This piece is a guest post from Ashley R. Cummings, a professional freelance writer specializing in SaaS, advertising/marketing, and e-commerce. Previously, she was a Russian teacher at Brigham Young University, a corporate trainer, and a grad student—all at the same time. When she’s not writing, you can find her traveling the world with her family and friends. Connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Have you seen Avenue Q? You know, the Broadway puppet musical where Princeton graduates from college, enters the stage distraught, and rhetorically asks what he should do with his BA in English?

Then, the whole audience laughs hysterically.

It's funny to laugh at people that majored in English (ahem...me), but there is also a killer answer to that question.

You should become a freelance writer, be your own boss, and make way more money than all the audience members laughing at poor Princeton.

If you’ve been tossing around the idea of becoming a freelance writer (even if you didn’t major in English), you’ve probably asked yourself this question: “What exactly does a freelance writer do?”

Let’s talk about it.

What does a freelance writer do?

Freelance writers work as independent contractors for various organizations that need help with outsourced writing. This can include writing such as:

Blog and articles
White papers
Ebooks
Guides
Website copy, sales/landing pages
Email sequences
Ad copy
Infographic copy
Video scripts

Some freelance writers focus on providing a couple of these services, while others tackle them all. My personal advice is to focus on one or two of these types of writing, instead of being an inch-deep and mile-wide type of writer.

Now that we’ve discussed the surface of what freelance writers do, let’s talk about how they do it.

What successful freelance writers do to grow their businesses

1. Freelance writers build a website.

When people ask me how to get started with freelance writing, the first thing I tell them to do is to create a website. Here are the top reasons you need a website.

Clients search for freelance writers online

When someone needs a copywriter, they ain’t gonna pull out the yellow pages. Okay, that’s a thousand-year-old reference, but you get where I’m going. When professionals want to hire a niche copywriter, they go straight to Google.

Don’t believe it? 81% of people search for products and services online, according to a 2020 Smart Insights report.

If you’re a health and wellness writer, and your dream client enters “hire a health & wellness copywriter” into Google, you want your website to show up. If you don’t have a website, then...well, I’ll let you do the math.

Freelance writer Jessica Baltzersen’s freelance writing website spotlights her specialization on the home page.

Your website is your freelance writing portfolio

Your clients typically won't care how long you’ve been writing or where you went to college. They just wanna know whether or not you can put a string of sentences together.

Your website is the perfect place to show off who you are and what you can do. Include writing samples and feel free to casually name drop those impressive publications that scream “hire me."

Your website gives you credibility

Let me tell you a sad story about my mid-career crisis. I spent nine years building a pretty awesome freelance writing website, published a ton of helpful training content, and had robust links to my work on impressive publications. Then, I decided to buy the proverbial Ferrari and reinvent my career self. So, I got rid of any evidence of the old me and deleted my website. Big mistake.

My website was only down for a month or two, but the results were not great. During those two months, I had a difficult time landing clients. Why? Because clients couldn’t internet stalk me and find out how cool I was.

Long story short: As soon as I relaunched my website, I started landing new clients again. Imagine that.

(Squarespace is a great option if you’re not sure what to build your website on.)

2. Freelance Writers Network

I know I just told you that clients will find you through your website, and they will. But, the majority of your work will come from referrals.

Here are the top ways to build your professional network:

Go to events and expos. Check out local business expos within your niche. Grab a handful of business cards, and go chat with business leaders in your industry. I have landed a lot of clients this way and made many friends.

Use social media. Connecting with other writers, editors, and industry leaders on social media will help you land writing gigs. I personally have experienced the most success with LinkedIn, but that’s where I network the most often. Engaging on Twitter is another way to connect with like-minded individuals and find jobs.

Join some online communities. There are a ton of awesome Facebook, LinkedIn, and Slack communities for writers. Here are my favs: The Copywriter Club, Female Freelance Writers, and Advertising Copywriters.

Check out Slack groups. The most useful Slack groups for me personally are local freelance, marketing, and SaaS groups. I work in Salt Lake City, so I’m part of a Silicon Slopes group and a content marketer group for people in SLC.

My last bit of advice is to set up a coffee date with someone that does what you do. You already have your job and/or industry in common, met up to see what else you have in common.

3. Freelancers Write For People & Algorithms

Writing pieces for internet publication is tricky at first. Why? Because you have to throw nearly everything you previously learned about writing out the window, and adopt a new writing structure.

Let’s do a quick exercise. Think about how you search for information online. You probably pull out your phone, enter a keyword into Google, click on one of the first few search results, and skim the content until you find what you need.

People searching for info online aren’t settling down with a cup of tea for a good read. They are trying to find the most relevant information as quickly as possible. Excellent freelance writers write for scanners. This means:

Cutting out the fluff
Writing short sentences and paragraphs
Getting straight to the point
Putting the most important info first
Breaking up your content with headlines and subheadings
Writing at an 8th-grade reading level
Using bullet points and numbered lists

Here are some helpful online editing tools: Hemingway Editor and Grammarly.

You also have to learn how to write for Google’s algorithms.

This means optimizing your on-page content with relevant keywords so that Google’s algorithms can understand your content and rank it in the search results appropriately.

The higher you can get your article to rank for relevant keywords, the more traffic your post will attract. Stats show the number one position in Google captures 33% of the traffic. Holy cow, Batman!

Learning to optimize your content is an involved process. Refer to this guide for help.

4. Freelance Writers Keep Learning

The best qualities of successful freelance writers are determination and a willingness to keep learning.

When you start out freelance writing, you’ll need to learn:

How to start an independent business
How to build a website
What to include in your portfolio
How much to charge
How to pitch
Where to find good freelance writing clients
How to network
Where to market your services
Best practices for writing different types of content
And so much more!

The good news is you don’t have to know everything to get started. You can take things one step at a time, keep learning, and continually grow your business.

It’s also wise to learn from people that have already done the hard trial and error work and have created resources to help you scale your business. Take writing courses, read copywriting books, and subscribe to various successful copywriters’ blogs/newsletters.

Freelance Writers Do More Than Write Words for Hire

So, Princeton from Avenue Q.

Here’s the answer to your question...become a freelance writer. Learn everything you can about what successful freelance writers do and then copy them. You won’t regret it.

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