Over 200 years ago, the famous novelist Walter Scott used the word freelancer in his renowned novel Ivanhoe. In this novel, Scott refers to mercenary fighters or those fighters who fight only for money and have no commitment to any country, with the word freelancer.
Today, however, the word freelancer is not used in the world of war, but in the world of business, with a different meaning, but relatively close to the above definition! Stay with me as I explain everything about the word freelancer. Reading this article can significantly impact your career and business decisions.
Who is a freelancer?
A freelancer is a person who works for a company or group without commitment, official employment (like a freelance warrior), and often remotely. Therefore, freelancers are not officially hired and are only paid for their work.
How does a freelance job work?!
Employee jobs have specific conditions: you are hired, sign a contract, and receive your salary at the end of each month. But freelance jobs are different! In freelance jobs, you must first have an employer.
Now, the employer may come to you with the help of connections, being known, or you may go to the employer yourself. (I will discuss this topic in detail throughout the article.)
After communicating with the client and getting to know the desired project details, you complete and deliver the work. For example, you make a video for him. After sending the work and getting approved by the employer, you will receive the money and its cost.
In the meantime, considering that in this Cooperation, the employer and the freelancer probably do not see each other closely at all, it becomes difficult to trust both the expert’s side to deliver the work and the employer’s side to deposit the money. This is where intermediaries called freelance sites to connect these two sides of the transaction and prevent fraud. I will also discuss these mediators in the final parts of the article.
Advantages and disadvantages of freelance work
Generally, when it comes to freelancing jobs, some people directly think about how comfortable these freelancers are because they are their bosses! Others think living without insurance, and a fixed salary is hard! But, like anything else, freelancing has advantages as well as disadvantages. Therefore, before making a negative or positive judgment, you should be thoroughly familiar with the details of this job.
Advantages
- Freelancers can terminate their Cooperation with the employer at any time and for any reason.
- Freelancers can work at any hour of the day or night.
- Most freelancers can work with a laptop and an internet line and do not need to be in a particular place.
- Freelancing gives people a lot of freedom.
- Most freelancers are paid daily or weekly by their employers.
- Freelancers deal with the boss and employer much less than employees, which means less accountability.
- Freelance income is highly scalable and more than most employees.
- Freelancers have a lot of free time.
- In these few years, especially with the increased number of startups, the interest in working with freelancers has increased.
Disadvantages
- Freelancers do not have a fixed salary.
- Due to the lack of fixed salaries, there is no news of income on the days when they do not work (holidays, etc.).
- The employer does not insure freelancers.
- Many new freelancers may not have an employer for a while and become unemployed.
- Freelancers spend much time at home and often withdraw from social connections.
- Achieving a decent income for beginner freelancers takes a lot of work.
- Sometimes, due to the lack of a contract, freelancers need help from employers about getting paid.
- An employer may stop working with a freelancer at any moment, which means low job security.
Is the income of freelancers limited?
The most crucial question and unknown topic about freelancers is their income level. Many people want to know how much a freelancer can earn. You see, just like in the working world, a freelancer may make less than half of the salary of the labor office, and another person may earn more than $900 per month or even more!
What does it mean? How much money a freelancer earns per month is related to 3 critical factors:
- main job,
- Work experience,
- Being known!
This means that a freelancer whose job is typing only has two months of experience in this field, and his income could be higher. But a web design specialist who has been in this field for four years and has made many connections may have an astronomical income. Therefore, freelancers have additional employee payments, but the difference is that a freelancer can increase his revenue more efficiently than an employee.
Because most of the employees’ income increases with the increase in the basic salary of the labor department, the freelancer faces an increase in the demand of customers by improving the quality of his work. As a result, he raises his salary and gets more income. (No organization blames freelancers for their high or low wages.)
Which jobs are freelancing?
After all, let’s see what job titles we can do remotely today. Of course, thanks to Corona, many jobs have practically turned into telecommuting jobs. Still, some jobs generally have more freelancing capabilities, and you can work remotely more easily.
1_ Production of site content
Creating site content is what I’m doing right now! The purpose is to write the text of this article and add some images to it, and finally upload it to the site.
2_ Instagram content production
In addition to being familiar with writing, Instagram content production specialists must also know how to work with image and video editing software and the principles of Instagram evaluation.
3_ Website design and online store
One of the most common and, of course, the most lucrative jobs in the freelance field is website design. In this field, you can design an online store and website and earn money from employers by mastering content management systems such as WordPress.
4_ Programming
Website programming, Android, iOS, and… In general, there are many programming languages on the web, and if you master any of them, you can become a freelance programmer and earn a lot of money.
5_ SEO of the site
Site SEO specialists increase the site’s ranking and strength with Google by performing activities on the site, such as producing textual content, performing technical work, etc. Furthermore, when a word is searched for in Google, it displays more powerful areas at a higher rank and attracts more audiences.
6_ Digital marketing
Some professionals perform part or all of the “digital marketing methods” for companies remotely. For example, they create website content, Instagram, SEO, email marketing, Google ads, increasing conversion rates, etc.
7_ Accounting
Before Corona, we could consider accounting less among freelance jobs, but today the demand for Cooperation with freelance accountants has increased, and we can hope for this job as well.
8_ Translation
Many businesses need to translate English texts or other languages into Farsi and vice versa for writing articles, videos, and different types of content. Working with a remote expert is better than hiring a force for translation work.
9_ Typing
Although it is not a popular job and does not have a lot of income, for those dear ones who do not have much expertise yet or are young, typing is a good idea to enter the world of freelancing, especially since learning to type with ten fingers is possible in less than one week.
10_ Video and photo editing
Today, graphic designers and film editing specialists can quickly provide their services to employers remotely, and they no longer need to be in the company as a permanent force.
11_ Consultation
In general, many counseling sessions, whether psychological counseling, marketing counseling, etc., were held online. But after the coronavirus, the number of face-to-face counseling sessions has decreased. For this reason, today, you can quickly become an online and remote consultant in your expertise.
12_ Education
If you look at the statistics of online training sessions and webinars, you will notice that the instructors are also new freelancers.
13_ Jobs in the field of artificial intelligence
It is interesting to know that many experts in the field of artificial intelligence work remotely with companies in foreign countries and get paid by them.
14_ Setting up an internet business!
Maybe we can’t call internet business owners freelancers, but in any case, if you want to enter the freelance world due to the freedom of time and place, you should know that having a store site does not require being in any company!
Which freelance job earns more?
It may be challenging to say which of the above jobs has more income. Because in each of them, there are people who have a lot of income due to a lot of experience, high quality of work, creativity, etc. But if we are to calculate on average, these jobs are considered to be the most profitable in order:
- Artificial intelligence jobs
- Web design
- Programming
- SEO
- Instagram content production
- Of course, if you want my opinion to enter the world of freelancing, instead of checking the amount
of income, go for your interest. According to my experience, if you are interested in your field of work, you will shine in it so much that your income will increase significantly.
How to make money as a freelancer?
Well, we have reached the second part of the article. In the following, I would like to explain that after gaining expertise in a field, what path should we follow to earn income from freelancing? Stay with me
1_ Make a portfolio.
The first step to entering the field of work in the freelance world is to create a portfolio. It doesn’t matter how many web design courses you’ve taken or whether you’ve completed your internship at Amazon; the important thing is, what is your portfolio? So if you don’t have a portfolio, even design a site for a brand for free, create an animation or anything related to your work expertise to convince employers to cooperate with it.
2- Go to freelance sites
In the second step, you should go to freelance sites. These sites are intermediaries between you and the employer. In addition to introducing you to the employer, they also mediate to ensure that you get your money and the employer receives the output he wants.
The process of working on these sites is registering in them, explaining what you specialize in, and, of course, displaying your portfolio. After this, employers will gradually come to you and offer Cooperation. Likewise, you should go to the employers and give them an offer to increase the probability of Cooperation.
3- Build your brand to increase your income
Finally, if you want to be a high-paying freelancer, you need to be known to your audience and employers. But how? There are three ways to achieve this:
1_ Internet marketing
The first and, of course, the best solution is internet marketing. In this way, by creating content on social networks and then on your website, you should be recognized among the audience as an expert with a lot of knowledge and skills. In the meantime, having a resume site where, in addition to your resume, you have also included your portfolio will significantly help to increase your work prestige.
2_ Cooperation with industry giants
People who work with industry giants are known earlier than others. For example, someone with a resume of programming for Amazon is more easily recognized by employers as a reliable expert. Because first of all, he made a good resume, and secondly, probably while working in these big companies, he made connections that made him better known.
3_ The passage of time!
Finally, you can do nothing and leave everything to time. When you work in a field for a long time, i.e., more than 6/7 years, whether you like it or not, you will be known among the audience due to Cooperation with many employers, becoming more specialized, and increasing the quality of your portfolio.
Well, we have reached the end of the article. In this article, we first understood what freelancing is and what a freelancer is. We learned about the advantages and disadvantages, the types of freelancing jobs, and finally, how to enter this field. Finally, I await you in the comments section if you have any questions or comments.