Make Your First Money Online Freelancing Free ebook by Lidiya K https://letsreachsuccess.com/
Hey and thanks for signing up for Make Your First Money Online Freelancing! The fact that you re here shows me you want to make money online. You might have seen all these bloggers and lifestyle designers across the Web who seem to be living the ideal lifestyle and making money while they sleep. And you want a taste of that. You ve come to the right place. Monetizing my passion and creating a digital business was one of the best things I ever did in my life. I ve been blogging and freelancing for over 4 years now. But It wasn t until 2 years ago that I got serious about this and took my site Let s Reach Success and my freelance writing business to the next level. What started as a personal blog on self-improvement (my passion!) has now turned into an authoritative site and business that earns me over $3,600 per month and I only need to work 2-4 hours/day. I, like most other bloggers who did it the hard way, made a ton of mistakes, wasted precious time, and waited too long. But you don t need to do this. You can start your career online, build a site and have an audience, and offer your freelance services without any experience. This guide is all you need to get started. Thanks to my blog Let s Reach Success and all the opportunities that came with it, I was able to leave my home country (Bulgaria) and move to my ideal destination (Amsterdam, Netherlands). I now live pretty well in what many people consider one of the most expensive cities in Europe. I enjoy a lifestyle of freedom and independence. Spent a few weeks in Thailand while working remotely. And I can set my own
working hours. All that was possible thanks to becoming location independent and making money online. You can read my full story here. It all began with freelancing, though. That s the #1 way to get started quickly online and have the chance to not just make a living by selling your services but turn this into a passive income driven business (by selling products, owning a site and monetizing it, or affiliate marketing). With no experience (like me in the early days), it s best to give freelancing a try and start earning your first income online. In this guide, I ll show you how to get started. Consider that the blueprint I used to make my first $1K (and more) from freelance writing and Let s Reach Success, without any experience, initial capital, connections or being tech-savvy. You will get the steps that will help you start your blog and career as a freelancer successfully. That includes understanding why freelancing is the way to go and how to do it while at your regular job. After that, I ll give you tips on finding the right niche for you. The next step is to begin building your portfolio and I ll show you how I did it, which is something any one of you can replicate. The next chapters cover the ways to become a freelancer and market yourself as such. You ll now have a personal brand to create and clients to pitch, so I ll share how to do that too. Throughout the guide, I ll include the best platforms for finding your first freelance clients (which is where I made my first money online too), the tools you can use (free or paid) to build your own platform and increase your income in new ways, and also other helpful resources that will lead to better time management, finding the focus you need to do work every morning, and more.
If you re ready to begin your journey to making money online and freeing yourself from the 9 to 5, let s get started! Quick note: If you just want to start your blog right away, you can head to my free guide How to Quickly and Easily Set Up Your Site and start your blog in less than 15 minutes!
Part 1 Many people never start a blog or become freelancers because they look at the big picture and think how overwhelming it is. They think of how long it s gonna take them to see these first dollars coming in and that they are already too busy with their regular jobs. But none of that should be a barrier. Almost anyone out there started making money online while at their day job, on the side. The point is to build your platform and start growing it. Once you earn your first $100, you ll be able to replicate the process. Not long after that you can work on other things too and get to $1,000. Once that happens, you ll have created a system for making money and your bank account will be seeing more of it every next month. Until you make as much as your current salary and can simply ditch your day job and never look back! So please, if you truly want to make a change and make the most of the wonderful opportunities the Internet offers, leave all doubts, fears and excuses behind. Let me give you a few solid reasons that might clear the uncertainty and help you focus:
1. Freelancing is the quickest way to start earning. It will be active income, sure. That means you ll be behind the computer and investing your time in return for money. But that s how most people who are crushing it online began. The point is to realize it s possible to earn without needing anything else other than a laptop, Internet connection and a PayPal account. I ll never forget the first time I landed a client and got paid to write an article for them. That was all I needed to pitch another one, and another one. What was a one-time job for $20 turned into writing weekly articles for someone else for $25, and so on until I was making a few hundred per month in my free time. That was enough to become self-employed and start a business. Read: How I Became a Location Independent Freelance Writer 2. Freelancing will help you learn a lot. Forget about building skills in advance, having the perfect portfolio or initial capital, knowing the right people, or even understanding Internet Marketing. None of that matters right now. The point is to define what you are (or can be) good at and start doing it for free first, then find your first client through the websites I ll share with you later in this book. Once you do that, you ll begin your learning process. You ll get to know the way of thinking of clients and will soon be the one negotiating your rates, asking for more work and referrals, and setting the right expectations for each job. The more you do this, the more you ll understand how the industry works and what you should do to increase our income.
3. You ll notice how you are growing together with your blog and freelance business. Although I ll teach you how to begin making money freelancing, your blog will play a big role too. It will become part of your brand and a way for new clients to find you. I never thought, for instance, that I ll be making money from sponsored posts. But now that s half of my income. I often get people and brands emailing me and offering me $100-$200. All I have to do is publish their guest post with a link back to their resource. And that s just one of the many ways to make money from your blog and online business. It wouldn t be possible, though, if I wasn t confident in my skill. And that happened thanks to freelancing. 4. You can become your own boss. Another great reason to choose to become a freelancer instead of trying anything else (such as building a product first or trying affiliate marketing) is that it s not just a quick way to monetize your skills and earn some money, but to becoming your own boss. That means flexibility, freedom to work from anywhere, the ability to choose your clients and set your own working hours, mastering your skill and being able to charge more for the same amount of work, building a name for yourself in the niche, and more. Read: 53 Solid Reasons to Become a Freelancer
Tips for Starting While at Your Regular Job Keep in mind that you can start right now. Any reason not to do it is an excuse you make. But tomorrow it won t be easier. You still won t know where to start or what to do next. That s why you need to make it a habit to take one action a day related to your journey to becoming a freelancer. Here are some tips to get you started (each of these kept me sane and productive when I was having doubts, was dealing with distractions, or else). Make sacrifices. Most people simply aren t ready to put in the hours. They like their life the way it is now. Which means they still want to go out every weekend and drink alcohol after which they can t focus for the next 2 days. They spend money on things without caring about their savings or earning more. They don t plan their days so they never have time to finish all that they want to. It s time to make sacrifices if you want to change your financial situation, though. Start saying no to eating out, nightlife, trips, new clothes and gadgets, sleeping in, wasting your weekend, etc. Because each of these costs you your precious focus, time, attention and resources. And all these can be invested in your freelance business. It will take just a few weeks or months to get it started, but it might change the rest of your life. However, it s ridiculous to expect to be making any money a month from now if all your free time is spent in unproductive and lazy activities. Binge-watching Netflix, drinking during the week, waking up late - all these aren t parts of the life of an entrepreneur. And you need to work even harder when you re just beginning. If you care about your future, are sure you want a way out of the 9 to 5 and believe this could be an online business, then start making these sacrifices.
Every self-employed individual started this way. No one had it easy. But this period is important as it helps you build discipline, understand what it takes to be making money online, and prepares you for the next stage. Be ready to wake up early and get to work. Mornings are the time of the day to find focus and solitude and should be invested in your freelance business. Do the same with your lunch break and evenings, and the whole weekend. Finding clients, learning things about your niche, building your brand, blogging on your site, networking and building an audience - these are the things you ll be doing every single day until you start making $500/month or so. Then, you ll create systems to do less work but get more done thanks to some smart techniques and the experience you ll gain. Manage your time better. Time management is key if you want to be the boss. Because soon you ll manage money and an online business. So managing your time now is what will prepare you for more responsibility and a bigger income. I had a hard time concentrating, there are many distractions when working from home. Often other people in my life discouraged me or I was about to lose hope when there was no progress. There were some specific productivity techniques and tricks that I found useful. I ve shared them in this post. Go through them and see what changes you can make to your daily schedule to make the most of every minute. The point is to have the energy, clarity and motivation to work on your online business. It should be a pleasant activity and you should be excited about it every morning. Or else, you risk making mistakes, being lazy, not finding clients, and not trying new things to make more money online. Read about successful bloggers.
Something I ve been doing that kept me sane, constantly inspired and action-oriented, was reading about how others are making money. I have some people that I like to call my online mentors. Here s an article where I talk about 5 of them and what they taught me. I m a proof that if you follow other people s journeys long enough and learn from their mistakes, you ll eventually end up reaching your own vision. Also, as we re talking about making money online here, check out other people s income reports. Most bloggers who earn anywhere from $10,000 to $150,000 publish these every month and share all their lessons. While I m not there yet, I m still documenting the journey. Here are my previous income reports. Some people you might want to learn from are: Pay Flynn from SmartPassiveIncome.com Michelle Schroeder-Gardner from MakingSenseofCents.com Action Steps: Go through the reasons why freelancing is worth it. Find the one that you care about the most. This will be your why Keep it in mind for when things get tough down the road. Decide what sacrifices you re ready to make so you can find time and focus to take action related to freelancing on a daily basis. How can you structure your week differently so you can use your free time to work on your business?
Part 2 To make it as a freelancer and blogger and to start earning soon, you need to find the right niche. The more specific that is, the better. A niche market is a segment of a bigger market. Because there s so much competition out there on almost every topic, it s hard to stand out. What you want to do, however, is build a name for yourself in one industry. Once you have that, you can enter any other field you re interested in. We can all do what we love. The fact that I write about topics I am passionate about was one of the main reasons why I did this long enough to actually get to see myself earning more than $3K in a month without too much effort. I share all the details about this in my book Finding The 1 Thing You Were Born to Do: From Recognizing to Monetizing Your Passion So, let s get to the action steps for today.
Finding Your Niche 1. Make a list of the things you enjoy doing, the activities that make you lose track of time. They won t necessarily sound like things ready to make you money online. But there s still a way for any passion to be turned into a career. If you like teaching others, for instance, you can create courses for beginners, or help others do that. It s all about organizing the knowledge around a topic and then allowing the students to consume it at their own pace. Once you have a list of things, take this passion test to see which one is really your true calling, not just a temporary interest. 2. Decide how you want to communicate your message. Time to figure out your favorite medium. That could be the written form, audio or video. I know for sure that s writing for me, but we often don t know until we give the other options a try too. That matters because if you enjoy audio, for instance, you can teach yourself how to edit it easily and offer this as your freelance service. You can also have a podcast and thus improve your personal brand. However, if you like your current career but just want to be working for yourself online, then simply start offering your services as a package to individual clients. All the tips you ll receive in this email course over the next few days will help you with that. This makes it easier for you because you ve already built the skill, have experience and just need to figure out how to earn an income from it on the side, not through your day day. 3. Choose your industry and enter it.
What industry do you see yourself serving? It s important to care about it enough as you ll be spending a lot of time learning its ins and outs. Make sure you don t get bored with it and lose enthusiasm for growth early on. As a result, your blog and freelance work will suffer too and you won t land clients or grow your income. Once you know what that field is, start reading about it. This isn t going to continue just for a few weeks, though. Keep in mind that you need to be a lifelong learner if you want to make it big online. I knew nothing about the Internet, blogging, publishing, writing books, freelancing, or else, in the beginning. I learned it all one guide/article/book/podcast episode at a time. There are plenty of free resources out there and every expert is sharing a ton of advice on what to do exactly. 4. Niche down. Now, whatever it is you re choosing to do online, niche down. Let me give you an example. As I recently moved to Amsterdam, Netherlands, I now added that to my portfolio, About and freelance writing services page. Once I did that, local people started finding me and offering me to work together. I still write in English and remotely (mainly working with people in the U.S.), but that differentiation brought more attention from that exact audience. That s why you ll often find personal finance bloggers who have optimized their pages for a keyword such as financial advisor Seattle. Using your location together with your services is one way to stand out and get more exposure. The point is to niche down.
How I Defined My Passion and Turned It Into my Career I love to write. That s why I initially thought writing was my passion. But it wasn t until I read Gary Vee s book Crush It! many years ago, that I realized it was something else. The common thing between all the things I enjoyed in life was personal development. I was constantly reading about it, looking for the life lessons in every situation, and trying to improve many aspects in my life. So, I accepted the fact that this is my biggest passion in life. And as such, it was my mission to turn it into a permanent part of my lifestyle. Then, I started thinking how I can share it with the world, because a passion can only be monetized when it provides value. You also need to use the Internet somehow. For me, that happened by writing about personal development on my own blog, on other guest blogs, self-publishing books on the topic, and more. After doing this for months and then learning about Internet marketing and monetizing my skills, I also created profiles on sites like Upwork, Guru and Freelancer, and started sending proposals to any job that seemed like a good fit for me. English is my second language, I have no degree in this. I was just an amateur long enough to eventually start being considered an authority in a niche. And yes, you can do that even in a big market like personal development. However, it s much easier to start smaller. Action Steps:
Give it some thought when trying to find your niche. One evening of brainstorming, or even setting aside 30 minutes, might be enough to begin your journey and change the rest of your life.
Part 3 Okay, let s get to the point and talk about how freelancing and making money from it works. You ll eventually build a name for yourself, have your own platforms and online presence and loyal clients will keep coming back while you re looking for new ones. But in the every beginning you ll be no one in your field. And that s what scares many freelancers. You will find your first clients through job boards or sites for freelancers like upwork.com, freelancer.com or guru.com But what s next? Well, you ll create a great profile, start browsing the jobs and pitch your first client. Being rejected is okay with so much competition. The more people you reach out to, though, (with the right message), the bigger the chance to make your first money offering your services (be it writing, coding, web design, virtual assistance, translation, video editing, or else). Ask yourself this, How can I grab the attention of a potential client and show them I can do a good job on this project?
That s when your portfolio comes in. And by portfolio, I don t mean your official CV, or talking about your degree, what you enjoy doing or what a nice person you are. I mean giving people a proof you can actually do a good job. Which can only happen by having done something similar already. The best portfolio in the world is your website. Let me give you an example. When I pitch clients, I simply tell them: I think I can do a good job on this for you. Here are some samples to see how you like my writing style: [links to relevant articles on my site] If you like any of these, expect the same quality for the work I ll do for you. It s possible that your work exists on other places. Maybe you wrote a post for another site. Or you re a photographer and your images are published on free stock photo sites. Or you edited a few videos for a friend that are live on YouTube and you can link to them. That s great. Proof of your work exists and you can show it to the potential client. Still, though, you must have a website (a platform you have full control over) and display these there. In the next section, we ll talk about building your platform and sharing your portfolio with the world. For now, think what it can include. I chose to write articles first (for fun) and then start doing the same for people who d pay for that. So I simply showed my samples.
If you re a web designer, your own website itself will be your portfolio. Next, do some work for free and use it to land your first clients. Ask friends and family if they need your services and do it for free. Enjoy the process, get their feedback, do your best work. This will be your portfolio and the work based on which future employers will judge you. You can land a gig for $500 in a few days and make this a regular client if you play your cards right in the beginning. Action Steps: Find freelancers online doing the same and check out their sites. A quick Google search will do. See who you re competing against. Decide what your portfolio will consist of as you ll begin building it soon. Think of someone you know who might benefit from your services. Contact them and offer them your services for free. Do a great job and ask for feedback.
Part 4 Let s get to the not so technical tech aspect of blogging. You need to make your site live. And if you re a total newbie, it might be confusing. I know I wasted a ton of time until I found the right information to guide me. Although the process of setting up a site is pretty straightforward and enjoyable. In a nutshell, there are 3 main elements. You need: a content management system (the software for creating, publishing and managing digital content); a domain name (the name of your blog); and a hosting provider (the hosting company providing virtual space - server - that will store your website and make it accessible to people all over the world). The first element, the content management system, is free. The most popular one is WordPress and that s what powers most of the Internet today. The next element can be purchased separately and costs around $10-15 per year (but can also be part of the package with your web host).
The third is your main (and probably only) expense. You need to pay monthly or yearly to a hosting company so that your site is stored on their computers and runs fast. A great choice for beginners is Bluehost, which costs less than $3/month. It s one of the most popular companies offering web hosting and they power over 2 million websites. They offer a free domain name for the first year and a one-click WordPress install. So you get the 3 elements at once and can make your site live in around 15 minutes. I ve created a quick tutorial to walk you through the steps. Here it is: How to Quickly and Easily Set Up Your Site And if you re willing to take the next steps such as customizing and designing your site and making it more powerful with the right plugins, you can check my free blogging guide: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Starting a Blog in 2018 Good luck with that. Hit me up if you have any questions. Action Steps: Sign up for Bluehost, choose your domain name and purchase your hosting package. Install WordPress with one click.
Part 5 Before you pitch your first client, you need to look and sound professional enough in the digital world. That s not hard at all, it just means taking care of a few elements on your website early on. Here s what I and every other freelancer just starting out do when building our brand and entering our niche for the first time: Create your bio Time to decide who you are, and - most importantly - how you want your clients to perceive you. That s what branding is all about, after all. Some people have no idea how to describe themselves while others share every detail about their story. But that s not what you should be doing as not everything matters. You want to share just enough so you give people an idea of how you can do a good job for them and also show them what kind of a person you are (easy going, dedicated to your craft, social and friendly, etc.)
Write down a 1-sentence bio as well as one that s one or two paragraphs. You ll use these throughout pages on your site, social media profiles and accounts on sites for freelancers. About page Click New Page in the dashboard of your new WordPress site and keep in mind this can be the most visited page one day. Everyone who lands on your site wants to learn more about the person behind it. It s a place to get into more details such as why you re passionate about your niche, where you come from, what influenced your mindset over the years, what your next goals are, why you created this site, etc. Here s my About page, for example. I ve changed it many times over the years but also update it frequently (that s important as things in my life and business change every few months too). Make sure you use Grammarly to proofread everything. Contact Your Contact page is easy to create. You can simply insert a contact form (with a plugin) or just share your email, phone, Skype, etc. The point is to show people you re available, to encourage them to get in touch, and to even give them more than one option to contact you. Here s how my contact page looks like. Hire Me/Portfolio page Time to start your actual portfolio. That s a page on your website where you link to samples of your work, talk about previous experience or projects and convince people to hire you.
Some things you d want to make sure you include are: A catchy tagline; All your services; Testimonials; Relevant skills; Relevant experience; Your resume (it s best to add it as a downloadable file); A professional photo; Others things you re good at or projects you re working on. I suggest you have both Hire Me and Portfolio pages. You can rank them for keywords too if you want to. Adding/mentioning your location is important as some clients can find you because of that in the future. Here are my Hire Me and Portfolio pages if you want to see an example. I still remember how, almost 2 years ago, I did some big changes to my blog and my online presence as a freelancer. Here are the 10 steps I took to become an actual brand rather than just an individual. Social media There s no way around this. Networking is a big part of finding freelance clients and increasing your income, so you must be social. That begins by joining all good platforms and taking your time when creating each profile. Include a quality photo, link to your site, add the short bio you thought of earlier, and start connecting with people. Now, please keep in mind that every channel works differently. I mean, you can t post the same type of content on LinkedIn and Instagram. You need to adapt as people are there to see different
things. They simply won t react if you don t post what fits the platform. To utilize Twitter, for instance, you should start following people in your niche. Also, share your articles there, but also those of influencers in the field and add your comment. Don t forget to tweet motivational questions too, ask questions to start a discussion and use hashtags so the right people can find you. Have a Facebook page aside from your personal profile and share your content there as well as interesting news or events in your industry. Use Canva, the free graphic-design tool that can help you create beautiful image quotes, graphics, promotional materials, ebook covers, and so much more. You can create covers for any social media platform, for a start. It gives you the right size and many templates to choose from so it won t take you more than a few minutes. Use it to create image quotes for Instagram and also graphics for Pinterest for each of your blog posts. Utilizing these two visual channels is important as some people receive a ton of traffic solely from them. The point here is to gain attention from anywhere as you never know how the next client or opportunity will find you. Of course, you should also explore LinkedIn. It s the network for businesses and professionals and plenty of freelancers land new clients there. Fill anything you can on your profile and take it as seriously as your portfolio. Provide value by publishing on LinkedIn Pulse, sharing other people s articles and leaving insightful comments, following brands and companies that might need your services, saying you re available for freelance work in your description, and adding previous experience and projects you ve worked on. Once you take the steps in this chapter, you ll have solid online presence which you can then start improving by publishing and sharing content, connecting with people and growing your audience, and learning what techniques work on each platform (the
right hashtags, joining groups, certain hours of the day are best for publishing, etc.) Action Steps: Share your story on the About page of your site. Add a Contact page. Create a Portfolio page and add all its key elements. Add a downloadable CV. Have a Hire Me page too. Make profiles on every important social media channel. Start utilizing them and create content for each.
Part 6 Now that you know your niche, have your own website and its main elements, created your portfolio, are on social media and doing your freelance work on the side, things are starting to look pretty good. The next step is to go where your clients are. The Platforms One of the great things about the Internet is that there are marketplaces for everyone s needs. In your case, there are sites whose goal is to connect employers looking for freelancers with the right independent workers. Millions of people are on them and they guarantee you secure payments. Everyone starts there. As you can t really find clients on your own in the beginning. You simply don t know where to look for. In fact, you don t even know who your ideal client is and how to approach them. Which is why testing different pitching techniques and different clients works wonders - you understand what you re good at, what you need to work more on, and what clients you communicate well with. So, head to the following platforms and create your profile:
Upwork Guru Freelancer PeoplePerHour These are the most popular ones. Usually, you ll start making money on one of these and will focus all your efforts on landing more clients there and getting more feedback. In my case, it was Upwork and in the next chapter I ll share how I ve made over $10,000 on it. But you never know which platform will change the game for you, so you need to join them all, make that profile stand out, and start browsing jobs. The Profile A proper profile is filled, with a good picture of the freelancer and a relevant title, a great description (which also shows your copywriting and communication skills). Here s how my profile on Upwork looks like:
You will be improving it many times but for now just include the main elements. The point is to create a trustworthy profile. No one would hire a freelancer with no picture, a description with errors or with lack of any personal details. It just doesn t make sense. What Jobs to Look For Next, it s time to browse jobs in your category. The way I do it is this: I go to the Writing category and search by filters and keywords. Upwork, for instance, offers plenty of filters you can apply. In the beginning, though, it s worth scrolling all recent offers in your niche so you can get an idea of what s out there. By doing this for a few hours, you will understand what people want from a freelancer, what kind of jobs are in demand, what your competition is like, and more.
Such sites are great for research and you can improve your skills and brand by learning all this and taking action upon it. When I find a job I think I can do (I apply only for these), I then check a few elements. The employer must be trustworthy too (with experience, previous jobs on the platform, good feedback, a verified payment method, etc.) Read the description carefully. It might be longer sometimes but that means the client cares about the project and wants the right freelancer. Check every detail as your reply needs to be relevant. If you know you can t do a job, don t apply. It s not worth it. The Pitch Let s say I find a job for a non-fiction ebook. The client has history, his payment method is verified, and his budget is okay. He sounds like he cares about content creation (that s important too!) and encourages the right people to apply for the job. Then, I d write this: Hey there, I m Lidiya, an author and blogger in the fields of personal, spiritual and business growth, creator of Let's Reach Success, been published on TIME magazine and have been blogging and doing freelance work professionally for more than 7 years now. Here are the books I've self-published: https:// letsreachsuccess.com/book-store/ Check out these samples to see how you like my writing style: [links to relevant samples] If you like any of these, expect the same quality for the work I'd do for you.
For ebook writing, I charge X per 1000 words, including research, editing, proofreading, formatting, and Upwork fees. Let me know if you're interested. Best, Lidiya Simple as that. Needless to say, I ve tested plenty of variations but this one works best for me. Also, it helps me see if the client is the right fit for me. As if they like my samples and how I presented myself, most probably working together will be easy and pleasant too. Action Steps: Join the 4 platforms I shared with you. Create a great profile on each. Browse the jobs in your category to understand the market better. Decide what job you re going to look for. Pitch your first client.
Part 7 Last but not least, I wanna share with you what helped me utilize one platform more than anything else - upwork.com It started with just one client back in the days, then another one. Slowly, I built my reputation there thanks to getting positive feedback from people I worked with. But it wasn t until 2 years ago that I took Upwork seriously and improved my profile, turned pitching good clients into a weekly habit, and started making some real money there. I share all the details in these 2 posts: Making Money on Upwork: 7 Key Tips Freelancers Should Know to Get Hired Every Time This is How I Became a Top Rated Upwork Freelancer
Final Words The information in this guide is enough to get you started on your freelance journey. Following the tips above and actually doing something about each of the action steps in the end of every chapter will help you build the foundation of your freelance business and personal brand. From then on, it s all about consistency and the desire to improve your skill and explore new digital opportunities. I wish you the best of luck! Stay tuned for new posts on Let s Reach Success as I keep sharing my journey and all that I keep learning about freelancing and making money online. You can also connect with me on social media: Twitter Instagram Pinterest LinkedIn