How to Promote Yourself Online as a Freelancer — Best Strategies

Modern technology and diverse communication channels have made it easier than ever to become a freelancer. 

Whether you are a video editor or a content writer, you can land high-paying gigs and create a successful freelance career with just a laptop and good Wi-Fi connection (Yes, that’s a must 😁). 

You will find a plethora of avenues to connect and work with renowned companies from all over the world. 

The only catch?

You must know how to promote yourself online so that you can attract the right clients.

Despite the safety net of a job, being a freelancer is often more rewarding and soul-satisfying. You get complete control over your day and life. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

That brings us to the next question.

Why would anyone hire a freelancer?

The rise of startups and SMEs has further resulted in a surge in the demand for skilled freelancers in various fields. 

These companies often find it more economically viable to recruit contractual employees instead of full-time ones. And that, my friend, is where you come in 😎.

So if companies are looking for freelancers, why do you need to market yourself online?

The only catch here is that irrespective of your industry or niche, the freelance job market is becoming increasingly competitive. 

That’s why it’s crucial to know how to build a personal brand and promote your services online.

The good news is that you don’t have to spend a fortune market yourself. 

Instead, you can use various digital marketing techniques to reach out to your potential clients and skyrocket your career.

Wondering how to go about it?

Let’s find out.

How to Promote Yourself Online as a Freelancer

If you are an aspiring freelancer, it’s only natural to wonder how to market yourself online. 

After all, making a mark on the internet is a challenge in itself.

I know, I’ve worked my ass off to get to this point.

While it’s extremely crucial to polish your skills, you must also develop a strategy to build your personal brand. 

The key is to establish yourself as a credible and trusted industry authority. This, in turn, helps you attract relevant clients and land awesome gigs.

Here are a few tips to help you market yourself online as a freelancer:

1. Build a Stellar Website

You can’t create a strong online presence without a fast, responsive, and user-friendly website.

Your website is your portfolio, ID card, degree certificate, whatever you want to call it.

While many marketing “gurus” will tell you that you can get gigs without a website, it’s almost impossible to ignore websites for long.  

Irrespective of how you connect with potential clients, they will likely want to take a look at your website. 

A visually appealing and easily navigable website can be instrumental in impressing them. 

You can use it to showcase your portfolio, services, and contact information.

But what if you’re not a technical person?

Neither am I. Yet, I’ve built two websites from scratch. 

And how’s that?

The good news is that you don’t need any technical know-how to create a stunning website. 

You can easily build one using WordPress. 

Image via WordPress

Make sure you register a relevant and meaningful domain name. 

You should also select a reliable, fast, and secure hosting provider to host your website assets.

Depending on your industry, you should also consider creating a unique logo and captivating header image. 

You can use tools such as Canva and Crello for this purpose. 

Don’t forget to add a crisp “About Me” page that highlights your professional journey and expertise. 

Include links to your portfolio and social media profiles. You can even add a few testimonials from existing clients.

It’s also essential to include a “Services” page that clearly outlines what you have to offer. Note how I’ve added a dedicated “Hire Me” page where you can directly purchase my content services.

Additionally, you should add a “Contact” page that includes your email address and phone number (optional).

2. Leverage SEO

Your website isn’t just a platform to showcase your experience and skills. If you aren’t using it to attract clients, you’re not utilizing its potential well.

And getting traffic to the website is the first step of doing so.

Search engine optimization (SEO) helps you achieve exactly that. 

In fact, 32% of bloggers in a survey said that SEO is the best channel for promotion for them.

Image via Orbit Media

You have to optimize your web pages using the right keywords, for starters. 

It helps ensure that your website shows up in search engine results when someone searches for services related to your industry.

The key is to identify terms and phrases your potential clients will likely use in their search queries. 

Let’s say you are a freelance digital marketer. You can optimize your website using keywords such as:

• SEO specialist
• Digital marketing expert
• Digital marketer for hire
• Social media marketer
• Content marketer

To find relevant keywords, you can use keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Planner and SEMrush. 

Alternatively, you can run a Google search for your selected keywords and check out the “Searches related to” section.

Image via Google

Once you have identified the keywords, it’s time to add them to your content. 

Make sure you only add your target keywords in relevant pages. The “About Me” and “Services” pages are ideal for including them.

When you’re using keywords, DON’T overuse them. Stuffing keywords is the death of your website’s SEO.

Additionally, you should ensure that your website is fast, responsive, and easily navigable. 

It’s also critical to add relevant, explanatory, and keyword-rich meta titles and descriptions to different web pages. 

Make sure you optimize the site architecture to let search engines easily navigate and index your website.

3. Start Blogging

Inserting keywords on your pages is seldom enough to get you traffic. Content marketing is the REAL DEAL.

In my opinion, a website is incomplete without a blog.

If you want to become a successful freelancer, you must learn how to build a personal brand. 

An effective way of accomplishing this is to launch your blog and publish outstanding, valuable, and meaningful content. 

The blog also helps you rank on Google for multiple keywords and can drive massive traffic to the website.

In fact, in 2009, HubSpot found that companies that blogged got 55% more traffic than those that didn’t. 

Image via HubSpot

This is perhaps the reason why an overwhelming number of blogs have come online since then. There are over 600 million of them now.

Irrespective of your industry or niche, it positions you as an authority and helps attract more paying clients. 

Moreover, high-quality content breathes life into your SEO strategy and improves your website’s search engine ranking.

The keywords you had identified in the previous step will be useful in selecting relevant topics and themes for your blog. 

The key is to publish content that resonates with your target audience (potential clients). 

It should address their pain points and help solve their problems. You should also publish well-researched thought leadership blog posts.

What’s more?

Apart from adding keywords to your posts, you should optimize them using images, infographics, animations, etc. 

Additionally, you should include meaningful sub-headings and break your text into snappy paragraphs. 

Don’t forget to add internal links to related blog posts on your website too. 

You should also include relevant examples, case studies, statistics, etc. and add links to the sources.

Try to stick to evergreen topics as they’ll help in driving traffic to your website continuously. Moreover, it’s crucial to regularly update your content by adding the latest data, images, links, and examples. 

After all, no one wants to read things that are outdated, right?

Lastly, don’t forget to promote your blog across various marketing channels including social media, email, etc. 

A good idea is to create a content calendar outlining your publishing and distribution schedule.

4. Publish Guest Posts

Publishing guest posts on authoritative and renowned blogs in your niche helps expand your audience even further. 

It even helps in positioning you as an authority figure in your niche.

What’s more?

It helps strengthen your website’s inbound link profile and further boosts its search engine ranking. This is because high-quality backlinks that you get from these websites will help with your SEO.

So, how can you do guest posting?

Start by identifying the most popular blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. Reach out to the owner or admin with an outstanding pitch.

Here’s a great example of a guest post pitch by Dave Schneider. 

Image via Guestpost.com

Once you’ve written your guest post, don’t forget to craft a crisp yet impressive author byline for your guest posts. 

Additionally, based on the target website’s guidelines, you should include a link to your website/blog. 

Choose an appropriate anchor text as that can also influence the extent to which the backlink will be beneficial for your website.

Along with this, you can also choose to contribute to relevant discussion threads on Quora and Reddit. Make sure you include links to your blog posts whenever appropriate.

5. Publish an eBook

You can propel your content marketing efforts to the next level by creating an insightful and comprehensive ebook. 

It’s a great technique to reinforce your authority, expertise, and reputation. After all, writing an ebook is no mean feat. You need to be thoroughly well-read to write it.

What’s more?

The ebook not only helps you build your authority but also helps you get leads.

How, you might ask?

You can use the ebook as a lead magnet to obtain email addresses and other personal information from your website visitors.

How can you write an ebook?

One of the easiest ways of creating an e-book is to collate existing blog posts from your website. 

However, you must make sure that all these blog posts are centered around a common theme or topic. 

Additionally, you should choose a traction-worthy topic that will immediately strike a chord with your audience.

For this, you must know your audience thoroughly.

If you are writing an ebook from scratch, you must carry out adequate research to cover different aspects of the topic. 

Divide the content into meaningful chapters and make it visually engaging with images, infographics, charts, etc. 

I always find it helpful to create a skeleton of the book before actually getting started with it. This helps me structure it better and also allows me to maintain the flow.

A good tip here is to look at each chapter as a blog post. That should make the mammoth task of writing an ebook simpler.

You should also include relevant case studies and statistics to further validate your content.

What’s more?

You might need to get the help of a designer to beautify your ebook. Attractive ebooks can be more engaging for the readers.

Once your ebook is ready, you can upload it to your website or self-publish it using a platform like Kindle Direct Publishing. 

Make sure you develop a concrete marketing strategy before publishing it. 

You can use a combination of SEO, social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising, paid social ads, and email marketing to promote your e-book.

6. Launch Your Podcast Series

If blogging isn’t your thing, you should consider hosting your own podcast series to build authority and trust. 

Of late, podcasts have become extremely popular. In fact, about 75% of Americans are now familiar with podcasting, up from 70% in 2019. 

How can you go about podcasting?

First, identify your potential clients’ pain points and choose a subject that will resonate with them. 

Make sure each episode is meticulously researched and engaging. Podcasts may seem simple, but they’ve got a lot of moving parts. 

What’s more?

You should outline a publishing schedule to ensure that you regularly upload your episodes.

It’s also essential to create a self-hosted WordPress website to showcase your podcast episodes. 

If you’ve already got a blog, you can put up podcast episodes on it too.

Additionally, you must select a trusted and reliable podcast hosting service. This can help you launch your podcasts on platforms like iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more.

Apart from streaming platforms, you should also promote your podcast on social media. 

If you have a mailing list, don’t forget to share the link to your latest episode whenever you publish it.

7. Up Your Social Media Game

Whether you are a musician or a PR consultant, your potential clients likely already use one or more social media platforms. 

You just have to reach out to them on the appropriate platform at the right time. 

A rock-solid social media marketing strategy will go a long way to help build your personal brand.

How can you build your brand on social media?

Start by identifying the social media platforms your potential clients are most likely to use.

Post that, create and complete your business page/profile on these platforms. 

When you’re doing so, make sure you write a memorable and keyword-rich profile description/bio that highlights your skills and experience.

After all, people should know what you do. Don’t forget to include links to your website and portfolio too.

Next, it’s time to start publishing fresh, engaging, and shareable content across your social media profiles. 

While creating your content, make sure you tailor its format for each platform. 

For instance, you could use horizontal videos on YouTube or Facebook. However, portrait videos would be better on Instagram.

However, finding content ideas for social media can prove challenging.

A great idea is to repurpose your blog posts into insightful infographics, explainer videos, slideshows, etc. and share them on social media.

Additionally, you should ask your existing clients to add ratings/reviews to your profiles. This can build your credibility on the platform.

What’s more?

You must engage with your audience to connect with them. Make sure you proactively respond to their comments and messages. 

Additionally, you should follow potential clients on social media and regularly engage with their content. 

This will help you build a friendly rapport before approaching them with a pitch.

It’s also important to make your presence felt among people in your niche. 

For this, it’s a good idea to join relevant Facebook or LinkedIn groups and regularly participate in meaningful discussions. 

You should add insightful comments and include links to your content when relevant. 

Moreover, you should include trending and meaningful hashtags in all your social media posts.

Also, try to capitalize on relevant trends by creating your own GIFs, memes, videos, etc. to improve your chances of getting noticed.

8. Prioritize LinkedIn

It would be unfair to discuss how to market yourself online without mentioning LinkedIn. 

The professional networking site is one of the best platforms to grab the attention of reputable companies from all over the world. 

It also helps you build better connections than any other social media platform out there.

Additionally, a well-defined LinkedIn marketing strategy can be instrumental in inbound lead generation.

How to promote yourself on LinkedIn?

The first step is to create your LinkedIn profile and add a concise, lucid, and impactful profile description. 

Don’t forget to include relevant keywords in this bio as it could help with profile discovery. 

The bio should also highlight your professional experience and the services you offer. 

Don’t be afraid to get creative and write a quirky description that sets you apart from the crowd.

For instance, note how I’ve crafted a bio that clearly explains what I do.

Image via LinkedIn

The next step is to regularly publish high-quality, thought-provoking, and valuable content. 

Don’t forget to enhance your content with relevant images and videos. 

You must remember that LinkedIn’s user base comprises C-suite executives and senior-level decision-makers too. 

Therefore, your content must be well-researched, original, detailed, and groundbreaking.

Here are a few types of content that work on LinkedIn:

• Thought leadership articles
• How-to guides
• Industry news and trends
• Quick tips

Additionally, you should ask your existing clients to endorse your skills and add recommendations to your profile.

I regularly share content related to digital marketing on LinkedIn to promote myself on the platform.

Image via LinkedIn

9. Leverage Social Advertising

Amplifying organic reach isn’t the only way of connecting with prospective clients on social media. 

Over the years, social media’s organic reach has dried up, especially on platforms like Facebook and Instagram.

So, to widen your reach, you can use paid social media ads to further widen your reach and awareness. 

For instance, you can create Facebook ads to promote your blog posts, generate leads, and even drive conversions on your website. 

The best part is that these ads are often more cost-effective than other paid promotion channels.

10. Ask for Referrals

If you’ve impressed your clients with outstanding work, they’d be happy to recommend your services in their networks. 

However, they won’t give you a referral unless you explicitly ask them to do so. 

That’s why it’s essential to persuade your clients to validate your skills on social media and online review platforms. 

You can even ask them to share the link to your blog on their social media profiles.

11. Join Freelancing Portals

Launching a blog and establishing your authority with high-quality content takes time and experience. 

If your niche is a competitive one, like digital marketing, you’d need to publish a lot of content and get a lot of backlinks to be noticed. 

Likewise, building a strong social media presence can take months or even years. 

Therefore, if you are new in the world of freelancing, then freelance marketplaces are a great platform to land high-quality and verified gigs. 

In fact, that’s where I started my freelancing career. And whatever many others may claim to say, if you prove yourself on them, you’ll be able to land great gigs.

Image via Upwork

While these websites aren’t useful in building a personal brand, they can be instrumental in kick-starting your freelance career.

You can join reputable platforms such as Upwork, Fiverr, PeoplePerHour, etc. for this.

When you join them, write a compelling and keyword-rich profile description and mention all your services. 

Additionally, you should prepare an awesome pitch, in case you have to submit a bid for a new project. 

Once you bag a few clients, you should ask them to rate your profile and share their reviews.

Conclusion

If you have always wanted to build your career as a freelancer or blogger, now is the right time to get started. 

The rise of the internet, social media platforms, and freelance marketplaces have made it easier to make your mark as a freelancer. 

You just have to know how to promote yourself online and build a personal brand. 

In other words, you need a rock-solid digital marketing strategy to attract paying clients.

Start by creating a website and launching your blog. 

Optimize your content for search engines and promote your blog posts across different channels. 

You should also explore other content formats such as e-books and podcasts. The key is to position yourself as a trusted industry expert.

Additionally, you should build a strong social media presence. 

What’s more?

It’s particularly crucial to create a LinkedIn profile and consistently publish top-notch content.

Lastly, you should register on reputable freelance websites and bid for relevant projects.

Do you have any questions about the methods mentioned above? Ask them in the comments and I’ll reply to them.