4 Important Lessons Freelance Writing Taught Me
I am now approaching my fourth year of experience with freelance writing. I have failed on numerous occasions, whether it was meeting a goal or consistently writing. Now, I consider myself an expert and I am constantly curating new content for great prices and high paying clients. However, I took several courses, read countless articles and newsletters, and did everything possible to get where I am today. To my beginning or intermediate freelancer, cheers to lessons learned for we would not be here.
But here are my lessons…
Graduate from Content Mills
When I first started freelancing, I used Freelancer and Upwork as my main sources of income. I highly discourage, even beginner freelancers, to use Freelancer (You can find out why in this article). Freelancer boasts millions of users; you will compete with countless freelancers for every job. I realized a significant portion of job postings from Freelancer are for cheap and unreasonable prices. Even if you are a beginning freelancer, there is no reason you should be contributing content for $5 an article. It really depends on your niche, but you should be charging at least $20 for an article or blog post — and that’s beginner pricing.
I consider Upwork a reasonable content mill with more professional and high paying clients. However, as you gain expertise in freelancing, graduate from sites like Upwork and instead utilize tactics such as cold pitching and job boards like Simply Hired, Linkedin, and even Indeed. With content mills, you still have to rely on the site instead of establishing your own independent source of income. Upwork not only takes a significant portion of your overall earnings, in my opinion, but the site now also charges you with “connects” to apply to jobs.
Social Media is Your Best Friend
I wish I realized how powerful social media truly is before. Now, I am landing jobs and clients left and right with Facebook. Facebook is a powerful source to earn income and connect with others in your niche. You can gain potential clients by someone seeing your ad or even a general post in a group or your own page. I also utilize groups, like Copywriter Jobs, where I land high paying clients.
Social media takes work though. It takes time to build a good following and engagement on all platforms. With sites like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, your engagement ratio can be a small slice of your actual number of followers. I get better engagement on my personal pages from Instagram and Facebook than I do from my business ones.
I break down exactly how you can utilize Facebook for your business here. I discuss
- Analytics from Engagement and Your Page
2. Facebook’s Ad Program
3. Facebook Groups (where you can not only find jobs but collaborate with others in your industry)
I also wrote about other essential platforms for bloggers that include Medium and Pinterest which are great social platforms for writers. I pull traffic from Pinterest to my beauty website every day.
Be Truly Independent
I learned to have confidence in myself to take the extra steps of shifting my branding from content mills like Upwork and establishing my own thing. I created my own website and a few months ago, I established my digital marketing company site. So, I have a team of website developers, B2B copywriters, and social media experts.
Don’t Be Afraid
It is easy to fear an entrepreneurial pursuit. For a long time, I was afraid to continue with my digital marketing company. I had to frequently invest in my websites, freelancers, and education. Sometimes, you don't have jobs coming through or your site isn’t gaining traffic. You still have to continue curating content, cold pitching, and trying to build a source of income. Through such tribulations, I became a better entrepreneur.
