Are you prepared to dive into the writing world for the first time, even the thought excites and frightens you at the same time?
Well, let me tell you a story — “Once upon a time, we were all in your shoes.”
Even though there are plenty of writers and tons of content all over the web, you should know that nowadays, 70% of companies actively invest in content marketing.
That means that the market is in expansion.
The only intimidating part of freelance writing without experience is ‘where to start’.
And today, you will find out the most essential things a newbie freelancer needs to start rolling that pen.
Let’s begin!
What Is Freelance Writing?
Outside of a staff position, freelance writing is any writing assignment you do for money. And the freelance writers work for themselves or on a contract basis.
With their terms and conditions, freelance writers can provide various writing services in the following categories:
- Copywriting (to encourage a sale) — Includes email marketing, branding, ad copies, app push notifications, etc.
- Content writing (to engage the audience) — Includes social media posts, blog post writing, SEO writing, e-book writing, podcast scripts, etc.
A freelance writer who works on his own needs to follow content trends, develop and maintain his blog page, and promote his work on other platforms.
On the other hand, a freelance writer who works on a contract basis can establish reasonable expectations with their clients, such as price, type of service, deadline, and more.
Now, let’s see why people decide to become freelance writers.
Why Should Yout Start Freelance Writing?
If you are still considering this profession, here are the reasons that might convince you that you are on the right track:
- Flexible income — depending on a project, you can have a stable income.
- Variety of Projects — work on different types of projects.
- Ability to choose where to work — most freelancers work from home or are digital nomads that work while travelling.
- Work-life balance opportunities — organize your work and private life the way you want.
- Enhancing writing experience — improve your writing abilities.
- Choose who you want to work with — accept or decline the project according to your preferences.
Now let’s get to business, and discover what you need to start your freelance writing career.
How To Start Freelance Writing Without Any Experience
1. Find Relevant Material to Guide Your Writing
Luckily for ‘this era’ writers, there are so many valuable courses on Youtube, such as how to fix your writing, write long-form content, or what creations are and how to earn more.
On the other hand, writing materials will provide information on how to start, what to avoid, etc.
You can follow them step-by-step to improve your writing.
And, since there are a lot of different aspects of writing you can focus on, we suggest you start with the vital ones:
- SEO writing — learn how to write SEO-friendly content.
- Content writing — find out the fundamental strategies for content writing.
- Copywriting — master copywriting content that increases sales.
In addition, you should invest in more professional and writing-oriented courses as well.
You can start with Profitable Creative's Fast track to SEO writing — it is budget-friendly.
Not only will those guidelines help you write better, but they will also make your content more engaging and professional while boosting its distribution to the targeted audiences.
2. Market Yourself On LinkedIn
LinkedIn is an excellent platform for building your audience network and getting yourself ‘open for business’.
LinkedIn has almost 850 million users and more than 58 million registered businesses. In addition, 40% of LinkedIn active users on the platform log more than 1 billion monthly interactions.
And to start blogging on LinkedIn, you need to create an account, pick your niche and click on write an article on your profile page.
By building your connections on Linkedin, you will get a more industry-oriented audience interested in your content, more shares, and better visibility.
Your LinkedIn profile includes your CV, specified abilities, and details about the businesses you've had the opportunity to work with.
Combining your profile information with a well-thought-out content strategy will help you expand your network connections and create new business opportunities.
3. Create a Profile On Quora
The primary goal of the Quora platform is to provide its users with relevant answers to their questions and concerns.
In addition, it allows you to answer questions for other people about topics you are educated about.
With over 300 million unique users every month, Quora is an excellent opportunity for you to research various topics, get to know your audience, and promote your samples.
How to start?
Create your profile on Quora, include URL of your portfolio or blog page and start providing answers.
Most writers create their profiles on Quora when they want to build their expertise on the subject, find inspiration for their articles, or promote their blog.
4. Post Your Samples On Social Media
You probably already know that you can’t publish a blog article of 2k words on Facebook and Instagram. Yet writers often use these platforms for writing their content.
Why is that?
First of all, Facebook has 200 million small companies and 2.934 billion users every month.
In addition, it allows you to create pages according to your preferences.
Second, Instagram has 1440 billion users and also allows you to create your own page.
But how that helps me with freelance writing?
With so many active users on each platform, you have tons of opportunities to attract people, interact with them, and write specifically for their search intent.
For example, by joining Facebook groups, you will get fresh ideas for your content and learn about your target audience and their demographics just by analyzing their discussion topics and posts.
In addition, we can use social media to send our portfolio, offer writing services and respond to questions to demonstrate our expertise — all of which can lead to new business opportunities.
How to post samples on Facebook?
To write a post on Facebook, simply type in the textbox ‘What’s on your mind’. You can also add photos, tag people, feelings, location, video, gif, etc.
In addition, you don’t have to post right away. Facebook offers you to schedule your posts, as well.
Note: If you have long samples, you can repurpose those blog articles into social media posts.
Take relevant parts of your article and rewrite them into a post. If you already have a blog page, you can link the original article and build effective backlinks.
How to post samples on Instagram?
Instagram primarily focuses on visual posts. Which is an awesome way to creatively transform your content into a compelling post.
For example, Instagram carousel post is extremely popular among Instagram users.
To create a carousel for your post, you can use Free Vector Instagram templates.
5. Practice Guest Blogging
Guest blogging is a writing technique that allows you to write content for other websites in their niche.
Some of the benefits of this method are:
- You can challenge your writing on different topics and projects,
- You can practice a different style of writing,
- You can earn money and establish long-term collaboration opportunities.
A win-win situation for both you and the website or blog page you are working with.
How does guest blogging work?
First, you need to target your guest blogging opportunities — websites open for collaboration yet in a niche that interests you.
Focusing on the best SEO and content marketing blogs would be wise because they will bring better results for your pieces and efficient backlinks and require high-quality content.
Additionally, you can utilize a Google formula for targeting your guest blogging opportunities — topic keyword phrase + “guest post”, “write for us”, “guest column”, etc.
Once you establish the collaboration, gather all specifications required for publishing your content, such as the number of words.
Now that you have all you need, are you ready for one more bonus step to skyrocket your freelance writing?
Start Your Freelance Writing With TextCortex
Not everyone has a gift of writing. Yet that doesn't stop many people from writing for a living.
That is because a writing job is like any other job — if you know the rules and requirements, you are in the game.
In addition, it is not a secret anymore that many professional writers utilize AI tools to help them in their writing process. Some of the reasons are that:
- 70% of people voted in favor of AI tools’ 24/7 availability,
- 64% think that AI increases innovation,
- 72% claim that AI can handle repetitive tasks,
- 66% believe that AI reduces human error, and
- 53% voted that AI provides better working conditions.
With that in mind, wouldn't it be nice to have a writing assistant that can jump in when the lack of inspiration (writer’s block) strikes?
Thus, we suggest that you safely and courageously step into writing waters with the help of TextCortex.
TextCortex is a use-case module-based AI writing tool that can transform any given keyword into any compelling content type.
It offers web application and rewriting extension — depending on your preferences you write your pieces within TextCortex’s editable canvas, or within the comfort of 30+ platforms.
Web application can help you:
- Create any content type you need (blog articles, social media posts, product descriptions, ads, emails, etc.)
- Generate natural-sounding output with different levels of creativity.
- Incorporate both manual and AI-generated writing within an editable canvas.
- Allow you to format and edit your content on the spot.
- Produce content at scale.
- Create content in more than 72 languages.
- Save your projects for future use.
Furthermore, our Chrome extension can jump in when you need to:
- Rewrite sentences and paragraphs for better context.
- Expand your sentences for more information.
- Write blog posts in any textbox.
- Transform bullets into emails.
Are you ready to start writing?
Claim your 15 free daily creations today to explore how TextCortex’s features can improve your writing while producing your content like a pro.