You’ve finally decided to launch your freelance blogging career. Congrats!

Chances are, you’ve spent days researching how exactly to get started, and one thing you keep hearing is this: Your business needs a website.

Unfortunately, you don’t have the money on hand to launch a self-hosted site. After all, isn’t the whole point to make money with your business?

So you sign up for a WordPress account and decide to launch a free version of your site until you have the money to upgrade to a self-hosted option.

There’s no shame in that.

The only problem is that in general, a free WordPress.com site can make you look less professional. To clients, it says, “I’m not taking my business seriously.”

But that doesn’t always have to be the case.

If you get serious with your web design, you can get rid of that “unprofessional” feel all while maintaining your site on a free platform.

Want to look more credible to freelance blogging clients? Here’s what you can do to boost the professional appeal of your free WordPress site.

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How much — or how little — could you earn and still be able to live above your “survival” threshold?

Who’s depending on you, and are you able to meet their needs? Could you make it work even if your income stuck you below the poverty line?

These are questions few people really need to answer, let alone consider. But not long ago, these weren’t just hypothetical questions I pondered. They were my life, day in and day out, for three years. Freelance blogging and editing became the answer to all of those questions. That, and a steely determination not to fail.

Today I’m sharing the ins and outs of what I did in my first three years of serious freelancing. Let me just say right here that my path from dabbler to successful freelance blogger and editor was not smooth. I had the skills to do the actual work of writing and editing, but I lacked skills in pretty much every other area necessary to get my business off the ground.

My story is not about a quick rise to the top. I never broke $4,000 in a single month, and I won’t tell you about how easy-peasy it was to become a successful freelancer. Because for me, it wasn’t easy. I made a lot of mistakes, learned most of my lessons the slow way, and wasted a lot of time.

That said, I did go from know-nothing beginner to being a paid blogger and editor capable of supporting my little family, with few resources and very little time to make it happen. Here’s how I did it. 

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