How to Make Money Freelancing and How You Can Get Started

Freelancing is a career in which you work for yourself. Freelancers make their schedules, decide when and where they work, and set their pay rates.

If you don’t want to work a 9-to-5 but still want to earn big bucks, it may be time to consider working as a freelancer. Freelancers are self-employed and provide their services to multiple clients.

That means you’re your boss and can make decisions about your business and how you do your work.

Whether you want to be a freelance marketer, writer, artist, or other professional, this may be your career if you want to make your schedule and control your business.

Ready to get started? We’ve put together this helpful article to explain freelancing, why you should become a freelancer, how to make money as a freelancer, and other facts to help you get started.

What is Freelancing?

Freelancing is a kind of work people do when they want to work for themselves. Instead of working for a company, freelancers are their bosses.

Freelancers can take on contract work for major companies or Small Businesses or run their stores or businesses.

The underlying theme is that the individual is not reporting to a boss. Instead, they work with their clients and are responsible for their work and how it is carried out.

Some of the jobs freelancers may do include:

• Contract work, where they’ll remain self-employed throughout the job.
• Contract-to-hire work means that the individual will be self-employed until the company decides whether to hire them.
• Contract consultancy is when someone is hired to consult on specific issues temporarily.

Why Become a Freelancer?

Freelancing is a fantastic career choice for people who want to travel, have more free time, or be more flexible in their work schedules.

Freelancers decide how much to charge for their time. They decide which projects to take on and can refuse to do more work when they feel it will require too much effort, or the payoff isn’t enough.

Working remotely is often a perk of freelancing, though not all freelancers work remotely.

Almost any freelance job can be profitable, though not all are. The most profitable jobs in freelancing tend to be the following roles:

• Web designer
• Web developer
• Teacher
• Virtual Assistant
• Writer
• Social media specialist
• Editor
• Accountants
• Financial consultants

Though these fields have many people working freelance roles earning good money, they aren’t the only fields in which you can be successful.

You’ll need to find your niche and develop your brand to generate income.

There are several things you can do to start making money while freelancing. The following are four steps you can take to help figure out what you want to do as a freelancer and how to make money freelancing within your preferred niche.

Find your Niche

The first thing you have to do if you want to make money as a freelancer is to find your niche.

A niche refers to your specific area of expertise. For example, one person might be a legal writer, and another might focus on editing novels.

Each role covers a specific industry or part of the industry, helping the individual find work they want and know they can do successfully.

While some people feel that a niche can be limiting, a niche can also help guide your new career.

For example, if you are a writer, explaining that you focus on medical content will attract medical providers’ attention and limit other inquiries from clients who may not pay as much or have work you want to do.

Set your Goals

The next thing to do to help yourself as a new freelancer is to set your goals for your job. Do you want to make this a new, full-time career? Are you interested in working only a few hours a day?

How much do you expect to have as your salary?

You need to set goals now so you can have a plan for moving forward. For instance, if you want to be earning $3,000 a month and know that you’ll need to do at least three projects in your niche to be paid $3,000, you’d also learn more about how many clients you’d need and what you have to do to promote your brand.

Define your Rates

Along with your goals, you will need to define your rates. While you can offer people different rates for your services, having a rate card is better.

You will also need to research your role’s average rates to determine whether you are charging a fee that is competitive with other professionals in your field and niche.

For example, a writer who wants to earn a minimum of $0.10 per word should have a rate card starting at that rate. Clients should know up front that the $0.10 is a minimum fee.

That same writer could also include other options, like hourly pay options, one-off project costs, consulting fees, and other costs the client may need to pay.

Doing this ahead of time will help you be sure that you understand precisely how much you want to earn and how much work you’ll need to do to reach your income goals.

Remember that you will need to pay taxes out of your earnings (most freelancers save around 25 to 30% of their earnings for taxes annually in the United States), so you should charge rates that reflect that obligation.

Learn How to Make a Great Pitch.

Knowing how to pitch your services to a business is helpful before you ask to work together.

A good pitch is more than just telling someone what you have to offer and letting them decide. It should have a hook that gets them to contact you and take your services for a test drive.

Do research on your field, focus on discussing the benefits of your services, and be sure that the outreach you do is personalized.

For example, suppose you’re contacting parents to discuss your freelance photography business. In that case, you’ll want to make a marketing pitch describing how important your photos are for family memories they can reflect on.

Remember who you’re speaking to and what services you can offer that are unique and helpful to them.

You must find clients once you know what you’re offering and how much you want to charge. This is easier when you have a solid online presence.

Some things you can do to find new, repeat, and long-term clients include:

• Creating a website that reviews your services and helps you gain online traffic. By doing this, more people will learn about you and see what you offer. You can refer people to your website by putting it on your business card or sharing it online.
• Updating your social media to include business pages. Keep your business pages active, and make sure you update them regularly. Reply to all comments and invite people to keep interacting with you.
• Promote the work you’re doing. Whether you post about your work on your blog, share your new business on social media, or pass out physical business cards, you need to do at least some marketing to ensure you let people know you’re open for business. Don’t assume people know what you do: Tell them.
• Follow important, relevant accounts in your niche. Interact with the companies you want to work with. Talk to other freelancers and follow them online. Doing this helps you build up a network, and you may be able to find more work that way.

These are a few things you can do to get started freelancing. There will be some time spent on trial and error, but if you continue to narrow down your focus, build up your online presence, make solid pitches, and look for work, your business will start to take off.

Wrap Up

Freelancing money is possible for almost anyone in any field. If you define your niche, think about your audience, and start putting in the legwork, you can also build up a solid freelance business.