Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. My name is Lauren and this channel is all about remote work location independence and helping you travel the world as much as you want whenever you want. In today's video, we are going to be talking about the six steps you need to follow to become a successful freelance writer. So if you're curious about starting your career as a freelance writer online and you want to start making money from those writing skills, this is the video for you. So the first step that you need to master to become a successful freelance writer has to do with your niche. So if you've been around on this channel for a while, you will know that I hop on about niching the sh** down whether you want to be a freelance writer or anything else in business, having a niche is super important. So what the f**k is a niche? A niche is usually the problem that you solve or a segment of the market that you help. So when it comes to freelance writing, it will look a bit like this. Maybe you are a travel writer or you are a B2B tech writer or you help real estate companies with their content marketing. That is one way you can niche down by the industry that you are writing content full. Another way that you can do it is the type of writing that you do. For example, maybe you are a case study writer or a wife papers writer or you help people with their sales pages. These are different ways that you can take that a whole market or freelance writing and really funnel it down to a small group of people that you help with your content marketing services. Step number two is that you need to create a professional website. This is another thing that I keep on going on about on this channel because it is being important people, you need a website. I know a lot of people say that you don't really need a website as a freelance writer but you really do. It will honestly change the game for you because it makes you look more professional. It also helps you position yourself as an expert for your niche and it just gives you a place to host your services and your portfolio in one place. What you want to do on your freelance writing website is that you want to make sure that on your home page above the fold which is the portion of the page that people see immediately as soon as the page loads. You want to have your niche statement there. For example, if you are a B2B take writer, you want to have something along the lines of, hi, my name is Lauren, I am a B2B take writer or I help B2B take companies with their content marketing. Something like that that is going to tell whoever lands on your website that they are in the right place. And another important thing that you want to make sure is on your website is your testimonials, your social proof, the results that other people have had from working with you. Now, if you are a completely new freelance writer and you haven't had any clients before and you have none of the super valuable social proof, there are two things that you can do. Number one is that you can create niche, specific samples and host them on your portfolio site. So for example, if you wanted to become a CBD content writer like me, you would go and write an article about CBD and then post it on your website and then share that link with potential clients when you are pitching your services. Number two is that you can work for free. So what you can do is that you can approach your ideal client and offer to work for free for a short amount of time. So long enough for you to actually get a decent testimonial from them, but you also don't want to be working for free for too long. So maybe it is that you're only going to write like, I don't know, two blog posts for free for them and then you can transition them onto a paid model if they are happy with your work. So another thing that I talk about a lot on this channel is pitching. It is a very, very important skill as a freelancer to know how to pitch your services because it is something that you are going to be doing constantly, whether you are replying to job ads, job ads, whether you are replying to job-borne ads or you are called emailing potential clients or maybe you are trying to pitch yourself for a guest post on a site like ProBlogger. You really need to know how to sell yourself and your expertise. And if you want to learn more about the three important elements that you should have in every single pitch, make sure that you watch this video right over here. I break down the three things that I include in every single pitch that have helped me land clients that pay as much as $400 per blog post. It is super important that you have the skill in your toolkit so that you can close those leads and start making money as a freelance writer. And then tip number five that you want to make sure you are doing as a new freelance writer is that you have optimized your links in profile. So what you want to do is you want to go on to your LinkedIn profile and you want to make sure that you have your freelancing writing niche in your headline. And you can also include a few additional keywords like content market or content strategist or blogger, anything like that because LinkedIn is a super searchable platform. Like people are typing in those keywords all the times into the search bar. So you want to make sure that your profile comes up all those keywords that are related to your freelancing business. Next, you want to add more keywords that are related to what you do in your bar section. So as a freelance writer you might have things like blogging or byline blogging or ghost writing, anything like that. You also want to make sure that you've reiterated your niche in that a bar section. And lastly, you want to include your best testimonials and results in that a bar section so that you really drive home that point that you are an expert in your freelance writing niche. And then a few other things that you want to make sure that you are doing on LinkedIn as a freelance writer is that you are connecting with marketing managers because those are usually the people that are going to be hiring freelance writers. So you want to make sure that you are connecting with those people and make sure that they are in your niche. You want to be super relevant so that you stand out to them and really start nurturing that relationship with them. And then lastly, you can also use links in publisher to your advantage. So for example, if you were a CBD writer, you could potentially publish a LinkedIn post like three mistakes CBD companies are making with their content marketing. And that is a way for you to then attract leads to your LinkedIn profile. And they would see automatically that your headline says that you specialize in content marketing for the CBD industry. They're going to click on your website. And then again, they're going to see that headline that says I am a CBD writer. So that is just going to establish you as an expert and it's going to make it much more easier for you to get that lead and to get hired at the end of the day. And if you want to learn more about freelancing, remote work, location independence and all that good stuff, make sure that you turn on those bell notifications and subscribe because that is what this channel is all about. And in the meantime, if you want to learn how to land your first client as a freelancer and also how to improve your productivity as a freelancer, make sure that you check out these two videos right over here. Anyways, guys, thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that you found it super useful and I will check you in the next one. Cheers.