Creating a Freelance Account: Freelancing can be an excellent way to earn money, but it’s also easy to get overwhelmed with everything that’s required in order to get started. Getting set up with the right freelance account can help you cut down on administrative tasks, make invoicing your clients faster and easier, and keep track of all your finances with ease.
Here are ten steps to setting up a freelance account that will help you make the most of your time as an independent contractor, so you can focus on doing what you do best—working!
10 Steps to Creating a Freelance Account
1. Start with your brand
Before you can set up your freelance account, you must start with your brand. You want to make sure your brand and all of its components are solid before moving forward with creating an account. If you’re just starting out, it might be best to consider hiring a designer (or using templates) so that your brand is cohesive.
At any rate, once you have that in place, it’s time to get started on creating your freelance account.
2. Discover your niche market
If you have an interest in becoming a freelance writer, it’s important that you do your research before approaching any publications. Most publications have strict guidelines for writers and detailed submission requirements.
Whether or not you agree with these requirements, they are there for a reason—publishers want their writers to follow certain rules that ensure their readers get high-quality content. If you’re serious about making money as a freelance writer, it’s best to go into it with realistic expectations.
3 Take stock of your skills
Think about what skills you have that translate into freelancing gigs. Do you excel at creating presentations? Are you great at public speaking? Are you patient, personable, and make friends easily? Can you edit video or audio clips? These are just some of many examples of valuable freelancing services that people are willing to pay for.
4. Your followers are important too
Social media is one of your best resources when you’re just starting out. Maintain personal accounts and promote your professional page, ideally using an app like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. These will allow you to schedule tweets and retweets that reach your followers all at once instead of posting on each account individually.
While these tactics take time, they’ll pay off in readership and engagement—which leads us right into our next tip…
5 Write content ideas on paper first
Before you start typing, take some time and write down ideas on paper. Make sure you are thinking through all of your different options and ask yourself: What do I want to accomplish? What will my audience gain from reading it?
10 Steps to Creating a Freelance Account
Think in terms of who, what, when, where, why, and how. This will help you come up with more relevant information for your potential clients.
6. Decide what type of content you will be producing
There are three main categories of content for SEO—blog posts, infographics, and videos. Each category has unique advantages and disadvantages.
7. Set up your social media profiles and get an email address
In order to establish a freelance account, you will need an email address and social media profiles for your business. This can be linked with your personal social media profiles so that all of your content is linked together in one place. This makes it easier for potential clients to find you on social media.
8. Decide if you want to use paid advertising
Paid advertising isn’t for everyone, but it can be quite effective if you have an advertising budget and know how to use it. Two of our favorite advertising networks are Facebook Ads and Google AdWords—both of which provide excellent educational resources.
9. Consider SEO – make sure search engines can find you online
There are few things more frustrating than working hard on content and then not seeing any traffic from it. Before you start posting, make sure that your articles will be indexed by search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.)
10 Steps to Creating a Freelance Account
If you’re having trouble getting noticed by search engines, consider investing in an SEO professional or doing some of your own research into getting found on Google. Even if you don’t do anything specific for SEO for your website, don’t ignore it when you write your posts!
10. Stay positive
If you’re feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, or doubtful about whether or not you can get your freelance career off of the ground, take a deep breath and realize that everyone goes through these negative feelings—but what separates successful people from others is that they don’t give up.
Focus on one task at a time and do your best to complete it. You will grow more confident in your abilities as you master each step along your journey!