candidates.
Here’s how you can find them.
How to find a freelance writing niche?
Finding a freelance writing niche is different from affiliate marketing or SEO niches.
In SEO or affiliate marketing, you look for niches with low competition.
But in freelance writing, every business in your niche is a potential customer. The more there are, the better.
Here are the main qualities of a lucrative freelance writing niche.
-
Intense Competiton Between Brands
As I just said, a competitive niche with lots of different brands competing with each other is a good sign for you as a freelance writer.
You don’t want to be in a niche where you can’t find businesses with an online presence.
Just run a few quick searches on Google about the niche you’re interested in and see how many websites come up.
If you can see business websites or products relevant to your niche on the first few pages of Google Search, you’re good to go.
-
Sells Expensive Products
If the businesses you serve don’t make money, they won’t pay you much for your content.
This is why it’s always better to enter niches with high-end and expensive products and services.
For example, a SaaS company with 100K customers paying $75/month or a consultant charging $3000/customer will pay you much higher rates than a small business that’s barely making a profit.
-
Relies On Organic Search Traffic
In many niches, advertising is the primary traffic source.
You don’t want to go into such niches unless you’re a Google ad or Facebook ad copywriter.
The ideal niches for content marketers and writers are the ones where businesses rely on search engine traffic for leads and customers.
Because such companies need to publish high-quality content regularly to rank for their target keywords.
This is where your services come in.
-
Has Growth Potential
Choosing a niche is important.
But it’s equally important not to over-niche.
Because if your niche is too narrow, you won’t be able to grow your business.
This is why the ideal freelance writing niche is broad enough to have several sub-niches and many different complementing niches.
For example, finance is a broad niche with lots of different sub-niches like investing, personal finance, house financing, retirement planning, etc.
Plus, a finance writer can easily branch out into complementing niches like entrepreneurship, ways to make money online, and even marketing.
-
Has Evergreen Demand
Stay away from seasonal niches that are only hot for a couple of months a year.
Target a niche where businesses make money throughout the year. Every industry has seasonal spikes and troughs.
But if a business earns most of its money in one or two months of a year, it’s not a good choice for freelance writers.
Because such businesses would only hire you during their peak season.
-
Is Relevant To Your Skillset/Interests
If a niche has all the other qualities I’ve mentioned so far, it can be a pretty good choice for freelance writing.
However, you need to have at least a basic understanding of how it works.
If you’re a total stranger to a niche and have no interest in it, you’ll have difficulty writing for businesses in it.
This is why I always recommend that you should start your niche research from your skills, hobbies, interests, past experiences, or topics you’re knowledgeable about.
List down all of them in a spreadsheet and then evaluate them for the other factors I’ve mentioned in this list to make your final choice.
-
Hires Freelance Writers Regularly
Are there active freelance writers in your niche?
If you can’t find many successful writers in a niche, it’s a good sign you should stay away from it.
Chapter 7
Building Your Freelance Writing Brand
In this chapter, I’ll tell you how to build your freelance writing brand.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- What is a freelance writing brand
- Why building a freelance writing brand is important
- How to create your freelance writing website
- Using guest blogging and social media to build authority
Let get into the details.
How To Build Your Freelance Writing Brand
Your brand image largely determines how much you can charge for your writing your services.
The difference between writers charging $250/article and $1000/article in the same niche often comes down to their online presence and how clients perceive them.
How do you build a strong brand image?
-
Create A Professional Website
A website is a huge selling point for freelance writers.
It differentiates you from the hundreds of other freelancers reaching out to businesses via cold emails and job boards.
And positions you as a reliable and professional service provider.
Like Colin Newcomer’s site.
Or Aaron Orendorff’s site that’s one of my favorites.
Persuading clients to work with you on your terms becomes much easier when you have a professionally designed website that positions you as a niche specialist writer.
-
Get Featured In the Top Industry Publications
Let me tell you a secret.
I used to get almost zero responses to my cold emails and job applications……
…….until I started guest blogging on the top sites in my target niche.
Once I got my name on Adweek, Hubspot, SocialMediaExaminer, SEMrush, NeilPatel, CrazyEgg, and other high-authority sites in the marketing niche, the response rate to my pitches skyrocketed.
I only added one sentence to my emails that mentioned the sites I had written for.
But that was enough to tell my prospects that I was a serious writer who worth trying.
You look at any professional writer’s website, and you’ll find a “Featured In” section on most of them.
Like this one on Jacob Mcmillen’s site.
What’s more.
Thanks to all the guest posts I wrote, clients started reaching out to me for work and were happy to pay the rates I demanded.
In my experience, guest blogging is the single most effective branding strategy for freelance writers and service providers.
When you’re just starting as a freelancer, and have time on your hands, make sure you write guest posts for as many of the top sites in your niche as possible.
-
Market Your Portfolio
If you’ve worked for any writing clients in the past, make sure your website mentions it either by displaying their logos or links to your published work.
As you work with more brands and businesses, update your portfolio regularly and showcase your best clients on your site.
This acts as proof of your work quality and helps in persuading other businesses to work with you.
-
Publish High-Quality Content
You’re a freelance writer.
You’re looking for clients who want to publish high-quality content on their sites.
Is there a better way to get their attention and show proof of your work quality than writing precisely the kind of content they’re looking for?
Imagine a client who wants to publish a mammoth guide about “SaaS email strategy” only to find that your blog article is already ranking on the first page of Google Search.
Wouldn’t that make a strong impression?
But that can only happen when you target a well-defined niche and fully understand your prospects’ needs.
Nevertheless, publishing great content is your core skill, and the more you demonstrate it, the stronger your brand image becomes.
-
Share Free Value On Social Media
Don’t use Twitter and Facebook just to share links to your content.
You can turn these platforms into your brand assets and grow a loyal audience around your profiles by consistently sharing useful advice for your target audience.
For example, look at all these Tweets by Kaleigh Moore.
She’s one of the top writers in the B2B SaaS niche and has grown her Twitter following by sharing content useful to her clients.
Wrapping Up The Branding Debate
Once you create a professional website, you should spend your time building a loyal social media following (Twitter in particular).
Because that’s where all your growth will come from.
Chapter 8
The Best Freelance Writing Job Boards
In this chapter, I’ll tell you the best freelance writing job boards where you can find writing opportunities as a complete beginner.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- The top freelance writing job boards for beginners
- The kind of jobs listed on different job boards
- The pros and cons of different job sites for freelance writers
Let dive deeper
Find Publicly Listed Freelance Writing Jobs
The highest-paying writing jobs and projects are rarely advertised.
They mostly go to experienced content creators through referrals and industry connections.
But when you’re new and have zero connections, your only real chance is to find freelance writing jobs on public job boards and by sending cold emails.
The Best Freelance Writing Job Boards
I’ve used dozens of job boards over the years to find freelance writing jobs (especially early in my career).
But not all of them are worth your time.
Here are the ones I recommend.
Problogger Job Board
Problogger Jobs is the best content marketing job board for beginner freelance writers by a mile.
Brands mostly list freelance blogging, editing, and article writing projects here. But you can occasionally find copywriting jobs for landing pages and websites as well.
Why do I recommend this site to beginner freelancers?
In my first year as a freelancer, I found a client on Problogger Jobs who paid me $500 for a 2000 word article (a huge break for me back then). I made over $50K working for this client in the next five years.
Another client I found on this site sent me projects worth $23K in 2 years.
And I’ve not even mentioned the dozens of $500-$1000 per month projects I found here that all added up to help me grow my freelance writing business.
Many of those projects started with $100-$200 articles.
But when my work impressed the clients, they increased the rates and the workload.
As my portfolio grew, I started getting referrals from the same clients I had found on Problogger Jobs.
I rarely use it these days, but it’s the perfect place to start your job search as a new freelancer.
There’s nothing complicated about Problogger Jobs.
It’s a job board with a clean and easy-to-navigate interface with all the necessary details with every job post.
A large number of jobs listed here are in the content marketing, SEO, and SaaS niches.
But you’ll also find jobs by lifestyle blogs, mental health sites, agencies, and tech companies in many unconventional niches (like this one.)
The pay for these jobs varies in the $50 to $300 per article range.
If you want to stay updated with all the new jobs posted here, subscribe to their RSS feed or create a job alert for your target niche.
BloggingPro Job Board
BloggingPro is another popular job board where you can find different writing jobs even as a complete beginner.
It’s different from Problogger Jobs because you’ll find more jobs outside the regular tech and digital marketing niches.
ClearVoice Talent Network
ClearVoice connects brands with high-quality content creators.
Here’s how it works.
You need to sign-up as a freelance writer, create your ClearVoice CV, and add links to your work samples to build a public portfolio.
You can also set a minimum project rate so that ClearVoice doesn’t send you any jobs that offer a lower rate.
Based on your portfolio and preferences, ClearVoice sends you relevant work opportunities.
You apply, the client chooses you, you get the project.
As soon as you deliver the work and the client approves it, you get paid to your PayPal account.
I like ClearVoice because it doesn’t waste your time with crappy jobs that offer peanuts for tons of work.
It only works with established brands which means the rates are also quite good.
The downside of ClearVoice?
Good opportunities are few and far between.
You can’t rely on it for consistent work, but it’s still a useful job source.
Upwork
I’m not a huge fan of Upwork for freelance writing jobs because it’s full of short-term and low-quality content jobs.
But it can still help you get started as a new freelance writer, earn a few hundred dollars, and more importantly, gain experience by working with different types of clients.
You’ll find article writing, blogging, copywriting for email and websites, and all kind of other freelance writing jobs on Upwork.
There are some great ones in there as well.
But it’s tough to find them.
My advice is to use Upwork to get clients quickly and build your portfolio (if no other job site is working.)Use this portfolio to get clients from better job sources such as Problogger and ClearVoice, and cold pitching.
Fiverr
I’ll be honest.
I’ve never taken Fiverr seriously and only earned $2K from it because a client wanted to use it for payment.
But I know many freelance writers who’re making good money through Fiverr.
Most people (including me) think of Fiverr as a platform for cheap gigs and low-quality projects.
That might still be true.
But things are changing.
Fiverr’s 2020 annual report shows that its average order size per buyer is continuously on the rise.
If you’ve never heard of Fiverr before, here’s a good summary of how it works.
Fiverr works differently from other freelance portals.
The usual model is that buyers list their project requirements, freelancers pitch with their offer, and one of them is selected to do the project.
On Fiverr, freelancers create their service offers (called gigs). There’s no project list where freelancers can apply.
Instead, Fiverr shows your gigs to the sellers looking for your services. If they like your offer, they buy it like a product.
Fiverr holds the payment for you.
When you deliver the work, you get paid for it.
My advice?
Like Upwork, Fiverr isn’t the best place to find high-paying freelance writing work.
But if you can’t find clients anywhere else, use Fiverr to get your first few projects.
Twitter is a real goldmine for freelance writers looking for work.
How? Let me explain.
Website owners, content managers of different companies, and marketers regularly reach out to their Twitter followers with freelance job openings.
Here’s an example.
Another example.
And another one.
You’ll find hundreds of such Tweets if you search Twitter for terms like
- “freelance writers”
- “looking for writers”
- “hiring writers”
- “writers wanted”
- “finance writers”
- “SEO writers needed”
- “health writers”
Not all of them will be relevant to your skillset, but there are always some hidden gems in there.
Similarly, every popular job board shares its job listings on Twitter. This means if you’re actively searching Twitter for jobs, you will find them.
And most importantly, Twitter allows you to interact directly with startup owners, leading marketers, agency employees, and other famous writers.
These connections can lead to fantastic job opportunities.
LinkedIn Jobs
There’s no better place to connect with decision-makers and hiring managers at your dream companies than LinkedIn.
The world’s biggest brands use LinkedIn Jobs to advertise and hire freelancers for remote content writing positions.
Unlike Upwork or Fiverr, LinkedIn listings are for long-term positions with consistent work for the right candidates.
To apply for these jobs, you must have an active and well-written LinkedIn profile that features your best work (recommendations are a huge plus).
LinkedIn is also a great place for cold email pitches.
But I’ll discuss that a bit later in this article.
Other Places To Find Freelance Writing Jobs
Here are some of the other sites (paid and free) you can use to find freelance writing jobs
Chapter 9
Apply To Win Projects Every Time
In this chapter, I’ll tell you how to apply to win freelance writing projects.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- Personalizing your job applications
- Researching your target employer
- Sharing your samples and what to do when you don’t have a portfolio
Let dive deeper
How To Send Winning Freelance Writing Job Applications
Let’s say you found the perfect writing job on one of the sites I shared in the last section.
Great! But dozens of other people like you are also applying for it.
How do you stand out and get responses like these?
If you want to get a positive response to most of your freelance job applications, here’s what you need to do.
Personalize Your Email
If you want people to take you seriously and don’t think of your emails as spam, start using their names.
According to research by NCBI, our brains immediately activate upon hearing our names, we become more attentive and take an interest in the message that follows.
So if the job posting mentions a contact name, make sure you’re using it in your email.
If not, try searching the company name on Google Search, LinkedIn, and Twitter and see if you can find its owner, content manager, or marketing manager since these are the people who typically advertise job positions.
Secondly, add a couple of sentences at the beginning of your email that shows you’ve done your research.
For example, if you’re applying to a content writing job for a startup blog, you could say.
“I had a good look at the [comapny name] blog, and I completely understand the kind of content you’re looking for.”
This reassures the job poster that you understand their specific requirements and aren’t using a generic email template.
Show Them You’re An Expert
The next step is to show them proof that you’re an expert.
If you’ve written guest posts for a top site in your niche, got featured by an influence, or appeared on a podcast, now’s the time to drop some names (just a couple of sentences.)
For example, here’s what I do.
“My work has been featured on sites like HubSpot, Adweek, SocialMediaExaminer, SEMRush, and MarketingProfs.
My past and present clients include Shopify, GetResponse, Selz, Visme, and many other SaaS companies.”
When I didn’t have any of those names on my profile, I used a generic statement like,
“I’ve created long-form content for several tech startups, eCommerce brands, and SaaS companies.”
This one isn’t as impactful as the first one, but still better than not saying anything to demonstrate authority.
Share Relevant Samples
If you have relevant and high-quality writing samples, you’ll get the job almost every time.
This is where guest blogging also comes in handy.
Let’s say a client is looking for a 1500 word article on the “best blogging tools.”
What do you think are your chances if you show them a 3000-word article on the same topic that you wrote for HubSpot, SEMRush, or any other well-known site in your niche?
Pretty good, IMO.
If you don’t have any guest posts or previous client work to show as samples, just write a blog post on the same topic on your blog and share it with your client.
The same approach works for email copywriting, web copy, etc.
If you don’t have samples, create content for yourself or an imaginary client in the same niche.
Hopefully, you’ll only need to do this once or twice before you have actual work samples for real clients.
Make An Offer
If your emails end like this, your response rate won’t be great.
“Look forward to hearing from you.”
This statement serves no purpose, and almost everyone ignores it.
To get responses, ask questions, or make a compelling offer.
For example, this statement skyrocketed my job email responses.
“Do you want me to pitch some ideas? I can send you five ideas if you tell me your immediate focus areas or if you have a keyword list you want me to target. (trust me, I’m good at this.)”
Try something similar and experiment with different offers.
Track Your Emails
Use a free tool like Mixmax or Hubspot (both Chrome extensions) to track your emails.
This way, you’ll know if a prospect has opened and read your emails or not.
Follow-Up
If you’re using Mixmax (you really should), add an automated follow-up email that goes out if you don’t get a response to your email for 3-5 working days.
Why wait for five days?
Because public job posts get hundreds of responses and it’s hard for businesses to evaluate all of them in 1-2 days.
So give them time, but do follow up if you don’t get a response for too long.
Chapter 10
Master Cold-Pitching To Land High-Paying Gigs
In this chapter, I’ll share tips on winning freelance writing clients with cold email outreach.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- Finding the right businesses for cold outreach
- The specific people you should target
- Finding the contact details of your outreach targets
- Crafting a persuasive cold email
Let’s dig deeper.
How To Win Freelance Writing Clients With Cold Emails
Applying to publicly listed freelance writing jobs is one way to get work.
But the best-paying writing jobs are rarely advertised.
Some of your (potentially) high-paying clients don’t even know they need better website copy, more engaging emails, and higher-quality blog content.
To work with them and charge premium rates, you need to reach out via cold emails.
What Is Cold Emailing?
Cold emailing is a popular way to generate freelance writing leads and clients. They’re emails sent without prior permission.
If you do it the right way, cold email outreach can be your most profitable client source, even as a complete beginner.
Here’s why
– Cold emails allow you to get your prospect’s full attention, unlike job boards where you’re competing with hundreds of other applicants.
– If you target the right prospects (hint: profitable companies), you can charge them much higher-rates than what publicly listed jobs offer.
– You can position yourself as an expert consultant instead of just another freelancer.
– There’s no limit to how many cold emails you can send every week. Your growth chances are unlimited.
How To Cold-Pitch Freelance Writing Clients
Cold-pitching is a proven way to get freelance writing clients.
But it’s not the fastest way.
No matter how persuasive your cold emails are, expect a low response rate.
According to research, cold outreach emails have a response rate of just 8.5%.
But here’s the good news.
Even 2-3 good clients from cold pitching will be enough to meet your revenue targets for the month.
So instead of using cold-pitching only when you’re out of work, make it a part of your regular marketing activities and give it at least 2-3 hours every week.
This will keep new clients coming in all the time.
Here’s how you can use cold-pitching to get freelance writing clients.
Step#1: Identify Your Target Clients
What kind of businesses do you want to work with?
Who’re your ideal clients?
Who’re the companies that will pay you the rate you’re targeting?
I’m assuming you’ve already chosen your niche and have answers to these questions (if not, go back to step 2.)
Let’s say you want to target the following business types in your niche.
- Startups with active blogs
- Course creators
How do you find them?
Method#1: Google Search
Search for the popular topics in your niche and see what blogs and sites come up.
Out of the sites ranking on page 1, one is a leading project management tool, and two others are top project management sites that regularly publish content.
Let’s search for more project management tools since they’re more likely to pay high rates for content writing services.
Every article on this page features dozens of project management tools.
All of them are potential cold-pitching targets.
However, the ones with blogs (active or abandoned for more than six months) are better targets.
Method#2: Target Your Competitors’ Clients
Some people think this method is unethical.
But I don’t find anything wrong with it because ultimately it’s up to the client to work with you or not. You can’t force them.
Anyway, here’s the strategy.
Find other freelance writers in your niche who have shared their portfolios online, and reach out to the companies they’ve worked for in the past.
This method works perfectly because the companies you’ll target already hire freelance writers in your niche.
Where do you find them?
– Search Google for “[your niche] writer/blogger for hire” you’ll find lots of writer websites with portfolios.
Here’s an example
I searched for “freelance SaaS blogger for hire.” The first page shows five websites of leading SaaS bloggers.
All of them have portfolios, samples, and logos of their clients.
They’re natural targets for you if you’re in the same niche.
– LinkedIn is an even easier way to find the clients of other freelance writers in your niche.
I searched for “freelance saas writers” on LinkedIn and found all these profiles (more than 200K results).
Most of these freelancers have listed their past clients and projects in their profiles.
All of their past clients can be your future clients if you reach out the right way.
Step#2: Find The Right Person To Contact
Suppose we chose Monday.com as our target.
Who do we reach out to with our cold-pitch?
Let’s check the team size of Monday.com on LinkedIn.
There are almost 800 current or past employees of monday.com on LinkedIn.
So this is a big company we’re targeting, and they will have a proper hierarchy, unlike 10-20 employee startups.
Here are some of the roles you can reach out to with your cold-pitch.
- Content Marketing Manager
- Head Of Marketing
- Content Strategist
- VP Marketing
- Blog Manager/Editor
To find them in Monday.com, go to LinkedIn and
– Search for each role one by one (e.g., content marketing)
Open the search filters, click on Add a Company, and add a filter to show Monday.com employees only under the Current Company section.
You can now see all the current employees at Monday.com who’re working in content marketing-related roles.
All of them are good outreach targets because even if they’re not in a decision-making position, they can still refer your profile to the decision-makers.
You can either message them directly via LinkedIn or find their work email address to reach out.
I recommend the latter because LinkedIn messages are easy to ignore.
How do you find someone’s email address? This detailed guide has lots of useful and actionable advice on this topic.
Step#3: Write A Compelling Cold Email
Once you have your prospects’ email addresses, it’s time to reach out with a compelling email pitching your freelance writing services.
Keep this image in mind when writing your email.
Here’s how you can improve your chances of getting a positive response to your emails.
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Use A Professional Email Address
You’ll look more professional and serious about your business if you reach out with your custom email address [[email protected]].
My guide on starting a website has all the details of creating a custom email address.
-
Nail The Subject Line
If your subject line doesn’t drive clicks, the message inside your email doesn’t matter.
How to create an eye-catching subject line?
– Write your email subject in a conversational tone.
– Backlinko found that 35-50 characters long email subjects have an open rate of 22.3% (much higher than shorter subjects). So make your email subjects descriptive.
– Email subject personalization is the key to getting more clicks. But don’t limit personalization to using the recipient’s name only. Real personalization comes from saying something relevant. Something that speaks directly to the needs of the recipient.
– Don’t tell them everything, add a bit of suspense.
– Persuade, but don’t lie to get clicks because that’ll kill your future work chances as well.
Here are some good examples of email subjects that drive clicks.
“Jeff told me you’re looking for writers”
“Your blog needs content, I can help”
” I create SaaS content, need help?”
“Neil Patel thinks my content’s a steal at this rate”
“I have an offer you can’t decline, seriously”
“You will get more customer with better website copy”
“I can revive your dead email subscribers”
Test different email subjects in your outreach campaigns to find the ones with the highest open and response rate
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Write A Concise, Personalized, Benefit-Driven Email
I’ve already covered email personalization in Step#4.
I’ll only add a couple of points here.
Firstly, don’t drag your email too long. Don’t make it look like an essay because no one will read it.
Limit your message to 10-15 sentences max.
Secondly, don’t make the email all about yourself.
Show them what’s in it for them.
For example, instead of saying
“I’m a freelance writer looking for relevant opportunities.”
Say,
“Publishing 3-4 well-researched and SEO optimized blog posts per month will drive 434% more traffic to your site, generate 73%more leads, and increase sales by 137% (proof).”
Show them work samples, share examples of past clients you’ve helped.
Don’t make an offer in the first email.
Close your email by saying,
“I can start putting together a 6-month content plan with exact deliverables if you can hop on 15-min Skype call this Thursday at 4 PM EST (or any other suitable time for you).”
Or,
“I have identified several topics that will start driving search traffic (2000-4000 visitors approx.) to your site in 3-6 months if we act now.”
Step#4: Stay Consistent
Cold emailing is a numbers game.
If you do it once or twice a month only, you’ll hardly get any clients.
If you want results, make it a part of your daily operations.
Set a realistic target of 3-5 emails per day. If that’s too much, send just 1-2 emails per day.
But in your early days as a freelance writer, when you don’t have much workload either, the more time you invest in cold-emailing, the better for your business.
Chapter 11
Building A System To Attract Clients
In this chapter, I’ll tell you how to build a client generation system in your freelance writing business so that you don’t have to look for clients all the time.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- Creating SEO optimized blog content for your writing site
- The topics you should target in your content
- Guest blogging on high-authority sites
- Growing your professional network and connecting with new writers
- Asking your clients for referrals
Let’s dive in
How To Get Freelance Writing Clients On Auto Pilot
Applying to publicly listed jobs and sending cold emails are useful methods to get clients early in your career as a freelance writer.
But 1-2 years down the line, you want to be able to consistently get clients without spending hours applying for jobs every month.
You want clients to come to you instead of you running after them.
To achieve this, you need to build a system that automatically attracts the right clients to your business who’re willing to work on your terms.
You can’t build this system in a month.
It will take at least a year or two.
This is why you must start building it early in your career.
Here’s how to do it.
Create SEO Optimized Content On Your Blog
Want to generate leads and customers from Google Search consistently?
Create blog content on the topics that your target customers want to read about.
For example, if you’re an email copywriter for SaaS and eCommerce businesses, publish high-quality articles on your site that cover
– How to use email marketing for SaaS and eCommerce businesses.
– Common email marketing mistakes
– Examples of successful SaaS and eCommerce email campaigns.
– The common marketing challenges of SaaS and eCommerce businesses.
– Increasing the per customer dollar value.
– The best marketing tools for SaaS and eCommerce businesses and how to use them.
And other similar topics that your target customers would love to read about.
Doing so will establish you as an email marketing expert for SaaS and eCommerce brands, and the next time they need email marketing services, they’ll contact you.
But for that to happen, you also need to optimize your content for SEO.
Here are the critical SEO steps your content needs to go through to attract traffic.
– Keyword research – read this guide to learn more about it
– On-page SEO – read this beginner’s guide
– Off-page SEO – read this complete guide
Off-page SEO is slightly harder to execute as compared to the other two parts.
But if you only focus on finding the right keywords to target before creating your content and then optimizing it for on-page SEO, you’ll still generate a lot of traffic to your site in the long run.
Guest Blog For The Top Sites In Your Niche
The guest posts I wrote for different high-traffic blogs in my niche even five years ago still send me leads and clients.
That’s how powerful guest blogging can be if you do it the right way.
You’ll find everything you need to know in my guest blogging guide.
Grow Your Professional Network
Connecting with other freelance writers can be a huge source of referral client work.
But networking isn’t about asking for clients or favors.
It’s about giving unconditional value, sharing ideas, and helping each other.
When you build professional relationships based on trust and value, you’ll get tons of referrals without even asking for them.
Where do you connect with other freelancers?
Twitter and LinkedIn are the best places to interact with other content creators and grow your network.
This networking guide for freelancers by Shopify has more actionable tips on this topic.
Ask For Referrals
According to research by G2, one of the top software review aggregators, 9 out of 10 B2B buyers are more likely to purchase a product/service after reading a positive review.
Positive reviews and testimonials from past clients play a huge role in attracting new leads and converting them into customers.
Most freelancers a lazy in asking for reviews.
Don’t make that mistake.
Make testimonials and reviews a part of your project terms.
When you start a project, make it clear that you’ll need the payment + a review on project delivery.
When you complete a project, send your clients a review form or simple email request.
Don’t settle for a vague review like “it was great working with Jawad.”
Ask for specific feedback that highlights the impact of your work.
“Jawad wrote some of the best data-driven long-form blog content (avg. 3K words/post) for our site that helped us rank for our target keyword, get backlinks from more than a dozen high-authority sites (including HubSpot and Backlinko), and generate consistent traffic from search engines. He’s an expert in audience research and content creation, and I’d blindly trust him with my most important content marketing projects.”
If your client is too busy to write a testimonial, write one yourself and use it with their approval.
Chapter 12
Setting Your Freelance Writing Rates
In this chapter, I’ll tell you how much you should charge for your freelance writing services as a complete beginner.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- The things you should consider when charging a client.
- The different ways freelance writers price their services and the method that you should use.
- Setting your minimum rate.
Let’s dive in
How To Set Your Freelance Writing Rates
Setting your freelance writing rates is about your mindset.
I know people who create much better content than me but charge much lower rates.
I also know people who create average content but charge double my rate.
No matter what anyone tells you, there are no fixed rules here.
When I first started, $100 for a 1000 word article felt like life-changing money.
I thought the client was stupid for paying me this much.
I thought I wasn’t giving enough value to earn that money.
I was wrong.
Because I didn’t understand the value of my work.
When you know how you’re adding value to your client’s business, you charge confidently.
So here’s my advice.
Write down the value you’re offering.
- Research
- Content creation
- Data references to back your points
- Screenshots
- Original quotes
- Interviews
- On-page SEO
- Drafting in WP
Above all, your services will drive hundreds of clients and thousands of dollars in sales.
That’s what you charge for.
Here’s an example from an experienced blogger’s pricing page.
You’ll need a lot of big-name companies on your portfolio and a solid understanding of creating data-driven content to be able to charge those rates.
But I’ve only shared these rates to show you what’s possible.
In comparison, here’s the pricing from a mid-level freelancer’s site.
I think she’s undercharging, but that’s her choice.
The point here is simple.
There’s no fixed pricing rule in freelance writing, and no one can stop you from charging anything as long as you think the value of your justifies the rate.
How Much Should You Charge?
Despite knowing all this, you will feel scared to charge $500-$700 for a 1000 word article as a complete beginner.
So don’t do that.
Start with a minimum rate.
For me, it was $100/1000 words. Yours could be $50, no problem.
But have a minimum rate.
Don’t go below that no matter what (even with zero experience.)
You will have to say no to a few clients, but you will find the ones who’ll be happy to pay this rate because it’s not that high anyway.
You’re only charging this because you have to start somewhere.
When you have more clients and better names on your portfolio in a few months, start raising your rates.
Anything between $250-$500 for 1000 words is normal for experienced writers.
But there’s no limit here.
Content creators charge $1000 for 1000 word articles, and brands happily pay for it.
You’ll reach that stage gradually, don’t worry.
But start with a minimum rate and don’t go below it.
How To Price Your Freelance Writing Services?
Freelancers typically use three pricing models.
- Price Per Word: I don’t recommend this pricing model. You can use it for your internal calculations but don’t quote it to your clients.
Unfortunately, it has become so common that most clients also pay by word count (which is a stupid approach for them as well.)
I used to charge per word early in my career but soon learned that it’s a lousy way to price your work because I’m not just writing words. I’m researching the content, finding stats, creating screenshots, optimizing it, drafting it in WP, and so much more.
- Price Per Hour: Again, I don’t like this pricing model either because it completely discounts your work’s value.
You can use it for your internal calculations but don’t quote an hourly rate to your clients unless you’re on a monthly retainer.
- Price Per Project: This is the model I recommend and use. Have a fixed rate for different project types.
For example, $350 for 1000-1300 word articles with screenshots, data (on-page SEO and WP drafting complimentary).
Those aren’t complementary services, but you frame them that way because everyone loves free stuff.
Similarly, $1700 for email strategy + 5 email sequences (complimentary service: configuring emails in an email marketing tool.)
If you’re not sure how to price your copywriting services, I recommend using CopyHackers Quote Calculator to get an estimate of how much you should charge.
Chapter 13
Receiving Payments As A Freelance Writer
In this chapter, I’ll share different payment services you can use to get paid for your freelance writing projects.
Specifically, we will be talking about:
- PayPal alternatives
- Payment services with low fees
- Payment services with global acceptance
Let dive in
How To Receive Payments As A Freelance Writer
Getting paid is the sweetest part of working as a freelancer.
There’s no feeling like it.
But to ensure that clients pay you for your hard work without any trouble, keep the following things in mind.
-
Have Clear Payment Terms
Freelance writers use three different payment terms.
100% Payment On Project Delivery
You won’t have to worry about this if you’re working through a freelance portal like Upwork or Fiverr since they hold the payments for you.
But when you work directly with clients, most of them prefer paying after project completion.
Do this only if you’re entirely new and the client insists on it.
Or if you totally trust the client.
Still, not the best way to get paid.
50% Advance, 50% On Completion
This is the model that most experienced freelancers follow.
And clients usually don’t have a problem with it.
But here’s the fine print.
Charge the remaining 50% on project submission, not on the client’s approval.
Because sometimes, your clients will take weeks to review and approve your work.
You don’t want to wait for months to get paid because of their busy schedule.
100% Advance Payment
The top freelancers use this model because they’re booked for months and require clients to pay 100% upfront to secure their spot.
I don’t recommend demanding 100% payment if you’re new or have space for work in your schedule.
-
Always Send An Invoice
Many clients won’t ask you to send an invoice.
They’ll simply ask for your PayPal address and send the payment.
But you should always send an invoice to get paid.
It doesn’t seem like a big deal when you’re new to freelancing.
But once you start bringing in thousands of dollars every month, invoices become critical for all your tax and legal documentation.
-
Choose The Right Payment Service
PayPal is the natural choice for most freelancers and clients because of its global acceptance.
But PayPal fees can add up and claim a significant chunk of your earnings every year.
Plus, freelancers in many countries still don’t have PayPal (like we here in Pakistan.)
So here are some of the other payment tools you can use.
Payoneer is a fantastic payment service for freelancers with a simple interface and a quick sign-up process.
You can use it to receive secure payments via Credit/Debit cards and electronic bank transfers.
It’s always my first choice when receiving money from clients.
Xolo allows you to receive payments to a company account and invoice your clients as a registered business.
It is handy if you have clients in the EU.
Bonsai is a Stripe product and a complete payment solution for freelancers and self-employed professionals.
Its invoicing tool gives you templates for invoices, project proposals, and other essential documents that freelancers routinely use.
Here’s a handy image by CrazyEgg that perfectly summarizes what Bonsai offers.
Xoom is a PayPal service that your clients in the US and Canada can use to send funds directly from PayPal to your bank account.
It comes in handy when you live in a country where PayPal doesn’t work, but your client insists on using it.
Are You The Next Freelance Writing Success Story?
Nothing is stopping you, really.
I’ve put in hours writing this guide and have told you things that I wish someone had told me when I was starting my career.
But none of it matters if you don’t take action.
So stop overthinking and send that first cold email, job application, or guest post proposal.
The right time to take action is right now.
If you have any questions, I’d love to respond to them in the comments section.
Making Money With Freelance Writing – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
-
What do you do as a freelance writer?
As a freelance writer, you help clients create high-quality text content for their blogs, websites, marketing & promotional material, email campaigns, sales landing pages, and various other online assets.
-
What types of freelance writing can I do?
The most popular types of freelance writing jobs are
– Blog article writing
– Website copywriting
– Email content writing
– Landing page content
But there are tons of other project types like eBooks, research papers, case studies, etc., that you can do as well.
-
How do I become a freelance writer?
There’s no entry barrier to freelance writing. The day you decide to offer services as a freelance writer, you become one. Just choose your target niche, define your ideal client, build your online profile, and start applying for online writing jobs and cold pitching your services to different blogs and businesses in your niche.
-
How much should you charge for a 500-word article?
It depends on the topic, niche, required research, and a lot of other factors. However, I wouldn’t recommend going below 10 cents per word ($100 for 1000 words) even if you’re a total beginner.
-
How much should you charge for freelance writing services?
There’s no fixed answer to this question, but if you’re just starting, $100/1000 words for blogging projects, $200-$300 per page for website copywriting, $700-$1000 for writing a sales landing page, and $100-$200 per email should be a good starting point.
-
How do freelance writers find work?
There are four main ways to find freelance writing clients – applying for projects listed on job boards and freelance marketplace sites, pitching directly to the businesses in your niche, attracting clients through marketing (paid and organic), and getting projects via referrals.
-
Can I be a writer without a degree?
Of course, you don’t need any formal degree or certificate to become a freelance writer.
-
What makes a good freelance writer?
To become a successful freelance writer, you need to understand how to write for your client’s audience and create content using the voice and tone they understand. Plus, you need to have good research skills to find interesting content angles, learn about new topics, and create useful content. And finally, you need to be a good enough writer who can create grammatically correct and engaging content.
-
Can I start freelance writing without experience?
Yes, there’s no need for prior writing experience to become a freelance writer. However, it’ll help you create better content if you start your own blog and publish some content to understand the complete online content publishing process.
-
What is SEO writing?
SEO writing is content that’s not only written in an engaging manner but also optimized for certain search keywords to drive organic search traffic from Google Search and other search engines
-
What freelance writing sites are best for beginners?
You can start applying for freelance writing jobs even if you’re a complete beginner on sites like Upwork, Problogger Jobs, Flexjobs, and Craigslist. Plus, you can also directly pitch to businesses in your niche to land writing gigs.
-
How much money can you make with freelance writing?
It depends on your customers and the kind of content you create, but even beginner freelancers can start making $2000-$3000 per month in less than 6 months. Experienced freelancers typically make $10K-$15K per month. But there’s really no limit.
-
Can you become a millionaire with freelance writing?
Yes, there are numerous examples of content writers and copywriters who have earned more than a million dollars from freelancing.
well organized thoughts in most difficult times – keep it up
Thanks for reading. Glad you you liked it!
Hi Jawad
Thank you for sharing this post! It gives me some hope that high paying clients are still out there. I am happy with the clients I have a the moment but I really feel the need to progress in my writing and career.
Have you managed to find more long term clients? I usually use job boards for my job search and I’ve contacted sites directly as well. I might be a bit eager, but I want to grow as fast as possible.
Anneke
Hi Anneke,
Thanks for the comment.
High paying clients are certainly out there. You just need to be patient and persistent.
I have personally found the direct emailing method as the most effective. And yes, I have found long term clients through it as well.
You just need to make sure that you give yourself as many chances as possible to get noticed and approached. Commenting, emailing and applying on job boards along with regular updates on your blog. Thats the formula that worked for me.
Good luck!
Hi Jawad
Thank you for your reply! I will definitely take your advice and I’m sure that with a little more discipline and determination I will find some great clients in no time.
Have a good day.
Anneke
That was a real motivator.
I am an Indian, and I guess need not say anything more, or point out some similarities that exist. And I am no great writer too, heck, just a writer without any published articles or anything. Yet I have a great love for words, and I have been working on a venture, which I am not sure would work out or not. yet I am determined to take that plunge, and give it a try. it’s a challenge, considering the lack of experience, or even zero investment/savings I have, no idea how the finance would turn up or even the monetization plan, but despite all that I want to give a shot. The more I think of it, the more scarier it turns, but the deep urge and the burning desire are fueled more with it. At times, all seems like a super-duper imagination this mind fantasizes. And reading this article, just increased my gut feeling, which was actually waging a war if it should really take the plunge. I am not sure what future has got, but then you are one such point which is motivating me take that blind leap with faith.
unlike your conditions, thankfully, there are no wars or bombings, and that itself is a lot of inspiration to go ahead! Thanks!
Hey Aarti,
Glad you found it useful.
Being away from war zone is a BIG plus…trust me!
You seem to write well….I can see that in your comment.
I would suggest you to start taking gradual steps. You dont need to risk everything at once. Read the top bloggers and see how they go about their business.
You might also want to read one of my recent posts where I shared a few sources of freelance writing projects https://www.writingmydestiny.com/cant-find-work-5-sources-every-new-freelancer-should-try/
Good Luck!
I was actually one of the freelance writers of some websites, however some of my clients got closed down, got their websites down, of which some had reasons that it was out of legal matters. Thank you for this post, good job!
Oh sorry to hear that.
But there’s good news for you, there are lots of clients still out there if you keep on trying.
This post might help
https://www.writingmydestiny.com/cant-find-work-5-sources-every-new-freelancer-should-try/
Good luck!
Hello there Jawad. Just thought I’d leave you a comment on this post (seemed as good as any) to say that I’ve read some of your posts and I’m enjoying the blog! Expect to see a few more comments from me! 😉
Hey Shaun,
Great to have you here.
I’m glad you’re finding the blog useful.
Would love to see you comment regularly and hopefully we can start building a community around this blog.
Thanks
Well, there are actually a lot of outsourcing sites out there which could offer you clients for your job needs. I got my first client through referral, a friend, who was already working with a client and then another referral from a client’s friend.
Hey Justin,
I’m sure there are a lot of clients on these outsourcing websites, but most of them are not high paying clients. You can’t make a living out of them.
But good luck to you if you’re getting the results that you want.
Cheers
Hey Fazimoon,
You’re absolutely spot on.
There’s no way you can make a living out of these job portals.
Branding yourself as a writer and getting higher rates is our only option.
Great tips…
Hi Sandeep,
Glad you found it useful
There’s another reason why I lost interest in all such job portals. The more I explored these freelancing portals the more I realized that almost all the writing jobs over there were listed either by content agencies or middlemen who were offering pennies for our hard work. There’s no way you can make a full time living with the sort of rates they’e offering out there. In fact, I even felt humiliated reading some of the jobs posted there.
I like this part the most about your article.
We have to eat and live from writing, we should all strike and then we see what will happen, I for one is not going to be slavering away all hour of the day and night and give it away for a few dollars, get a part time job while you are trying to lunch you Freelance writing. We have to set a rate for blogger.
I’m a recent college grad, and outside of student jobs I don’t have any “work experience.” AN argument that’s brought against me often is “you need to get a real job first,” or “you need to go to graduate school and get an advanced degree.” My responses to those arguments, 1) I have a real job, I run a business. 2) I’m running a business and doing what I’ve always dreamed about, I’m always learning, I’m always in school.
Thanks for your post, its great to see that I’m not the only one dealing with social pressures.
Hey Brian,
You’re certainly not the only one facing these pressures.
Its great to see that you’ve followed your passion from the start. Stick to it! The same people will come to you for guidance.
All the best!
Love the post. Love the blog. I was following the same path before reading this post and it gave me hope after reading that I’m not the Lone Ranger in this adventure. I have also started to submit entries to Tribune Blogs. Admire your effort and skills. Would love to socialize with you. I have included my blog address and E-mail. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Hey Fahad,
I’m glad you liked the post.
Rest assured, you’re not alone in this. Most of us, freelancers that is, face these issues everyday.
But its all about sticking to what you believe in.
I’d love to have a meet up some day.
Yes of course. You may have got my email already. Bing me whenever you want. I would also like to get in touch with you.
Thanks for your post. I’m in the way of beeing a freelancer and to read about other experiences is so good for me. I think is true all the things you must hear when you want leave a job….the pressures…
Sorry for my english, I’m from Barcelona and my languages are spanish and catalan.
Best regards and smile!!!
Your English is fine 🙂
I’m glad you found the article useful…Thanks!
Hello there,
Very inspiring article for all those who are wondering if it’s the right time to start their own business. After reading this, there’s little excuses left.
Thanks Sylviane, I’m glad you liked the post.
Keep visiting!
I think i might have fallen victim of the Perfectionist Syndrome with one of my blogs. Harder and harder to write on it, not sure why… may i be bored? 😀
Superb post, Jawad! I loved the structure, too – how you outline the problem and then give action items to overcoming it, job well done! Sending you some social media love.
Thanks Diana!
Great post. I’ve struggled a lot with several of the items on your list but have now committed to a weekly posting schedule.
(And luckily I’m far from a perfectionist ;))
Hey Rasmus,
Thanks for the comment.
Best of luck with your new posting schedule 🙂
Cheers!
Thank you for this post. This is very motivating and inspiring! I’m a starting freelance writer. I’ve been through a series of corporate jobs for the past ten years. I quit last quarter. Like you, I’m writing my destiny. I’ve been reading on your past posts and I got a wealth of tips I hope to use. Here’s to No Fixed Income, No Security, No Certainty! (But hey, it’s a good life!) 🙂
Your new fan,
Nancy
Hey Nancy,
You’ve already done the hard part – quitting your job.
I’m sure success isn’t far away!
Hey Jawad,
awesome tips, some of which I needed.
Thank you for taking the time to put this together, being a writer myself I know how difficult, yet fun it can be 🙂
Hi Alex,
I’m glad you found it useful.
Cheers!
HI Jawaad,
This is really a well thought out post. Finding freelance blogging client is not tough if you know where to “look” and most writers out there don’t know. It is important to narrow down to an audience segment and look for opportunities within.
You’ve a really nice blog.
~ Chitraparna
Thanks Chitraparna!
Keep visiting 🙂
Yes, these reasons are all on track. Correcting them would mean reenvigorating the blogging passion in the blogger.
However, one other reason why bloggers struggle to find blog ideas to write is blogging without passion.
I have shared this comment in kingged.com where this post was shared for Internet marketers.
Sunday – Kingged.com contributor
If they have enough passion on the blogging objective, then it would be easier to blog despite other obstacles.
While i admit that sometimes bloggers may have a block that will prevent them from writing i will also say that any serious blogger must not publish always but will only publish quality when he does.
Instead of publishing crappy contents just because you have to publish every day or maintain your publication schedule, i’ll rather not publish at all. I can’t compromise on my content quality. I’ll rather feed my audience quality content once in a week than crappy contents 10 times a day.
Depending on your niche, coming up with content ideas may be easy or challenging but whichever it is a smart blogger can always find a way around it. Recently i published a post on my blog where i explained how bloggers can leverage contents shared on social media sites.
You can also leverage on old topics you have covered, simply branch off ideas from such topics and write posts to add value to the one you already did.
I found this post on Kingged.com and also left a comment on it.
Thanks for your detailed comment Nwosu.
While I do agree that posting crappy content is not the answer, but waiting for the perfect post idea might lead you to never post again.
With a fixed schedule, your thought process will be different. You’ll have the deadline in mind and will come up with content ideas more often than not.
Hi Jawad, serendipity led me to you; what a find!
You’re a talented writer and post very helpful advice.
I am a freelance writer who’s had some success, but more of the generalist, one-assignment variety. Your posts about specialization, along with other things I read, have convinced me specialization is the route to follow.
I’m re-starting my writing career, after a 2-year break. Question for you: I was planning to build a website to point clients to my “pitch” and portfolio. Do you think it’s a good idea to have my blog on a page within the website, or is it advisable to have a freestanding blog, outside my website?
I’d love to hear your opinion.
Hi Terence,
Glad you found my blog useful.
I’d recommend going for a well designed website plus a blog.
I’m planning to do that myself 🙂
Hi Jawad,
I liked the point of guest blogging. Actually it has made an impact in my personal branding a lot. People know know me in my niche because of my guest articles in popular blog of the same niche. I am happy that you included that point in this list. Cheers! 🙂
Hey Nicholas,
Good to know about your success with guest blogging. It certainly is a great way to brand yourself.
Very well-written and thought-provoking indeed 🙂
Jawad, I am struggling myself in this blogging and content writing domain since last year. I have had very few clients to work with via oDesk and got quite good feedback from them as well but, it’s all paused/stopped since quite some time now. Reasons:
1. Haven’t got any relevant offer from any client despite very good feedback
2. Very little time left after a full-day IT job (you probably know timings in IT sector 🙂 )
3. Need to give time to parents and family as well (includes home-related tasks as well)
4. Lack of motivation and focus mainly due to low-paying projects and also due to above reasons
5. Almost everyone, except a few, considers writing to be the least beneficial w.r.t. making money online
6. Many consider it to be an unstable way of working especially, if you are planning to continue it as a regular business
Please explain and guide me what should I do? I know I’m not a bad writer but I am not very good also.
I also want to know, in detail, how do you compare freelancing to a regular office job? What exactly gives it THAT edge that we all dream of achieving to live a life full of freedom and fun?
Thanks 🙂
Thanks for your detailed comment Farrukh.
In my opinion, oDesk, Elance etc. are not the right platforms for freelance writers to get high paying clients. I’ve discussed my own strategy of client acquisition in this post
https://www.writingmydestiny.com/find-freelance-blogging-clients/
As for your other concerns, I believe it’s all about how satisfied you are with your current schedule, financial stability and freedom. If you believe your job earns you enough money to live with financial freedom and at the same time gives you the right balance in your life, then there’s no need to go freelance.
But freelancing can definitely be a full-time career choice. It does, however, demand dedication, hard work and a smart strategy.
All the best!
Thanks for the detailed reply.
Okay let’s see…No, I am not satisfied with my current schedule and freedom. Financial stability, to an extent, yes but more required.
The points you mentioned in the end: dedication and smart strategy. Please elaborate them a bit more or refer a post in which you have done it.
Secondly, you did not answer to the last paragraph in my previous comment regarding comparison and edge!
And last but not the least, what do you think about my writing skill? 🙂
Thanks!
Well keyword research always cures my bloggers block.
I wish it was this easy for everyone else as well 🙂
Without an objective, you’re always shooting in the dark.
Glad you liked the post
Hey James,
I can relate with that very well.
Initially I used Evernote to note down my ideas, but these days I’m using Google Keep.
Good ideas usually pop up at strange times so it’s always handy to have an app like that with you.
Glad you found the post interesting.
Thanks for notifying me about Google Keep. I just got a new smartphone (Galaxy S5, coming from an iPhone) so I had no idea that it even existed. I’ve been using Evernote, but I’ll have to check out Google Keep and see how it compares. I’m liking the interface so far.
You may have just changed the way I write down all of my ideas, lol. Thanks again!
Growing up in a culture where security of a paycheck is valued more than one’s happiness and passion, it’s hard for my parents to understand why I’m pursuing a career in writing over something that’s more related to my degree. But thank you for this post; it’s comforting to know that I’m not alone.
Salam Jawad,
Thanks a lot for the useful tips. I have a question that most of the clients, especially on ProBlogger, pay via Paypal which is not available in Pakistan. What do you suggest on this?
Thanks 🙂
Walaikumussalam Farrukh,
Sorry for such a late response.
You can use Payoneer.com for Payment collection. It can be integrated with PayPal.
Ok thanks for the information 🙂
You mention all the important points that effect to find a blogging ideas. I specially like the 4th one because many of blogger are often facing the same situation. I find blogging ideas from books and my colleague’s blog. I continuously read all the blogs of them and write post by combining our both ideas.
Hello Jawad,
I truly agree with you that we should target our audience and understand our niche very well. This is most important thing we should keep in mind before finding freelance clients.
Thanks for sharing these ultimate tips
Have a great day 🙂
Hello Jawad!
I totally agree with your point about having “Blogging Objective “. I think its very important to define your blog objective before you start a blog. Most blogs fail to have a clear objective of what it is suppose to do and they try to do way too much at once, or worse, they finally quit.
I think attracting more traffic should be the main and ultimate goal of blogging as those visitors would help you to make money from your blog.
That’s certainly a great way to find new ideas.
Thanks for reading
Jawad,
Love the clean look of your site. Also, helpful post on freelancing!
Do you use any strategies other than content marketing to generate traffic? Curious to hear your answer.
Rob
Hey Rob,
Thanks, yea I like to keep the design clutter free.
My primary strategy has been guest blogging. That has brought me the most number of clients. Apart from that, customer referrals and directly approaching potential clients through their websites are the other two ways I’ve managed to get high paying clients.
But for all this to work, in most cases anyway, you first need a few solid samples, preferably, on a leading blog in your niche.
Thanks for the reply! Have you tried blog commenting? It’s been very effective for me. Are you on twitter?
I’m glad you brought this up, because it was one of my biggest struggles early on in my blogging days. I had problems coming up with good ideas for content, but even more so I had problems remembering these ideas because they’d often come up at super random times.
I found carrying around a notepad (or today, a cell phone with a notepad built in it) was extremely helpful, as I could write down my ideas as soon as I thought about them.
Thanks for sharing.
This post has been extremely helpful. I am in the beginning stages of trying to land some regular clients myself, and you are right on the money about how DIFFICULT it is to land gigs through job boards. It’s the most frustrating thing to take your time, craft a unique response to tons of different job ads and hearing nothing back. Or even worse, getting requests to do free or next-to-free work on a trial basis. I know your post is a bit old, but just wanted to let you know it’s still helping folks like me 😉
Hi Jawad,
This is the first time I am visiting your blog. First of all, I must say that your blog is designed very clean and looks good, Now, coming to the article you wrote, it’s really good! The points you have mentioned are very appropriate. I feel personally that having a vague mindset often creates blank in the mind. You actually can’t stick to one niche and fail to produce new topic ideas. Blogging should always be focused to one niche.
Hey Kaustav,
Great point, having the right mindset is so important to consistently come up with high quality content.
I’m glad you liked the post.
This is exactly what I feel too. Getting your freelance job depends more on you rather than the platform you are trying. Instead of waiting endlessly on sites like elance to get work, one should also try to get freelance work on his own.
Thanks Abhishek!
I think its very important for freelancers to build their own reputation as a freelancer rather than rely on freelance broker websites which are not so profitable for freelancers. Creating their own blog goes a long way in building your reputation. Of course you would need to promote yourself harder this way, but it is also more profitable and sustainable to make a full time living out of it.
I was struggling to find perfect content marketing ideas for web hosting niche; I have been watching the blogs of the Top hosting providers. They are simply writing to fill up the blog with some SEO content. They do not seem to be interested in content marketing. I have been spending my time on finding new ideas for content marketing which attract people. What you said in six points is right. I am at the level of the six point. let me start first and think later. thank you man for reminding me.
Thank you for your valuable tips!
How about WriteJobs Plus, the paid alternative from WriteJobs.info?
Would you recommend it?
Havent tried it personally
Hi Jawad,
I got here from Bloggingtips.com. I thoroughly enjoyed this article. I’m a beginning freeelance writer and I found this article useful. I thought your point about choosing a niche was excellent. I just subscribed to updates from you. Thanks for all you do.
Hey Jawad, nice share.
Nowadays, people are looking for quality, not quantity. Still, not everyone is willing to pay the quality price haha.
The hardest part definitely is getting your first big clients. After that, your work speaks for itself.
Your points are very relatable! 🙂 Thanks Jawad for sharing! Definitely having an editorial calendar and posting schedule is the way to go. Do you also recommend keyword research? It helps a lot too.
Yes definitely
Hi Jawad Khan,
Useful Article. Thanks For Sharing Amazing Article.
Very informative post .. Keep up the good work.
I know I was writing more when I scheduled my writing. For some reason, I stopped. Thaks for the wake-up call. I can also say that listing to podcasts gives me most of my post ideas.
Two of the reason is where I fall in. One, not keeping a writing schedule and two not being clear about my objective of what I actually want to write about blogging and freelancing. What makes me even more demotivated is the feeling of ” People already know that ! so don’t waste your time on something what everyone already knows.”
All of the above have been setbacks in my own blogging journey. However, the passion for blogging remains the same. Thank you! Your post was really helpful. I just printed it
I know the feeling Marjan, we’ve all been there.
But always remember that the things you consider “common knowledge” might be advanced stuff for most of your readers.
Why?
The current Global Internet Penetration is still just over 50% which means nearly 50% of the world’s population doesn’t even use the internet. Every day hundreds of thousands of new people are getting online for the first time.
So even the most basic tips about blogging or writing (or any other niche) are advanced tips for them.
Just stay focused on giving value to your readers by answering their most common questions. Keep doing it for a few months consistently and you’ll start seeing things happen for you.
Al the best.
Hi Jawad
You have described the exact stuff, that is common and we are not aware of them, now I know everything about these lacking in me, I will be consistent further. I like your way of writing it is simple but engaging and conveys your message with clarity.
i heard about you on the writer in charge blog.
thanks for the sharing
Naresh Kumar
Thanks. The post is very simple and engaging. I would say you hit the points that we bloggers fail to observe . I experience most of the situations listed above . And I will begin working on it.
Thankyou so much for the guidance. I have been on desk job as content writer for beauty and fashion marketing company. More than 300 articles got published during my tenure. Recently, after getting married, I have to leave the job. So, I started freelancing. I just came across your blog and it gives me new direction & motivation that I can still follow my passion while sitting at home. Thanks for helping newbies.
Hello Jawad!
This is quiet interesting to know. I hate content Mills and wonder if anyone does that as much as I do.
It only takes resilience and commitment to see a breakthrough as an independent freelance writer.
It worked for me and I can’t be thankful enough for useful info here.
This post makes a lot of sense indeed and I appreciate the work.
Hi Jawad,
Great post. Very well written and comprehensive. I have worked on several of the items on your list. Thankyou for sharing.
great tips, I really appreciate that u are helping the newbies of the freelance field, very informative & helpful, keep sharing about how to give content writing services
i can’t believe you’re giving all these for free…
So humbled for such a niche and well-reaserched blog which is super helpful for beginners as well as experienced people and freelancers. Thanks a lot for sharing this guide
Insightful!
Hi Jawad!
This is the most in-depth and informative blog post that I have read on the web till date. I have bookmarked this post and plan to start implementing what you have taught their in my freelance writing business that I am trying to get off the ground right now.
I have a doubt. I would really appreciate if you can clear the same.
I have some published blog post pieces on my medium handle that I’ve linked to on my portfolio. However, I feel adding links to blog posts that I write for my clients is a good way to improve my portfolio. (Correct me if I am wrong)
I’ve just got an inbound lead today and I’ve a scheduled sales call with them tomorrow. They seem to be a good client and I really want to convert them and use this gig as an opportunity to boost my portfolio. BUT I am wondering if it would leave a bad impression if I ask them permission to link the work I do for them on my portfolio or if would be willing to publish it under my name?
And if I shouldn’t ask them this question in this sales call, when should I ask? Can I even ask?
Crickets!
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thanks