Growing a Freelance Business: Tips For Higher Income In 2021

_{Growing a freelance business doesn’t need to be tough. Here’s a list of tried-and-tested tactics that’ll help you attract more ‘high-paying’ clients.}

These days everyone is a ‘freelancer’. From end-of-funnel gig-based websites to shady social media groups, there’s no dearth of ‘wannabe writers’ ready to shit out lines of text at extremely low prices.

Sounds harsh but that’s the reality!

So, how do you stand out from this sea of freelance writers and scale your freelance writing business?

In my previous blog, I talked about the founding pillars of a successful freelance career – how to set-up goals, how to build an online presence, and how to network and connect with clients and competitors.

Keeping that in mind, allow me to tell you about some amazing ways to grow your freelance writing business in 2020. Simply put, find below some cool ways to make a few extra bucks utilizing your content writing skills.

1. Write

Pretty obvious, right?

Consider a niche that you are good at. Don’t try to dip your fingers in everything. Once you find the right niche, start writing and publishing your work for others to see. This will not only help you evolve as a writer, but it will also help you in easily connecting with new readers and clients.

You can publish your content on websites that accept guest posts or contributions. Just make sure that you get enough recognition (and backlinks).

If you’re skeptical about this tactic, here are some benefits that will change your mind:

• You’ll be able to reach a wider audience
• These blogs will act as your portfolio
• You’ll get more referral traffic
• It will help you establish yourself as a thought leader/influencer
• If you already own a website, you can use the backlinks to increase your website’s domain authority
• You’ll be able to generate leads for your freelance writing business

A word of caution: over time guest blogging has earned a bad reputation, mostly due to abuse by black-hat SEO professionals for building backlinks, usually by spinning existing content multiple times and publishing them on random websites.

If you want to benefit from guest blogging, see to it that you don’t publish random crap on random (mostly shady) websites. Always try to write for websites that have high domain authority (DA) and keep your content within the EAT guidelines (E- expert, A- authoritative, T- trustworthy).

How do you find websites that accept guest posts?

Use Google. Just type in your niche and the keyword ‘guest posts‘ to find relevant options.

2. Affiliate Programs

You’ll find a lot of bloggers claiming to make good money by selling affiliate products. And it definitely works! In fact, it has been one of my primary income sources for a few years now. Although I don’t make thousands of dollars every month, it is enough to keep me afloat.

Depending on the product/brand, you can earn a decent commission, usually, between 2% to 14%. Heck, some programs even offer rates that can go up as high as 70%.

Blog posts, Q&A forums, social media – post your affiliate links wherever you can to earn more revenue. One of the easiest (and guaranteed) ways to earn using this tactic is by joining the Amazon Associates Program.

Other than Amazon, brands like HubSpot, AWeber, Typeform, ConvertKit, Shopify, BigCommerce, Hostinger, GoDaddy, WP Engine, Trip Advisor, Invoice Ninja, etc. are some programs that pay well.

New to affiliate marketing? Check out this guide on earning money by registering as an Amazon affiliate.

3. Diversify

In a business sense, diversification implies enlarging the scope of products/services offered. With the surge in the number of freelance writers, you’ll find it extremely difficult to rope in clients that are willing to pay a decent rate.

Building a diverse portfolio of services is a definitive way of growing a freelance business. It is sustainable and allows you to generate more income.

It is a good idea to add more services. For instance, you can start writing content for landing pages, ad copies, etc. alongside the standard blog/article writing business. Depending on your expertise, you can even write scripts for podcasts, presentations and short video ads (explainer videos, company/brand intro, etc.). Then there’s content for email campaigns, white papers, infographics…the list goes on.

When you start offering more services, it gets easier to attract high-paying clients. Think of it as a much-needed push to get your foot into the doors of top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) clients. This is where you start building different pricing tiers and expanding your client base.

Not sure how to set-up your price chart? Make sure to check out this detailed guide on freelance writing rates.

4. Reach Out

This is my most-favorite way of generating new clients. Yes, you can find my ‘writer profile‘ created on every damn freelance platform, but I seldom use them. They exist only because they help me get a bit of advantage on search results.

Here’s a simple way I utilize to find new clients –

1. Search for your preferred industry on Google
2. Go to the 2nd/3rd page(s) of the search results
3. Select a few websites that you wish to target
4. Find contacts (use LinkedIn, Facebook, or any other scraping tool)

If this seems hard, try finding listings on websites like Craigslist, ProBlogger, etc. to find high-ticket clients.

Either way, you’ll need to come up with great email templates that you can send to these prospects. Create different variations of your freelance writing pitch, keeping your target client in mind. Honestly, this tactic requires a lot of patience, hard work and research. Click-through and conversion rates are low, but every conversion is worth the effort.

Bottom Line

Growing a freelance business requires a well-defined strategy and goals. It is also equally important to build your skills if you wish to increase your rate and attract more clients.

Look out for global opportunities, but don’t overlook local businesses. If there’s a website selling something, they will need content. Be visible online, gather testimonials, and work on building a portfolio to embark on a path of consistent income from home.

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