Freelancing Marketplace

 How to earn money from the freelancing marketplace?

If you’re ready to get serious about freelancing and multiplying your self-employed income, here are my top twelve tips for earning more during your first year.

And don’t forget to download Skillcrush’s free book, The Ultimate Guide to Going Freelance. You’ll find tips for learning the tech skills you need to get started, strategies for adopting “the freelance mindset,” plus tricks for building a “career safety net” before quitting your day job. Get the guide here.

 

1. Choose a Niche

If you’re new to freelancing, you might feel ready to take ANY paid work you can get your hands on. But as you get deeper into your freelancing career, you’ll need to start being more strategic about the types of work you do and the clients you take on.

You might be thinking: How can getting picky about the freelance work I do help me make MORE money?

Because when you specialize, you become an expert in a specific field, and experts can charge more for their specialized services.

In my opinion, the age-old debate of whether you should be a specialist or a generalist when starting your freelance career isn’t even worth thinking twice about. If you were your client and you needed someone to fix your email marketing so people actually sign up, write ads that convince people to buy, or just update your outdated website, would you rather hire someone who’s a jack of all trades, or a person who’s a pro at doing one thing and doing it well? I’ll choose the specialist every time.

And when it comes to my own experience, choosing to specialize as a content marketing consultant—as opposed to being a general digital marketer for hire—has been the single best decision I’ve made with my freelance business. Because I’ve built my reputation with clients as a talented content marketer over the past few years and frequently engage with content marketing content on various social media channels, I’ve been able to rise to the top of my niche in a relatively short period of time. This is one of my favorite takeaways from Becoming a Successful Freelancer over on CreativeLive.

Aside from my blog and existing client referrals, the next most consistent source of new clients has been from business owners seeking out specific expert help through both Google and social searches like the one above from Twitter.

So to expand this example to other fields, imagine you are just starting out as a web developer—you can get into a niche like migrating blogs to WordPress. That means when someone searches for “help with migrating a blog to WordPress,” they can find you.

If you choose the right niche, deciding to specialize and putting some effort into branding yourself as an expert within your niche can really pay off for years to come.

The 10 Best Websites for Freelance Jobs of 2021

• Freelancer: Best Overall
• Upwork: Runner-Up, Best Overall
• Craigslist: Best for Local Jobs
• FlexJobs: Best for Remote Jobs
• LinkedIn ProFinder: Best for Networking
• Fiverr: Best for Beginners
• TaskRabbit: Best for Non-Digital Jobs
• Working Not Working: Best for Creatives
• Freelance Writing Gigs: Best for Writing Jobs
• Guru: Best for Experienced Freelancers

• 2. Get Clear on Your Service Offerings

  One major decision you need to make early on in your freelance career is what you do and what you don’t do.

  The more specific you can be about what services you offer, the better. Not only will it help you brand yourself, but it’ll also allow you to control how potential clients perceive you and give you the opportunity to continue building your portfolio in the direction you want to move in.

  If you want to focus on becoming a sought-after, highly paid Ruby on Rails developer, then you shouldn’t even consider contract offers for customizing WordPress themes or designing the user experience for an upcoming app. While the short-term benefits of steady work are tempting (and sometimes necessary), taking on projects that aren’t getting you closer to your ultimate goal of becoming the best in your field, will only distract and delay you from making meaningful progress.

• What Are Freelance Job Listing Websites?

  Freelance job listing websites help connect employers with freelancers to complete short- or long-term projects. Freelance job sites list opportunities across nearly every type of profession and skill level, including but not limited to: accounting, engineering, graphic design, legal, IT, marketing, sales, web development, and writing. Any freelancers who are actively seeking clients can use freelance job listing websites to search for opportunities, source leads, and network. 

• How Do Freelance Job Listing Websites Work?

  Unless they’re structured as a traditional job board, most freelance job websites require you to create a profile in order to apply for opportunities. Employers can review the proposals submitted from potential candidates and book the one that they feel is most suited for the role, or they can scout resumes and portfolios beforehand and reach out to potential candidates directly. Some sites, like FlexJobs, also require you to pay a fee upfront in order to start browsing for opportunities. Others limit the number of listings you’re allowed to apply to for free, and most take a percentage of your earnings when you successfully book a client through their platform. There is no guarantee that you will secure a job when you use a freelance job listing site. 

• If you’re just starting out as a freelancer, you’ll want to get started the right way in the career path that generates the highest income, right?

  Many new freelancers think that way. And it makes sense, doesn’t it?

  Although, it’s a lot more complicated than that. Just because a skill has a higher demand or pays well than the others doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best path to follow.

  There’s a reason why some writers get paid $5 on Fiverr to write a 1000 word article while others make $100 for the same job somewhere else.

  

  Getting paid well depends on your skill level, experience, and quality of work.

  Having said that, it’s also important to know your market and see which type of jobs and skills get paid the most so that you can maybe start learning a new skill or plan for a future freelancing career.

  For those of you who are interested in making a steady income or retiring early, here are the jobs that earn the most in the freelancing industry.

• 1. Programming And Software Development

• 2. Social Video Marketing

• 3. Web Design And Development

• 4. Content Marketing/Writing

• 5. Graphic Design

• 6. Copywriters

• 7. Video Editors

• Bonus: Social Media Managers

• Social media marketing is an important part of brand and business marketing strategies. Almost every business, including small local coffee shops to big corporate brands, now use social networks to promote their products and brand.

  This opened up a massive opportunity for freelancers when most of these brands and businesses started looking for people who would manage their social media channels for them. Now, it’s an entire industry of its own.

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