Before we discuss the best ways to attract freelance clients, let me just jump in here to help you adjust a few expectations.

1. Firstly, clients won’t come to you right away. It takes awhile to build your following, reputation, and website SEO. The effects of these strategies aren’t immediate and so many other factors come into play too (such as your writing talent and discipline).
2. That being said, you should always be actively working on these strategies to improve your visibility from the very beginning of your freelance career and for happily ever thereafter, amen.

 

Look, you always need to be proactively looking for clients, until your client load is full or overflowing. All I’m saying is, you can’t whip up a website and sit back and wait for work to fall into your lap.

Clients won’t magically appear, even if you wholeheartedly believe your morning affirmations that “I have an abundance of profitable freelance writing work. Clients come to me out of nowhere.”

Now, you may very well get some clients out of the blue.

But you can’t count on it. You still need to do your own proactive legwork.

So, without further ado…

 

The Four Best Ways to Attract Freelance Clients

Here are the best ways I’ve discovered to get clients to come to you.

1. Create a well-ranked website
2. Set up a referral system
3. Guest post on high-profile websites
4. Optimize your profiles on LinkedIn and other social media

Create a well-ranked website

Yes, we’re talking about SEO here. And while I know SEO isn’t always a freelance writer’s favorite subject, it doesn’t have to be difficult.

{If you still haven’t created a website, create one in five minutes}

If you put a few smart strategies in place, you can get your website ranked well on Google. You need to make sure your site gets verified by Google, you install the Yoast SEO plugin, and you find and use the right keywords in the right places.

{If you want to know exactly how I got this site ranked in the top 3 Google searches so you can too, check out this mini freelance SEO course}

To figure out your keywords, think about the process your prospects might use to find a writer.

Many of them head straight to Master Google and type in “financial copywriter” or “freelance hospitality writer” to see what comes up.

First, you want to make sure your website shows up on Page 1 of those exact Google results. Most people click on one of the first few entries and never make it past the first page, so if your site doesn’t show up at the top, it’s as good as invisible.

Two, you want to make sure the webpage your prospect lands on when they click compels them to contact you. Take time to hone your Home, About Me, and Work With Me pages until you feel like you want to hire yourself!

Make sure you make it easy for your prospects to contact you too, no matter which page they land on. If they can’t figure out your contact information, they’ll move on quicker than you can say “Wait just a sec!”

Action step: use Google’s Keyword Planner to do a little keyword research. Decide what the number one keyword is you want to rank for. It should be something along the lines of “your niche + freelance writer.” Then, choose a few sub-keywords, which could include your geographic location or the type of content your write (i.e. Dallas blog writer).

Include your main keyword in your site’s meta title, headings, subheadings, urls, and copy.

Make an effort to rank for your chosen keyword. I can teach you how with my mini freelance SEO course. It’s way too in-depth to discuss here;)

Next, peruse your website’s main pages and make sure you include your contact information or a contact form on each.

 

Set up a referral system

Referrals are one of the BEST ways to get new clients.

Think again about the process your ideal prospects might use to find a writer for some content marketing they want to implement.

Some of them will ask around their network for a good freelance writer. Make sure your name gets mentioned by current and past clients. How?

1. Do excellent work so your client can’t help but sing your praises.
2. Ask for referrals. Simply ask. You can either ask your clients directly for referrals or offer a monetary incentive for referrals like $25-$250 off their next project.

Another effective way to propel the referral train is to offer free work for a well-known entrepreneur who runs in circles you want to be part of. In exchange, you can ask them for referrals and a testimonial when you’re done.

Now, I only recommend free work when you’re just starting out, and only if the benefits of that free work far outweigh the lack of compensation. Doing free writing work for a millionaire entrepreneur will pay off in exponential dividends because of their reach and the value of their referral network.

If they refer you to their friends and network, you’re golden!

Action step: Make sure all your friends and family know about your business. Post occasionally about your business on Facebook so your name comes to mind first for referrals within your social network.

Next, write out your referral strategy going forward, if you don’t already have one. You can add a sentence or two to your business plan or open a new Google Doc to jot a few notes like this about your business strategy. Your referral strategy should be as simple as asking all clients for referrals upon project completion, with or without a referral bonus.

 

Guest post on high-profile websites

Guest posting is one of the best business strategies a freelancer can use. You should make guest posting one of your primary marketing tools, especially when you’re just getting started or hit a lag.

 

 

The advantages of guest posting are two-fold:

1. The published piece makes your portfolio all the more impressive.
2. Guest posts may entice your prospects to reach out to you directly.

That second point there is how you get potential clients to come to you.

If you write a piece that’s so well-written and received, your reader might think “Aha! This is the writer I want working for me.”

Prospects may reach out to you after seeing that stellar piece you wrote.

You need to be strategic about this move though, because you can’t just write any old content and expect clients to rush to you. You need to write content that applies and appeals to your particular ideal client.

If you want to work with plant-based pet companies, you likely won’t get any hits from a Huff Post article about financial freedom, or even a local dog show. Those types of articles aren’t of personal interest for their business endgame. You could get their attention however, with a thoughtful piece about content marketing specifically for the plant-based pet industry.

See how that works?

Action step: brainstorm a few well-known publications that your ideal client likely reads and come up with some article ideas that would be of value to them. Then, pitch those article ideas to the publications.

{Use my step-by-step process to pitch and land opportunities with big-name publications. It’s not as hard as you might think!}

Bonus tip: Make sure your byline rocks and includes your contact information so your prospects can easily reach you.

 

Optimize your profile on LinkedIn and other social media platforms

Prospects reach out to freelance writers on LinkedIn and other platforms all the time. I know because I read about it all the time and it’s happened to me. It’s one of the best places to be “seen” by prospects because it’s one of the most popular places for them to actively look for freelance writers.

 

 

How do you get prospects to reach out to you on LinkedIn?

1. Make your profile prolific and searchable. Fill in all possible sections and upload profile and header images to start. Then, go back and hone your profile. Include keywords about your niche and profession in your tagline and profile so you show up in searches. Don’t use fancy words like “wordsmith” or “copy engineer.” No one is searching for those. They’re searching for “freelance writer,” “copywriter,” or “content marketer.” Put a little bit of personality into your profile to distinguish it from others too. Let your ideal client know exactly what kind of results they can expect from you.
2. Offer your ideal prospect something free of value. Write an article with valuable advice for your ideal client and publish it on LinkedIn. An article like this gives your ideal client a snapshot of your writing style, lets them know you have expertise on the subject, and shows them your skills align perfectly with what they need. ‘Nuff said.
3. Stay active on the platform. Make regular updates to your profile and pop into industry-relevant groups every so often to keep your profile active. You never know, the excellent advice you offer in a LinkedIn group may trigger a prospect to reach out to you.
4. Tell them to! Never underestimate the value of a call-to-action. Straight up tell your prospects to reach out. Make your contact information easy to find and give them more options than just InMail. Make your CTA low-pressure too. Rather than “Tell me what content you want written and we’ll discuss which of your kids I get in return,” say “Email me at {your email address} to chat about copy. It’s my favorite subject!”

Use these same strategies to optimize your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook business profiles too. A few hours after optimizing my Twitter profile, a prospect reached out to me and is still one of my most profitable clients to this day. {Read about how I landed this client on Twitter here.}

 

To be a successful freelance writer (as opposed to a struggling one), you need to continuously, actively market your business. You can amplify your reach and let your website and social media profiles do some of the work for you with these four strategic steps to attract freelance clients.

If you can’t wait for the day when clients seek you out specifically, this is the way to do it.

 

For more in-depth, step-by-step instructions on SEO and guest posting, check out my mini freelance courses:

How to Get Published on High-Profile Publications

SEO for Your Freelance Writer Website

 

I’d love to hear about your successes with attracting freelance clients in the comments below!