How To Freelance To Earn Money Online: A Beginner’s Guide

Make Money Freelancing As A Hustler

We Generate Fear While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.

- Dr. Henry Link

Many would agree with me when I say that there is a phase in our lives when we want to be independent, when we want to be able enough to possess our own source of income, when we do not want to rely on our parents for paying our school fees, college fees or in some cases, our daily allowance as well. Most of us have this surge in us. Now it may depend on person-to-person regarding the age at which these surges might appear.

In today’s digital world of opportunities, we’ve been offered a ton of opportunities through which we can start earning online. Work from home is the term you might be looking for. Work from home is the trendsetter for the past few years. People have utilized this trend in its best possible way. They have launched their personal e-commerce websites, launched multiple websites, started writing blogs as well as shooting vlogs, started freelancing online.

What is Freelancing?

Freelancing basically means being “self-employed”. In my opinion, Freelancing is the art of earning money with the skillsets you possess. Freelancers often work for other companies or brands, but not as employees.

Freelancing is one of those means through which someone can escape the 9–5 working hours of the corporate world. Freelancing has proven to be productive for freelancers as they have full control over their own working hours, their choice of niches, freely choose their own projects or assignments as well as their clients.

Benefits of Freelancing

• You are your own boss. This means that you are completely in control of your own work and no one has a say in what you do. Who doesn’t love being one’s, own boss?
• You can take up as many days as want, to complete your project. Don’t take too long though, you don’t want to have a bad impression of yours in front of your clients.
• You have the freedom to choose and plan your own schedules, select the projects of your liking and type, charge the rate of your choice for the projects. Thus, be self-sufficient.
• Remember where you were confined to a specific dress code for your 9–5 daily grind job? Freelancing gives you the benefit of setting your own dress code.
• In Freelancing, you are free to work in your style and at the same time, you can have sufficient to spend with your friends.
• Freelancing gives a limitless potential to earn without having to anyone else. This means that you get to keep all the money to yourself, aside from a small percentage of the amount which you need to pay in the form of taxes.

Drawbacks of Freelancing

• You are not as financially stable as you are when working for someone else as an employee. This denotes that you alone have to take care of your money and keep working on projects one after the other if you want to keep earning consistently.
• You’ll notice immense competition in the field of freelancing. The internet has both been a blessing as well as a curse for people around the world.
• Due to stiff competition, you have to initially start with low pay for every project you sign up for with a client.
• People may experience a feeling of financial insecurity as well due to several financial threats available, thus this might be one of the reasons for their reluctance to freelance.

When Do You Begin Your Journey As A Freelancer?

Let’s consider the current scenario of the World. Several people have become unemployed due to the current pandemic situation whose onset began in the year 2020. According to a study conducted by the National Herald, around 147 million people have lost their jobs due to the current situation, leading to major economic losses worldwide. So, if you’re inclined to step up and work something out to earn yourself some cash, there’s no better opportunity than to utilize this time and direct the best of your efforts towards freelancing.

To jump-start your career as a Freelancer you must have a basic knowledge about the various niches you can freelance in. You will find several categories as a freelancer in which you can invest your time and skillset.

The list below consists of a few mainstream freelancing niches -

· Graphics and Design · Digital Marketing · Video and Animation · Writing · Programming and Tech · Music and Audio

You are free to choose the category of your choice, relevant to your skills. To help you understand these topics in detail, I will explain them in brief for you.

Graphics and Design

This is one of the most popular topics in which you can find millions of freelancers making several graphical designs such as logos, game art, illustrations, pattern designs, photoshop editing, infographic designs, web designs, flyers, posters and several other designs. So, if you possess graphic designing skills, here’s your chance to showcase your skillset and earn while you’re at it.

You can contact local sellers, shop owners and other people who own businesses and enquire if they need a graphic designer to help them reach more customers. You can always find local listed businesses or shops by navigating through Google Maps itself.

You can even find several businesses online, relevant to your niche and contact them by visiting their websites and dropping an email on the admin’s email address. Thus, you can enquire about whether they need a graphic designer to design their brochures, flyers, banner or any item of their choice and then add how you can offer your freelancing service that can benefit their business.

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is another one of those popular topics which have helped people scale their businesses considerably. When we think of what could one offer as a freelancer to a niche like Digital Marketing, topics such as Social Media Marketing, Email Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Mobile Marketing, Affiliate Marketing and others that brainstorm our thoughts.

If you’re experienced at this particular niche, maybe you’ve enrolled for relevant several internships or courses, it’s time you might want to showcase what you’ve learnt so far. There are millions of websites throughout the world, and there are millions of such website owners who might need help in analysing their website, modifying it to attract more customers, or even need help ranking their websites in various search engines such as Google.

Thus, as you can notice, website owners do need people who can do all of this for them and at the same time pay for your service. Thus, reach out to those various website owners in your niche and start earning through your freelancing skills. Prove it to them that you are capable of helping them scale their business substantially. Make use of some basic Email Marketing pitching skills and you will be good to go.

Video and Animation

Who doesn’t love watching videos? According to studies, people retain around 95% of the information they watch on a video in comparison to 10% when reading it in textual form.

So, if you are a digital creator, a video editor, animator, a YouTuber or even if you possess some basic video editing skills, you can easily freelance and earn a decent sum of money.

Let’s talk about the types of services you can offer to your clients. You will find a ton of opportunities as a freelancer in this field. You must have noticed the GIFs and Short Ads that pop up when we scroll through different social media platforms as well as websites.

Yes, you can make meme videos, GIFs, Whiteboard animations, explainer videos, video edits, Game trailers, Book trailers, Unboxing videos, visual effects and offer several other exciting freelancing services using certain tools, about which I shall blog in my next article.

Writing

Do you possess content writing skills? Are you an avid reader of books and would love to test your writing skills as well? Do you possess the ability to write an article or a blog? Are you a proofreader or a copywriter? Are you passionate about writing blogs, articles and possess basic writing skills but cannot find the exact way in which your skills will help you earn money?

Then, you have landed on the perfect blog. All of your passion for writing articles, blogs, or any other content can be fulfilled and even help you earn if you choose to become a freelancer. If you don’t know what is freelancing or anything relevant to it, you can read it here.

Now, let’s look at the various services you can offer as a freelancer if you possess writing skills or if you’re really passionate about it. So, you can offer services in blogs and articles writing, proofreading and editing, speechwriting, book and e-book writing, writing website content, social media content, book editing and many other fields. How and where can you exactly do all this shall be discussed by me in my upcoming articles.

Programming and Tech

This is one of the most fascinating topics and one of my favourites. This is one of those technical topics which plays a vital role in website creation as well as programming via coding. Yes, some clients need freelancers to create a website based on their preferences.

As technical as it sounds, it isn’t albeit. You might know but learning to create a website using WordPress (CMS) or any other website builders such as Wix, Weebly or even Google sites is something you will definitely love to do.

There are several paid as well as free courses out there which help you develop programming as well as website development skills, which will be covered by me in my upcoming blogs. The type of freelance services which one could offer includes game development, website creation, UI/UX design, creating desktop applications, mobile app development, creating chatbots, user testing and many other services as well.

Music and Audio

This category has one of the most wanted freelance services on any platform. Who doesn’t love music? Guess what some clients hire freelancers to do various voice-overs for them. Then some clients would love to hire vocalists and singers as well as music producers and composers for their projects. Isn’t that exciting?

Thus, these types of freelancing services are perfect for those who are passionate about music as well as possess certain skills in this field. You might be a self-trained singer, even a self-trained music composer or editor who has learnt it all from various platforms such as YouTube itself.

So, don’t hesitate to showcase what you’ve learnt. No one is going to judge you, just upload your voice or the projects you have worked on and wait for the results, I am pretty sure there are many people out there who would love to hire you for your skills.

Let’s look at the various services which are available in this category. One can be a voice-over artist, a music composer or an editor, singer, musician, drummer, beatboxer, podcast editor, DJ mixer or dropper, Vocal tuner, Dialogue Editor and what not.

Conclusion :

So, as you all can notice, what I have mentioned above are just the major categories in which you can offer freelance services. There are several other services which you can offer such as translation, transcription, data analysis, business as well as in lifestyle relevant aspects.

Thus, freelancing has an enormous potential to change anyone’s life altogether. There are several services which you can offer even with some basic knowledge and earn yourself a living. So, rather than keeping that talent, those skills are hidden within yourself, it’s time to showcase to your clients and be proud of what you’re capable of achieving now and forever.

Originally published at https://passivepenny.com on July 1, 2021.