4 Freelancing Tips to Help You Become a Successful Freelancer in 2024
Every word counts. By now, you've probably decided whether or not this article is worth your precious time. In the attention economy, the amount of attention we can give is a precious commodity. It's how we measure success, too- bounce rate on a page, impressions, views, click-through rate, and follows. How many people can we get to pay attention to us when our competition is others claiming to be just as unique as we are?
1. Successful Freelance Careers Are Built with Help From Other Freelancers
While many people on social media, whether they work for a large corporation or work for themselves, claim to be "self-made," - think 'I dedicated x amount of time to growing my LinkedIn following to 6 million, and if you're consistent with posting, you can too!'- the reality is that success never happens in a vacuum.
As much as we need to be consistent with our content creation and have a working knowledge of best practices in SEO and user experience, the people who choose to pay attention to what we have to say play as much of a role in our success as we do.
After all, those who choose to sell their precious attention to us signal that they trust us when they engage with us. That's why many creators struggle to separate the "self" from the brand they've created.
We don't want to create an authentic display of the messy human experience for our trusted audience; we want to curate a message that people are responding to.
2. Creating a Personal Brand When Going Freelance
Most freelancers would probably say this is their least favorite part of the job. It used to be mine. The thing about being a freelancer- whether you're a copywriter/SEO professional like me or practice another trade- is that there's pressure to market yourself constantly.
In theory, this makes sense. Marketing yourself gets your name out there. The more you talk about your expertise, the more you'll attract the type of clients you want to work with.
This is all well and good, except marketing is for brands. It really shouldn't be for people. As the inspirational Rachael Kay Albers says in her podcast, Marketing Muckracking, brands leave no room for the self. Evidence of this is littered across LinkedIn. Copywriters who only talk about the benefits of copywriting to a website and how it will drive sales. SEO experts who only talk about why you need a strong SEO strategy.
The list goes on, but so much of social media now is three-dimensional humans who have compressed themselves into flat, two-dimensional forms to fit their audience's expectations. The kind of screwed up thing is, it works! Of course, it does. It's GOOD marketing, with an email list sign-up and freebie giveaway.
I do think a personal brand is a strong asset for any freelancer, and I also think there's a "middle way": a world in which you can curate a successful brand and sell successfully without removing the soul from your business.
3. Finding Your Niche
To niche or not to niche is one of the timeless questions of freelancing. I started as a generalist freelance writer and niched down into healthcare copywriting because it fit my background and my skill set. However, some freelancers love the flexibility of taking on various projects, while others love the predictability and expertise that can come with a niche.
While I now(in 2025, almost 2 years after this post was first written) dedicate a lot of effort to marketing myself as a service provider who offers a set of services centered around medical writing, I also hold those marketing efforts with the truth that I'm a limitless human being living a limitless life.
I'm human. You're human. I do believe anything should be on-brand for a human being because the human experience should not be limited.
There's also so much more to consider when going freelance, like:
Where should I start looking for clients?
How do I build up a portfolio?
If I want to niche where should I niche?
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Becoming a Successful Freelancer Without Losing Yourself(Or Your Mind)
If you know me, you know I'm not one to shy away from asking tough questions, and these are the ones I've been asking for a while now. This blog was written originally in late 2023, and now that it's 2025, I'm still asking them.
How can I continue to be a freelance copywriter as someone who is not interested in hustle culture? Freelance demands building a brand/persona/presence and continually connecting with prospective clients, especially in the earlier stages. It can be exhausting. And while I won't talk about it here, I absolutely think there's something to be said about how high the price of entry to freelancing can be.
How can I operate as a freelance copywriter as an anti-capitalist? Copywriting exists to sell things. Persuade people to take action with a sense of urgency. If you don't do it now, you'll never do it! The chance will go away. I dream of a society that doesn't thrive on exploiting pain points to make more money with which to buy more things so that we can uphold a societal structure where the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
Can I use the tools in my toolbox to persuade people to act for the greater good of society instead of buying a new video game or a self-help course? Can I get other people to jump on this crazy train with me?
I hope you'll stick around to explore the not-talked-about parts of freelancing and writing with me. It's now been a 5+ year journey and I have answers to some of those questions! I love being a healthcare copywriter. On my best days, I feel like my work is truly making a difference. On other days, I feel like my work is putting a bandaid on a broken system.
Perhaps we can burn the things that aren't serving us to the ground, like content mills, low wages, personal branding that keeps us in a box, uncompensated work, and AI detectors that tells us we aren't human, and rebuild a joyful future from the ashes.
What do you think?
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