OK! How to become a freelance writer? how to start freelance writing? Plain and simple! Freelance writing is the easiest way for most people to make sustainable long-term money on the internet. I’m going to tell you exactly why that is but more importantly, I’m going to show you exactly how to get started step by step over the course of the next 15 or so minutes.

You’ll be familiarized with everything you need to know to build a successful freelance writing business that you can get started with right now and then over the course of just a couple of weeks you can actually start bringing in money on the internet. If that sounds good to you then let’s dive into this.

Before we go into the how-to, you may still have quite a kind of “I’m not good at freelance writing” Well let me give you three reasons why I think you should consider freelance writing

It’s the skill you’ve already got

Yeah, it’s a skill you’ve already got. More or less you already know how to write on some level. You might be a good writer or maybe not such a good writer but you can write, and there are all sorts of different types of freelance writing out there. So whether you’re a great writer or just an OK writer, there’s going to be a type for you. We’re going to cover those here in short.

It’s the best bridge business

All right second reason you should consider freelance writing is because it’s the best bridge business that I know.  You might be thinking what the heck is a bridge business?

Bridge business is the thing that’s gonna get you from point A to point B. if you’re reading this, chances are you’re not like totally stoked about your life. You may need more money, you may want to quit your job, you may just want more free time to spend with your family or kids or on hobbies or whatever it is.

So you’re looking to make a change.   Well, freelance writing is the best way to get to that kind of dream life. Why is that?  Because it’s going to help you build the skills. You need to be successful with any online business.   You can start making money quickly and you can start building momentum.

There’s never been a greater demand

Finally, the third reason you should consider freelance writing is because there has never been a greater demand for freelancers. There are different reasons why this is. First off, let’s look at search traffic.  Everybody’s trying to get free traffic these days when ads are starting to become less effective due to frequent algorithm changes and laws.

People aren’t seeing the results they’re seeing with ads. So how are they going to get search traffic by creating more content? So businesses need content writers to continue churning out a steady stream of new content so that they can get search traffic to their website and get new customers and make more money.

Another example is to think about all of the content creators out there people that are full-time content creators whether it’s bloggers, YouTubers, influencers, Tik Tokers whatever it is.   All of these people that are now trying to treat that as their livelihood, they’re going to need more content as well.

So who are they going to turn to help them grow that content?   Freelancers!

Now you might be saying well okay freelance writing is great, that’s cool what types of freelance writing are out there. Well, I’m glad you asked. So there’s basic freelance content writing. A business or a person needs a blog post written about a certain topic. They can hire a freelance writer to do that.

There’s also B2B writing. That’s where you’re writing content specifically for businesses that market to other businesses.

There’s copywriting. This is kind of a pinnacle of freelance writing. Copywriting is when you’re trying to be persuasive with your words and if you know how to be persuasive with your words, you’re never going to hurt for money ever again. That’s why copywriting is probably the most highly paid type of freelance writing because that’s where all the selling happens. And if you can create content that is going to make other people money, they’re going to pay you well for that.

There’s also technical writing. Let’s say you’re in a field where you’ve got some knowledge that other people don’t necessarily have around a technical topic. There is an opportunity for you to go freelance within that field and make a bunch of money in the process.

So my point with all this was just to say that regardless of what your skill set is and where you’re at in your own writing journey, there is a type of freelance writing out there.

Before we get into the step by steps I want to talk about mindset. Most freelance writers think, cool! I’m going to be a freelance writer, I’m going to throw up a website, to get on Upwork and all of a sudden jobs are just going to start coming my way. I’m going to be rolling in freelance writing jobs but that’s not how it works.

“You have to have the Right Mindset”

If you want to be a successful freelance writer and in order to do that, you have to take consistent action. You have to be the one that’s going to reach out to build relationships with those people that are going to hire you and we’re going to talk about exactly how to do that but if you’re not in the right mindset and you’re not prepared for that you’re going to get frustrated, and going to give up, and you’re not going to have any success.

“One of the best piece of advice I can give you is to take consistent action every single day and also prepare yourself for a lot of knows. At first you are going to get a lot of people that say NO! Lot of people that’ll say leave me alone. You’re going to get a lot of people that are just not even going to respond to your outreach in the first place and you should keep in mind that this is gonna happen to you.  That’s all part of the process because every NO gets you that much closer to a YES”

Step 1 Take Stock of Your Current Skills & Interest

All right step number one for building your freelance writing business. Take stock of your current skills and interests, sit down & relax, take 10 or 15 minutes and just write out a list of all of the unique knowledge you’ve got. All of the unique skills you’ve got, the hobbies, your interests, all of the stuff that you know something about and maybe you’ve got an interest in.

For me I know I have really unique knowledge when it comes to Banking, Finance, and Credits. I became a wiz and that’s not something that most people know about. So I add that to my list.

I know a lot about Birds Farming, I know a lot about Gardening. I know a lot about like whatever it is so what you want to do is you want to create that list and we’re using that as a starting point. We’re trying to figure out what your unique angle is that might be different from the freelance writer down the way because all of those unique skills that you’ve got and that unique knowledge that is all going to give you a little bit of a leg up over other people that might be lying for the same jobs.

Step 2 Choose a Niche

All right! So there you go! Make a list of all the things you know how hard can take us to step number two which is to choose a niche. I like to say niche but over the time of writing my I digress you choose a niche real quick.

One note on that you might not have a niche you might not have a specific set of knowledge that you think you can build a whole freelance writing career around. No problem you can become a freelance writing generalist that’s where you basically say I can write about anything. I’m going to look for different clients and honestly, you can look at being a generalist as a little bit of a niche within itself.

So let’s say somebody comes to you, you find a potential client asks you that I need you to write 10 articles about aquaponics and you may say I know nothing about aquaponics. I don’t have aquaponics. I don’t want to have aquaponics. I don’t ever grow a plant in aquaculture, but if you are able to hop on the internet, spend half an hour doing a little bit of research, learn a bunch of things about aquaponics, and then write a cohesive article about that or in this case 10 articles.

And that is a skill that is in demand.  If you can take a topic learn about that topic and then write a good quality piece of content around it, that’s going to give you a huge leg up over other people, and as a generalist that’s kind of a niche within itself like I said.

But let’s say that’s not you, you do have a specific set of knowledge that you think there’s going to be a market for that the other people don’t have. For instance, you have a healthcare background, a technology background, finance, or legal background. Is there a specific hobby that you know something about that a lot of people don’t? So for me, I have a background in finance, and I know that I can write better more in-depth content about specific finance topics.

When compared to the average writer I decided to niche down my freelance writing by further narrowing down my niche into commodity finance. Because I know a lot about that as compared to the rest of the others and that makes me really the unique person within that world.

So if you have a unique background you might consider choosing that as a niche and really narrowing it to go for clients within that industry. Try and get more search traffic to try and build the stature of your brand and the industry you’ve got.

Let’s see this from the client’s perspective who wants to have an article about medical devices.  He found the 2 writers both seem equally competent. They’re both equally good writers but one is used to be a salesperson for a medical device company who knows all the ins and outs of the different products of the industry and how to go about that and navigate it.

And the 2nd person who’s a great writer and really good at research but he doesn’t necessarily know a whole lot about medical devices. They’ll probably learn but they don’t know about it right at the moment. who are you going to hire? You’re going to hire the person that has that medical background obviously.

So that’s why niching down can be so beneficial if you want to become the no-brainer hire for all of those people within your industry.

Now don’t get me wrong that’s not to say you can’t have success as a generalist because so often a lot of these marketing agencies and businesses they’re not so niched down that they need someone with that level of technical expertise. So don’t let that discourage you if you’re starting as a generalist.

But know that if you are going to niche down there’s probably going to be a big opportunity for you.

Step 3 Spend Time Researching Your Niche

The third step when it comes to building a successful freelance writing business is one that a lot of people tend to skip and that’s spending a little bit of time researching your niche because what you want to do is you have to figure out where are the opportunities for writing within this industry. So by doing a quick search that’s just the freelance writers in.

Whatever your industry is you’re gonna start to get a sense of who is out there looking for freelance writers. But then I want you to go a little bit beyond that. I want you to figure out what are all the blogs, what are the businesses, what are magazines, trade publications, and outlets within your industry that you might be able to write for, and start making a huge list of all of those different places. Because those are going to be the people you’re going to start building relationships to try and get your first jobs.

The more you know about the industry, the more you know about the players. The more you know about the landscape, the more knowledge you just have about that particular topic, and the easier it’s going to be to communicate with people and to prove that you know what you’re talking about and get the job.

So if you’re not totally confident in your niche maybe like I said you’ve got some sort of unique background but you still need to do a little bit of research and spend a little bit of time doing it because it’s truly going to pay off.

Step 4 Create a Portfolio

In this step, you’re gonna need a portfolio because what’s gonna happen you’re gonna start reaching out to all these people that You just made a list and we’re gonna talk about how to do that outreach here in coming lines but what’s the first thing they’re gonna do? They’re going to look you up. They’re going to be like this guy actually knows what he’s talking about and what you want them to find.

You want them to find your portfolio website where you make yourself look like a badass and someone who is very confident and has personality and knows what they’re talking about.  Because that’s what people do. They look up to other people because they want to make sure that you are reputable and you are who you say you are.

So LinkedIn can do that. You want to have a good LinkedIn profile if you’re going to become a freelance writer but having the website can give you a power-up.

So what I recommend is if you can’t come up with like a clever domain name, don’t worry about it. Do a version of your name. I recommend you go to find a good hosting company like Bluehost or Hostgator, get a hosting account it’s gonna be less than like 50 bucks for the first year. Install WordPress, set up your website & start writing your articles there.

Step 5 Sign Up for Sites Looking For Freelance Writers

You’re gonna start signing up for some sites that are looking to hire freelance writers .so the first one that’s going to come to your mind is going to be Upwork and you know what you’re going to do? You’re not going to sign up for Upwork because it’s actually not a great place for freelance writers, especially people that are just starting out.

There are so many people on the website that for one it’s hard to get approved as a freelancer on that site but it’s also a race to the bottom. People that are there are usually trying to find the cheapest person for low-quality work and that’s just not a game that we need to play.

So what I would look at is Contently, Skyward, ClearVoice, and nDash. These sites are all really good places to get started when it comes to your freelance writing career.

That being said, are any of those places the best places to get freelance work and the places where you’re probably going to get the majority of your work? No, they’re not. And that’s what step six is for that we’re getting into.

But first, there’s a link Here. we’ve got a link to a hundred different places to get freelance writing work. 100 different sites that are hiring freelancers. So if you’re looking for more sites like the ones I just mentioned.  Go take a look at that I think the ones I just mentioned are the best starting points but they’re there are a lot of places that hire freelance writers because there’s a huge demand. So go check out that list.

Step 6 Cold Outreach

All right we made it! This is the step that I have been touting that is the most important part of the process all of those sites we just mentioned they’re great you should sign up you should try and get work on them but those are probably not the places you’re going to get all the work how are you going to get all the work through cold outreach and this step is all about creating your system for cold outreach.

That is how you’re going to find clients, you’re going to build relationships with people and you’re going to make money by learning how to reach out to people that might be needing freelance writing work and positioning yourself as the perfect person for that freelance writing work.  So how do you do it? You gotta create a spreadsheet.

You are going to create a list of as many people as possible that might be good people to reach out to as a good starting point. When you’re doing your research on your niche and you started creating a list of all the different publications and blogs and businesses and people. Create a spreadsheet with the name of the publication, their website the contact person so you might be looking for an editor, editor-in-chief, content manager, or different titles like that find their email address and their name if possible then maybe have a notes section to mark important point you’ve got in mind.

If you’re starting with the generalist no worries. You can start reaching out to agencies. Those agencies that are going to have clients that are going to need content and the great thing is there is literally an unlimited amount of agencies and websites, and businesses that need help with this stuff.

Create your list, it’s not fun, it’s not kind of entertaining, and it’s gonna take some time.   When you have a few hundred people, start sending emails. a lot of people call this the cold pitch.  The best way to start is not to actually pitch. You want to send what’s called a letter of introduction. So this is just saying,

“Hey! How it is going? My name is David. I really love the work you do at blah blah blah! I’ve been following it for a while. I’m a freelance content writer and I just wanted to reach out and introduce myself to see if there might be an opportunity to have more of a conversation if I might be able to help you out. If not totally no big deal!. I love what you’re doing. I’ll keep following along. hope to talk to you soon.

Goodbye”

 

That’s a very cursory example but what you’re doing is you’re just trying to open up the door you’re just trying to build a relationship with people. You’re not trying to force the hard sale on them. You’re just trying to say hey I think that we might be a good fit. I’ve got the service you may need it. If not no big deal! But if so then let’s talk let’s see where we can take this.

So if you want to get real serious and go beyond just using a spreadsheet I recommend Streak for Gmail. Streak is a  service that turns your Gmail into a full-on CRM customer relationship manager that enables you to enter all your potential leads in there, track when you lost, reached out to them, and track what their responses were. They’ve got a free version that works really well.

So doing this outreach is the single most important part of building your freelance business. This is where most people fail.

When you’re doing this you have to make this as personalized as possible. What most people are going to do is they’re going to create a template they’re going to take their spreadsheet and take all those email addresses to hit mail merge and send it out and send the exact same thing to everybody and what people can see through that there’s real they’re real people that are reading these pitches they’re reading these letters of introduction these emails.

and so if they can tell that this thing Was mail merge they’re just like nope you’re wasting my time but if you send a thoughtful personalized pitch that shows you’re a real person that makes an opportunity to potentially build some rapport with the person that you’re emailing at the very least, you’re more likely to get a response.

It might be like hey! thanks for reaching out we’re not interested right now but it’s at least a response and that opens the door for future collaboration or future communication.  So be personal this is the thing that will set you apart.

There you go!

So just to summarize step number six real quick because if you take one thing from this post take step number 6. You could not do everything else and still build a successful business if you start doing these things right here. To build a spreadsheet of people by using google sheets, or whatever you feel comfortable with.

You can potentially write 5-10 personalized pitches a day. Follow up with those pitches every few days until you get a response and be as authentic as possible.  Do not use mail merge ever do that every day for the next month and you will start getting leads and you will start getting clients.

It’s as simple as that. There you go that was a lot but I truly believe that if you’re looking to build a freelance writing business all you have to do is do the stuff we just talked about and within weeks you are going to start seeing things happen in your favor.

You are going to have a real freelance writing business. You are going to get clients that are gonna pay you money to write for them which is then going to open up all kinds of doors and all kinds of opportunities. So these are all steps you follow to start your freelance writing business just straight away!

Abstract

• Writing is somehow the skill that you’ve already got
• Freelance Writing is the best bridge business that can take you where you want to be
• There’s never been a greater demand for freelance writers so you can get an edge by opting for your pace in writing.
• You have to have the right mindset for freelance writing business

My other post about Freelance Writing might help you to get more insights about freelance writing.

Okay, have a great day! Peace