How to build up your repertoire for freelancing
Freelancing
Thanks to Chris for giving me inspiration to write this post. Freelancing can be a great way to make your main or supplement income. The internet is a great hub (no pun intended) for getting a bunch of work if you connect yourself with the right people. What has worked in my case for getting some quality gigs is just maintaining a good blog site.
Blogging
The great thing about blogging is there are thousands of subjects for you to choose. I suggest you start with one main topic you can talk about and research with ease. What I did was start off with video games mainly Playstation 3 titles. I've been a Playstation fan since 1994 (the year PSX released). I always loved the variety of games and the way they played. However, I wanted to separate myself from the pack, so I posted Throwback Thursdays (old Playstation game commercials), Music Mondays (video game related music preferably Playstation), and even funny clips and glitches found online. When I did a game review or studied a new trailer, I really tried to convey a message whether it was good or bad. Creating quality posts actually helped me get better at writing. When you really maintain a good blog and get it to a good ranking, people will see and request. This brings me to my next topic: contact.
Contact Page
Always, always make sure you are easily accessible. Don't make it hard for people to get in touch with you. Wordpress has a number of great plug-ins where you can create your own contact form and they can go to a page on your site and fill in the information. Sometimes, you might get junk or spam, but it's still a very good tool to have. Most of the really high paying freelance stuff (whether it was writing for someone, letting someone post an entry on my site, or even advertising a banner) was through communication. Although we are becoming a society more reliant on mobile devices and social networks, you can't knock a simple e-mail.
This is a good one that many people do not know about. If you keep up an excellent blog that has good page rank, people are willing to pay you to post work on your site. I frequently get work from sites such as Blogsvertise, Blogdistributor, Loudlaunch, and other sites. Blogsvertise pays on a monthly schedule - let's say you do a post on Jan 6th, you'll get paid for that between February 5th-7th. Depending on your page rank and how well you write, you'll be paid between 7 and 20 dollars a post. The more you post and have a faster turnout rate, the more gigs you'll get. If you have multiple blogs with good niches and good ranking, you could easily make 600 to 700 dollars a month on your own time. Blogdistributor is also a pretty good service. They are pretty exclusive, though. If you have an excellent blog and you update regularly, chances are you'll get some good gigs. One thing I like about Blogdistributor is they pay pretty decent and there aren't a whole number of requirements to meet. In fact, they normally have the information there for you and all you need to do is write it in 100 or so words. Loudlaunch is something I don't use too often, but when they do give me work it counts. I've made as much as 30 dollars for one blog post that was only 200 words on my PR3 site. Paid per blog is not the only way to rake in the dough for freelancing.
Networking with companies or writing services using Social Media
There are a bunch of services out there waiting to scoop up a person that can really write great posts; keep your mind open. LinkedIn is a really great way of building your contacts. You can create a resume on there that people can read and see your recommendations. The forums are really the way to go as far as putting yourself out there. You can promote your blog with the different rooms available. You never know who is watching what you say and reading your profile. Don't sleep on social media! Another great service is Facebook. Just a couple days ago a person was looking for a freelance writer to help with topics and niches to write. On a whim, I sent in a sample of some things I write on one of my blogs. They accepted the post and wanted me to write for them immediately! So now, I have a weekly gig that pays with each post!
Ideas for niches
I think would one of the great things you get from writing for others is learning the market. Let's say you write about a specific topic on blogging such how to put Adsense on your blog, and there are 30 comments after your post. That tells you there is a demand. Then on your site, you can post up a blog about effective ways to put Adsense on a blog for Wordpress, a blog for Blogger, or even a Tumblr post. You'll attract more followers that way. If you are really tactical, you can even turn these into eBooks or get a list together with the people you write with and sell an affiliate product.
These are just a few ways you can make money or get ideas from freelancing. Check out a few videos below to see some freelancing in action!
