How to Make Money as a Freelancer – A Step-By-Step Guide

There’s a long list of benefits you’ll get when you make money online freelance. From working on your couch in your sweats to setting your own rates and work timings, freelancing is the ultimate way to fuel your creativity.

However, a critical aspect of freelance ways to make money is that you have to operate them as your own business instead of working as a typical day job.

Make Money as a Freelancer

As a freelancer, you’re your boss, but that comes with a whole set of responsibilities as well.

If you’re thinking about how to make money as a freelancer, you’ll have to take up the following tasks alongside your job. These include,

Marketing yourself online
Pitching potential clients
Providing support
Budgeting
Time management

Besides that, getting started as a freelancer isn’t easy. No matter how talented you are at what you do, hundreds of individuals are just like you looking for work.

That’s why, if you don’t devise a proper strategy for yourself, you’re likely to fade into oblivion along with 49% of all freelancers who return to their day jobs.

Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered. Go through my guide for how to make money as a freelancer for all the details you need. In this comprehensive guide, you’ll find,

A step-by-step guide to becoming a freelancer
Profitable and popular freelance disciplines you can choose from
Reliable freelance platforms where you can connect easily with potential clients

So, while freelancing is not a walk in the park, you can make it accessible for yourself if you know the right way. Let’s start with the steps for how to make money as a freelancer first.

Step 1 – Choose Your Field

If you’re wondering how to make money as a freelancer, the first thing you’ll have to do is choose your field of work.

In this case, you can make your choice depending on two main factors. Either you pick a niche that you’re skilled at or one that sparks your passion. Whatever you do, don’t just sign up for any job advertisement you find online while starting your freelance career.

While this might help you get started on popular freelance sites, if you want to stay on for the long run, you’ll have to narrow your search down to a specific niche.

Working as a freelancer There are many fields in which you can provide your services on a freelance basis. These include writing, designing, and even high-paying jobs like financial consultancy and digital marketing.

The benefit of choosing a single specific niche is that it helps you establish your personal identity on any platform you consider.

Think about it this way, if you want to hire someone for a task, would you choose an expert in his respective field or a person who is the jack of all trades? Probably the former.

That’s why, instead of just getting any work, you should restrict your job prospects and only go for the leads that match your profile as a professional. This will help you gain more credibility in the long run.

Step 2 – Specify Your Services

Once you’ve figured out your specific field, you’ll have to narrow down the services you’ll provide as well. I know what you’re thinking. What if you stop getting any work if you restrict the number of job leads you’ll approach?

That isn’t the case. If you keep working consistently providing one primary service, you’ll slowly gain popularity and credibility. Besides that, you’ll even get better at it as you connect with diverse clients from all over the world. For example, if you’re a graphic designer, you cannot expect to go into every design discipline there is. You’ll have to pick whether you’ll do UX, UI, visuals, illustrations, logos, advertisements, or complete brand identity.

Similarly, instead of generalizing your approach by becoming a digital marketing expert, you can specify your services to content marketing or social media marketing.

The main idea is to keep your eyes on your ultimate goal. If you want to become the most popular UX designer on the internet, don’t entertain any other projects even when starting.

Yes, sometimes you may need to grab any job opportunities you get to generate an income, don’t make it a habit, as it will stop you from making any real progress as a freelancer.

Step 3 – Compile a Digital Portfolio

Next, if you’re thinking about how to make money as a freelancer, you’ll have to build an impressive work portfolio. Now, when I say portfolio, I don’t mean you should cram all your work up into a single document and post it online.

Instead, if you want to display your professionalism creating your portfolio website is the ideal way. Remember, a website portfolio’s whole idea is to attract your potential clients and impress them enough to hire you for their job.

The fundamental aspects you should include in your portfolio include:

An insight into your personality
Past work experience
Education details
Work samples
Testimonials from former clients

It doesn’t matter if you don’t have some of the components I’ve mentioned above. But, if you create an appealing portfolio, you’re sure to land clients even without previous work experience.

You can check out resources about building your portfolio and create one that defines your approach as a freelancer.

Once you’re done, remember to include a link to your website whenever you pitch your clients. This will help you maintain the transparency you need in an ideal freelance work relationship.

Step 4 – Choose Your Clients

If you’re still wondering how to make money as a freelancer, the idea of skimming through long lists of clients may seem entirely far-fetched. However, that’s not what I am talking about either.

By choosing your clients, you’ll have to define the type of problems your services will solve. Even if you don’t have clients swarming around to hire you initially, you’ll need to specify this concept in your head to streamline your approach on a personal level.

That’s why, before you start pitching clients, decide whether you’re going to work with established companies, ambitious start-ups, or small businesses.

For instance, if you offer a six-figure designing package for a small business, they won’t be able to afford you in the first place. Similarly, if you’re not equipped to handle a project for a multi-international company, you can end up getting bad reviews even if you put in your maximum potential. So, choosing the specific types of clients initially will help you pinpoint the standard of work and the price range you’ll set for future prospects.