How to Become a Freelance Content Writer — Get Clients in 7 Steps
How to Become a Freelance Content Writer - Get Clients in 7 Steps
Initial days of Freelance journey content writers suffered a lot.
Why?
Don’t know how to build right portfolio,
Which samples add to portfolio,
Fundamental of writing,
How to create an offer,
Why community building is important,
How to charge a price,
and most importantly from where do I get work?
All your problems today will be solved in this article.
7 Steps to Change Your Content Writing Skill into $
Point 1: Brush up on Your Writing Skill
Do you want to become a freelance content writer?
Imagine for a second…
I hired you and gave you work but if you don’t know the basic fundamentals of writing then you will going to ruin my content.
Result — your reputation, a negative rating in simple words you running your own career before starting.
So before searching for work, you need to know the basics of writing, you need to become a better writer because in the market so many average writers wander and they are also ready to work at $5 but you don’t have to do this.
Your aim should be I want to become a premium writer, not a $5 writer.
Under Basic of writing come:
- Grammar
- Punctuation
- Spelling
- Style
- Content structure
- Specificity
- Rate of Revelation
- Structuring
- Storytelling
- CTA
If you want to pursue content writing as a career you need to have a top 1% mindset that will take you to a premium writer.
Top 1% in every industry always have less work and high pay.
When you work with a cheap client they pay less plus headache give for FREE.
So Become a proficient writer so that you can charge a Premium price.
Point 2: Choose a NICHE
Saas Writer charging $1,000/article.
Do you know Why?
Because they choose a niche and you also need to choose a niche but not in starting.
In the starting days of your writing main aim should be writing as much as possible.
Your writing skills GET polished plus you also create samples for your future portfolio so in starting I don’t recommend choosing a niche.
Write daily, choose any topic that you like, and start writing during the process you will learn a lot.
Getting started is most important.
But after getting some work or some testimonial you need to choose a niche when you choose a niche your rate will increase automatically.
Best niche after having some testimonials is to choose where businesses making a lot of money like Saas products, Finance services/products, or E-commerce.
Wherever there is money you will get more money.
Niche down yourself later rather than earlier.
Point 3: Build a PORTFOLIO
I don’t want to waste your time on point 3 because I wrote an impressive article on writing portfolios where I cover everything like:
- Which platform is best for you
- How to choose a writing sample
- What if you don’t have a testimonial
Everything that you need in a writing portfolio I have covered there.
After reading this go and check out:
Here 👉 : How to Create a Writing Portfolio
After creating a writing portfolio what will you do?
Outreach network to get work.
Point 4: Network and Cold OUTREACH
Why do you need to network?
In simple words — To Get Work
But if you are in the starting phase of your writing career then you don’t have any testimonials.
In 99% of cases when you go to ask for work you set a slap of Where is your testimonial?
Give me your testimonial.
As a beginner, you don’t have TESTIMONIAL OR REFRENCE so here your main goal for outreaching is to get a testimonial of at least 5.
In point 3 we discussed about portfolio that you need here for outreach to get testimonials.
What is the need for a testimonial?
Even if you going to hire someone you will ask about his past work and some proof of work.
Testimonials are the best way to know about PAST WORK.
If somebody going to pay you they need the satisfaction that you are the right person to give money here testimonials play a critical role.
So what do you do?
Start reaching out to writers/agencies with your sample of writing and OFFER FREE WORK.
Yes, you need to do free work because you also know you are not an expert writer and when you work with them you will learn how the system works plus you also get a testimonial.
Very high chance if your work is good then after completing your free work they will hire you or start paying you.
Start reaching out, and networking with professionals to get FREE testimonials.
People pay you even a premium amount when they know that you deserve that money.
Point 5: Your OFFER 📦
Make a bundle and sell, print more dollars.
Instead of setting your rates like $10/hour or $1000/month, I love OFFER.
This thing I learned from the $100 million offer Alex's book and now I become fan of offer.
You see in your surroundings everyone giving you offers from McDonald's to Google.
So where is your offer?
Offer looks like I will write 10 articles at an $1800 price offer in a simple word bundle YOUR individual work and Pack -> Sell.
Keep one thing while creating an offer make sure it is a WIN WIN situation for both parties.
At the start of 2–3 months when you start earning money it is good to have your rates or work on behalf of someone but if you want to play long term then after earning some grand move to OFFER.
Create your offer.
After creating an offer,
You are going to pitch your offer most probably you thinking of Upwork or Fiverr but I don’t recommend it.
I have a list of 5 best websites you can consider.
5 best websites for content writers:
- Contently
- Skyword
- Clear voice
- nDash
- Medium
Medium is good if your plan is long-term term you get so many inbound leads also medium pays well if you work consistently.
My favorite method is outreach.
From email or using LinkedIn you pitch your services.
Very high chance if you reach 1000 people within one month you will get someone who will pay for your service.
In starting not having an offer is good but after some time create an offer, start reaching out to people with your offer, and start your journey of content writing.
Point 6: Delivering Work
Here most people make mistakes in business a word used called Recurring Revenue.
Same applies to you if your service.
After getting work it is your responsibility to give a smooth experience to your client from getting work to delivering.
Your client will dump you and also give a negative rating if the service is not good and You’re ruining your career before it even starts.
People buy branded stuff because they want a good experience.
Try to give smooth service.
Your client will bring more clients keep this thing in mind.
And clients bring more clients when his experience will be good with you.
But after delivering your service every time ask for a testimonial, The more testimonials you have, the more premium you can pay in the future.
Testimonials build your credibility in the market.
After delivering every work ask testimonial and try to ask in the form of a video 10–20 seconds long.
Point 7: Set up Your Online Presence and Market Yourself
Now you have:
Skills,
Portfolio,
Testimonial,
Offer plus you also earned some money.
Now you need more and more inbound clients instead of reaching out to everyone now word of mouth marketing going to help you.
Simple build your online presence don’t forget LinkedIn:
Start posting your tips for upcoming freelancers, content writers start sharing your client testimonials and everything that you know.
From this, your reputation in market and writing world will increase more and more people will connect with you.
Now build a small community of like-minded people.
This is true your network is net worth always try to connect with new people and attain fest, and parties from there you will get a lot of high-paying clients.
I’m pretty confident that you will do well- Best wishes.
Bonus🎉
You can’t ignore AI, as a writer you need to learn AI to write best content and integrate AI into your content.
I recommend learning prompt engineering as a writer this will be game-changing for you but do this inside and focus on your work but don’t neglect AI.
Conclusion
As a new freelance content writer, you need not only a portfolio and skills but a lot of things you need on the way.
In this article, I cover every cycle of a freelance content writer from learning skills to portfolio to creating offers to getting work.
“I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” — Eleanor Roosevelt
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