How To Earn More Money Freelancing (Even If You’re A Total Beginner)

 Tried and true tips for earning more money freelancing

Since I began freelancing just over a year ago, I’ve had the opportunity to work with nearly a dozen high-growth startups and world-class experts. And I’ve never had to negotiate for the premium prices I charge for my content marketing services, which is why I’d like to share some tips with you on how to start freelancing and how to make money doing so, even if you’re a complete beginner.

Because I’ve done such an effective job of defining my value propositions, branding myself as an expert within my field, and getting my freelance writing content in front of new target audiences, I now have a 3–6 month waiting list for new freelance clients and freelance jobs.

However, that certainly didn’t happen overnight. My rapid success in the world of freelancing is the result of a LOT of strategic positioning, hours of hard work, and good timing.

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 doing freelance jobs.

1. Choose a Niche

If your goal is to start freelancing, you might feel ready to take ANY paid work on Fiverr or Upwork 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?

When you specialize in a skillset, you become an expert in a specific field, and experts can charge more for their specialized services (there are expert and pro categories on Upwork and Fiverr too).

In my opinion, the age-old debate of whether you should be a specialist or a generalist(opens in a new tab) when starting your freelance career isn’t even worth thinking twice about.

If you were a prospective 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to fix your email marketing so people actually sign up, write ads that convince people to buy, or just update your outdated website, would you rather hire someone who’s a jack of all trades, or a person who’s a pro at doing one thing and doing it well?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.

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. 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.

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. This works for graphic designers as well: you can do graphic design specifically for WordPress.

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.

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, it’ll allow you to control how prospective 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, 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.

3. Define What Your Ideal Client Looks Like

Before you can go out and start looking for clients, you’ll need to develop a clear picture of who you’re going to work best with. Do you want to build websites for small business owners, make a name for yourself blogging as a professional blogger, work as a copywriter, pitch in on new feature development for high growth technology startups, or take on longer-term contracts with enterprise-sized companies? Or maybe you want to work specifically for brands and clients with values that align with yours, etc.

Making these clear distinctions between who and what type of business you’re targeting will be essential to effectively pitching your services.

To define exactly who your ideal freelance clients should be (and how to start finding them), ask yourself these questions:

• What type of business has the problems I’m solving with my services?
• Can the business I want to work with afford to hire me?
• What demographic trends can I identify about the decision makers in the types of businesses I’m targeting? Think: age, gender, geographic location, websites they frequent, and their personal interests.

Because I know that I’ll be more engaged and work most effectively with smaller startup teams who are working on projects I can personally relate to, I’ve proactively chosen to make my scope of potential clients narrow. By working with similar startup teams, new potential clients I target within my niche are able to instantly relate with me, and have confidence that I’ll be able to replicate my results for their business, too.

4. Create a High Quality Portfolio Site

It goes without saying that one of the best ways to demonstrate your technical skills is by having an amazing portfolio site(opens in a new tab) of your own. If you want to be taken seriously as a new freelancer, you’re going to need a website that:

• Showcases your expertise.
• Highlights relevant past experiences.
• Shows who you are.
• Includes your contact information so that potential clients can easily find you.

A stellar portfolio can really help you out if you don’t have a lot of job experience or testimonials to prove that you know your stuff. 

The purpose of your portfolio is to educate, spark interest, and convince potential clients that they’ll want to choose you for their technical needs. That’s why it’s worth investing time into deciding what to feature on your portfolio and how it’s being displayed — before you start looking for new projects.

Once your portfolio site is up, start including a link to the site within your email signature and on your social profiles.

5. Start Freelancing Before Your Quit Your Day Job

I’m a huge fan of starting a freelance business while you keep your day job (or work part-time), as opposed to immediately pursuing self-employment.

In addition to the fact that creating a high-quality portfolio website, building your personal brand, and adding to your portfolio naturally takes a good amount of time, it’s a good idea to have a few steady freelance clients on your roster before axing your sole source of income.

I recommend growing your side income to at least 50–75% of your total current income before leaving your full-time job, depending on your risk tolerance.

Managing a tight schedule, heavy workload (including demanding freelance projects), and being responsible for client deliverables with limited time resources will teach you quickly what it’s like to run your own business.

The other awesome benefit of picking up freelance clients while you’re still working full-time is that you can be selective. You likely don’t absolutely need the money. This puts you in a position to turn down work that either doesn’t pay enough to justify your time investment, or that you’re not genuinely interested in.

These are two points you’ll need to be a stickler about if you want to be happy once you’re freelancing full-time.