There’s nothing easy about launching a freelance writing career. And as the old adage goes, “It’s not what you know, but who you know.” In other words, there are a lot of good writers in the world. Making a successful career out of writing isn’t always directly tied to skill. In most cases, it’s about forming the right connections and making yourself as visible and accessible as possible. With this in mind, let’s take a look at five tips for jump starting your freelance writing career.
1. Launch a Professional Site
The very first thing you have to do is build a professional website. Your website should be something you can be proud of and stand behind – not something that looks like it was developed on your Windows 95 desktop computer. Writers are notorious for launching poor sites, so you can immediately set yourself apart from the competition by producing something that’s original and unique.
You should view your website as your piece of virtual real estate. It’s the only aspect of your internet presence that you can completely control. It would be foolish not to maximize this space. Don’t go overboard, though.
To get started, all you need is a home page, a brief biography, a portfolio section, and a contact page. This is enough to show potential clients who you are and why you’re worthy of their consideration.
2. Start a Blog
The second thing you’ll want to do is launch a blog on your website. While your portfolio will let potential clients see your past work, a blog allows you to continually populate your website with fresh, relevant content that speaks to the needs of your target market. You should aim to write between two and three blog posts per week, but feel free to publish more if possible. These posts will also help with SEO.
3. Develop Guest Blogging Relationships
After building up your branded URLs, it’s time to venture offsite and develop relationships with publishing platforms and bloggers. This is how you expand your reach and get your name in front of as many people as possible. As an added benefit, most publishers will give you a byline with a link back to your website. Once again, this gives your SEO a boost and hopefully drives traffic to your contact page.
4. Build a LinkedIn Profile
If you don’t have a complete LinkedIn profile, there’s no telling how many leads you’re missing out on. Some businesses won’t even contact a writer if they don’t have a profile with a professional photo and an articulate description of their work.
Thankfully, building a LinkedIn profile is as simple as it gets. LinkedIn will provide step-by-step directions for completing your profile. Don’t skip anything. The more information you provide, the more attractive you’ll look from a hiring perspective.
5. Accept All Paying Jobs
This fifth tip may be controversial to some, but it’s true nonetheless. In the beginning stages of your career, you should never turn down a reasonably paying job. This is because connections are more important at this point in your career than earnings.
In five years, are you going to remember the extra $200 you made, or the blog article that eventually led to a much bigger opportunities? You’ll have plenty of time to turn down jobs in the future, but you should accept anything and everything in the meantime.
Building a freelance writing career takes time and patience. Until you understand this, success will be elusive. While becoming an accomplished writer largely depends on who you know, following the five tips mentioned in this article will place you in front of plenty of potential clients. All it takes is one business relationship to jump start your career.
