HOW TO EARN MORE MONEY ONLINE
If you’re ready to get serious about freelancing and multiplying your self-employed income, here are my top tips for earning more during your first year.
Choose a Specific Gig
If you’re new to freelancing, you might feel ready to take ANY paid work 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?
Because when you specialize, you become an expert in a specific field, and experts can charge more for their specialized services.
In my opinion, the age-old debate of whether you should be a specialist or a fiverr CPA when starting your freelance career isn’t even worth thinking twice about. If you were your 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to fix your email marketing so people actually sign up, write ads that convince people to buy, or just update your outdated website, would you rather hire someone who’s a jack of all trades, or a person who’s a pro at doing one thing and doing it well?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.
And 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 any one can make . Because a lot of people have build their reputations with clients as a talented content marketer over the past few years and frequently engage with content marketing content on various social media channels, they’ve been able to rise to the top of their niche in a relatively short period of time. This is one of my favorite takeaways from Becoming a Successful Freelancer
Be Clear on Your Service Offerings
One major decision you need to make early 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 potential 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 fiverr freelancer , then 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.
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, pitch in on new feature development for high growth technology startups, or take on longer-term contracts with enterprise-sized companies? 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.
Picking your niche and making yourself stand out is easier with fiverr
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 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.
Plus, a stellar portfolio can really help you out if you don’t have a lot of job experience to prove that you know your stuff. (Check out for more here: How to Get Hired.)
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.
Level Up Your Skills
The best way to justify higher rates? Make sure you have impressive skills that are in high demand.
Practice using your new skills by building the types of projects that you want to eventually be paid to work on. Whether that’s WordPress websites, mobile apps, or something else entirely, the more you can differentiate yourself among a sea of competition with cool side projects and examples that’ll attract potential customers, the better.
And remember that while highly trained freelancers can get paid much more for their work, you don’t have to head back to school for BS in computer science to get on the train. Taking online classes in fiverr can get you on the right track and put you in charge of your education.
Build Your Credibility
There are many ways to build your credibility within your industry. Aside from creating high quality blog content and collaborating with notable influencers in your industry, you can write an ebook, create an online course, and line up speaking engagements to start increasing your visibility within your niche.
These credibility-boosters can help you add your list of accomplishments that you can highlight on your portfolio and simultaneously demonstrate your knowledge for more potential clients to see. The wider you can broadcast your message, the more influence you’ll build within your niche.
Determine Your Pricing
While deciding how much to charge for your freelance services is a major step toward determining your perceived value, you need to make sure you’re charging enough to make a sustainable, comfortable living. Most clients won’t hesitate to pay higher rates for a freelancer that gives them an incredible first impression and sells them on the ability to deliver high quality results.
As long as I continue to deliver consistent value to my clients (beyond their expectations), I have no trouble setting and maintaining high prices for the services I’m providing.
Before setting your prices at the bare minimum you need to charge in order to hit your financial needs, consider the actual value you’d be creating for your potential clients and make sure you’re not leaving money on the table. You can always increase your rates in the future and hope your client stays on board, but if you start at a price point you’re already excited about, you’ll be that much more likely to over-deliver and continue increasing your value moving forward.
Leverage Your Network for Introductions
One of the most effective ways to land higher quality and better paying freelance work is through leveraging your existing networks. Whether it’s pitching your actual friends and former co-workers on freelance help, or using their connections to make warm introductions to companies you do want to work with, this is a great alternative to cold contacting potential clients.
Whenever I discover a freelance opportunity I want to pursue on fiverr And.co, or elsewhere, I give myself 10–15 minutes to research the company, find my ideal point of contact, and do a little homework on if I have a mutual connection on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook before reaching out with a cold email.
This approach, where your first impression is being endorsed by a recommendation from someone your potential client already knows, has consistently netted a lot of people higher response and close rates.