How to Take Your Freelance Writing Career to the Next Level

When building a freelance writing career, you will want to sidestep tricky pitfalls to achieve good results. Pitching to clients can take more time than you would expect, guest posting and blogging seem like an enigma if you don’t know where to start, and running out of ideas on how to sell yourself can be demotivating.

Don’t despair! According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of copywriting jobs is projected to grow from 131,200 to 141,200 by 2026 in the U.S. alone. You have a pretty good chance to excel, pay your bills and make a name for yourself. Along with a good command of the language and honed writing skills, you need basic knowledge on how to attract clients and build fruitful relationships with them. So, let’s learn not only how to create content that converts, but also how to scale your freelance writing career and develop a solid client base.

What to Start With

Getting new insights is useful if you already have experience in writing or are wondering how to make a career out of freelance writing. A tried and tested strategy will be beneficial if you know how to adjust it to your particular situation.

Write What You Know

In your writing, you can integrate your previous experience: working expertise, hobbies, individual interests, etc. You might be surprised when this knowledge comes in handy and helps you get an edge over competitors. Don’t underestimate what you did before starting freelance writing as a career.

Figure Out and Narrow Down Your Niche

If your previous job neither inspired you, nor gave juicy topics to engage with, there is a way out by writing about your favorite topics. Interested in fashion, psychology, or the arts? Make a profit from what you love! Learn as much as you can about your chosen specialty, equip yourself with knowledge, and do some in-depth research. Knowing the industry to its core, you will be an indispensable expert who will get plenty of clients and writing gigs.

If you are struggling to identify what your hook is, you can start writing about different topics for reliable content agencies. For instance, with CopyCrafter, you can significantly polish your skills in various web content niches.

Create a Blog and Promote Your Writing on a Social Platform

Finding a writing niche and knowing the target audience will considerably help you gain competence and monetize content. Before this, however, you have to make sure all other aspects work smoothly. Let’s go through these three aspects:

• Find like-minded blogs to send guest posts. Analyze and pick the most suitable media for growing your loyal audience and focus on two or three resources of that kind. Joe Pulizzi in his Epic Content Marketing claims that most solopreneurs and businesses come across the common pitfall of trying to spread their presence across all media outlets at once. Isn’t it better to concentrate on one thing rather than wasting time and effort on different platforms?

• To build your own brand, it’s worth creating shareable blog posts. This way, you will develop a portfolio and establish yourself as a well-known and trustworthy expert. Along with building a base of email subscribers, blogging is an answer on how to develop a freelance writing career and land new clients.

• Conduct some research and select a couple of social media platforms to promote your blog posts on—be that Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Google+, or any other popular/local social network.

Thinking globally is a key strategy for successful promotion, since personal branding is rather a group of activities than scattered actions.

Get Involved in Several Activities

Today, broadening your horizons is a must if you strive to earn more. The ability to produce quality service packages will significantly raise and strengthen your position in the freelance writing market. For instance, if you are equally good at design and advertising apart from writing quality content, you have much more to offer.

Meticulously Choose Job Boards

At first, it makes sense to be less picky about the offers you accept in order to gain solid experience. When your start getting more orders over time, you can be a bit more selective and take clients you like the most. Retaining customers is much easier than attracting new ones. To land your first gig, consider offers from numerous job boards, such as ProBlogger, UpWork, and Freelance Writing to name a few.

Slowly Build a Freelance Writing Career

Working slowly doesn’t mean it’s going badly. There is no need to rush and expect early results if you are involved in a serious career. Do you remember the saying “slow and steady wins the race?” Take baby steps towards intended results daily and you will be on your way to solidifying freelance writing as a full-fledged business.

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