Every freelancer needs a website, no matter your specialty.

A website gives you a way to provide information to interested parties that are searching for your services online. However, a website launch can be both expensive and time-consuming, which is why some freelancers shy away from it. Fortunately, there are options for creating a free website and you can get it launched in less than a day!

This is where WebStartToday.com comes into play. It is an amazingly simple site builder tool specifically designed for freelancers and business owners with little technical experience. The process of launching a website with WebStartToday is intuitive. The other great benefit is that they allow you a free website for an entire year (with the domain name of yourbusinessname.webstarttoday.com).

For those of you who would like to give WebStartToday a try, use this tutorial for tips on how best to go through the process for creating your own freelance website in less than a day. Continue Reading

As successful entrepreneurs and freelancers know, making a name for yourself online is all about content marketing.

Yet the landscape of content marketing can be confusing, as it is constantly shifting. Blogging is still the mainstay of an effective content marketing strategy, but in the past decade audio, social media and video have all been added into the mix.

Faster broadband speeds coupled with video cameras built into computers and smartphones have seen video become a key player in content marketing. Over 4 billion hours of video are watched every month on Youtube.

This trend towards video is set to continue. Both YouTube and Cisco have predicted that within the next couple of years, 90% of web traffic will be from video.

This is great news for freelancers, as video establishes trust and shows your personality and brand more quickly than the written word. Prospects and clients who watch your videos will feel like they know you as a friend. That means when it comes to selling your services, the hard work of building trust is already done.

But isn’t making videos a big headache? Don’t you need a ton of time and lots of specialist software to make a decent video?

Not necessarily.

With Google Hangouts on Air you can broadcast live from your office. When the broadcast is done, it gets posted to YouTube.

Making quality videos is as simple as making a video call. Continue Reading

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive? Continue Reading

Freelancers are often faced with the question of how much to charge for a project. When the project is similar to others you have done, then you have a good idea of the number of hours it will take you, and the costs you will face. But what about when you are pitching for a project that is a bit different from your normal work?

As a freelancer, it is essential to get your estimates right. Too high, and you might not get the project; too low, and you won’t make a profit. With a professional estimate, you will be able to show your client how you have arrived at your cost, which will help them see that your price is fair.

This step-by-step guide will help you think through all the considerations involved in making a professional freelance project estimate, as well as how to set it out clearly so that potential clients can understand your breakdown. Continue Reading

Guest posting on blogs is a fantastic way to build brand recognition, establish yourself as a credible expert in your field, and drive traffic to your website.

Guest blogging champion Danny Iny bulit his Firepole Marketing business through the power of guest posting on popular blogs. I’ve established my name as a freelance writer through guest blogging. I’ve won regular writing gigs on a number of blogs, most of which started by pitching a guest post.

In this tutorial I’ll guide you step-by-step through the process of pitching a guest post to a blog. You can use this technique for pitching to any blog in any niche.

Even if you never plan to write a guest post, it’s worth learning how to pitch by email. Pitching, after all, is how you sell your services and expertise to clients. Continue Reading

In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to create your own project plan using a Google spreadsheet that you can use for your own projects or share with your team.

It’s a simple technique that you can adapt to any project to help organize your time and keep on schedule.

You can also use it for estimating how much time a project will take when you are pitching to a client. All you need is a Google spreadsheet, so let’s get started! Continue Reading

Once a week, we feature a fantastic freelance-themed comic from the talented N.C. Winters. Why not also take a look at our comic archive? Continue Reading

One of the great benefits of social media is the ability to reach a large audience at little cost. Using the popular hashtag notation, you can spread your brand, take advantage of popular trends, and get your message out.

Hashtags are a great way to promote your business. Learn how hashtags work, as well as how to use popular tools to assist you with reaching your audience through social media. Continue Reading

Disability is one of those things that can happen suddenly. Or it can develop over a period of years. It can also be a fact of life that you’ve dealt with since birth. It’s a challenge for those affected.

From hearing loss, to brain injuries, and degenerative diseases, there are freelancers working with all sorts of disabilities. The good news is that it’s possible to do well as a freelancer with a disability

Learn how freelancers with disabilities can achieve great success by structuring their workflow, using assistive technology, and pushing forward with determination. Whether you struggle as a freelancer with a disability or not, read on, there are some inspiring stories that follow. Continue Reading

Google Plus is the thinking person’s social network. It’s rapidly becoming the place to go for anyone looking to take part in thoughtful and engaging discussion online.

This makes Google Plus a great place for learning, research and sharing ideas, especially if you learn best through conversation and dialogue.

As a freelancer, you can use Google Plus’s features to research your target market and prospects, learn new skills to enhance your business, curate content to share on social networks, and connect with like-minded people who are willing to teach what they know or help you brainstorm ideas.

Let’s take a look at how to use Google Plus for research. Continue Reading

We all read articles about how important it is to market ourselves through social media.

I’ve been talking to successful freelancers to find out the realities of using social media for business and getting their tips for the best ways to network and promote their work. Here are 7 tips that will boost your social media effectiveness.

1. Develop a Social Media Strategy

Being clear from the outset on why you are using social media for business purposes will save you a lot of time and wasted effort in the long run.

What is the aim of your social media time? Are you trying to drive more potential clients towards your website, network with other professionals to make useful contacts, boost traffic to your blog, or raise your status as an expert? A social media strategy doesn’t have to be complicated, but it will help to keep this aim in mind when you are sharing information and interacting with other people. Continue Reading

Whenever a reader marks your email newsletter as spam, you’ve got problems. The better classes of email service providers keep track of how many times they’re told a particular email newsletter is spam. If the number gets too high, they’ll shut down that newsletter. There can even be legal repercussions for sending out newsletters that are considered spam — including a $16,000 penalty for each recipient of an individual piece of spam in the US.

If you’re publishing an email newsletter — for marketing purposes or otherwise — you need to make sure that you can minimize the chance it can be mistaken for spam. There will always be occasional marks against you, from people who don’t remember signing up for your newsletter or who just want to get it out of their inboxes quickly. But the more you can do to keep those problems to a minimum, the better.

Continue Reading