Freelancefolder

7 Top Freelance Survival Tips

Posted June 30, 2011 in Inspiration

These seven freelance survival tips will help to see you through the lean times–and there will be lean times, at least until you have an established, reliable base of regular customers.

Every freelance worker has gone through a bad patch, when none of their job bids are accepted, on-spec submissions are rejected, or rock-solid clients cancel a gig (or go under). How you deal with adversity is critical to the survival of your business.

Here are seven tips to help your freelancing business survive.

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Ten Things Every Beginning Developer Should Know

Posted June 29, 2011 in Getting Started, How-To

In the world of web development, there’s so much to look at and do, it can be confusing to decide where to start as a beginner. If you’re wanting to be a back-end developer, what languages do you learn? Do you learn HTML and CSS if you just want to work in PHP and Ruby? Should you learn basic design principles as well? Or, should you learn a little about everything?

A lot of people are afraid to jump into web development because of this choice paralysis. Depending on what they want to do, they hear endless opinions about how and where one should start.

I’ve been a front-end developer myself for over ten years, since I was in the sixth grade. So I’ve definitely been there at each language’s beginning. I was there when there were no standards or CSS, and I’m here now to tell you what’s really important to know if you want to be a developer.

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The Power of Owning Your Own Domain

Posted June 28, 2011 in Social Media

A website is one of the most basic and essential marketing tools for the modern freelancer. Fortunately for us, it’s now easier and cheaper than ever to create a website.

That said, the temptation of free websites and domains is strong. You can get started without taking out your credit card or even having a PayPal account. In fact, you can create a website at Blogger.com or WordPress.org for zero investment and in under 10 minutes. How cool is that?

Yet I always advise freelancers, and anyone else interested in creating a business website, to make the small investment to register their own domain name and pay for their website’s hosting. You can get web hosting for under $10 a month. Domain name registration is even less expensive, at less than a dollar a month.

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What Is the Difference Between a Hobby and a Business?

Posted June 27, 2011 in Accounting/Bookkeeping

Is your freelancing business actually a hobby?

Some people think that a freelance business is really a hobby if you work from home, but is it? What about if you keep unusual business hours or work part-time? Do these things mean you’re not really in business?

Some so-called gurus say that working from home or keeping unusual hours means you don’t have a real business.

While many people may have their own opinions about what makes up a business, in many countries there is an actual legal answer to the question. In the United States, that answer comes from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

It’s important to get the right answer to this question, because it has broad implications regarding your taxes and bookkeeping. In this post, we’ll discuss this important topic and provide some additional resources that you can turn to with questions.

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7 Steps to Instant Motivation

Posted June 26, 2011 in How-To, Productivity

Do you know the story of Pavlov’s dog? If not, very briefly it went like this. Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov would ring a bell and when his dog came bounding up to check it out, Pavlov would give him some meat to eat.

He did this for some time before noticing that weirdly, the pooch started salivating as soon as he heard the bell ring and before he’d even seen the meat.

Pavlov realized he had stumbled on to something we now know as a conditioned response or reflex. Or as it is also known in NLP (neurolinguistic programming) parlance, an anchor.

In this post, I’ll explain why the principle that made Pavlov’s dog salivate works and how you can use the same principle to find your motivation.

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3 Reasons Why You MUST Move Out of Your Comfort Zone

Posted June 24, 2011 in Freelance Stories, Inspiration

Freelancing is great, isn’t it?

If you’ve been freelancing for several years, you may be pretty comfortable by now.

You’ve got an established client base–folks who come to you regularly when they need something done. You know and like them and they know and like you. Plus, you’ve found your ideal niche and as a bonus, you’re really good at it. The niche work that you do is just challenging enough to hold your interest without shaking you up too much.

All in all, after several years of struggling things are getting pretty comfortable in your neck of the freelancing universe. Things are so comfortable, in fact, that you feel like you can relax and take things easy–but should you?

I say “no.” It’s good for everyone, and especially freelancers, to move out of your comfort zone from time to time. Tackle something new. Step outside of the comfortable freelancing cocoon you’ve wrapped around yourself. You can even (gasp!) take the chance that you might fail at something you try.

Here are three reasons why you must move out of your comfort zone.

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30 of the Best Online Marketing Resources for Freelance Designers & Others

Posted June 23, 2011 in Marketing, Tools/Resources

Online marketing is an essential part of any business. It is as important as brochure and postcard printing, as television commercials, and as face-to-face networking. Most business owners know that within the realm of print marketing are a vast number of tricks, resources, and options to learn.

The same is true of online marketing.

With everything available for freelancers from banner ads to Google Adwords, affiliate marketing and SEO marketing, article marketing and online press releases, marketing on the web can set anyone’s head to spinning before they even begin the process.

Very often, freelancers are in charge of every detail of their business, including marketing. As mentioned before, marketing in and of itself can be very daunting, but when it is one of a hundred tasks that you have to accomplish every business day, it can be very tempting to just keep putting it on the back burner. Or maybe you attempt some marketing task now and again, but for the most part have let your original marketing efforts run themselves.

However, online marketing, like print marketing, needs to be monitored. This is why it is important for you as a freelancer to know about the many helpful resources that are available online. If you are just beginning an online marketing campaign, there are also plenty of excellent help at your fingertips.

In an attempt to help fellow freelancers, I’ve compiled a list of resources that you may need for your online marketing campaigns. With this list, I hope to save you time and to provide you with some of the best tools to help you succeed.

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Increase Your Productivity By Shortening Your Work Day

Posted June 22, 2011 in Productivity

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

That is Parkinson’s Law, first published in The Economist in 1955 to describe the tendency of British civil service to increase in manpower even when the amount of work remained the same.

What does that have to do with freelancers?

In this post, we’re going to explore how freelancers can use Parkinson’s Law to increase our productivity.

If we accept Parkinson’s Law, then it follows that freelancers can get more things done by shortening our work days.

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5 Advanced Google Search Tips for Freelance Gig Hunting and Niche Research

Posted June 21, 2011 in Getting Clients, How-To

Established and experienced freelancers are unlikely to use Google to find paid gigs. They already have a collection of their favorite job boards that have proven to be effective for them and which they frequent. However, what has worked for some people might not work for you.

If you are just starting or if you want to broaden the job sources you are currently using, Google is a great place to browse.

No matter how great Google search is and how accurate results are, more often than not the key is in digging deeper. The freelancer who succeeds is the one who knows how to find what others can’t.

This post offers a collection of tips and advanced search operators that freelancers can use for market research and tracking gigs.

Use the search tips listed in the post to:

• Get the full understanding of rates being offered. Google will find both new and old (closed) offers, but the variety of search results will give you an idea of the average project budgets and the approximate number of freelancers generally available to do the job.
• Find most recent offers. There’s a tiny option in the left-hand of Google’s sidebar with search options. It lets you see results from the past 24 hours. This means you can play around with the search option to discover recent gigs and also (which is also important) find new places where these offers get published.
• Create a Google Alert (or several Google Alerts) to get notified of new gigs in your niche.

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