Freelancer? Working from home or for yourself? In need of a gentle reminder? Whatever your business and whatever your industry; a strong digital presence has become an intrinsically valuable advertising tool. For freelancers who spend the majority of their time enhancing the digital presence of others – it can be all too easy to let that slip.
The truth is that a thriving online is essential for the success of your freelance business. If you don’t keep up the social media accounts, link often to your own website, and make sure you establish an attractive local SEO strategy of your own then you might be losing business.
With all this in mind, we put together this short guide to keeping your online domain visible while you make it in the tough working world of the competitive freelancer.
The Freelance Market is Competitive
The global rise in the reliance on technology to conduct business has led to a wealth of online work. So far, the establishment of numerous online businesses and the migration of the bricks and mortar businesses to the online world has provided more work than there were freelancers able to do it. This trend can’t sustain itself, not when some 50% of the US workforce is going to be contributing to the gig economy by 2027.
With so much competition around, is your brand easily recognisable? Are you an established name in our industry? Do people seek you out for advice? If not, then it may be nothing to do with the quality of your work: and everything to do with the state of your online empire.
Making Your Freelance Brand Stand Out
So how do you make your brand stand out among the masses? Follow the tips below to get started!
1 – Your Brand Persona
If your freelance firm was a person – who would it be? The more you know about your firm and its customers, the better equipped you are to know how to appeal to them. Identifying your brand persona allows you to write more personalised, engaging content. It is also an easy way of describing your product or service to other organisations… particularly marketers working on your behalf.
Once your freelance reputation is associated with your image then people will expect it from you… so if your brand persona is someone who constantly shares abstract work on your social media sites, clients will eventually come to you because you are known to produce abstract work.
2 – Your Social Accounts
Aligning your social media accounts so that they are all updated at least once a day is a pain… but social media accounts present the best free digital advertising that is available to you. If you genuinely can’t find the time to stay on top of your accounts then you can outsource this to a specialist company. They can be found to suit most budgets and might just be worth it to save your expensive time.
3 – Going Local
If you want to score highly in local search result listings, then you need to scatter a few references to your local area throughout your online content. Mentioning a few nearby place names, collaborating with local businesses on a referral basis, and joining Google My Business are three essential steps towards doing this.
You also want to backlink to your own pages as often as you can. The more backlinks you have, the higher you will be in searches. Guest blogging, doing collaborative work, and attending local networking events are the best ways to do this. This is one of the many reasons it is essential to keep a blog of your own. You can use it to establish links with partner sites, as well as increasing the amount of keyword related traffic you gain.
4 – Schedule for Success
So if you are the type of freelancer who works in their pyjamas – let’s stop that. Get up, get dressed, and establish yourself a schedule that you stick to every day. The schedule will help you manage your time more effectively so you can fit everything in.
A good schedule should include:
- Time to eat, sleep, and exercise. It sounds simple but it is something most of us forget.
- Factor time for clients, negotiations, briefings and message answering first thing in the morning.
- Set aside research time before lunch.
- Put in a few solid hours of work in the afternoons.
- Every other day: inventory your online status. Is everything up-to-date? Does everything look sleek and run smoothly? Setting aside a single hour every two days will allow you to make steady progress towards an overall goal.
- Every Single Day: Post a status to your social media accounts. LinkedIn and TikTok are tipped to be the two up-and-comers (TechCrunch).
- Switch off at the end of the day!
LifeHacker have an excellent article about composing a schedule that will work for you. Sticking to your own body’s natural rhythms and setting clear boundaries about admin and email tasks are two very good suggestions they include. Likewise, if you need help building your social media following, the Balance Small Business have some excellent advice.
5 – Maintenance
Updating your personal site with your every waking detail isn’t necessary – but when was the last time you updated your web page with details of your most recent work? Are your biggest accomplishments even on there? Worse… do you not have a personal web site?
If you don’t, then head over to WordPress right now and make a free one. Then keep it updated. You can’t catch the traffic if you don’t have a site…but maybe we should have started with that!
Enjoy it? Share it!
If you enjoyed our short guide to maintaining an online presence as a freelancer, then please share it around! Don’t forget to check in regularly for all your small business advice. Good luck out there! It’s a big, bad, digital world… and if you don’t stay on top of it, it’s likely to swallow you all up.
Click here to see how Fashion Rider can help you thrive online: Fashion Rider Store
