How to Start a Freelance Writer Career: A Definitive Guide

Freelance writing is among the best businesses that a beginner can start with. Most professionals consider it the ultimate bridge business.

In essence, learning freelance writing the best way to bridge the gap between being unemployed or in a job you really don’t like to build some skills, momentum, and cash as you figure the next move to make with your life.

Here are the best practices for building this type of business.

Audit Your Skillset

The first crucial step for anyone who wishes to learn freelance writing is to take stock of the skills they already have. You can become a freelance writer in literally any field, industry, or area of specialization. So if you already have in-depth knowledge of particular expertise in a specific field, you definitely want to leverage that.

Begin with a list of your hobbies, skills, work experience, your volunteer experience, things you really like, or those that people come to you for guidance. With a comprehensive list of relevant background or knowledge you can draw upon, you’ll figure out how you link your experience with a profitable freelance writing niche.

Choose a Niche

When joining the freelance writing industry, you’ll be tempted to say, “I can write for a client in any sector or field of specialization. But ask yourself, if you’re looking to hire a writer, do you want an expert who can write anything or one who specializes in your particular topic?

To niche yourself down and make yourself appealing to your potential client, you can begin with a larger scope, say B2B (business to business) writing. From there, you can niche down even further to your area of specialization, say finance. You can then niche down to B2B finance writing for tech websites. Don’t be afraid to start wide then niche down as you go.

Research the Niche

Research the Niche

Make a list of companies, agencies, websites, blogs, or social media accounts of any potential business within your industry. Of course, not everyone can be the perfect client for you. But the more you know about your specific industry, the better off you’re going to be.

By having that detailed list and all the contact information of all those people or websites, you’ll be more knowledgeable about the industry you’re trying to break into when you begin pitching.

So if you have some coursework to deal with, find yourself a reliable and trusted professional  (e.g. essay writer from educational service)  to help with the job.

Create Your Target Client

Your target customer is also referred to as your client avatar. Figure out the exact person that will make up your ideal customer. Who are they? Where do they live? What do they do for a living and fun? What’s their average annual income?

With a vivid description of your target client, you’ll begin to get a good sense of the exact person you’re marketing towards. The more you can get into their heads and understand their needs and wants, the easier it will be to offer it to them.

By the time you’re done with your customer avatar, you’ll know who you’re going to write for, the sites they read, the products they’re interested in, and the different types of writing you can do for them.

Build Your Website

There are different ways that you can use to create your site, including using Squarespace or Wix. However, WordPress offers the highest flexibility level and is also incredibly easy to set up a freelance writing website. It’ll probably take some time to build the site and rank on google, but when making outreach, attending meetings, and interacting with industry experts, they’ll probably search for your website to learn more about you.

Interestingly, it doesn’t have to be robust. You can include essential elements like a homepage, an about page, a services page, a rates page, a contacts page, and a blog.

Contact Marketing Agencies Directly

Content mills can be great for building your profile and getting starting clients, but the longest-term and best-paying clients are those that you reach out to directly. Sending personalized cold emails to marketing agencies is the best way to build your writing business. The process can be long, tedious, and sometimes discouraging, but after sending about 500 personalized emails, you’ll definitely end up with some clients. Social media is an excellent place to build relationships and meet clients.

There are numerous ways of excellent as a freelance writer. But the above primary steps will reduce the learning curve, and you’ll be an established writer in no time.