This is part one of a three-part series to help you become a freelance writer and achieve the freedom of self-employment and the ability to work from anywhere. I recommend reading the posts in sequence as each post builds on from the previous one. For part two click here and for part three click here. Let’s get started.

Do you dream of living and working from anywhere? Do you dream of being self-employed? There are many ways to achieve this but in this post, I’ll show you how you can through freelance writing. I’ll show you how to become a freelance writer through following a proven strategy shared by professional blogger and freelance writer Bamidele Onibalusi that allowed me to earn $1000 in two months as a beginner freelance writer. Bamidele documents that achievement in this post.

Since then I've increased my revenue month-on-month. And the beauty of it? I’m my own boss, not bound to a desk and I’m able to work from anywhere with an internet connection - something I’ve always dreamed of. I mean, the other day I was having a glass of wine on a wine farm while writing a blog post for a client. Sounds luxurious, doesn’t it? Perhaps, but to achieve this required hard work.

So, how did I become a freelance writer?

To answer that we need to go back to June 2016, where I applied to become a contributor for Lifehack through a job posting on ProBlogger. Without going into too much detail here’s what I did. I read the application, tailored my pitch, sent off an email, followed up, wrote a few test articles, and became a contributor. While the pay wasn’t lucrative, it gave me the belief that I could make money from freelance writing!

Fast forward a few months later.

One of the professional bloggers I follow online, namely Bamidele Onibalusi - who is CEO of Writers in Charge - announced he’s launching a challenge to earn your first $1000 - in two months - as a freelance writer.

Bamidele started blogging at the age of 16 and within his first eight months of blogging, published roughly 270 guest posts in well-known publications like Business Insider and Problogger. One of his articles gained over 200,000 views over the first four years. By the age of 18, he'd already become one of Nigeria's top bloggers.

The challenge captured my interest because Bamidele was confident it could be done by following his strategy, and when someone with those credentials says that, you listen, follow, learn and implement!

For the challenge he launched a Facebook group - that's currently 2000 members strong -, created a pseudonym - Joseph Ola, and documented step-by-step how to achieve $1000 dollars within two months. This is one of the best resources (paid or not) that I’ve come across to help people become freelance writers.

In this blog post, I share how I achieved the $1000 mark within two months by following this strategy. It’s by no means a flash in the pan as there are others who achieved this, and others who continue to do so, long after the challenge. I can tell you this strategy works and if you follow it and take action you will see results! But fail to take action, and well, you know what will happen.

I also want to state that the focus of the challenge was on earning well. It wasn’t about landing a gig writing for a content mill where you earn $20 a post and churn out 50 articles. The goal was to earn well as a freelance writer, anywhere from $50 an article and up.

In my case, there was one article I wrote for a client where they paid me $300! This was a huge step for me and a far-cry from the $15 a post I was getting in the initial stages of my writing career.

So, your mindset should be to aim high and fire clients that low ball you. Yes, you heard me! Fire clients who low ball you. Becoming a freelance writer is as much about getting the work as it is knowing what you're worth.

But, before I go off on a total rant, let’s jump into the strategy I followed to help me become a freelance writer and launch my freelance writing business. And no, it didn’t start by pitching for jobs. Rather it involved careful attention to the foundation.

Set-up the foundation

A house built on a weak foundation will collapse. The same is true with freelance writing. If your foundation is weak, you’ll pitch for writing jobs and achieve poor results. This is a sure-fire way to fail in your efforts to become a freelance writer.

So, the first thing I did was set up my foundation. You can't expect to make it as a freelance writer if you aren’t clear on your positioning, you have no website, your social media presence is non-existent, and you make use of a Gmail address. Business is about perception and you want people to perceive that you’re a professional.

Decide on positioning

Establish how you want to position yourself from the start. By strategically positioning yourself, you make your offering clear and it's easier to market yourself. You can position yourself by niche (e.g. are you a technology, travel, or SEO Writer?) or service (blog posts, guest posts, ghostwriting (this involves writing articles for someone else without your author byline) etc).

In my case I decided to position myself by service, offering guest posts, blog posts, and ghostwriting services across many niches. As your writing business grows you can expand the list of services. I positioned myself by service because I was a beginner freelance writer and I didn’t want to limit myself. I wanted to keep my options open to explore different topics.

I understand there’s much research that points to the advantages of specializing by niche, like the ability to command higher rates. But, everyone is different, and earning a ton of money isn’t important to everyone. Besides, what is enough money?

Also, I attained over $1000 dollars in two months by specializing by service. If that isn’t proof that generalizing as a beginner writer can work for you, then I don’t know what is. If you can write quality content that’s of value, who actually cares? With my positioning clear, I started setting up my writer’s website.

Setting up your writer's website

Before you start designing your site there are technical aspects that require your attention. Before I even started I took care of the following:

 
1. I decided on a website name.
 
2. I chose a host.
 
3. I created a custom email address.
 
4. I chose a content platform (the back end where you’ll be creating your content)
 
5. I chose a theme (a website template you can customize).

I understand you may lack technical knowledge, but there are tools and resources to help you. Many people struggle with the technical aspects of hosting and creating their site and they let these obstacles stop them from starting and becoming a freelance writer.

I suggest the following to deal with the obstacles:

 
1. Use free resources and tools to simplify things (e.g. use themes so you don’t have to learn to code).
 
2. Follow the advice I give you, but don’t treat it as gospel, rather supplement it with the knowledge you can acquire through the likes of Google. I’m not a technical guru, programmer, designer or even a web developer but I took the time to Google things I didn’t understand, and I taught myself to use website builders like Divi. I enjoy the design aspect and this helped me figure out the technical bullshit.
 
3. Reach out to friends for help (try bartering e.g. offering a service in exchange for website creation).
 
4. Avoid perfection. Many people strive for the perfect looking website. They compare themselves to successful writers who have stunning websites. Remember, perfection doesn’t exist! Rather adopt the “this is good enough” approach as you can change your site in the future. Those successful freelance writers with their professional websites were once where you are. Take heart in knowing that and keep moving forward.

Decide on a website name

The first step in setting up a website is to create a custom domain. You don’t want a site with yourname@wordpress.com. This looks unprofessional. When choosing the name you have a choice between your name or a name that indicates your writing niche

Choosing a name that indicates your writing niche allows people to know what your site is about. However, choosing your name gives you more freedom to change your website in the future. Also, if you decide to change your niche, you can change your site without changing your domain name. I went with my name (i.e. nickdarlington.com) for this reason.

Choosing a host

For a beginner freelance writer choosing a host can be daunting as there are many options. So where do you start? I used Blue Host as many top bloggers use them and they offer first-rate support. SiteGround and HostGator are other popular choices.

Setting up a professional email address

The third step involves creating a professional email address with your hosting provider. This is important as many companies will ignore you if you send them pitches via Gmail. I chose nick@nickdarlington.com.

Content Platform

I will make things easy for you - go with WordPress.org! I chose WordPress and never looked back. They’re the industry standard and many companies use them to manage the back-ends of their websites.

Choose a theme

Now unless you have the coding knowledge you’re going to want to use a WordPress theme that’s ready to go. The key is to get your writing website launched in minimal time, so avoid procrastination. Pick a theme and stick to it!

For the freelance writing challenge, Bamidele made use of the Maskito Light Theme. It's free and ideal for a first writing website. If you have more money use a paid theme as it's more customizable.

Because I have some self-taught website building knowledge, I made use of Divi Website Builder. It doesn't matter what theme you choose, but make sure your design is simple, clean, and has enough white space.

Create key pages

When visitors land on your site they need to be able to establish what your site is about, the services you offer, and how they can contact you. To serve that purpose, there are four key pages you cannot compromise on to become a freelance writer. These are your About, Contact, Hire-Me and Services page.

 
1. About Page: include information about yourself, your services and the value you offer. Remember it’s about them not you.
 
2. Contact Page: make it easy for people to contact you and inquire about your services.
 
3. Hire-Me/Services: provide more detail on your services and link to a contact form.

At this stage, you most likely won’t have writing samples or testimonials, but you can always include these later.

In my case, I created a one-page website. Visitors could click on the individual tabs and it would scroll down to that section on the page. Here’s what the header of my site looked like:

Though my website has changed since the challenge in September 2016, it still has the key pages.

Create Your Online Presence

Any freelance writer needs to have a social media footprint. Being a ghost will not serve you! A social media footprint also improves your visibility in search engines. So, start off by establishing your Twitter, Facebook, and Linkedin profiles. If you’re like me who already had a social media presence, make sure to update the channels to reflect that you're a freelance writer.

What to do right now

 
1. Decide on your positioning e.g. by service or niche.
 
2. Set-up your writer’s website.
3.  Decide on a name. Your name or a name that indicates your niche.  
4. Choose a host. BlueHost and SiteGround are good places to start.
5.  
6. Create a professional email address.
7.  
8. Choose a content platform i.e. WordPress.
9.  
10. Choose a theme.
11.  
12. Create your key pages - about, contact, hire me and services page.
 
13. Create your online presence. Don't be a ghost.

Once your foundation is set, the next step to becoming a freelance writer is to establish credibility through guest posting. Click here for part two to learn about guest posting.