Fruitful Freelance Writing

If you are looking for a new job or an extra income and you like to write, then freelance writers could be something for you. Freelancing and writing for different companies and websites can be very rewarding. It offers freedom and you would have the opportunity of working for yourself so to speak. With independence comes responsibility thought and freelancing has its challenges.

If you have a knack for writing but no previous experience writing then you probably have a lot of questions right now. Below are some things to consider before throwing you into the world of freelance writing.

Find Your Focus

You could have a machine gun approach and write about all sorts of things. This may seem like a good idea at first if you have a wide scope you can attract more types of jobs right. In reality though, when writing about subjects you have no experience with you will end up writing a pile of rubbish. No one wants to read a pile of rubbish.

If you lack focus you can’t differentiate yourself. You’ll be unable to effectively market yourself and your writing services. Normally a company or website is interested in having a writer who is an expert writing about this or that subject. They would look for someone who is able to create valuable content people want to read and act upon.

Our recommendation would be to find a specific focus and write about subjects related to that. It could be about real estate, SAAS (Software-As-A-Service), fintech (Financial Technology) or iGaming (Online Gaming – wagering of money online).

The more specific you are with your focus the better. It might seem contradictory to narrow yourself down to fewer websites or companies to write for but you should consider the benefits. You are able to become an expert at your craft and build authority, you are able to market yourself specifically for your niche and you will be able to actively target specific prospects who you know are interested in your writing.

Follow the Money

Another important thing to consider is profitability. You want good returns on the time you put in so you should focus on areas where there is value. Consider the situation about iGaming in India for example. This is a great example were being more specific about your focus will pay off.

There are land-based casinos and there are online casinos. Land-based casinos don’t offer their services online and online casinos don’t offer their services offline. 

The access to a land-based casino is limited for customers with a lot of aspects to consider such as distance and logistics, at the same time a land-based casino has limited seating capacity and keeps closed during certain hours of the day. 

Online casinos are an entirely different ballgame though. Customers are able to access the casino and play games 24/7. Online casinos are also very scalable, can take on as many visitors in the casino as the servers can carry. If performance ever becomes an issue they can just invest in better infrastructure to handle more visitors.

So how would you get started writing for the iGaming industry? If you are familiar with online casinos you may have noticed that 99% of the things you see on a page are different games. Here you need to target the marketing companies and agencies who are working together with the online casinos. Take comparison websites as an example – compared to an online casino operator, there’s a lot of written content on their pages. Covering topics such as how to play certain games, latest news from the iGaming industry, things you should consider before choosing an online casino in India, how to get help if someone has issues with gambling and all types of content related to online casinos. In this example, if you were an expert at everything iGaming related you could reach out and market your writing services to companies like Livecasinokings.com (https://livecasinokings.com/in/).

Create and Market a Portfolio 

You need to showcase your skills to potential clients. To do that you need to put together a portfolio with writing examples to potential employers get a sneak-peak of your abilities. The samples in your portfolio don’t necessarily have to be part of a bigger article or page that is published by anyone, at the same time you don’t have to mention that the samples aren’t examples of previously paid for work. Needless to say, only display samples of great writing.

Consider using social media, set up a simple blog or website where you can upload your portfolio. You can also upload your works to a professional portfolio network such as Dribbble.com (https://dribbble.com/places/india), it’s a great way to display your portfolio and you have access to a huge creative network to get inspiration from.

For social media, you can quickly set up pages on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter. Having a social media presence creates great leverage and comes at no cost until you should do some paid marketing. Link your Dribbble portfolio to your social media page to widen the reach of your work. You should frequently update your social media pages and if you get followers to make sure to interact with them by commenting and answer questions.

For websites we would recommend using WordPress, this would require some learning through before you have your website live. Quickest and easiest way would be to create a blog and use any popular blogging network (https://www.indiblogger.in/).

When you have chosen a focus, written some samples for your portfolio, created and uploaded the material to Dribbble and shared it on your social media pages and blog you are pretty much ready to start reaching out to potential clients. Consider using paid marketing on social media or search engine marketing via Google Ads (https://ads.google.com/intl/en_in/home/).