Search Results for: get clients

How to Earn More as a Freelance Blogger by “Providing Value”

(Important note: While you read this, give the phrase “providing value” the most childishly sarcastic tone you can muster.)

If you’re looking for ways to earn more as a freelance blogger, the phrase “providing value” is one that you may hear a lot. I don’t know about you, but it’s one that I tend to skim over a lot too.

It’s not that I don’t want to learn ways to provide more value to my freelance writing clients. I do. It’s just, well, the term doesn’t really mean anything on its own, does it?

The irony is, I’ve learned that I’m already providing plenty of this value people speak of, and it’s causing me to earn more. It’s just that I call it something else.

“Provide value” simply means:

Give more to somebody than you ask from them in return.

Permission to delve deeper into what that looks like?

Great. Here goes:

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By Josh Courter

7 Freelance Blogging Lessons from a TV Spy

Starting out as a freelance blogger can be rough. You have no money, no support from anyone, no portfolio highlighting your experience, and you’re stuck at whatever computer you happen to be working from.

I understand your pain — I was in the exact same scenario when I first started blogging. When I managed to find my first few jobs, they were cheap gigs that paid peanuts. It felt like it was impossible to get anywhere in my blogging career until one day, when I was feeling down and frustrated…

I was sitting on the couch watching TV after a long day of writing 1,000 word articles for 10 bucks apiece. A spy drama called Burn Notice came on the screen and I realized something: starting out as a freelance blogger is exactly like being a burned spy!

After reading that last sentence you probably think I’m insane. And you’re probably right. However, let me explain.

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By Sophie Lizard

Why Freelance Blogging is NOT a Numbers Game

You hear it all the time:

“Freelancing is a numbers game. You have to send out a ton of queries to get a few people to say yes.”

Ouch! Stop it. Don’t you know that every time you buy into this numbers crapshoot, a freelance fairy dies?

If you send out a ton of GOOD queries, you’ll boost your chances of getting hired.

No matter how many terrible queries you send, all you’re likely to get is an empty inbox. Or maybe you’ll get lucky and find one or two leads willing to give you a shot at $5 per post.

Dashing off sloppy pitches to every blog in the universe is not the most profitable use of your time.

So, where do your pitches or queries stand on the spectrum from good to terrible? And how can you spend your time the best way to get the biggest rewards?

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By Tiffany Jansen

What Miss America Can Teach You About Blogging

Confession time…

I was a pageant girl.

Yes, there was a time when I strutted around the stage in a bikini, narrowly avoiding death by killer heels.

Now, you know and I know that this is a blog about freelance blogging. By now, you can probably see where I’m going with this (if you don’t, I’m about to make a comparison between blogging and beauty pageants). And I can already feel you rolling your eyes.

Bear with me. As wacko as it may sound, there’s a lot bloggers can learn from Miss America. After all, we both want to be crowned. One with a tiara and the other with her reader’s attention.

And our ‘judges’ typically make their decision in the first 7 seconds.

If you want to be the last one standing when the curtains close, take a hint from the pageant world and brush up on these 5 elements of competition.

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By Sophie Lizard

What to Do When Your Freelance Blogging Career Is Going Nowhere

You got started. Found a few clients.

Remember how it felt at first? The world was yours, the sky was blue, the good life was just around the corner…

Then what happened?

Well, kinda nothing. You’re still doing the same kind of work for the same kind of pay.

And let’s be honest, that fact makes you cringe a little. It’s downright embarrassing. Your family and friends already had doubts about your career choice — you don’t want to prove them right by admitting you’ve failed to make any progress.

So you keep running on that hamster wheel, going nowhere fast.

Problem with the hamster wheel tactic is, it doesn’t work. As long as you’re stuck in the wheel, you have to keep running just to stay upright. It’s exhausting. And you know sooner or later you’ll slip and fall.

What are you going to do?

Give up and cry?

Go back to a nice, safe job in a filing cabinet somewhere?

Hell, no.

Here’s how to break out of the hamster cycle and get your freelance blogging career in gear.

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