How to Start Freelancing in 7 Steps for Beginners

This is the best and complete guide on how to start freelancing that you will ever find on the internet, so take your time to read through to the end.

After reading this guide, you are going to know the exact process you can follow to become a freelancer and start making money online by offering services to clients

Even if you haven’t heard of the term Freelancing before, this will walk you through all the process, so lets stop wasting time and dive right into todays guide.

Here is how to get started with freelancing.

1. Choose a skill you want to offer as a freelancer
2. Master your selected skill
3. Create a portfolio for your freelancing skill
4. Join freelance websites
5. Get noticed on social media
6. Satisfy your customers
7. Freelance like a pro

With all the list being known, lets break this down for a better understanding.

1. Choose a skill you want to offer as a freelancer

Freelancing is all about offering services for clients, so to get started with freelancing, you need to choose a skill you want to offer as a freelancer, when you choose the skill before hand, it will help you a lot

You cant offer all the services at the same time, you must choose specific skill you want to offer, if you are good with building websites, then go with it, if you are good with graphic design, go with it.

Go with something you have passion for, this will help you find fun in your freelancing journey, most beginners think that, if you choose a lot of different skill, you will make more money than someone with one skill

That’s not true, with just one skill, you will make a lot of money as a freelancer if you are using the right strategy.

Another fear that beginners may have is the fear that their special skill wont pay well. Your skill is valuable by many people, be it building website or simply writing articles, many people are ready to pay you for that service.

So choose a skill that you are good at to get started.

What if you don’t have a skill?

What if you don’t have skill? Some people will ask, even if you don’t have a skill, you can still do freelancing, you know why?

Because you can easily learn a new skill anytime you wish using the internet, thank God learning things are much easier these days than they are in the past.

With just a few searches, you can learn whatever it is that you want to learn, although it may take you some few weeks or even months to learn a new skill, but if you finally do it, you will know that it is worth the time.

Even if you don’t choose to do freelancing, when you learn a new skill, you can use it to make money online or offline.

Lets say you learn a copywriting skill, even without freelancing, you can start affiliate marketing and use your copywriting skill to make affiliate sales. So learning a new skill is totally worth it.

What are the best freelance skills?

Just in case you are looking for the best freelance skills that pays really good money, although I will always advice you to go with the skill that you are already good at, but if you still want to know the best freelance skills that make the most money, I will list them below.

The 10 best freelance skills

1. Programming/Software development

2. Web design/Development

3. Freelance writing

4. Graphic design

5. Copywriting

6. Video editing

7. Search Engine Optimization

8. Photography

9. Voice over

10. Animation

But remember one thing though, choose a skill that wont bore you, if you choose a freelance skill that is fun for you, providing the skill will be a lot easier and when this happens, the more money you will make as a freelancer.

2. Master your selected skill

Anybody can do freelancing but actually not every freelancer will get hired by clients, clients are very strict when it comes to hiring a freelancer, especially if they don’t know you, let me tell you one truth.

Getting a job as a beginner freelancer is not an easy task, even some already established freelancers sometimes look for jobs but wont find any. 

Why is it so hard to get jobs as a freelancer? Because clients are looking for the best service, put yourself in the shoes of the clients.

Lets say you own an ecommerce site and you discovered that your site is running very slowly and you are losing customers, at this point you noticed you need a web developer with a lot of experience to fix that issue

If you are to look for one, how would you go about it, will you just look for a total stranger and have them work on your business site?

Of course no, at this point, you may even be ready to spend months looking for the right guy for your work, that is why, even if you start freelancing, you need to be really good in order to get jobs.

The only way around this is to master your skill really well, it is not that hard to master your skill, because you are already familiar with a little things

All you need is improvement, there are a lot of tutorials and guides available on the internet that can help you master your freelance skill.

How to master your freelance skill?

Mastering your freelance skill will help you a lot in your freelancing career, so it is advisable to always master your skill.

The only way around it is by studying a lot, I am talking about reading a lot of books, watching a lot of youtube videos and reading a lot of blogs.

Lets say your skill is Search engine optimization, which deals with optimizing websites and webpages to perform better on the search engines.

There are a lot of blogs and youtube channels that focus on helping you perform better in this area, blogs like backlinko, neilpatel are really good in this area, so to master your skill if you are an SEO

You can follow these blogs and stay updated with their blog post, also watch them on youtube, the more you do this the better you will become in your freelancing skill.

3. Create high quality portfolio website for your freelance career

Remember I told you that no client is ready to hire a total stranger, well, there is a solution to that problem, a portfolio is the way to go, a portfolio is like your office, or the places where you showcase your work.

Now, whenever a client land on your portfolio, you are no more a stranger, they have seen your work and known you and how you do business, the only thing left is for them to call or send you a message to work for them.

Take 360techspot for example, if anyone lands on this blog, with just one or two reads they will know who I am and what I do, they can easily see what I am good at, and if they need my service, they will only call or send a message to let me know.

So, if you are a freelancer and you don’t have a portfolio yet, create one today, your portfolio should be a blog like this, or even a static website will do, but there are certain things that your portfolio must not lack,

What makes a great portfolio for freelancing?

1. Introduction 

Your portfolio must have a very nice introduction so that when clients see it, they wont need to ask who you are anymore, you can introduce yourself in your About page,

2. Your skill

Your skill is what clients need, so take the time to showcase how good you are at your skill, when clients see your skill alone, they will be convinced to hire you, even if it is their first encounter with your portfolio.

3. How you do business

Another thing your portfolio must have is a clear overview of how you do business, clients are very keen to how you do business, if a client is interested in your skill, the next thing they need to know is your pricing and how they can go about hiring you.

Spend time and answer every question your clients will ever have in mind when they want to hire you.

4. Simplicity and ease of navigation

Another important thing is simplicity, keep your portfolio simple and easy to navigate, one thing with human beings is impatient, if your portfolio loads very slow is awkward to navigate your clients can easily bounce back.

So when creating your portfolio, make it easy to navigate and eye catching, so that when a client land on it, they will be retained.

Here are 8 tips for building a good portfolio

4. Join freelance websites

Freelance websites are websites that connects clients to freelancers, a freelancer can use freelance websites to create a profile so that when clients are looking for services they can easily find those profiles and then start to examine if the freelancer is fit for the job

What you need to do is to sign up for freelance websites and create your profile on them, you don’t only need to create a profile, you also need to be active on those freelance websites so that you may get noticed by clients easily.

One important thing about freelance websites is that, many clients go to them in search for freelancers, so this means that freelance websites makes it easier for freelancers to get jobs.

When signing up for freelance websites, provide all the necessary information a client will need to hire you, such as a link to your portfolio, a brief introduction about yourself, your education, your hobby and where you are from, you also need a very clear photo of yourself.

After creating your profile, you need to create a gig, a freelance gig is like your CV when looking for job, you will provide exactly what you are going to do for the clients, how you are going to do it and how much it will cost them.

What are the best freelance websites?

You don’t just have to sign up for any freelance website you see, some of them wont provide any job for you, some are easy to find jobs and some are very difficult, so I am going to list the 10 best freelance websites that you can start using today.

1. Upwork

2. Fiverr

3. Freelancer

4. People per hour

5. Flexjobs

6. Toptal

7. Gagster

8. 99designs

9. Simply hired

10. dribble

Above are the list of the 10 best freelance websites you should be using, but one thing though, should you be using all of the ten? My answer would be no

Don’t use all of them, 2 or 4 is enough, at least if you choose less, it will help you to focus more, the more you choose the more confusion you bring towards yourself, and also think of this

If you are available on all of them and you happen to get 4 different orders, how will you go about it? You will surely decline some orders, and if you keep declining orders, you will lose potential clients, so stick with 2, and if you think its too small then don’t exceed 4.

5. Get noticed on social medias

Social media is a great way to get noticed, if you are active on social media then getting jobs as a freelancer wont be a problem, let me tell you one thing, I got my first freelance job on Facebook, I remember clearly working for one man from the united states that even promised to hire me full time to be working for him as a freelance writer, but something happened and it didn’t work out

Later I got hired by someone again from Tokyo who hired me to work on his Tokyo SEO consultant websites as a blog writer, I worked for this man several times, but lets cut the My-life-story from here ;)

So the thing I am trying to say is, social media is a great place to get known by many people all around the world, you only need to showcase what you are good at and the right prospects will locate you by themselves.

If you are not active on social media, then it is time to start, create a facebook profile if you don’t have one yet, Instagram, Twitter, Linkedin, you name them, after creating these social profiles, you shouldn’t stop there

Keep posting interesting posts and making videos about yourself and your expertise if you are okay being in front of your phone camera, go live sometimes and connect with business people, I know of great people who are making good use of their social media profiles like Courage Ngele, Chioma ifeanyi-eze,  Frankling Nwagene and so on.

You can spy at these people and see how they are making great use of their social media profiles and start implementing them by yourself.

How to get noticed on social media as a freelancer

After taking a look at these peoples profiles and you still need tips on how to get noticed on social media as a freelancer, follow, below are the things you need to do with your social media profiles.

1. Post things that are related to your skill

There will be no point if you just post things on random topics, although it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t post other things at all but, most times when you make a post, make sure it is related to your skill, if you are a copy writer, always post things about copywriting and how it can help people in their business,

2. Update your status regularly

You need to be active almost everyday to make it work, don’t just post something and wait for a whole month to post another, be consistent, try to post several times a week, even if you cant post everyday, at least try to post twice or more every week, and when you do this, you will attract more people to your page

3. Post things that add value to people

When I say post regularly, I am not talking about things like “Good morning friends” or anything of that sort, I am talking about things that add value to people, things like tips on how to improve in business, motivational articles and things like that, people are never tired of these types of posts.

4. Engage with people

Always make out time to reply to peoples comments on your posts, when you post something useful, people will usually leave a comment on your posts, always make out time to reply to peoples comments on your posts

5. Join groups

Don’t limit your posts to just your social media friends, make yourself visible to thousands or millions of people by joining groups and communities that are relevant to you, now, when you join these communities, you are not expected to spam the community

Only post things that are helpful to the community rather than only promoting yourself, nobody wants to see that, always see yourself as a responsible person, whenever you comment, make it a thoughtful one and only accept friend request that you need to.

6. Satisfy your clients

Whenever clients hire you, it means that they trust that you will serve them well, it is your duty not to disappoint them, give them the best that you can give, the more better you do the more they will recommend you to others

They will also likely come back to you next time they need the kind of service that you provide, so whenever you are hired by a client, make it a top priority to serve them with all your heart.

How to satisfy your clients as a freelancer

Always ask your clients to tell you exactly what they want you to do for them, if possible, ask for sample to see the kind of things they like, and when you work, try as much as you can to work with time, if you promise to deliver their service in 2 hours, it should never exceed that time.

For more tips, read 10 ways for freelancers to impress clients

7. Freelance like a pro

Clients like hiring the pros to work for them, once you are spotted as a beginner, many clients will easily leave you for another person, some clients will even give you a “I will get back to you” message and vanish into thin air

But when you freelance like a professional freelancer, they will always want to hire you to work for them, if you showcase yourself as a beginner, a client will never be sure that you will do the job well, they will only hire you with double thoughts.

How to freelance like a pro

1. Be fluent in English

A beginner can be spotted through their English, if you are bad at English, then trust me, you have already lost many customers.

So work your English and try to use grammars sometimes, there are a lot of books, guides or courses that will help you speak English fluently, so if your English is bad, don’t hesitate to get one of those and start working on it.

2. Do not bargain

A professional freelancer will never bargain with clients, once they tell you their price, it is either you take it or leave it, because a professional freelancer know the value of their service.

In fact, some clients will even try to bargain with you, and if you fall for it, they will leave you with a “I will get back to you” message, so don’t bargain with your clients

Those that will hire you wont mind whether you charge a million dollars,

3. Work with time

Like I said earlier, you need to work with time, provide your services on time and you have already started buying their hearts, one tip that always work is, 

If you know that your services will take 5 hours, you should tell your client that it will be done in 6 or more hours, at least, when you do this, you have bought yourself sometime to review your service before delivering it to your clients.

How can i earn more money by freelance work?

In order to earn more money as a freelancer, you need to be consistent with your work, you need to offer top notch services that pay really well and also work strategically.

increasing your work will also result in more earning as a freelancer, but dont over work yourself, charge good amount that you wont regret later, like I said earlier, a sure client will always hire you in the end, so dont panic to charge high amount.

Final thoughts on how to start freelancing

So there you have it, the complete beginners guide to starting a freelance career and making money as a freelancer, what are you still waiting for? 

Go out there now and start putting this into work,.

Okay guys, I hope you enjoy todays guide, if you do, please kindly help me share it with your friends, if you have any questions or anything to contribute, please leave it in the comment section below, I hope to see you around, have a wonderful day.