Top 3 Major Advantages of Freelancing

Freelancing is one of the most common words in today’s world due to its immensely on growing popularity across the world. But then not many people know why this phenomenon is so advantageous when it comes to pay outs and future possibilities from a freelancer’s point of view. Here in this article we will be discussing about the top 3 major benefits that the freelancing world will bring for you.

You can work whenever you want

Are you tired of going to the office in the scorching heat of the sun? Or you may be trying to get a day off where you want to be with your family and don’t have the encouragement to drag your ass in the office, well then if you are someone who can be related to this storyline then freelancing would be a great feasible solution for your aid to bail you out from this misery. Here, you can work whenever you want according to your convenient time and thus you can easily get the time to spend time with your family or friends, which is just remarkable to say the least.

You are the boss

There are many times when you hate your bosses while being an average 9 to 5 workers, but then when it comes to freelancing you can’t complain anymore in this aspect as you are the boss here, which is remarkable it when it comes to taking decisions. But then, as they say, with great power, comes great responsibilities, so if you are the boss, then you have to be really up on your toes to make sure that you work hard daily to get the job hand. As it is often seen, people don’t motivate themselves well enough to do well in the field of freelancing due to lack to hard push which is needed to finish the work within the given deadline.

You can pay less amount of tax

Filing the income tax return at comes become too difficult as they are so many rules and too much of cut off, so having the power to decide your expenses and earning is just amazing for a tax payer. Here they get to decide what is their expenses and what is their earning, like you can easily show your phone bills, internet bills, home rents etc as the expenses which is one of the major advantages of freelance works.

Four common freelancer myths

When you read up on other peoples experience in freelancing you will often hear about the hardships about it. These are often the same excuses you will hear (And sometimes use yourself) to why you don't want to be a freelancer or entrepreneur.

1. Freelancers have to be creative

This is a really common myth. Many think that you have to be super creative to be able to compete with the other freelancers and come out as the winner. This is completely false. There is such a huge demand for freelancers in this day and age that anyone with a marketable skill will be able to compete on the market if they just put themselves out there.

2. I wouldn't be able to follow a schedule

This is one of the major ones. Many say that it's hard to wake up early in the morning and get infront of the computer and just start working. People tend to believe that it's easier to have strict schedules and routines that often come with being employeed at a company. This is however not true. Being an entrepreneur means that your salary is decided by the amount of energy and time you spend on your work, this actually motivates you to work harder than someone who has a set salary at a workplace. For further information on this, there are studies linked between Eustress and being an entrepreneur.

3. My friends/family/co-workers/X wont believe in me and my dream

Sorry, this ones actually true. It's quite funny actually, I still have friends who don't believe I work as a freelancer. When asked how I then pay my bills, they tend to guess I am working at a company they don't know about. If you're planning on starting a business or becoming a freelancer, get ready to have your close ones doubting you. However don't let this get you down. Only a few percent of the population ever even try to become their own boss, so this is often fueled by jealousy. And if you feel less motivated, think about it the other way, you can shove it into their face when you succeed!

4. Being a freelancer is mostly good for a side-income.

This is another really common one. Many believe that freelancing is only good for making a few extra bucks. This might be true for some but it often depends on your own life situation and determination. Sure, some start with freelancing to just make a hundred a month or so, either to save up money or use it to pay the bills. However nothing is stopping you from putting down more time and energy, thus making more than just a few bucks. If you're determined enough you will automatically put down more time into your work which will eventually give you enough leaway to start doing it fulltime.

This was just a small list since it tends to be the things I hear the most. But really, in the end it all bottles down to you and you alone. If you want to be a cog in the corporate machine, then keep working with whatever you do. If you however want to become something bigger and get more freedom in your life, then stop holding yourself back and just do it! No one is going to do it for you after all.

Blogging for a living

So a few days ago I was talking to a friend of mine about this blog. We got talking about making an income from blogging and he was curious on how it works and how much I make from it. That conversation got me an idea for a post.

So first of all, I currently don't make an income from this blog. I have already started to get a fairly large amount of traffic to it but I am not sure on whatever I should monetize the blog or not. After all, this blog is mostly a place for me to write about what I do, it's almost like therapy in a way for me since I have so much to share. I don't see it as a job however so monetizing it might feel wrong, anyhow the future will decide that I guess.


Anyhow, I will today be talking a bit about blogging and how monetizing on it works since I have quite a bit experience on it from the past.

Now if you're considering starting a blog, let's make something clear. A lot of people involved in marketing will tell you to target specific niches. "Make a blog about healthcare" or something like that. This is the completely wrong way to go about it. Blogging about a subject that you're not passionate about will be nearly impossible.

Instead, start a blog about a subject you love. I love my job as a freelancer and I could talk about it for days without a break, which is why I can keep posting long (Sometimes too long) posts on the matter. However if someone asked me to write about dieting or something like that, I wouldn't be able to make more than a post or two.

So write about something you love, one of your hobbies or the subject you're studying about. Anything goes if you're passionate about it since it will inspire your readers and pull them in. They will want to know how you work and what your world looks like when they notice how interested you're in it. You can compare it to how we sometimes can get stuck on weird subjects on Wikipedia. We might not care for the subject but we keep reading about it because it's darn interesting to find out how things and people work. Humans are curious like that.

Now don't start out by coming up with ideas that will let you earn from the blog, wait a month or so until you get traffic to it. Which brings us to the next topic, traffic.

Traffic, or in more layman terms, visitors. It's one of the biggest issues for a lot of people. "How do I get more visitors? My blog is so nice and it has tons of interesting posts but only a handful of people read it..." etc.

Now whatever you get traffic or not is decided by factors since there are different ways for people to find your blog. They might find it linked on other websites or blogs, or they might find it on search engines.

Now for search engines, it's all about SEO, Search Engine Optimization. Now this is a large subject and I wont go further into it since there are much better blogs and websites for that. One is Googles own SEO starters guide, thirty pages of pure gold facts. Find it by clicking here. (PDF)

Another good source of info on SEO is Moz own beginners guide, amazing website in general for anything Internet Marketing related. Find that one by clicking here or by going to moz.com.

Now it's important as a blogger to connect via social media. Use your facebook or twitter account to inform people when you've made a post, and don't forget to use appropiate hashtags! For help on hashtags use hashtagify.me. If you feel uncomfortable using your private twitter/facebook, just make a new one with your blogs name as username!

Now there are other ways to gain visitors. There are sites that will sell you visitors. These have gotten a really bad reputation lately due to the fact that some provide fake, botbased visits. However not all of them are bad. Some provide visitors to their customers via redirects, so from an old expired website in your category/niche. This is completely legal and a good way to make your blog rank better on blog directories! These types of visits can also convert into real fans on your website. One of these trusted sites for example would be maxvisits. They provide real visitors and work even with ad companies such as Google AdSense. I have personal experience with MV in the past when I ran a news website and it really boosted my rankings so even after I stopped hiring them I kept getting new visitors that I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. There are also people on sites such as Fiverr that can provide similar services for good prices.

So don't go judging people too hard before you have a clear view of their services. Using Google to check up on these companies is always a good idea before hiring them. But the legit ones also tend to have money-back guarantees if you dislike their service.

So is blogging for a living possible? Yes, yes it is. Is it for you though? No idea, only you can answer that.

Remember that blogging is a long-time project and using cheap shortcuts tends to backfire quickly, such as duplicating content from other blogs or websites. So if you have the time and passion to start a blog, do it! It's a ton of fun and you learn a lot of new things.

How narrowing your freelancing can easily be used to boost your career

So I have recently mentioned freelance marketplaces such as Fiverr, Odesk and Freelancer. Now these are amazing and can garner you a lot of attention. However some people prefer a more targeted advertising for their services as this drastically reduces the competition. Let me teach you how just choosing a different website can boost your earnings tenfold!

Now what does it mean to narrow your field? Well it can mean several things depending on how far you want to go. I will explain this in a simple way by using myself as an example.

Now, I am a writer. I can write in English and Swedish. I could for example try to compete with other freelance writers in the English language, however just on Fiverr there are at the moment over four hundred active writers. So how can I narrow myself?

Well in the example of Fiverr, I narrowed myself by focusing on Swedish. I currently offer translations between Swedish and English primarily. Other than that I also offer to write articles in Swedish for a small sum. Now, I narrowed myself quite a bit there as Swedish is a fairly small language when compared to other large ones like Chinese, French, German and Russian. However, I get new work daily. How does this actually boost my earnings? Well, I pretty much went down from around 500 competitors to four or five. Now that is a much easier amount to manage, which I easily did and now most come straight to me for any Swedish related work they might have.

So if you know a field, try to target it more. Instead of offering "Graphical design", try to niche yourself and promote something more specific. In this example, how about just doing editing? Pick your favorite thing in your field and focus on solely that. If you notice that you only get about half of the amount of work you can handle, specalize yourself again in another offer. Keep doing that and you will be known as an expert in those specific tasks, meaning your old customers will keep coming to you and they will start recommending you to their friends and partners!


However, there is more than one way to target your audience as a freelancer. Most of you have probably heard about the freelance websites like Odesk, Guru, Freelancer, Fiverr and Elance. However, did you know that there are over ten thousand websites where freelancers can market their services? Now lets face it, at least 80-90 % of these are empty and useless. However, there are a lot of sites out there where you can expand your career.

For example, targeting specific countries is an amazing method. Here in Sweden we have a freelance marketplace I recently got active on again. They have taken a lot of inspiration from Fiverr which makes it easy to use. Now Sweden doesn't have a huge market but there are a few thousand people who use the website. By expanding there with my translation skills I managed to expand my potential market with about 20% (Fast head calculation using traffic statistics).

Now I know, some of you are now going "Where do I find these sites?". Well I can't help you completely since there are so many. Googling can get you a long way but I will give you a blog article here that will help you out. They listed freelance websites that focus on specific countries, niches and such. Check it out by clicking here.


So don't just sit there, start experimenting and watch the results! Failure only comes to the one who doesn't try.

Why choose freelancing?

A common question among people who are considering freelancing is why one would even go with the profession. Many think that it's risky being a freelancer, which is true to a certain extent as being a freelancer is close to starting up your own business.

As a freelancer your success is based on how much work you put into your work. You don't have a boss or any colleagues to blame your own shortcomings on. While some see this as a downside since it means that all risk goes on you, I personally love it since any success you gain is based a 100% on your own effort.

One can actually adapt a similar mind as one would before starting up their own business. Make sure that you plan properly before trying to get customers. This way you can prevent broken deadlines and unclear orders from the customer.

So starting up in freelancing might not be the easiest task but it has it's upsides which makes it all worth it. For starters, you set your own schedule. Personally I don't work 9-5 or so. If I am free when I get an order in I tend to get it done as fast as I can, this way I can clear up my time for other things. Now if I already have orders stocked up, I simply start once my morning coffee is prepped, usually around 6-7 AM. I then work for two-three hours which usually clears up the rest of the day. If I have any remaining orders or get more during the day, my next "shift" tends to start around 1 PM and last until 3-4 PM. Now this is quite close to being a regular 9-5 schedule but with a longer lunch. The reason for this is that my orders come in during the night, due to the fact that I live in Sweden and about 70% of my customers are from the US. But I could do all the work at late evenings if I wanted to, it's all up to me after all.

Now a second really good thing with being a freelancer is the salary. I know there are some freelancers who struggle with paying their bills, however this all depends on how much work you're willing to take. After all, the amount of orders you get depends on how the quality of your work is. If you're known for delivering high quality work in a short time, you're bound to get a lot of orders. Because if it's one thing that will decide how much success you have as a freelancer it's your reputation. A good reputation leads to a high salary while a bad reputation leads to a low or non-existant salary.

A third amazing thing with being a freelancer is the one thing most freelancers forget, the possibilities you get from your work. Most of us have probably experienced the tough situation of searching for a job. It can be quite a killing experience for many, especially for the ones that are younger without a bunch of work experience. That's where freelancing can open new paths for you.

Personally I am involved with LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and such. I am quite open about my work and have quite a good reputation as a translator and copywriter. This has led to a lot of job offers dimping down in my mailbox and in my e-mail.

Yes, being a freelancer and marketing yourself as one will get you job offers. Companies that are in the same or similar field as you will get their eyes on you, especially if they lose clients to you. They will then realise the advantage of having someone like yourself in the company. I have so far not accepted any of these offers as the salary tends to be about 25% less than what I make from my freelancing but if I ever want to settle down and have a more solid salary then I know I wont have to look far to get one.

On top of that, being a freelancer is something you can actually add to your CV (curriculum vitae). If you have a lot of experience as one and actually made a good income many employers will see this as a huge plus on a CV. Why? Well being a freelancer means you're ambitious, driven, smart, self going and that you don't limit yourself to what an employment office offers. This is a huge plus that can actually be a deciding factor if an employer has to choose between you and someone else!

So why choose freelancing? After reading this, why would you not choose to be a freelancer?

A freelancers choice of weapon - The Portfolio

I mentioned earlier that when you're just getting started as a freelancer, it's of the outmost importance to provide a better service and service offer than your competition. But with this in mind, how do you show your future clients your amazing skills when you have had zero customers? The Portfolio. Let's talk about that for today.

Having a portfolio showcasing your work is one of the most important tools you have. With your portfolio future customers can see whatever you're the right freelancer for them in a matter of minutes.

So what does a freelancers portfolio look like? It's quite simple actually, most platforms like Fiverr, Odesk, Freelancer and such even provide a simple feature to help you on your way. Usually it's a simple upload feature for pictures, files and videos.

Now you all [should] understand what one is to find in a portfolio. It's past work or examples of your work, that shows an interested buyer exactly what you provide and the quality of it. If you're a graphic designer, wrap up some good designs! For example, if you want to work with logo and ad design, make some example ads and logos just to show your customers how broad your skillset is. If you're a writer, upload a picture or text showcasing the level of translation you can do.

A portfolio takes just a few minutes to prepare, maybe a few hours if you have to prepare work for it but is worth it since any serious client will be looking at it. It goes without saying that the paying clients that have the real money are all of the serious type that will want to hire the best freelancer for their work. So spending a few minutes or maybe an hour to make a simple portfolio of your work will bring you tons of more work, especially more wellpaid work which is what you're after.

Once you have had a few clients, ask them for testimonials. Trust me, it might sound scary but anyone who hires a freelancer understand that testimonials are important so if they're happy with your work they will gladly leave one. Some sites that allow freelancers to post their offers, like Fiverr, will have a testimonial/review feature that will encourage buyers to review the freelancers they hire.

What you can then do is to take a screenshot of these testimonials and use them in your portfolio. Because not only work is supposed to go there, after you start getting customers you should also leave the past clients opinions there so that interested buyers can see that you're not just all talk.

Markets you can easily profit on as a newbie

So last night I got a tweet about what market a newbie freelancer should focus on. Now, this is a super tricky question and while all of you have talents or hobbies that can be profited on, it tends to be hard to realise what those talents might be. "What can I offer, I don't have any special education."

Now the first thing you should check is if you have any basic talents. Most of us have some type of basic knowledge and those tend to be the most profitable. Mine for example is writing. With writing a lot of various types of work are available. Translation, copywriting, editing and such. And in those are even more specific work. In just basic writing you have things such as writing blogposts, articles, sales letters, website info, product listings, ad listings and such.

But, writing isn't the only profitable market. The next one is graphics, I mean ANYTHING GRAPHICS related. Really, anything related to design.

Just quickly browsing Fiverr and Odesk you can find people designing logos, websites, product covers, e-book covers, ad designing, photoshop, editing, 3d graphics, presentations (Such as infographics) and also anything related to drawing. Yes, people spend thousands and tens of thousands daily on people who can draw. Draw for books, pictures, for music covers, ads and even stuff they want on their website or t-shirt. The general rule is that if someone can write, they are awful at drawing and designing. This means that anyone who runs a successful blog most likely needs people who can take photos or do design to help them out!

In graphics you can also find video related markets. Anything from animating commercials to doing testimonials for products on webcam. I personally hire people to do commercials and cute animations once in a while. I am fairly known among friends for hiring people to do really cute anime-esque animations with personalised messages for when they are sick or are having their birthday for example.

Another huge market that is constantly undermanned is music and sound. Anything from voice-overs, commercial music, jingles and such is a constant demand since it's a small investment to get music for your website or video that you don't have to pay huge royalties for.

Another endless market is programming and IT. Anything from designing websites, IT support, setting up ecommerce and such is always on a huge demand. A lot of people have the ideas to sell things or get a message out but they don't have the means. People will hire anyone who is willing to do some quick programming work for them so they don't have to spend the whole afternoon Googling IT questions to solve their problems themselves.

The biggest market on the freelance platforms however is marketing. It's probably on a shared first place with writing. While you were reading this post, at least 10.000$ was being spent on freelancers for marketing purposes.

In marketing you can find pretty much anything. People will pay anyone who can provide any type of marketing. Social media, videos (Youtube), SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and such. Now these are fields that do require some knowledge but if you have it, or the will to learn, there is an endless income stream there.

But marketing on the web aside, people will pay handsomely for handing out flyers, putting up flyers and such. So if you live in a bigger city (Or in a country that is not the UK or US) you might want to consider offering to put up flyers for someone. Put up a gig on Fiverr and I'll guarantee you'll get some orders since real life marketing is undersaturated, since most freelancers want to work at a computer and are unwilling to go outside and paste flyers for an hour or two. Extremely worthwhile and I did this when I lived in Stockholm, made at least 10-15$ a day by this alone.

Now these are all general markets. There is also the...less orthodox markets. On Fiverr for example, there are top-rated sellers that provide magic. No you didn't read that wrong, people are actually offering spells and rituals and are making a killing on it, some of the best ones have thousands of sales! These are mostly people who actually believe in their magic and spells so they aren't bogus, but whatever their magic actually works is a subject I'll leave for their customers.

There are even freelancers that provide cooking tips, recipes, homework help like tutoring and such on smaller gig based sites like Fiverr. They are all making a killing on it since they are providing a good service that few are offering.

This should give you some ideas on how you can start out. I promise, if you just get started and actually try, you will notice that freelancing isn't some dreamlike ambition you only read about in the magazines and blogs, it's an endless job market where anyone with the will can make a profit. It's all up to you!

Now this week I will be releasing two larger posts. One will be about Fiverr Gig Videos, where I will teach you how to quickly and easily make videos that you can use for anything, not only Fiverr. Secondly, I am currently writing a paper called "What Freelancers and entrepreneurs can learn from Julius Caesar", which will be a paper focusing on the mindset of a freelancer/entrepreneur and how you can improve your results by improving your mind and will. This will be a bit longer than a usual blogpost and I am hoping to have it up before Sunday this week.

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