How to Be an Expert Freelancer, Attract Clients, and Increase Sales

You cannot be an expert freelancer if your services don`t benefit your clients.

Providing valuable content builds trust and authority, and helps increase brand awareness and client acquisition.

You know how you can achieve that? hone your writing skills and learn how to market yourself.

That entails

• Learning English grammar
• Choosing a niche
• Learning how to create web content
• Knowing how to market yourself

That`s how you can attract clients and enhance your freelance writing business.

In this article, you will learn how to market your freelance writing services and grow your online business.

Find a Freelance Writing Niche

You cannot be good at everything. Letting people know you for your specialty enables you to focus on your strengths and interests and deliver jobs that drive conversions.

That`s why it`s better to niche down if you want to succeed in any business venture. Niching refers to focusing on a specified field.

Being a generalist will make you struggle to provide services you aren`t interested in, which drops content quality.

The good thing is finding a niche isn`t complicated. You can consider your talent, hobbies, or education.

If, for example, you are a football player, you can sell your freelance writing services to companies selling jerseys.

If you have a community health certificate, you can offer freelance writing services to clinics.

However, if you don`t know your talent and don`t have a college certificate, you can learn a course and start finding jobs.

You can do short simple courses like

• Social Media Marketing
• Graphics and Design
• SEO E-commerce Copywriting
• Customer Service Representative
• Virtual Assistant

There are various platforms to find both free and paid courses, which include

• Alison
• Coursera
• Skillshare
• Udemy
• Pluralsight

Here is more on how to find a niche for your online business.

Create a Freelancer Portfolio Website

If it were offline, this would be your shop. It`s where you create and display your skills to clients.

A portfolio website also sets you up as a professional and makes it easy for people to find your freelance services.

What`s better, the website building tools offer free plans to help you create a website for free, if you can`t afford the paid plans.

And, you don`t need to have web development skills to create a website. The web development tools provide guidelines on how to build a website.

However, even when you use free plans, ensure to buy a custom domain. This will make you look professional and credible.

It also makes your business easy to remember and increases your authority. What`s better, you can get custom domains for only $15 yearly on web hosting tools like Namecheap.

Check out a full Namecheap review here and learn all of this tool`s features.

Learn How to Write Website Content

Clients will gauge your writing skills based on your website content.

To create effective content, you should have grammar skills and follow the on-page SEO requirements, which include

Doing Keyword Research

You need to know what people type when searching for freelance writers for you to appear in their searches. That`s how you can increase the chances of ranking and being hired.

Keyword research helps to know the keywords people use so you can create content related to people`s intent.

To conduct keyword research, think of any word related to your niche that you may use when searching for a freelancer.

If your niche is social media marketing, for instance, you can brainstorm keywords like

• Facebook marketing freelancer
• LinkedIn marketing freelance writers
• Social media marketing firms freelancers

Later, paste every single keyword on the search engine and search for more suggestions. When the search results page appears, move below it and you will find keyword variations for recent searches.

Take insights from the relevant ones and improve your keywords.

Alternatively, you can use the keyword research tools and find more suggestions with complete data.

Apart from giving you more keyword suggestions, these tools will help you know the volume and competition.

Some of the efficient keyword research tools include

• SEMrush
• Moz
• Jaaxy
• QuestionDB
• Ahrefs

To use these tools, just type your keyword in them and search. You will get more keyword variations, competition, and monthly search volume. This will help you choose the effective keyword for your content.

Creating Attention-Grabbing Titles

If your title is bland, your copy will be perceived to be the same, even though that might not be the case. The results—people will avoid your content.

The solution is to create a compelling title.

To do that, use actionable words that show what the content is about and what the audience can benefit from it.

Moreover, include your focus keyword. This enables search engines to understand the queries with which to match your content.

If, for instance, your keyword is Facebook marketing, your title can be

How to Make $1000 Monthly with Facebook Marketing

Reading the title, people will exactly know they will learn how to make a certain amount of money in a defined period, through Facebook marketing.

That`s more intriguing than a title with the same keyword that reads

How to Do Facebook Marketing

This title doesn`t show any value as to why one should learn this topic; therefore, it won`t attract readership.

Creating Intriguing Introductions

Every sentence in your content should encourage the readers to read the next one, and that begins with an enticing introduction.

If your introduction is not compelling the readers will quickly click away, which lowers a website's rank.

To make the introduction attention-grabbing, start with a hook. This can be any sentence that encourages the readers to read on. You can use

• Anecdotes
• Quotes
• Questions
• Stats
• Statements

Here is a question example used as a hook in an article introduction:

Wouldn’t it be great if every single person who clicked on one of your articles read it from start to finish, unable to pull their eyes away from the screen?—Quicksprout

After hooking your readers, explain the article's focus and how readers will benefit.

Then, write a thesis statement telling people what the content covers.

Writing Short Paragraphs

To enhance content readability, create brief paragraphs. Long paragraphs are tiresome and can bore readers and make them ignore your content.

One paragraph should be 1–3 sentences and carry a single idea.

Here is an example:

I love Jahmbi. She is so motivational. That`s why I can`t miss her radio show.

All of the sentences are built up from the reason that I love Jahmbi, but if I were to write:

I love Jahmbi. She is so motivational. I will write a novel.

The readers don`t know the purpose of your writing a novel, so, the sentence doesn`t relate to the paragraph.

Using Bold, Italics, and Lists

These elements enhance navigability and make content easy to understand.

If you want to emphasize words you don`t want readers to skip, use bold and italics.

However, use bold to highlight words with a strong emphasis and italics for

• Thoughtful conversations
• Titles
• Quotes
• cites

Example of bold in a sentence:

Freelance writing is the quickest way of making money online.

The bolded phrase is more emphatic than the other words in the sentence. Therefore, it slows the reading and draws the readers` attention.

Italics example:

When a person shows you who they are—the first time—believe them: Maya Angelou.

The italicized words stand out and make the readers identify them easily.

Besides, use lists to make items more organized. You can use numbered and unnumbered lists to arrange your items more logically.

Use numbered lists for items that have a specific order and unnumbered lists for items that don`t follow a particular order.

For example, when arranging steps about how to drive a car, you will need to follow specific steps, such as

1. Starting the car
2. Selecting your gear
3. Releasing the parking brake
4. Setting the car in motion

However, when outlining car spare parts, you won`t need to follow a specific order. You can arrange them in any order, e.g.

Wheels

• Bolts
• Fuel Lines
• Brakes
• Gears

Using Subheadings

Web Content is more scannable if it`s broken down into subheadings. This enables readers to easily move in your content and read the sections they prefer.

For subheadings to be effective, make them concise and each one of them should be relevant to the other and be related to the main content title.

For example, if your title is How to Create Blog Content, the subheadings can be

1. Do Keyword Research
2. Create a Title
3. Write an Introduction
4. Create an In-Depth Body
5. Create a Conclusion

Furthermore, create short and parallel subheadings to make them easily understandable.

To enhance parallelism, ensure all subheadings in a particular rank start with the same part of speech and their lengths match.

If the  H1 subheading begins with a verb, all of them in that rank should follow the same order.

Examples are the outlined subheadings above, which have matching lengths and all begin with a present simple verb.

Creating Compelling Conclusions

The aim of making your readers read to the end of the content is to make them perform your call to action. This is where you can entice them to perform your desired action.

You can make conclusions effective by emphasizing what`s discussed in the content, and then put your call to action.

To enhance your call to action, be precise and use simple and actionable language. For instance, if you want people to subscribe to your email list, tell them the benefits they`ll get by doing so.

Here is an example:

Subscribe to get free social media marketing tips and make $100 daily.

Incorporating Photos

Text-only content is tiresome and boring. To make it entertaining and encourage people to keep reading, add photos.

Besides making content appealing, they make content appear in image searches, improving organic SEO. To enable this, add keyword-optimized  ALT descriptions.

However, ensure to use clear and relevant photos, and put proper attributions to avoid being sued for copyright laws.

Here is an example of a relevant photo that can be used in content about freelance writing:

Freelancer by Anna Shvets: Pexels

Adding Internal and External Links

Links are the paths through which search engines follow and index content. Adding internal and external links makes it easy for them to find, index, and rank your content.

People can also easily follow internal links to find their preferred content on your website.

Conversely, external links enable you to back up your assertions and redirect readers to your content sources to confirm. This helps generate more traffic to your site and boost your rank.

However, ensure the resources you link to are relevant to your content and have a good rank. This will set you as an authoritative source, which helps build trust with clients—a chance to increase sales.

Set Your Prices

State your charges to let people know how they can purchase your services. You can charge per word or per hour.

That enables clients to easily know whether they can afford your services.

To start, you can charge $30 for a 1000-word article and increase as you gain more skills and experience.

Alternatively, you can decide to offer your hourly services. In that case, you can start with $10 per hour.

How to Find Freelance Writing Clients

Your freelance writing skills can only be helpful if you can get clients, and that`s not complicated.

There are various ways to find freelance writing clients, which include

Send Cold Emails

Not everyone searches for or states their need for freelancers. It takes freelancers` efforts to entice them to be hired.

To convince such clients, you will need to send them emails and pitch your services. That`s what cold emailing means.

To facilitate this, collect various contacts of websites related to your business. Then send them emails pitching your services. If somebody is interested, they will hire you.

To write effective cold emails

• Address people by their name
• Be Brief
• Use correct grammar
• Use a compelling subject line
• Add a call to action

Here is an example of a cold email:

Subject Line (Email Marketing Freelance writer)

Hello Kombucha,

I came across your website when I was looking for the best email creation tool to recommend to a friend. I found yours and I was impressed by how effective it is—she is still on the free trial.

However, I wanted to tell you that I am an experienced freelance writer. I can help you craft emails that sell, as indicated in my freelance writing website samples.

I`ll be happy to work with you if you need writing services.

I am looking forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

Kibaki Ngonyo.

Use Social Media

They are not only for entertainment, you can also use social media platforms to find freelance writing clients.

All you need is to create various accounts to showcase your skills. Then join social media groups and follow fellow freelancers and businesses relevant to your niche.

Afterward, share your website content on your social media pages and groups to demonstrate your skills. When people read and like your content, you can be hired.

Besides, people post jobs on social media groups. You can apply for them and get hired if you qualify.

Network with Other Freelancers

Birds of the same feather flock together. Don`t take your competitors as enemies; Instead, build friendships. This helps in getting referrals.

Follow people in your niche on social media. Like, share, and comment on their content regularly so they can recognize you. Later, send them a private message and introduce yourself.

Tell them that you are a freelance writer, and if they have more work, you can help them handle it at an affordable price. If they have no work but have some clients who can afford your services, they can refer them to you.

Apart from online, if you know of any freelancers in your area, find their number. Then ask them from time to time if they have some more work to share or clients to refer to you.

Use Freelance Writing Websites

One of the best freelance job search methods is to use sources solely meant to connect employers and workers. And that`s through freelance writing websites.

What`s better, these sites help avoid scammers. This is because payments are done on the site and the client can only own the content after paying.

Moreover, freelance writing websites use escrow to store money and only release it after the project is done and approved.

To find jobs through these websites, you`ll be required to sign up and create a profile stating your skills. Then submit your samples and a link to your website.

Whenever people post jobs, you can apply for them and get hired.

You can also promote your freelance writing website profiles and gigs on your social media and website to increase the chances of getting clients.

Here are reliable freelance writing websites where you can find clients.

Provide Value to Your Clients and Be a Successful Freelancer

To succeed in freelance writing, your content should satisfy clients` needs.

You can achieve that by finding a niche and learning how to write for the web.

Then create a website where you can showcase your skills.

Later, market your services through

• Social media
• Freelance writing websites
• Cold emailing
• Networking with fellow freelancers

Provided you have the skills and follow the right procedure, you will be a successful freelancer.