In this post I will explain what is freelancing and how you can make money as a freelancer. Freelancing is simply the act of working online as independent contractor. Freelancing means that you are not working under permanent contract for anyone, but you can work for anyone whenever you like. You work on temporary contract.
For example, lets say you got a work from someone who wants you to design website for him. You design the website, and after that, he may want you to design another website for him. You are free to say no, that you don’t want to work for him anymore, you don’t want to work again, or you want to work for someone else.
Freelancing even gives you more freedom than that. If in the middle of the freelance job that you are working on, you find out that you can’t continue anymore, you have the freedom to stop working, and return the project to the employer, and he can find someone else. You do not get any penalties for it (except if you are working on a freelance website, which I will discuss below, when talking about how to make money as a freelancer)
Some Freelancing Websites Where You Can Make Money As A Freelancer
Here are some freelancing websites where you can make money as a freelancer.
Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour, TaskRabbit, These websites are free to join and accept people from all locations. They have plenty of jobs too.
What Skills Do You Need To Make Money As A Freelancer?
There are opportunities for you in any skill that you have. For example on some freelance.
How To Make Money As A Freelancer
There are three ways you can make money as a freelancer.
1. Work On Freelancing Websites.
2. Create Your Own Freelancing Website.
3. Do The Two Methods Above.
Although number 3 method is the best. I will be explaining the number 1 and number 2 .
1. Working On Freelancing Websites
There are lots of freelancing websites out there as you can start working on and make money as a freelancer. Some of them are Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, PeoplePerHour, TaskRabbit.
You can simply sign up on these websites, update your profile, and your portfolio, take some fast English test, and few other test that could help your profile stand out, and start applying for freelance jobs immediately. Most of these freelance websites are free to join and have plenty of freelance jobs ready for anyone with the skill to apply for.
For example, upwork displays about 10 new jobs every 5 minutes, sometimes even more than that, so there are many opportunities for you to make money as a freelancer here.
2. Creating Your Own Freelancing Website
As a freelancer, you are a business person, because making money online is a business, and any business person needs to have a website. I’ve said it before, although some methods of making money online can be done without owning a website, if you don’t own a website, you don’t have a business. That is my personal opinion.
Your website is like your Office. Is your official online presence. You could be present on social media, forums and other place, but your website is where people can contact you directly.
Advantages Of Having Your Own Freelancing Website
It makes your business more professional, and reliable.
Having a website makes you look more credible, and people can believe that you are serious with your business, and can be trusted.
You can customize your website to optimize your business in the best way.
When you are on forums, and social media. You are dependent on the platform, and you cant customize it to work the way you want. You only rely on the options they provide you with.
For example, you want to list your skills, services, terms and conditions, and other stuffs. You definitely can’t do this professionally on forums and social media, but when you have a website you are very much free to do this. And these things make your business more professional.
You can collect leads to your business and grow your audience.
This is one of the most important reasons why you need to create your own website if you want to start freelancing business.
Leads are emails of people who are interested in your business. You can put a pop up on the home page of your website that automatically shows up when they visit and asks them to enter their email, maybe to get a discount or an extra service, or something else.
Once they enter this email, and click the submit button, you have captured a lead. Now you can communicate with these people through email, and even offer them more services, and possibly make more money from them. Just be very honest with them,
offer value to them and get them to trust you.
Leads are like customers to you just like when you have a shop offline, and you have customers. It is all the same thing, and it is even better online, because you go international.
The more you collect leads, the bigger you are growing your audience and your business, and you can send out mass email to all of them at once every week. You can even automate the email, and it works on autopilot.
If Social Media & Forums Go Away Or Ever Change Their Policy, Your Website Stays
Yes, you are independent if you have your own website. You don’t have to worry much about what will happen to your business, if the forums, and social media where you are present on, go away, or change their policies.
I am pretty sure there are many more advantages why you need to create your own website as a freelancer.
3. Do The Two Methods Above.
Yes, you can work as a freelancer and make money by directly applying on freelance websites using method 1. or You can also work as a freelancer and make money by creating your own website using method 2.
But it is better to apply the two methods. As I already mentioned before. Having a website makes your business look professional, credible and trustworthy. Your website is like the official place where people find you online.
Those freelancers who have websites are likely to convert or land more clients than those who do not. Also you can display much more on your website, and you have more freedom to configure it the way you like.
I already mentioned these in method 2. If your freelancing website does not continue tomorrow, your business does not stop with it.
This is because you already have an established freelancing website of your own by then and probably have loyal clients. This is also the reason why you need to be collecting leads on your freelancing website as I mentioned in method 2.
I hope this helps you get started with your freelancing business and start earning money online through freelancing.
