Want to make money freelancing? By definition, a freelancer is free to take the jobs they want from the people they want to work with. And the best freelancers? They can charge dizzying amounts of money for their work. But what is a freelancer really? The term may evoke a sense of freedom. If you’re stuck in a full-time job the idea of freelancing might conjure up pictures of a Utopian lifestyle.
Picture this. White sugary-sanded beaches. Turquoise waters as far as the eye can see. Towering coconut palms swaying in the cool tropical breeze. A lounge chair. Frozen cocktails with colorful mini umbrellas. Fingers clacking away at a keyboard as you make money online while traveling the world. The dream lifestyle, right? But the truth is that it’s not as glorious as that. At least not for most people.
However, freelancing is still a dream that many are chasing. And after all, why not? If you’re a freelancer you can make money in many different ways from many different locations. You’re free to chase your passions. To travel and explore the world as you earn an income that can fuel a digital nomad lifestyle. You’re not tied to one location. You don’t have to spend hours of your week stuck in traffic or wasting time commuting to and from work.
How to Make Money Freelancing
There are so many ways that you can make money freelancing. Your choices are endless. The beauty? You’re not tied down to any specific location. You can be anywhere and work anytime your heart desires. But that same number of choices often leads to overwhelm. Which option do you pick? And how can you maximize your income and juggle freelancing with your other obligations?
Freelancing does give you a sense of freedom. But that freedom is often short-lived because there’s no schedule beyond the one you set. Meaning that you can be as lazy or productive as you choose. If you’re not disciplined, freelancing may not be for you. If bad habits get in the way, it’s easy to forget about your obligations as a freelancer.
However, since you’re still here and you’re still reading this I’m guessing you’re serious about freelancing. I’m guessing you’re one of the few who has the discipline and the ability to make money freelancing. So how do you do it? Out of the hundreds (or thousands) of ways that you can approach this, there are 15 very viable options to create cash flow as a freelancer.
Some freelancers choose to dive into passive income. Passive income helps cover your monthly expenses and gives you the freedom to take on freelancing gigs that you’re passionate about. But passive income is also hard work. And it takes time to get passive income streams up and running. So don’t mistake passive income for easy income. It’s far from easy but well worth it.
#1: Build Sales Funnels
Sales funnels are like magic little money-making machines. They funnel traffic, generate leads, and make sales on autopilot. And they’re one of the best ways you can make money. Period. Whether you’re a freelancer, gainfully employed in a full-time job, or an entrepreneur building your business, sales funnels are your ticket to true freedom.
If you’ve never heard of a sales funnel, here’s the scoop. Sales funnels are kind of like websites. But different. Websites have many choices and options that often leads to overwhelm. Some websites are hard to navigate and that leads to frustration. Sales funnels are different. They have one specific focus. There are no choices. It’s the only way forward and that’s it.
And the best part is that you can make money in many ways using sales funnels. You can build sales funnels for other people (no tech skills required) using premade templates and a drag-and-drop editor. You can also build and launch sales funnels for your business to take it to the next level. And you can earn passive income with sales funnels by selling them in our marketplace here.
#2: Membership Sites
Membership sites allow you to make money freelancing from anywhere. You can build membership sites in any industry or niche. Membership sites provide monthly recurring revenue. This can take on so many different forms that it all boils down to what you’re passionate about. And if you’re wondering how to build a membership site without spending a small fortune, you can easily launch it with our software.
For example, you can create a membership site teaching people about trading stocks and options. You can also create a membership site focused on dating and relationships. Maybe your membership site is designed around wholesaling real estate or even reverse wholesaling. If your expertise is in fitness, maybe your membership site is designed around healthy eating and weekly workout plans.
You can set the monthly recurring fee for your membership site and add content easily through easy-to-use interfaces. This makes running a membership site less hassle than building the entire ecosystem yourself. Build a good lead generation funnel with a lead magnet to generate leads for your membership site. Then build a landing page to help convert browsers into buyers.
#3: Affiliate Sales
There are many ways you can make money as an affiliate. However, affiliate marketing is not for the faint of heart. You must have an existing audience somewhere to be successful in selling stuff as an affiliate. That could be an email list or an audience on YouTube. It could also be a following on TikTok or another social media network.
If you don’t have an existing audience, you can run paid ads to affiliate offers. That also takes experience and knowledge, along with some capital. However, to really succeed with affiliate sales you need to use a bridge funnel. A bridge funnel helps you collect the contact details of a person before pushing them over to an affiliate offer.
The best affiliate offers are typically offered by Software as a Service (SaaS) companies. You can find affiliate offers on sites like ClickBank, CJ, Rakuten, Impact, Shareasale and many others. Our affiliate program has paid out over $140 million in affiliate commissions. You can learn more about our affiliate program here.
#4: Photography
If you’re passionate about photography you can make money with it as a freelancer. Many sites allow you to sell your photos to others. Sites like iStockPhoto, Shutterstock, and others. Not only can you sell photos, but you can also sell videos on these sites. You can earn passive income by selling on stock photo and video sites but it’s not easy.
The alternative is to do photography jobs for others. You can do gigs for businesses, weddings, events, portraits, and more. You can use sites like Upwork and Freelancer to find local photography gigs. You can also build a simple lead generation funnel with a lead magnet to help generate more leads that you can sell your photography services to.
#5: Graphic Design
Graphic design is a common way that most freelancers make money. It can be done from anywhere in the world. And you can find clients for graphic design through sites like Upwork, Freelancer, and Fiverr. However, keep in mind that many are now turning to AI systems to generate graphics for them. Systems like Midjourney and Dalle allow you to generate beautiful graphics fast.
That doesn’t mean you can’t still make money as a graphic designer. You can. Especially when you work directly with clients and you work on unique projects like print layouts, logos, website graphics, and more. You’ll need to take on jobs that build great feedback on the freelancing platforms to get the best overall gigs.
#6: Do Copywriting
Copywriting is one of the most important aspects of a business. Without great copy, a business will fail. It’s only second to the core offer. Offers are like the foundation of a business whereas copywriting is the frame of the structure. Yes, it’s that important. If you’re a good writer, consider doing copywriting for other businesses.
Copywriting is a great freelancing business because you can do it from anywhere. You don’t need to be in any specific location. But you do have to be a good writer. And not just writing. Copywriting means that you’re writing for a specific focus. And your writing must be good enough to build rapport with prospects and drive conversions.
#7: Start an Agency
Consider starting an agency as a freelancer. You can launch an agency in many niches. Some of the most popular agencies are designed to help businesses with social media marketing. You can start the agency as a side hustle and eventually turn it into a full-time business. This way, you don’t have to quit your day job until your freelancing income exceeds your monthly expenses.
When you launch an agency you’ll need to find clients. To do that you should have some sort of lead generation funnel with a lead magnet in place. You should drop this link in all your social media profiles so that people know where they can go to learn more about what you do. Then, start sharing content on social media, telling stories and interacting with others.
#8: Paid Ads
Paid ads are the fastest way that businesses can scale. With the right ad ecosystem, the sky is the limit. Everyone knows that. If you’re good at paid ads and have actual experience, consider helping others increase sales in business. Platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads and TikTok ads are incredibly popular and help drive a lot of traffic, leads and sales.
Do not do paid ads if you have no experience. Get experience first before you start charging others for this. You’ll need to know how to add pixels to sites, create ads, write good copy, and track all the metrics in ads that count. And you should learn the hook-story-offer framework for building out ads and landing pages that actually convert.
#9: Be a Virtual Assistant
A simple and easy way to make money freelancing is to become a virtual assistant. Although virtual assistants don’t typically make a lot of money, depending on your geographic location it could be a lot of money to you. Virtual assistant gigs can also sometimes turn into full-blown assistant jobs as long as you do great work.
There are many ways you can find gigs as a virtual assistant. You can use typical freelancing websites such as Upwork, Freelancer and Fiverr. And you can also use social media to promote your virtual assistant abilities. You can even use YouTube to create videos about your skills as a virtual assistant.
#10: Create Online Courses
Online courses are one of the best ways to make money as a freelancer. Online courses can deliver passive income. They can also lead to coaching clients and other work. Plus, online courses can give you real authority in your industry and niche. Especially if you can create an online course that actually helps people solve a real problem.
The more you niche down with an online course the better. For example, don’t do generic courses about how to make money online. Instead, niche down and do a course about how to make money online as a mortgage broker. Better yet, you can niche down further and do a course about making money as a commercial lending mortgage broker. Can you see the difference? You’ll do way better when you niche down as far as possible.
#11: Design Landing Pages
Landing pages are not webpages. They’re designed for a specific purpose. Usually, they’re made to help generate leads or make sales. Sometimes they’re used to get customers to spend more, sign up for subscriptions, register for a webinar, and so on. They always have a very direct path for their intended purpose or existence.
You can design landing pages and make money by doing this as a freelancer from anywhere in the world. Companies need landing pages and they need good ones that convert. If you’re good at design and good at copywriting, this could be a viable method to generate some cash in the short term. You can find work directly on the freelancing platforms or sell your pages as part of a sales funnel in our marketplace.
#12: Test Websites
Companies need website testers to help determine whether a site is user-friendly and relevant, to test designs and copy, and more. You can make money as a website tester by registering on several websites dedicated to this. The most popular platform you’ll find for testing out websites is called UserTesting. Businesses sign up here on the hunt for people to test their sites.
You can register as a tester on UserTesting here. You’ll need to apply and take a simple practice test to ensure that you’re a good fit for testing websites. Once you’re approved, you’ll answer some questions aimed at screening users for the right tests. Then, you’ll find tests that match your criteria so that you can start earning right away.
#13: Launch a Blog
Launching a blog to make money as a freelancer is not an immediate thing. Yes, you can design and build a blog quickly using WordPress. You can buy a custom domain and set everything up in no time at all. You can also hire someone to help you do all of those things if you’re intimidated by it. However, once your blog is set up, your work is just starting.
To succeed with a blog, you need to create high-quality content frequently. And you must stick to a specific niche if you want your blog to do well. You also need to know a thing or two about search engine optimization. This can take months or even years to start earning with a blog. Or, you can skip most of this and start blogging on Medium and sign up as a partner so that you can earn money from the content you publish there.
#14: Do Web Development
If you’re technical and have coding skills you can make money in web development. Web development is a massive industry with a lot of need for freelancers like you. Web development can mean a lot of things. It can be simple web development that includes HTML and CSS. It could be client-side web development with languages like JavaScript. And it could be server-side development like Ruby on Rails, PHP, database-driven applications, and so on.
You can use the regular freelancing platforms to do web development work. However, keep in mind that you’ll be competing with many others who have established profiles and great feedback. You’ll need to collect some solid reviews before you can get the best jobs on those platforms. You can also build a lead generation funnel with a lead magnet designed to help you secure more web development leads through powerful sales funnels.
#15: Do Online Tutoring
Online tutoring is a great way to help others and make money in the process. This is ideal for digital nomads and remote workers looking to make money fast. Although you won’t make a fortune by doing online tutoring, it is a way for you to share whatever you’re passionate about with students from around the world.
For example, if you’re great at languages you can tutor people on how to speak a language. If you’re versed in mathematics, science, history and other school topics, you can tutor students on those. Maybe you’re great at playing an instrument and can teach others how to do it. You can do all of this online through sites like Tutor, Varsity Tutors, and others.